Teleidoscope

Thu, Mar 27, 2008

Broken Brain

Posted at 7:54 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

It feels like my brain is broken.

This does not make sense, and is not realy true.

My reading speed and comprehension are about normal. My ability to deal with numbers is a little flaky, but not outside the normal range.

I can still make ClearCase and ClearQuest jump through hoops and figure out safe ways to accomplish tasks that are dangerous.

I can do technical stuff in general: the Customer Portal fixes I've done over the past week went well, and I'm not worried about the LDAP project.

But my brain is broken: I cannot function on this current project.

I'm fine while I'm doing the ClearQuest and ClearCase bits, but the parts involving making decisions based on the customer's policies and procedures (which are a big part of this particular contract) are just not working. And I don't have the emotional bandwidth to slog through it at the moment.

There is one particular task where neither I nor they are happy with my progress, but whenever I try to look at the requirements, my brain goes blank (at best). And the harder I try to comprehend the structure of what I need to do, the more my brain locks up.

I think the expectation at the beginning of this contract was that I would quickly pick up the customer's policies and procedures and be able to transmit them to the people I deal with, but that has not happened. It would need good clear explanations, and those have not been available. And if things do not make sense to me, I can hardly explain them to anyone else. Or set up the environments according to the customer's standards.

There seems to be a fundamental disconnect between the way my mind works and the way the mind of the woman in charge of the project works. Information does not pass between us, and I have learned that even when I think it does, I can't trust it. Even if I get what looks to me like agreement, in writing, about some task, and follow through, what I do is not right or acceptable for some reason.

When I end this contract (one way or another) I'm probably going to need a vacation so I can get my emotional balance back before I need to deal with strangers. It's been a long time since I had an actual vacation, as opposed to short waits between contracts while the paperwork gets filed. The customer mandated Christmas break doesn't quite count. And my client between mid-November and mid-January involved huge amounts of stress and not nearly enough billable hours.

I've updated my resume on my website.

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Power Lines

Posted at 7:54 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

From March 4 (uploaded wrong)

Between bad weather and being sick I haven't been chasing my power company and electrical contractor to get the power lines finished.

This morning someone from the power company showed up, looked things over and said they would want to redo the underground lines (so they can charge me for the work, and dig up my driveway again) and also he didn't like the way they did the breaker box and he wants that re-done even though it passed the county's inspection.

I called in to the electrical contractor. Ross, who did the work, is no longer with them it seems. A technician is supposed to come out tomorrow morning to look at things. I'm not sure what that will accomplish.

If he proposes charging me for anything I will refuse to allow the work. If I have to pay for some of this stuff twice, the second payment will go to someone else.

At least I'm more or less healthy this week and have a little spare energy for this.

I have sent emails to both the contractor and a consumer advocacy website that they advertise on.

I should probably see about contacting a lawyer. Voodoo dolls might be cheaper and more satisfying. Gah.

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