Close to exactly two months ago (May 13th), I asked “Luetta” at work for copies of three specific MS-Word documents that I needed to update for a project I’ve been working on for last few months. One is called a user’s guide – and it’s a couple of hundred pages, a shorter one is called the programmer’s guide – a much smaller doc [Sorry, I didn’t write down the exact page counts]. The third one (“Tech Info Guide”) is much larger than the first one, maybe a few hundred pages. I printed them out here at home when I first received them. Marking them up for the pages that needed changing, using post-it notes, and some chicken-scratch handwriting that even myself can’t read.
The hard-copy of all three docs have been on my work desk next to my work monitor for close to two months now.
Every couple of weeks, “Luetta” contacts me – how’s that documentation coming along?
“Oh, I’ll have it to you by Monday”. Must have said this to her a half dozen times.
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“Floyd” – my team lead, sent me at email this morning – say, have I misplaced the documentation updates you’ve made for such-n-such project? Can you resend them to me, so-n-so (SVP)is asking about them, SINCE, you know – your new code is going into production this coming Saturday, and the users/operations staff would really like to know how to use your new screens (all ~six of them) before Monday comes around.
“Dear Floyd. No, you’ve not misplaced them – due to my level of complete procrastination, I’ve not yet made any changes to them; will have them to you by tomorrow morning.”
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I immediately start on the programmers guide – don’t ask me why – in priority sequence this should have been done last; in thirty mins, I whipped my (three pages of) changes into it and sent it off to Floyd; indicating that I would tackle the user’s guide tonight.
Started working on that middle of the afternoon, and finished by 6:30pm; thirteen new pages added to that one, with twenty screen print examples, showing the users the two menu screens, how to add in new records, make changes to existing records, and how to delete unwanted/obsolete records, how to inquire on existing records, etc.
I emailed that document to Floyd 7pm my time, but since he’s in NorthCarolina, it’ll be 8pm his time; he’s a clock watcher and always, always leaves by 5pm his time. At least he’ll see the user’s guide in his email box when he arrives in the morning, 6:30 my time. So, he should have about an hour to review my thirteen pages before we get on the phone at 7:45 my time for our daily “stand-up” meeting with the entire team of software developers, quality assurance testers, the Agile ScrumMaster (like a project mgr), the application owner rep, and a few others (a total of about 11 of us, every morning).
So – that’s two documents down, one left to do; the users guide mentioned above had zero pages in it regarding my recent project. Hence why new 13 pages were needed. On the other hand, the third document (largest of the three) already has a complete section of my stuff that I had (somehow) put into it around the January or March timeframe. So – like the programmer’s guide, I think the changes needed will be minimal (just a handful).
I guess I could keep at it – it’s only 9pm but I worked from ~7:30am to close to ~7pm today; can’t say I’m exhausted, but my mind has left the basement.
Here’s the thing(s).
First: Golly, I’ve been a procrastinator ALL my life – I usually wait until the last minute to do everything. Both personally as well as professionally. And, yes, while most of the time, things come out alright in the end, I suppose there probably been a few times where I waited until it was way too late. [as an aside, no, I don’t know why I have this personality trait.]
Second: the job/career I’m in, doing documentation has always been a big, and necessary part of doing the job. But, the programming skill I bring to the table is really “rare” (due to younger college age kids not being taught the programming language we use), therefore, no one ever, ever says (at performance review time) – “my gosh, Brian – I really would like it if you would stop the screwing around you do when it comes to updating the required documentation; and, oh, by the way, we’re going to give you an “F” (for miserably FAILED) in that particular review category”. Yeah, I know, that shouldn’t matter – I still need to be more professional about all aspects of the job, INCLUDING the documentation area.
Even now, after printing out my 13 + 3 pages of documentation, and reviewing them for typos (already found a couple of them), I’m happy I have this job, I’m happy because I love what I do – it makes all the f’ing difference; I’ll say this – while I enjoyed working in Eagan for the ~twenty yrs I worked in that one location for unisys, I really was in the wrong job – yes, I learned a lot, increased by breadth a thousand fold; but, I wasn’t programming 100% of the time (like I do now).
If I had to take a guess, I would say, only a third of those twenty yrs in Eagan was I really doing software development; the other 2/3rds were spent doing other things – yes, I.T. datacenter nerdy/geeky stuff, but not actual 100% programming full time.
I should have transferred to the Mission Viejo (west coast) plant or the Tredyffrin (east coast) facility. Or, I wish I still had ten more yrs of doing this type of work that I utterly enjoy doing so much and not just the next 2(or 3) yrs before I finally turn out the light (and the PC) at my work desk in the basement office upon retirement.
