Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Big Day at Work

For several weeks now my work schedule has been unusual... even for me. The reason for my strange hours is that I was asked to be a "SuperUser" in a project that will dramatically change the "workflow" for my department. Kind of exciting really.

Tonight we go "live" with this new project. Funny thing about it is, I don't know if anyone other than the people who I work with directly will even notice, which may or may not be a good thing. My Dad always says that if no one notices your haircut, then you got a good haircut. Hopefully this will be more of a thing where you see a friend you know really well, but they look just a little different and you can't figure out why till they tell you that they got a haircut and you go, "OOOHHHH Yeah! Looks good!" If everything goes REALLY well the home viewer will not notice anything different at all.

We've been testing and "shadowing" this new system and, at the risk of jinxing it, it's all gone fairly well. Definitely some kinks to work out, but nothing that can't be worked around for now. My department is the first of several that will be putting the new system online, two more will domino behind in the coming weeks.

If I sound cryptic it's because I am. This is a "new technologies" project and I'm not allowed to publicly discuss such things, even anonymously. I guess I COULD but I've heard the rumors about those who have blogged about work stuff and paid a price. I got this new condo to pay for... so for me any price would be too steep right now!

Anyway tonight after ONLY ONE delay, it finally goes "live." Bit of a "company man's early birthday present" for me.

After tonight's launch I'll continue to be a "SuperUser" while slowly turning the system over to the crew that will be the "day to day" users. I'm interested to see how the new crew will modify the new workflow I've created and I'm REALLY interested in seeing the finished product finally performing.

Postscript: I HATE the word WORKFLOW. Sounds like something Orwell's Winston Smith would have had to deal with. "Workflow," "SuperUser," and "Groupthink" all make me feel doubleplusbad.

Post Postscript: I believe George Orwell is the pen name of a writer who travels in time publishing prophetic books about the future from various points in the past to warn us... but we never listen.

4 comments:

Joe Jubinville said...

CB, your haircut analogy brings to mind the word "transparency." The better the technology, the less it gets in the way, the more invisible it becomes.

Sorted Lives said...

In a world where blogs and camera phones can get you create many problems, I completely understand. Good luck and I hope everything goes well!!

Li'l Pony said...

You should wear a Superman t-shirt to work.

Paul said...

Surely, this post will soon self-destruct.

How did it go? I don't know what I was watching for, but I sure didn't see anything.