Keeping it going

Everything's gone sort of mental this week, and it's been a while since I had a proper rant so here it is. It's the first proper week of building the Irish project, and as I sort of suspected, it's taking the team some time to grasp the relatively complex concepts we're dealing with. Unfortunately it tends to come down to the business analyst to sort all this stuff out. Which is me.

Now, as I've said before on this blog, I'm not a natural business analyst. It's all about detail, translating business and functional requirements into technical tasks and so on. I hate this sort of stuff, and because I'm not naturally predisposed to break things out to the tiniest bit of detail, it's a bit of a struggle for me, and I'm convinced that I'm not doing a particularly good job. To be brutally honest, there are natural BAs in the business who could be doing this job much better. They're the buttoned-down looking people with lots of pens.

My natural role, as colleagues have pretty much mentioned in my reviews, is business consultant - the strategy, business modeling pieces which use my experience to bring context to the businesses we work with. This is where I'm comfortable - the fluffy stuff, basically. Delivering on it is one great big bore.

Add this to the fact that there's still loads of genuinely exciting stuff going on elsewhere in the business that I ought to be involved in, not to mention very real requests for help coming from colleagues involved in projects with very large clients, and you get one rather conflicted blogger.

However, I'm not blind to the fact that beggars can't be choosers and, particularly with a mere six months under my belt, I'm not in a position to go around demanding certain roles, and billable work is billable work. So, I'm buckling down and sifting through the billion pieces of detail that go to make up a website these days, answering the billion tiny (and some massive) questions that the development team have to ask, and all this until Christmas. There's another 5 months to go on this project, but frankly the that thought terrifies me.

So this gives me three weeks to engineer my way out of this and onto something more interesting. Watch. This. Space.

Grumpy, stress, but some good news

Ooooh something of a day of contradictions today. On one hand, the Irish project I'm on is becoming somewhat tiresome, with fiddly bits of detail bothering me slightly and those who know me will know that I'm so not in the detail. So this is bothering me. I'm also seeing things going on in the business that I'm sure could benefit from my input but instead I'm here counting servers and adding up license costs.

Bah.

Anyway, if I'm seeming a little bit ungrateful and unwilling to do the necessary grunt work to get ahead career-wise, that's because I am. I reckon I just need to get my head down and plough on through it for a month or so before pulling the 'been there, done that, now show me something interesting' card and we'll see what happens.

That said, I am learning a ton of stuff at the moment, not only in terms of the techie stuff I'm being forced to read up on (who knew how useful an MVC Model could be?), but also in the whole project management, business analyst sense. Much though it galls me to say. It's a bit like muesli - you know what I mean, good for you but no fun.

On the other hand then, I've passed my six month probation period, which means I'm now officially an employee with rights and everything. The feedback I've had has been really quite good too, and constructive, so I'm feeling an odd mixture of massive smugness and huge inadequacy as I make my shoddy attempts to write technical specifications.

So woo for that. And for my Kiwi, who despite her monthly headache, presented me with a pretty good-looking bottle of wine as a well done present. No drinking in the week right now mind... GOD I'm so dull right now. I'm going to have to have a moment of irresponsibility soon, I can feel it coming on...

How crap are BA air miles?

I prefer not to use my blog for stuff like this but I can't hold this one in. Ok here we go. Why do you join a frequent flyer program? No, it's not for the free flights, because you rarely earn enough points to actually get one. You join these schemes because, after saving a few points, you get to go in the airport lounges, so that instead of spending the 45 minutes you invariably have to wait for your flight in a comfy chair instead of on a bench.

Now, recently the Kiwi and I booked a hire car (as regular readers will know). We booked this specific one because it got me 500 extra BA points. Woo. Looking at my balance, I should be nearly a Silver member by now, and I can almost taste the lounge.

However, these (plus the ones I've got from recent flights) are ornery air miles. They (if I save until I'm 50 I might get a free ride between terminals at Gatwick) don't affect my VIP level. You can only get these 'special' points by flying on very specific flights, which of course BA won't tell you about.

What a monumental pile of arse. Here's hoping my Aer Lingus points don't have the same effect. Pier B at Dublin airport is no place for a sane person to spend any time at all.

Must... blog...

Very quick one, as falling asleep on keyboard. Somehow wearing self out without seeming to be terribly productive. Hotel was lovely, lunch today at Tate Modern was too (albeit rushed), going to Manchester this weekend hooray, only in Dublin for a day trip next Thursday hooray again, mind leaking out of ears due to uncontrollable heaving beast of a project - booooo.

More comprehensive stuff next time, promise. When I've had some sleep. And maybe some of that EPO stuff that gets cyclists to the top of hills. Should be able to get me to week 5, I reckon...