I’m at home today. Kevin was exhausted and quite warm this morning and didn’t want to go anywhere (not even swimming!) so I emailed the boss and said he was sick.

Here is what he sent back: (after Lunch, btw)

I’m sorry to hear about your son not feeling well.  Unfortunately this doesn’t help our standing with IMS right now and this is the third time that you have called in because you or your son has been sick.  I understand that from time to time sickness happens but I think that we really need to step up to the plate with IMS and make some things happen in a very short amount of time.  Other projects are also backing up on us because this one is taking longer than expected.  I know that some of the problems have been with changes that needed to be made to the site, but some are things that we overlooked here as well.  Bottom line, and I hate to be like this, but I need you to be here and helping us move forward with these projects. 

And here is what I want to send to him but I haven’t yet…

I wanted this job because of all the potential of learning new things and all the great people I would be working with. It seemed like a great team environment and I wanted to be part of that team.
 
IMS was handed to me as a last resort and it was handed to me after holding it since October 2005, I believe. Not a problem, I thought it would be a team effort.

I can do this project and I feel I have done a great job within the limitations that I have had. I had to create, from scratch, a program in less than 3 months that should have taken 6 months or more. I am astounded and quite proud of myself. However, it was rushed and it was never tested properly and business rules were often changed right in the middle of doing things. Each change should have given me an extra week, but I was still required to keep the same timeline. Coding was interrupted because the site didn’t look right. It wasn’t until the end of April that I actually got my hands on their sample. Even after getting that and taking a few days to make those changes, they continued to want things changed and added. Once again, the code behind that would make it work was set aside to make the site look exactly how they wanted. (This is normal and normally not a problem, but usually, this is defined by a change rule that states that changes made after the fact are not only costly, but time consuming and adds time to the final deadline.) The code suffered and I had (as even Brete’s been known to say) to go back and figure out where the heck I was at last time and try to pick up where I left off. This is difficult to do under the best of circumstances, but to do this after 3 or 4 days of design changes was near impossible.

Needless to say, this has caused serious stress. Last month, I began expressing my stress and even wrote a document about my involvement in the project and all that I accomplished. I also mentioned that the expectations for the completion of IMS were unrealistic and unattainable for one person alone.

Yes, Mike has helped when he could. .EDIT is a new program to me and I have learned it as quickly as I possibly could. In fact, I am pleased with how quickly I learned and adapted. But even with my strong feelings that this project would not be accomplished or completed properly and on time, no one listened. Therefore, we created a project that was an embarrassment when we showed it and shared it to IMS. Not only to Lexinet but to me as well. I have never been so frustrated in my entire life.

And here is some that I cut out…

I was told that it was possible for me to work from home on occasion. Nothing regular, but occasionally. Kevin’s health is very important to me, but as a parent, you can relate to that. I am a single mom and that isn’t easy all by itself and when he’s sick, he simply comes first

So, I finally get a connection, Mike’s VPN, which gives me access to the Corp server but nothing else. I tried to connect to the mySQL database and to the Programming server, but I guess I don’t have the proper passwords. (And we’ll leave the serious issues with the computer I was assigned for another day).

—
I won’t even START complaining about the fact that I’m on an illegal version of Windows XP or that my Visual Studio 2005 isn’t quite legal not to mention that Photoshop and Office are in question as well.

I won’t even START on how information was not properly shared with me when it came in and it often took weeks before I found out some stuff that was pertinent to the site and then I would have to go back and change it.

I’m pissed. If I didn’t have fucking responsibilities, I wouldn’t be here. I’d have already quit. And even the responsibilities aren’t looking so daunting. I may loose my house and my possession, but by the gods I will keep my integrity and my sense of self and right and wrong. I will be keeping me and who I am and who I define myself as. Damn. I like this house.. but….

*sigh*

I’m scared