Filling in the gaps

It is Friday, and the end of a week of forced learning. I suppose I had better explain what I have been up to since the Journal entries have been brief and intermittent over the past few days ...

... After Monday's trip down to Heathrow for my induction on to the latest project, I have been doing my best to get up to speed with things. The Lead Project Manager is considerably more experienced than I and has a magnificent depth of knowledge. Unfortunately his technical prowess is not matched by his scheduling ability and he is buggering off for a week's holiday next week. This week I have been expected to pick up everything that has happened over the past few months and then keep things on track for the week that he is away.

This sounds pretty straightforward but, and it is a huge BUT, upon his return I am expected to have everything ready for the Solution review so that the client can be provided with a proposal and price on Friday 7th June. Personally I think that I have climbed on to the footplate in the last few moments before a train wreck and watched the driver leap and roll down the side of the embankment. I appreciate that this is not a great analogy, as he will climb back on just before we crash in to the buffers and send up a monumental burst of splinters, steam and mangled metal, but you get the picture ... it is me that gets the grief and hassle as we charge headlong towards a review that we are nowhere near ready for.

After Monday's travel plan adjustments I took the train** down to London early on Tuesday and stayed there through until Thursday afternoon. For most of the time I have been trying to get a sense of what is going on whilst assembling Contract Schedules in my spare time. It is a bloody nightmare as it takes time to pick up the nuances and interrelationships of the facts and issues, but time is the one thing I do not have. I guess I will have to go with my standard approach of common sense responses and an occasional prayer to the Gods for good fortune ...

... I am so fucked!

Friday was spent at home in front of the laptop. Most of my day was spent developing a contract document.* I eventually escaped from the office around five o'clock and took a brisk walk around a freezing Three Miler. I was tempted to light a fire on my return but refrained when I remembered that we were out this evening to see Bill Bailey perform his Qualmpeddler tour at Warwick Arts Centre. 

I'll let you know how it went tomorrow ...

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* I was''t required to write it, just cut and past elements in from other documentation.
** the scheduling of, and engineering staff on, this one were far superior to the situation on my metaphorical train referenced earlier in this Journal entry