I don't remember reading this in the job spec

As mentioned yesterday I am charging through this week at an incredible rate of knots on account of having my own workload plus that of a slacker colleague who is taking a three week holiday.

Today I needed to make some updates in a rather complicated workflow tool. I was somewhat apprehensive as I had only attended three disjointed hand over sessions, none of which had given me a great sense of confidence. So, as soon as I had cleared the crop of overnight email, I girded my loins, located the relevant notes and made a start in this tool. The first set of changes went well and I was quietly confident of success. The final change didn't look quite right and I wondered if I should have taken an alternative approach.* I saved my work and then went to the screen where I should initiate the next step in the in the process and was presented with a single button … The button I was told never to press!

Hmmm! After a few minutes of cursing my colleague, re-evalauation of the training he had given me plus wondering what the hell a Technical Solution Manager was doing plugging configuration changes in to a workflow management tool I aborted this activity and searched his notes for salvation. I found it in the form of a young lady in Atlanta who was more than happy to take part in a screen sharing session and walk me through the changes.

On a positive note, I had correctly determined how the config changes should be entered and the reason for my encounter with The Button That Shall NEVER Be Pressed was due to a record ownership issue rather than my mistake. I now hate the tool more than I did yesterday but am slightly less afraid of it.

The end of the working day soon came around and I headed out around the Three Miler before the forecast evening showers.

This evening saw the end of the last of the current crop of eBay auctions and  in a flurry of last minute bidding the closing price more than doubled on a set of Land Rover wheel rims and tyres. I will not be able to retire on my eBay earnings but I have got rid of some bulky items from the garage and cellar and now have a two hundred and fifty quid credit in my PayPal account.

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* As someone who worked in workflow management and application design more than twenty years ago it says volumes about this tool when the User can consider an alternative approach. This indicates that the Business rules, validation, error and warning messages are not accurately represented …

… or, to put it another way; it is shite!