Dutch Project

Perhaps this bank is not really an investment bank, not sure why people I have met in the bank are really relaxing. One of the bank managers, the decision maker didn't turn up on Friday, I was like, hello, where is he? His colleagues told me oh, that's Daddy's day. He doesn't work on Friday. What is the deal? Because Dutch law says you can only work 35 hours a week, if he's put in more than 9 hours a day Monday through Thursday, he is forbidden to work on Friday.

I was speechless, gee, go-live critical issue, deadline is pressing, and the decision maker has gone home for the day (oh no, he simply just doesn't turn up). This is even worse than the central monetary control bank in communist Beijing. Things like this occur from time to time. One week before the parallel run, the environment team out of blue found out there is no support procedure, i.e., no one is really monitoring the overnight batch run (PS1). I was again speechless, isn't that part of environment teams' responsibilities?

Even during the parallel run, the batch job has failed during the night, no one really know who they should call and how they can handle the situation. They have to get in touch with me because no one really understand my design of the system and how the core system bridges to other upstream/downstream systems (although I tried my best to document everything, no one can be bothered to read them). I am just overwhelmed. This is the most unorganized project I ever worked for, though I have so many managers, I am the only foot solder doing the dirty work.

Frustrating, but the bank manager bribed me to stay with them with a bottle of 18 year highland park. Damn, that's really delicious.