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 Issue 11
Angie’s settling into her new job as Technical Director of a
Florentine Web design house - but can she cope with the pace of life at the cutting edge?
Monday
The start of another week, and time for me to check my diary. Today I’ve got meetings
with Franca and Gina about Milan and Paris, plus a technical spec to finish for
Kate’s Fashion Trends proposal. Tomorrow I’ve got to get the Milan client code
ready for Friday’s demo, then on Wednesday I’m off to Paris for two days to
install Phase 1 of the engineers reporting system, and back here on Friday to nurse the
server during the Milan session.
In theory I’ll then get a weekend’s rest, although if
it’s anything like last weekend it’ll actually be two days hard toil on my
notebook with Visual Studio, trying to finish the Rome mods in time for Franca’s big
meeting there on Tuesday. It’s an exciting life at the cutting edge, but a tough one
too, indubbiamente!
Tuesday
The Milan client crashes after the first phase of every transaction, and nothing I do
makes any difference. At times like this I miss having other people to bounce problems off
- my colleagues are a lot more graphic design-oriented, and a lot less technical, than
I’d originally thought, and even HTML is a bit of a mystery to them, let alone the
inner workings of COM or ATL.
Franca gets tetchy when things go badly, and has been glaring at me all
afternoon for disappearing at lunch time without fixing Milan first (actually I went to
clear my head with a walk around the Piazza Della Repubblica). It still isn’t fixed,
but I can’t cancel Paris, so it’ll have to come with me on my notebook. In
desperation I fire off an SOS email before leaving the office, but don’t hold out too
much hope of salvation.
Wednesday
I was shattered when I got on the plane, but a good breakfast and some business-class
pampering has perked me up, and I feel fine as I head for the engineers’ HQ, located
naturally enough in the high-tech district of La Defense. Their reporting system is
blissfully straightforward, basically a PPTP-enhanced rerun of my dear old IE4/SQL Server
Drivers Allowances app. I’ve had it running sweetly in the office for a week now, and
it does the same on their server, bringing smiles all round and some blessed relief from
the misery of Milan. Didier, my contact, is really nice, and offers to show me Paris by
night (accompanied by his girlfriend, he quickly adds). It’s a great offer, but I
have to say no, and settle instead for room service and a night with my notebook.
Thursday
A fantastic morning. The live data import takes less than an hour, and then, right on cue,
a field engineer in the Canadian Arctic Circle logs on by satellite ISDN and smoothly
records his progress, quickly followed by another in Ghana. The clients are over the moon,
and the big boss man himself comes in to congratulate me. I find the idea of people
connecting from these places absolutely thrilling, but try hard to maintain my pan-Euro
technocratic cool. I also like the fact that they’re working on pipelines and
irrigation systems, in stark contrast to Milan’s expensive frocks.
In true Gallic style they break open a bottle of champagne, and I
manage to gulp down a glass before heading for the airport. I’m back in time for a
brownie point-earning visit to the office, but the place is empty - as is, sadly, my
inbox. Triumph over, it’s back to the grind.
Friday
I’m woken at 6am by a near-hysterical call from Franca, then it’s straight to
the office for a last-ditch attempt to fix Milan by mid-day. To my joy, I find an email
waiting (that time difference again!), the gist of which is (a) you’re hopeless,
Ange; and (b) that control is a well-known dog, and here’s the workaround. In
near-hysterics myself, I try the fix, and it works, so I build an installer, ring Franca,
and talk her through the update. At mid-day I watch the server do all the right things,
and by 1pm it’s over. I’ll be buying molte birre for this on my next weekend
home, but it was well worth it. Tomorrow it’s back to my notebook and Rome, but
tonight I’m just going to sleep.
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Issue 11 - Contents
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Issue 1
Issue 2
Issue 3
Issue 4
Issue 5
Issue 6
Issue 7
Issue 8
Issue 9
Issue 10
Issue 11
Issue 12
Issue 13
Issue 14
Issue 15
Issue 16
Issue 17
Issue 18
Issue 19
Issue 20
Issue 21
Issue 22
Issue 23
Issue 24
Issue 25
Issue 26
Issue 27
Issue 28
Issue 29
Issue 30
Issue 31
Issue 32
Issue 33
Issue 34
Issue 35
Issue 36
Issue 37
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