More broad, less deep

For a year or even more, about 80 percent has been on the doomed project, with the rest on two other projects. (I've called one "the blackmail project" and the other "the minor project," but really both were fairly minor.)

That seems to have changed, though. The doomed project doesn't demand so much from me now, while other projects have picked up. One, I was assigned to more than a year ago when the tech writer on it left, and then the project's document promptly left the building, so it's been mine according to the spreadsheet but there was nothing to do about it until it came back last month. And another project was similar. A tech writer left last month, and I was assigned a project of hers, and this past Wednesday the team met for the first time since May. All I've had to do so far was take minutes at that meeting and move a file around, but still, it's becoming more and more active.

This is a mixed blessing. I guess it's good for me. In theory, taking minutes at meetings is part of my job, but I haven't had to do it in a while, because on the doomed project that's what the other writer is for and my other two projects haven't had that kind of meeting in a while either. Stretching my thinking muscles in a lot of little ways - listening to the important stuff, figuring out meaning from context, concentrating on tasks even if they're boring.

That's a big part of the problem: buckling down and typing up my notes right away without getting distracted by things like this. Big surprise, I'm sure. Based on my typing speed in words per minute, I could turn my notes on a notepad into the official notes from a meeting in half an hour. Organizing it to make it logical and expanding on it beyond my personal shorthand would take another 10 or 20 minutes - still a very reasonable time for a minor task. But if I let myself go to reddit or do stuff like this, that could add four hours. I need to practice concentrating.

Beyond that, I've already been reminded of how much I depend on familiarity with a small number of projects. Just to type up those minutes I had to ask two different SMEs to explain things about which my notes were incomplete. This is part of the "listen closely" thing, and it's part of preparing myself in advance, but it's also partly inevitable. No way to be as familiar with new stuff as with old stuff.

Rats from a sinking ship

The economist who was on the doomed project from the start has left. I think he's gone to grad school. He got out just in time. The doomed project just got back from the latest review, this time by the department head, and his comments seemed to indicate he wanted to use a different approach on the economic section, meaning throw out and start over from scratch. Obviously, that would be bad. We were hoping to persuade the department head that the economic section only needed tweaks rather than a complete overhaul, and I think we've succeeded. But I'm not sure, and I seem to remember one of the economist's last statements was that starting over would take four months.

I feel sorry for the new guy.

Way, way, way down the totem pole

"Did you hear about the meeting?" H., the supervisor of the doomed project asked as soon as she saw me around 1 p.m., sounding even more harried than usual.

"What meeting?" I replied intelligently. A briefing was planned for tomorrow morning to explain the doomed project to a bigwig in our department, and I was annoyed about the early hour of the meeting but other than that thought it would be a routine matter of note-taking, and it had been on my calendar for about a week with no changes, so I didn't see why she'd be asking about that.

It turns out, that briefing had been changed to 3 p.m. today. No one had thought to invite me until now.

Oh well. I had work to do, but no meetings or anything specific that conflicted with it, so I went easily enough. I claimed the chair by the computer and logged in. No one had told me I'd be using it, but it's a habit. And it's a good thing I did, or at least it's a good thing someone did, because there was a PowerPoint presentation, and they figured they might as well put it up on the screen. But since no one had given it to me, it took 10 minutes and three people to find.

After the meeting was over, I was the last to leave because I had to collect my stuff and log off the computer. Someone turned the lights off behind them while I was still there. I objected, but no one noticed.

Overheard in the men's room

"This is not a rational decision. It is a decision that will be rationalized, with science and engineering, but let's not start with the science and engineering and see where that gets us. We know where we want to be."