<rant>
See, this always happens.
Oh, this is a Technical Writing blog entry by the way. Sorry, forgot to mention that; was preoccupied swearing protracted and extensive revenge against my document reviewers.
Documentation seems to be something that the IT industry has marked — unconsciously and astonishingly — as something that anyone can do right at the end with no preparation whatsoever.
I’ve been around for long enough to have this simple irritating fact proved time and time again.
And reviews; don’t get me started.
Well, that’s what this entry is about, so I shall get started.
I give my reviewers a fair suck of the sav, a reasonable amount of time to do their work; I leave them alone when they’re busy, I step away when they’re in meetings or kicking out code like a posse of kangaroos kick lost tourists who think the route from Perth to Melbourne will only take a couple of hours. Hello!! It’s over a thousand kilometers Morons! This is not Europe!
Where was I?
Reviews.
So earlier this week I said explicitly in a meeting that I needed review comments through by Thursday afternoon, so I could spend Friday putting them in ready for the release on Monday.
Three people in the meeting of 10 actually made an effort and put the review comments in. I had to harass another one who I met in a meeting and sorted that out.
So it comes to Thursday arvo (that’s Afternoon in Australian for all you foreigners), and there’s nothing new. Good, I thought.
Then I decided — in my idiocy — to go around and ask the people in question if they’d mind Getting Off Their Arses And Review The Documentation Like They Said They Would And Were Reminded To In Not One But THREE Email Messages.
Well, I didn’t put it like that, the same as I didn’t take my preferred method of positive reinforcement and grab them by the hair and smack their foreheads against the desk repeatedly to make the point.
As I sit here, there’s fifteen additional comments been added to the page. And it’s Friday afternoon. And I am Not Fucking happy.
Yes, I understand that people get busy. Yes, I understand that they’ve got their own jobs to do. Yes, I understand that there’s a fine line between serious assualt and gentle reminders… but seriously, it’s bloody annoying to have all this CRAP dropped on you at the last Fucking minute.
</end rant>
