Fighting a losing battle or somehing like that

Last week was one hectic weak filled with a combo of feelings.

The project I’m managing finally go live on Monday, August 6th. Yey!

Ah, but that was a short-lived sweetness.

I came in the office (yes, on the hateful Monday) feeling enthusiast and energized to start the Technical Test with 10 selected Public Bank branches all over the country. I checked (and rechecked) my schedule and tons of test documents to make sure everything’s in order.

9am
Business PM called to say that one of the team member was on leave. I was shocked because I didn’t know about it. The team knows very well that they need to update me on their leave days to avoid things like this from happening! Darn.

So that person was on leave and there’s nothing much that we can do about it. Told the BPM to take over the missing member’s role and I’ll back her up. Probelm solved. Hopefully.

3pm
The exercise commenced and we started getting calls 10 minutes after that.

Major problem – nothing worked!

BPM called to update me on the status. The escalation procedure require me to contact the IT PM and I did. I told him the problem and asked if the Solution Leader was able to advise on the root cause. To my surprise, he was also not in the office!! Great. Just what I need.

BPM and I tried to handle the calls and complaints. Our phones rang non-stop and we were like 2 headless chicken, trying to do what we can to manage the situation.

Disaster!

4.30pm
We stopped the exercise. Nothing was working as they were supposed to. Nobody was there to check on the issues as well so why bother.

The Queen Bee (who happens to be a bitch – excuse my French!) sent out an email on her frustration and disappointment. For the first time, I couldn’t find suitable words (read: non swearing words) to reply her mail.

I feel sick. No medicine would be able to cure it. I just feel sick to the bone.

What have we been doing the whole afternoon then? Playing catch?

I’m too pissed to even think right now.