Lunchtime oddity

I went to lunch yesterday, as I nearly always do, in a Microsoft cafe. I decided to get some salad from the salad bar, and noticed something ... odd.



Umm ... what? Is this something I should be concerned about? Surely it's the work of an attorney, what with it being a pre-printed label and all. Somebody somewhere sued somebody somewhere else over "potentially hazardous food" and this is one of the results of that mysterious event in our shared past.

And what exactly would be a "potentially hazardous food"? Does it asplode when shaken? Can you crochet it into a vest? I'm awash with curiosity now.

THE GOGGLES! THEY DO NOTHING!

I'm driving home tonight, minding my own business, listening to the radio and cursing the SLOW-ASS SEATTLE DRIVERS in front of me. The radio is tuned to C89.5, an all-electronica station run by a local high school¹.

A new song starts up:

City rooftop
Summer night
In your tank-top
rainbow stylin'

OMG! THE GHEY IS RUSHING OUT OF MY RADIO AND PUNCHING ME IN THE FACE! HELP! HELP! OH THE HUMANITY!!

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¹ C89.5 Worldwide

[insert spit-take here]

My current priority work is a piece of technical writing required under the DOJ consent decree. As you might imagine from that lead-in, it really is first priority, and e'body is serious about having my (and the other people writing other docs) attention focused on it.

I finished up my first draft and sent it off to the appropriate Architect for review. From now until the document is due, I'll be in draft-review-edit cycles. I know that my v-team ¹ is above the glide path with open bugs we're trying to resolve before beta 3 escrow. I know the dev lead is busting his ass trying to resolve his bugs plus get some of the SWI bugs punted to a later release. I know the other guys on the v-team are overbooked and working hard to get the bugs resolved.

So, I decided, in a fit of rampant stupidity, to volunteer to take a bug or two to work on during my spare cycles. "Hey," I said to myself, "I'm just being a good team member."

I came in this morning to find myself the proud new owner of 47 bugs. 47 BUGS. (Update: A handful got reassigned so now I only have 19 bugs. Yay me! Woo hoo! Looks like I'll be going home early after all.)

No good deed goes unpunished, right?

At least I'll get a "Ship It!" award this time.

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¹ A v-team, or virtual team, is a team drawn from the pool of personnel to work on a particular project but not permanently re-organized into a group. My v-team dev lead won't conduct my HR review, for example, but my "real" dev lead will.