Interestingly enough, the "incompetent" developer caught a number of errors that the evasive fuckup made yesterday, documented them, and walked him through them this morning. I was all tingly inside, let me tell you. I'm afraid, though, that if I compliment her to her higher ups, they'll not realise how low a bar was set, and think I mean she's great, as opposed to surprising me with a flash of competence (they are errors I should have been able to spot, had I had the files). But her taking the lead in getting the other guy up to speed on correcting them is definitely admirable and back-pat-worthy.
This short-term this-weekend stress is the patch and small enhancement release for the primary systems I work on, as opposed to a project for a specific new feature or integration. These happen anywhere from monthly to quarterly, depending on what we can get away with (it used to feel like weekly, but that's one of the reasons I don't have the same boss I used to). This is the first I've PMed--normally I just manage the corner of it that is the system for which I bear direct responsibility, not the whole platform that my co-workers support too.
Ack! Overwhelm! Overwhelm! But the BA who normally does this assures me it always runs close to the wire, so I don't feel exceptionally useless. But he's normally so calm and collected when he does this--and he does this every other time. Fuck, man. How does he handle this insanity? And these developers?
Interestingly enough, my manager wants to talk to me next week about the developer who was driving me particularly batshit this week. I did kinda let slip (you know how emails can get the better of you...) that he was the reason we were sliding this late.