Also, I had to hack my way through that word forest.

Maybe it's meant to be an ironic object lesson?

Ginger, not to mention getting lost in all those clauses.

I am so exceptionally frustrated right now. There is a certain lack of confidence that is roadblocking left right and centre, and a lot of it seems to involve distrust of me.

But I don't discount incompetence.

We need to A. Why are we doing it that way? Because all the other ways don't achieve the goal. I don't understand the steps. These are the steps, just like the 15 prior times. I don't understand the steps. These are the steps (in a different way) that a senior developer decided on and wrote out. I don't understand the steps. Here is a senior developer, talk to him about it. The senior developer has said not to do it that way. [speaks to senior developer] No, he's good with doing it this way. I don't understand the steps. Here are the steps (in a third way, with pointers), vouched for by the senior developer. I don't understand the steps.

So now we're delaying the change for two weeks because she's dragged another senior developer into it (I think I must have gotten rogue cooties on the first one) and we'll miss all the deadlines.

I tried to speak to my manager in general terms, explaining that we don't seem to have someone trusted in a position to make those calls, so can we get someone? We can't hire, fine--why don't we assign it to someone? No one has volunteered, she says. No one knows it's there to volunteer for.

The answer to that is to keep the hole and delay the change. Since we can't get rid of the incompetent developer, can't we make someone coping for her part of the process, instead of something that keeps blowing up at the last minute? I would kill to know what she says about me behind my back.

I will take the training and be the subject matter expert, if it just MAKES THINGS HAPPEN. We're back into that cycle of non-delivery.

Ginger, insent in just a second.

Since we can't get rid of the incompetent developer, can't we make someone coping for her part of the process, instead of something that keeps blowing up at the last minute?

You're a better person than I am if you're not considering Mossad-style commando training as a possible skillset to bring to bear on this persistent problem.

I think I have decided that Radiolab is a podcast that I shouldn't listen to at work (mostly because it is too interesting and I would hate to half listen to it while work is distracting me and miss something good). But I am running out of podcasts since I started listening to them while turning weekly forecasts into monthly.

Incidentally, doing the Fall forecasts, which for us means July-December, I write JASOND over and over again which lately makes me think of Veronica Mar. Which gives me meta-amusement at myself for making that association.

I wish RadioLab were produced in a different style, because they always find such fascinating topics, but listening to it drives me bonkers with the overlapping narration.

Not me, it was the style that first sucked me in.

Jessica, I feel the same way. Sometimes I can get past that and sort of go with the narrative flow, but more often I find it irritating and distracting.