Release Deployment

aka "Fire in the Hole!" or "Thar she blows!"

I was in a support team for my first two years in the company. My third team (technically) is a development team which was a welcome change since the last time I developed something was back in college which was practically a ticking bomb called "Work purchase order Online Expert Information System Millenium Edition (WOE IS ME)". catchy name eh? :)

I've never been on a dev team before in this company so most of the things except for the text book terms were new to me. It started this January and was finally deployed this weekend. Yea yea that explains why there wasn't any entry during that time. I was up almost the entire weekend working through unusual time shifts - just like my thesis days. I also did a drunk Billy Joel impersonation - nothing serious though. Wobs will be undergoing some repairs in the upcoming weeks anyway.

But finally it's there already. No explosions. No chaos. Issues? well there are a few but nothing that critical (compared to the worst ones i handled in support). Then came the emails from the top brass. Wow! I've never seen so many people use the word "Kudos" before. What does that mean anyway? (Hmmm... it reminds me of that oya joke... maybe ill post that some time)

ku·dos n. Acclaim or praise for exceptional achievement.

Am glad to be with great teammates and for me the team does deserve these praises. They've earned it. We may not look like those hardcore geeks individually (hmmm.. maybe that dude named "Destry" is...) but we're very much effective as a team.

Just like Dubya Bush, The thing I wasn't prepared for was the post deployment - the big "Now what?" question after deploying. Some are leaving, some will be assigned to other teams, some will stay. Basically starting tomorrow, the team will be defunct, will probably take on a new team name (change "dev" to "support") with new tasks and will start to lose members. Shades of the Bulls and Lakers?

I'll miss all the work and non-work related activities we did. It's like breaking up with eight girlfriends. and obviously I wouldn't say that... I wouldn't feel like that if they weren't great friends and co-workers, if I didn't have a good time and if given the chance I wouldn't do it over again.

But I did.

Thanks guys! :)