Avoiding the Pitfalls

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. I've been uber-busy with work. Yes, that's right. Uber. Busy. Let me explain. I work in QA for a mid-sized software development company. Under optimal conditions, there should be: A manager, a lead, and three others who each have their own list of projects and work independently. For the last two months, two of the three "others" have been gone (I, obviously enough, am the third "other").

One of them, a 23 year old Japanese girl, just got married a few months ago and is awaiting her green card in the mail (Conveniently enough, she happened to get married a few days before her student visa ran out). She's MIA until the federal documents come knocking on her door.

The second missing person is a father of one of the troops that was deployed to Iraq. The kid saved his commanding officer from a grenade by throwing himself between the two, thus resulting in the quickest disappearing arm (and part of his left leg) act ever. It was a miracle that he even lived. The son was rushed home after receiving the proper medical attention, and like any good father, this guy was waiting for him at the gates. My heart goes out to him. It's hard enough to raise a child these days; when you throw in the amount of worrying this man must have done, what with the military and the missing limbs, it must have been a real head-fuck for him (As a lifetime resident of Eugene, Oregon he is obviously anti-military, and he didn't want his boy enlisting). But he stuck in there, and is trying to spend as much time as he can consoling his son, helping him move forward with his life.

Bug I digress.

These two people would have been at work this whole time (though now we can establish that they had valid reasons not to be) under normal circumstances, but since they weren't, I picked up both of their workloads. Then, to top it off, the lead on my team gets promoted to an Assistant Project Manager (big pay jump). All of a sudden, I'm the only guy left in QA, with the exception of my boss. Can we say 60-70 hours per week on salary pay? Bad times.

Good news is, when this evens back up, I should be due for a two week vacation (crosses fingers). I'm currently trying to decide if I want to spend that two weeks relaxing, or playing poker. Life is full of such tough decisions.