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[MadMalkavian]

My torrent finished downloading and the download of another thing I am wanting to try is over 65% complete. Those are good things to wake up to.

[Sirus]

Four days, four trips across the Bay Bridge! Good lord, I wonder if everyone else hates the trip so the bosses are dumping it on me. I'll also be taking the San Mateo bridge which is just plain awesome.

[miauw62]

Finally found this game again I used to play all the time until LEGO removed it from their site...

"lel u need adob flas playur"
*installs and denies "lel want norton bitch?"*
"lel u need adob flas playur"

Well, so much for playing that.

[RedKing]

Enjoying the new job. Although....when I initially took the job, they were all "oh we'll start you off with a couple of small projects, maybe $10-15,000 budget stuff, and give you time to acclimate"

A week later: "Here's your project. It will almost certainly go over a million dollars in budget and has already failed twice before and burned out five project managers before you. Good luck, you're in for a hell of a ride."

[Hanslanda]

Kick that challenge's ass, Redking.

[LordSlowpoke]

holy shit i am the god of salt

redking take that challenge and wreck its shit

count the time until i post in the sad thread saying i lost it all guys

[Bauglir]

That challenge's shit is about to experience wreckage heretofore unknown, save by objects in the immediate proximity of a black hole.

[RedKing]

Enjoying the new job. Although....when I initially took the job, they were all "oh we'll start you off with a couple of small projects, maybe $10-15,000 budget stuff, and give you time to acclimate"

A week later: "Here's your project. It will almost certainly go over a million dollars in budget and has already failed twice before and burned out five project managers before you. Good luck, you're in for a hell of a ride."

Do you play Dwarf Fortress and/or Aurora?

If yes to one or both, they probably know. Hence the dropping in at the deep end.

I play both. Makes sense now. If the next project is to design a jump-capable heavy cruiser with 80cm magma launchers, I'll know for sure.

[Bouchart]

Enjoying the new job. Although....when I initially took the job, they were all "oh we'll start you off with a couple of small projects, maybe $10-15,000 budget stuff, and give you time to acclimate"

A week later: "Here's your project. It will almost certainly go over a million dollars in budget and has already failed twice before and burned out five project managers before you. Good luck, you're in for a hell of a ride."

Translation: We need someone to take a fall for us, so we're dumping an impossible project on the new guy.

This is basically what happened to me at my last job and it's why I had to resign my position.

[RedKing]

Ahh, but that's where they made a tragic miscalculation. For you see, they paired me with a freakin' awesome program manager as a mentor and co-PM on this thing, and the two of us have come up with a solid strategy for getting it done. Won't be cheap, but then none of the options are at this point. He's handling the overall strategy and development work, and I'm handling the logistics and management of it all when it's go-time.

Together, we fight crime manage the ever-living shit out of this project.

And I figure, if we fail, then meh...so did five other trained professionals before us. Not going to be that ignominious a failure.
If we pull this fucker off as my FIRST project? Booyah. 

[Bouchart]

Don't get overconfident.

At the last week at my previous job, my boss had a vacation planned so he dumped three projects on me.  They involved things I had not been properly been trained to do, such as managing staff.  The projects had a quick turnaround with our client and they wouldn't change the deadline.  I thought I could handle it at first, but it was too much and I had to resign my position or I would had been fired.  I still haven't recovered from this.

They didn't make a miscalculation...they need a patsy.  Why would they trust a newcomer with such an important project?

[RedKing]

Because I have expertise that the last few PMs didn't.
First batch were non-technical, which can be crippling with highly technical projects.
Second batch were *too* technical, which meant they didn't know how to be diplomatic with the client and got upset too easily.

I've got the technical background to understand the intricacies of the project, a thick skin from years of being yelled at by people with guns and power, and the ability to be diplomatic from years of working with Federal bureaucracy. Once you've been verbally reamed by somebody who's only three steps below the President on an org chart....everything else is low-pressure.

Also, the projects failed before (at least the second time) because the client balked at the price tag and decided to postpone. Now, the support envelope is running out so they don't really have a choice. This *has* to get done, and so even if they grumble about the cost, they can't kill it because of budget unless it gets ridiculous. They could have gotten it done considerably cheaper if they had started a couple of years ago, but hey -- them's the breaks.

Admittedly, you could be right and I might be out of work again in six months. If so, then *shrug* I was going to be laid off anyways. This just netted me six more months of paycheck and a bit more severance if/when that happens. Because of that, I don't really have any fear (which is, IMHO, another reason I got it -- all the established PMs didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot-pole). And they all have other projects they're already working on. They wanted somebody that could be 100% allocated to this project.

[Haspen]

Not sure if happy for everyone but:

I'm getting errors 500 and 502 on youtube.

This is hillarious.

[GiglameshDespair]

I'm getting those errors as well.

[SealyStar]

I had an amusing interchange with a friend about Mayor Crackhead of Toronto:

"Mr. Mayor, what is your response to allegations that you have smoked crack cocaine in the past?"
"I confess, but you should give me credit for cutting back."
"Mr. Mayor, would you care to clarify?"
"Well, I mean, I used to smoke crack made from dead babies."
"That's horrible!"
"I propose that the Mayor be removed from the chamber on account of his horrifying revelations."
"Free speech! First amendment!"
"Sir, this is Canada. We don't have a first amendment."
"No, I mean the first amendment to the laws of Toronto."
"Let me see that! 'The mayor shall be allowed to freely smoke crack' - you scribbled this in with a pencil five minutes ago!"