All consuming

Ever have a project that was so incredibly all-consuming in your life that everything else was just pushed aside, nothing else was done, the laundry piles up, the dishes would pile up except that you don't cook because it takes too long so you eat out all the time instead, phone calls aren't returned, previous meetings are cancelled, your ass grows wide and hurts from sitting on it all the time, and you're just focused on that one task at hand?

Yeah, I've had those more than a few times in my life.

I think for most people, that all-consuming project is a new child. From the horror stories I've heard, you have no choice in that matter with an infant.

For me, however, those projects are nearly all work related.

For the last two and a half weeks, it's been this website:

Yes, I know. The irony.

Not lost on me either.

I was asked about three weeks ago if I wanted to do the project. I was in the middle of my "don't take any jobs, just work on my own stuff," and being not very productive on my own stuff, so I said yes.

Looking at the project, I was wondering, good lord, how hard can this project be? The site is four pages. A remote service handles all of the big scary payment security issues. Totally, how hard could it be?

Do you know just how dangerous the phrase "How hard could it be?" is?

Do you?

Do you really?

Yeah.

I did okay, until I realized just how much I didn't know, and how poorly the payment handling service provider documented its process. Even after I realized this, I still thought the project could be completed on time, with me as the sole developer. Wow, was I way clueless.

I was, however, working with some people who understood me better than I expected, knew when to ask me if I needed help, and trusted me to say yes, which I did. I'd like to say I've managed to lose my ego these last few years, when it comes to programming. Yes, I want to go a good job, but you know what, I want the project to succeed more than I want to do the whole thing myself.

The group of people I've been working with at Doyle's company are an incredible group. Yes, even with the frustration of one on the group, a frustration that another group saw from a mile away last week, it's still a great group of people. I'm really glad I have the chance to work with them.

I hope that, well, this project does somewhat well. It was a really short, intense project, which I'll need to do a brain dump on shortly so that it's properly documented.

Unlike what I had.

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