Summer head colds suck. Let me just start off with that statement because I hate them with a passion – and I’m struck by one and I’m feeling whiny for a number of reasons.  The big one? I was slated to have 2 days to myself – no kids – no G – just me…..ahhh…..

ahh-choo ahh-choo ahh-choo ahh-choo  is more like it now.

Fuck.

I’d take some drugs for this but, well, the drugs usually make me feel worse than the cold.

Ok, I’ll stop whining ….at least for now.

There are times when life throws me a curve ball, and I’ll go with it and all is fine.

Then there are other times I just want to throw my bat at life for throwing me a damn curve ball.

I’ll let you guess which time is now.

In other news, I’m following along on Instagram as my husband is on the 8th grade trip.  On day 1, he started sending me pics via text – and I told him that he’s a tech teacher now, so maybe he should embrace technology.  Then sent him to Instagram.  There are some kids on this trip whose parents are not there, so I figured this would kill two birds with one stone.  Get him used to using a technology and supply parents with a pictorial look into their kids’ trip.  So far, so good.

A number of the parents have already thanked him for doing this.

Yesterday, I got to deal with a certified project manager who clearly tests well as his project plan is far from something any project manager should be producing.  I am the program manager for his project, so I wanted to review it.  I haven’t been too happy with the updates I’ve seen and had this gut feeling that he was fudging stuff.

Yep – gut was dead on.

What I got from him was poorly put together and truly so screwy that I went back to the business owner who he is PMing for to see what the fuck some of this stuff means.  She looked at it and went, “wow – he did a crappy job capturing what I was saying.”  I spent most of the day restructuring it after getting confirmation from her that she was in agreement.  Turns out that the manager who brought him in, upon seeing the plan, was like “what the fuck is this?!?”  God, I love that crotchety old guy!

When I cornered the PM to let him know what I was doing so that he would not be surprised, he got irritated with me. I noted it and just ignored him.  If pushed, I was going to point out that to put my name on this piece of crap was, well, not gonna happen – so get the fuck over it and learn something.  Someone else commented later that PMing is hard when you are new.  I pointed out that given his IT background I would have expected him to follow a traditional method of development or deployment or implementation.  All of those are taught – and truly can be applied to other things – even Finance projects.  I mean, document what you need to do, do it, test it, deploy it, then communicate it.  There is no rocket science to this really.  I saw the light bulb go on over her head when I said this – then she told me to give her the info – she would finish filling it out the right way.

I remember when I was with the company initially my boss at the time went on this rant about how she only hires certified, MBA level project managers.  I chuckled to myself, then reminded her privately that I was neither.  “Oh, you’re the exception” was her response.  As time went on, I realized I was the exception because I actually know how IT runs and operates while my “peers” were trying to force it into a Project Management Methodology, then getting angry when it wouldn’t work.  I later commented to her that this was why I never got certified – a piece of paper wasn’t going to make me a better manager but just show I could pass the test.  When I came through IT, it was at a time where everyone and their brother was getting certified.  Certification was what everyone wanted and expected.  What then happened was you’d interview this certified IT professional only to find out that the server they were certified on?  They had never seen on.  But their study material made them confident that would be okay.  I learned quick who got certified and had true knowledge versus those who got certified without the knowledge.

Don’t get me wrong – I know people who got certified because it was required and it did great things for them.  I just heard story and encountered it myself time over time the number of people who waved their certifications like a desperate guy on the internet site may wave his cock – and just like the guy on the internet? It turned me off.  I’m just weary of the certificate wavers now.  And this guy whose project plan I am still fixing?  He’s a waver.

My favorite part of yesterday?  The guy came over because the project software we use was sending him notifications.  “You are flooding my inbox” he complained.  “So go into the software and turn them off for now” was my response.  In the time it took for him to bitch at me, he could have been notification-free.  He gave some excuse, so I showed him how to turn them off.  “Now go back to your desk and fix it,” I commanded.  “But I got 128 messages – that’s not right” he continued to argue.  “Yep, between shutting it off with 2 mouse clicks and three clicks to delete them from your inbox – you will be message free in about 3 minute.”  He left in a huff.

He clearly doesn’t know me.

On a more positive note – I was so happy to learn yesterday that the Portland Thorns professional women’s soccer team had a player get player of the week this week.  Michelle Betos, the goalkeeper, got it for her header that scored the Thorn the goal that tied the game.  And she did it with a minute or less left for the game.  It was quiet spectacular to watch – I was at the game.  But what is even more awesome to me?  This is a woman who has fought hard to play professional soccer.  And while in the league, has always played backup goalkeeper to a star goalkeeper.  Seeing her come out of the shadow of a FIFA award winning soccer player (who is in the World Cup) to shine so bright is inspiring.  Hearing her humble worlds after the game finished was refreshing.  Her score got her #2 in Sports Centers top 10 plays.  Now player of the week.  Hell, it was fun watching her teammates in Canada for the world cup tweet their support and congratulations to her.  Even the captain of the US Women’s team celebrated opening.  I don’t know – I guess that I love seeing underdogs shine in sports.  Especially those who work their asses off just to suit up even if they don’t play.

Happy Wednesday!