Backtrack, Assistant blacklisted

So trip to beijing went fine, nothing of real excitment.

The exciting part, climax if you will, came 15 minutes before boarding my plane to Hong Kong. I received several phone calls from our new young software engineer. Let's call him Andy, he's supposed to be helping me out, especially while I'm gone, he should be able to take care of what's going on onsite.

Or so I though.

He called, saying that the new software is failing to allow ad-hoc recording, and our contractors are jumping on him to solve the problem. Not his fault really, he didn't write the software, our developers in Beijing did. So I asked our developers what should be done, and naturally suggested a fallback to more stable version. All these while I was already on the plane and the flight attendant yelling at me to stop using my cell.

Now here's the trick. I have a two-day course that I needed to attend the very next day, the days which they're supposed to be testing something. Andy and another hardware guy were on site. The hardware guy, let's call him kam. Kam's a very experienced site engineer, and right before Andy did anything, he asked if there's a backup, three times. Yes, Yes, Yes. He asked if Andy knows what he's doing. Yes, Yes, Yes. Well, so off he went.

Software restored to older version, and the whole system immediately stopped functioning. I was pulled from the class, driven to the site, while talking to Andy on the phone to see what he did. Everyone was waiting for the PA System for the official test. After talking to Andy over the phone for a good half hour, he re-installed some driver, and everything went back to normal.

So everything recovered, and what's the big deal you might ask? On site, especially on the days of official test, if there's a delay and it caused by your party, the other parties have the right to claim compansation for that hour of man-labor. Usually they won't because it's not nice, but they'd mention it, and your party would immediately have been placed in a shitty position.

Now, let's recap. So the Ad-hoc recording was bad for the new software, but everything else was fine. We could have said that recording is not ready, keep the current version, and the other tests would go on. I wouldn't be pulled out of a $3000 HKD (385USD) class. Contractors wouldn't be all over us like ants on a candy. Andy probably should have had more doubt on his understanding of the software.

And the fun part is, he has been blacklisted on this project. The exact quote was "In this case, you are now informed stopping this person going/working to/on site (under 595A project) without our permission.". Which means I can't have him on site to help out if any of our contractor members are there. All these while he's still on the three months probation (testing period if you will).

Fun Fun Fun.