Project Office Trolls foil progress

The Silver Fox is visiting Auntie P. at Jimi's place. Hope she has a good journey - roads will (no doubt) be little better than yesterday.

I want to kick the cat. (For animal lovers, I should point out that we don't have a cat, and no animals will be harmed in this virtual expression of frustration). The project-trolls have decided unilaterally to change the contract review process - and haven't told anyone. So contract will miss today's review because they are refusing to review it as it did not come through their new process. If we miss cut-off with the client we will miss out on revenue at the beginning of the new year.

Continued to fight project trolls all day. It is like a spiritual blackhole - it sucks all your enthusiasm and creativity and channels it into anodyne processes that are designed to protect us from making money. Like most project prevention processes I have encountered they seem to be designed by people who never have to deliver anything of intrinsic value or quality... so they provide unworkable processes, templates that are badly formed, poor quality, and break all the style rules. Where's that virtual cat - it needs another virtual kicking!!!

Silver Vixen phoned. She had been delayed, but got to Bkhm 30 mins late. She had arranged to pick up the Barrel, and would phone while en route. Needless to say the Barrel had forgotten to switch on her phone, so SV could not warn her she was running late. When she got there, the Barrel wasn't around. So she called, and circled and returned... eventually the Barrel rolls out of a doorway. No apology, no acknowledgment. Just the the usual self-serving, Barrel-centric view of the world. SV was very very cross.
Her visit to Auntie P went well, and she was most impressed with Jimi's place and the care that the staff gave to the residents. It sounds like a very good move.

Spent a quiet evening reading The DaVinci Code. Must say that I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Strange that I have recently heard several people say that they couldn't finish it as it kept jumping around... I haven't found that that to be a problem at all. It seems typical that several threads are being woven together in parallel - that's what novels do!