As we stood, arms folded, waiting for the final proof load of the weekend to come off—predictably, it didn’t, due to a test hardware failure—my customer informed me, “I’m taking next Friday and Monday off.” I thought to what I’d do with the 13 hours I banked this weekend—I’m being nice and cutting that to the minimum—and, thinking about my impending birthday on Friday, though, “Hmmmm, wonder if I can wangle to have Friday off.”

Then I remembered that Friday is the first day of our new contract with Boeing, and that all our charge lines will change to new WAs on that day. Since my role on our contract includes being the de facto “Keeper of the WAs”—heck, my boss has to come and ask me what the charge lines are—I realized that, unfortunately, I was going to be stuck at work for some [and most likely all] of Friday.

The thing is, I know that all of 4Q2004 is going to be just this crazy. We’ve got three deliveries that we’re going to be pushing: one in mid-October, one right before Thanksgiving, and one right before the end of the year.

It’s just the nature of this business. Unfortunately, it’s just fun enough that I like doing it, even when it frustrates the crap out of me.