Contract Completion

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Ok, I've just about extracted myself from the end of my contract to Manila. The work has almost entirely taken over my life for the last 9.5 weeks. Ahh, day rates.

I was so happy when I got off the phone to the guy who is taking over from me that I clapped to myself for about ten seconds solid. I've got a half hour tonight and an hour tomorrow of email work, then up to 14 hours of phone and email support over the next two weeks and then I'm done.

It was a rough engagement hard deadlines, and lots of undescovered scope. I was working by myself for much of the time. The company wanted me to avoid taking weekdays as travel so I travelled in weekends and worked all the week days.

There was a lot of undiscovered scope which was hard to manage and make me look bad. I was building software from screenshots and sparse documentation and 55,000 lines of source code which means that you get it wrong and have to fix it in a hurry.

It was lonely being in Manila for 4 weeks. I saw my sister for a day and a half in the middle which helped a lot, but 4 weeks is a while to be away from all your friends in person.

So I get my life back tomorrow, surfacing after about a fifth of a year. People have had babies, I should meet them!