First week on the job
Been settling into the job over the past few days although as I was in Egypt only a little over a month ago and given how much it's been on the TV of late I keep getting a little confused where I am. I know, I know, not much change there.
So, where to begin? Well, as the previous post indicated the apartments are very nice, regular home away from home. Got picked up at 9AM on the first day and taken to the office, marvelling all the time that I'M IN AFRICA! Whoa!!! Been twenty years since I was last in Kenya and now here I am working. I know I've been to Africa since then, most recently last December but that was North Africa. I ended up, you may recall, reaching Aswan, the furthest outpost of Mediterranean civilisation for millennia and considered pushing on. For me though, Africa is Sub-Saharan Africa with all it's riotous, rainy and sun baked melee.
Mind you, the areas I'm living and working in are pretty up market compared to where I was last time, although the red brick soil remains the same. Talking of my previous visit, part of a year spent backpacking around Africa, I mentioned to the boss of the company I'm working at that the last time I was in Nairobi I'd stayed on Latema Road and had been drinking in The Modern Green Day and Night Bar. He cracked up laughing at this as The Modern Green has one hell of a reputation, almost literally. Africa does dodgy bars like nowhere else I've been.
Work is pretty full on and is basically a consultant role. I'm one of a three man team, a technical architect by the name of Leakey who's a local chap returned here after years working at Deustche Bank, a Project Manager (PM) by the name of Nigel who's ex Vertu and me as Quality Assurance (QA) manager. In theory I should just be setting up the QA department and working on overall quality improvement but the role is broadening out from that. It's unsurprising that Nigel and I both come from a mobile phone background considering that Nokia fronted the money for us. However, mobile phones are very much a minor part of the work which is actually good from my perspective as it allows me to break out of what I've been doing of late. The areas we're mostly working with are supply chain solutions, so I'm drawing in part on my old days as a technical author at Pennine.
Challenging, fun and bloody hard work so far. We covered so much ground in the first week I feel like I've been here a month already. There was a lot of information to be taken on board in this period and with that done actually implementing things begins with my QA team doing a scoping project on Monday.
For those of you with a test background let me outline what's going on... until now the company has had no real QA process. Testing consisted of the tester getting a partial release of software, running ad hoc tests and recording defects in a "log" which consists of an eight column Excel sheet. These were then bounced back to dev who fixed the bugs then return the logs back for validation and for more bugs to be appended. No test cases, no repeatability, no real plan. And given that the software is buggy and a major re-factoring program under way it's not going to be possible to write any test cases. I'm really having to pull something creative out of the ether for this one, and I'm hoping the plan I've come up with will work. I almost had a Gordon Ramsey moment in one meeting as a developer presented screen mock-ups it has to be said.
On more mundane matters , although the office is less than three km from the apartment and we're being picked up at 7:45 it's taking over half an hour to get in. I walked it quicker this morning when I went to a "Masai market" held next to the office. They take the rush hour seriously in these here parts! Also nice to work in a place with a tea lady, who comes round dropping off flasks of hot water and hot milk along with tea bags, coffee and hot chocolate. It's got a kind of 1970s feel to it.
John, the boss, took Nigel and I round Nairobi National park yesterday. Got to see zebra, baboons, various gazelles, a glimpse of a rhino, giraffes and various other game suspects. I felt that John was a little disappointed we didn't find any lions or get a decent look at a rhino. We dropped in on a swanky bar on the way back and he casually mentioned that his brother owned Hill Tops and he'd see if he could organise a weekend there for us at some point. Hill Tops is apparently where Queen Elizabeth learned of the death of her father and hence her accession to the throne. From this I assume it's quite a swanky place.
Zebra crossing
In other news I finally finished my antibiotics off on Thursday and although my gum is still sensitive I think the infection has gone. I do hope so. On the up side I can now drink again. On the down side after yesterdays beers and a couple of glasses of wine I've had a stinking hangover for much of today. Ah well, might as well enjoy, it's back to the fray tomorrow.
So, where to begin? Well, as the previous post indicated the apartments are very nice, regular home away from home. Got picked up at 9AM on the first day and taken to the office, marvelling all the time that I'M IN AFRICA! Whoa!!! Been twenty years since I was last in Kenya and now here I am working. I know I've been to Africa since then, most recently last December but that was North Africa. I ended up, you may recall, reaching Aswan, the furthest outpost of Mediterranean civilisation for millennia and considered pushing on. For me though, Africa is Sub-Saharan Africa with all it's riotous, rainy and sun baked melee.
Mind you, the areas I'm living and working in are pretty up market compared to where I was last time, although the red brick soil remains the same. Talking of my previous visit, part of a year spent backpacking around Africa, I mentioned to the boss of the company I'm working at that the last time I was in Nairobi I'd stayed on Latema Road and had been drinking in The Modern Green Day and Night Bar. He cracked up laughing at this as The Modern Green has one hell of a reputation, almost literally. Africa does dodgy bars like nowhere else I've been.
Work is pretty full on and is basically a consultant role. I'm one of a three man team, a technical architect by the name of Leakey who's a local chap returned here after years working at Deustche Bank, a Project Manager (PM) by the name of Nigel who's ex Vertu and me as Quality Assurance (QA) manager. In theory I should just be setting up the QA department and working on overall quality improvement but the role is broadening out from that. It's unsurprising that Nigel and I both come from a mobile phone background considering that Nokia fronted the money for us. However, mobile phones are very much a minor part of the work which is actually good from my perspective as it allows me to break out of what I've been doing of late. The areas we're mostly working with are supply chain solutions, so I'm drawing in part on my old days as a technical author at Pennine.
Challenging, fun and bloody hard work so far. We covered so much ground in the first week I feel like I've been here a month already. There was a lot of information to be taken on board in this period and with that done actually implementing things begins with my QA team doing a scoping project on Monday.
For those of you with a test background let me outline what's going on... until now the company has had no real QA process. Testing consisted of the tester getting a partial release of software, running ad hoc tests and recording defects in a "log" which consists of an eight column Excel sheet. These were then bounced back to dev who fixed the bugs then return the logs back for validation and for more bugs to be appended. No test cases, no repeatability, no real plan. And given that the software is buggy and a major re-factoring program under way it's not going to be possible to write any test cases. I'm really having to pull something creative out of the ether for this one, and I'm hoping the plan I've come up with will work. I almost had a Gordon Ramsey moment in one meeting as a developer presented screen mock-ups it has to be said.
On more mundane matters , although the office is less than three km from the apartment and we're being picked up at 7:45 it's taking over half an hour to get in. I walked it quicker this morning when I went to a "Masai market" held next to the office. They take the rush hour seriously in these here parts! Also nice to work in a place with a tea lady, who comes round dropping off flasks of hot water and hot milk along with tea bags, coffee and hot chocolate. It's got a kind of 1970s feel to it.
John, the boss, took Nigel and I round Nairobi National park yesterday. Got to see zebra, baboons, various gazelles, a glimpse of a rhino, giraffes and various other game suspects. I felt that John was a little disappointed we didn't find any lions or get a decent look at a rhino. We dropped in on a swanky bar on the way back and he casually mentioned that his brother owned Hill Tops and he'd see if he could organise a weekend there for us at some point. Hill Tops is apparently where Queen Elizabeth learned of the death of her father and hence her accession to the throne. From this I assume it's quite a swanky place.
Zebra crossingIn other news I finally finished my antibiotics off on Thursday and although my gum is still sensitive I think the infection has gone. I do hope so. On the up side I can now drink again. On the down side after yesterdays beers and a couple of glasses of wine I've had a stinking hangover for much of today. Ah well, might as well enjoy, it's back to the fray tomorrow.
posted by Bill at 6:19 pm
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