It looks like I've got a lovely new project to work, my new client even lent me a mini-server. Which is nice.

I really enjoyed reading Yann Martel's very popular book. I don't read much fiction which means I almost always enjoy it, but this was particularly satisfying in a way that Pi himself would understand.

The story is just out of reach of normality but not so far that it ever becomes really implausible. As a scientist (it's my religion rather than my profession per se) I quickly become uncomfortable without reasonable argument to justify changes to the universe. Martel's fine-grained world carries plenty of that, viewed through Pi's steady observations. A lot of people might have found it a bit of a slog, with the fairly meticulous descriptions of which parts of a turtle are edible and the habits of animals both in zoos and the wild, but I loved sharing the wonder that Pi finds in everything nature offers him. In addition all the momentum of Pi's rich world, gathered through the book, is spent marvelously well in the last fifty pages, more than justifying any earlier wanderings.

I emailed Underwired to apologise and kind of to test the water. I attached some files that they would need to continue the work without me. Kind of expecting an angry response, I was surprised and saddened when I all got was a single word, "thanks".

That's that working relationship over then.

:-(

I'm alone. It's completely quiet. Even the builders next door have shut up for once. All I can hear is the whine of my laptop and the sound of the keys. After being in the bustle of Manhattan and with Louise every moment for almost 2 weeks, it's sad to be alone in the quiet.

I think I may have to get a job just to get some friends.

Whilst I was away my email application failed nearly totally. Despite my confidence it made a horrible mess of its maiden use. Underwired have basically fired me, insensed that they had nothing and that I was out of reach.

I'm deeply upset and confused. I had tested it and I felt it to be stable. I have no idea what went wrong. My access has been removed and I am unable to do a diagnosis. Whilst I was away they found somebody else to work on the system. I'm not sure whether I'm surplus to requirements anymore or if they will ask that it is completed now.

They have paid me two thirds of the contract price. This is in one sense generous as they have no functionality, but in another it is fair as they have kept all the code I wrote.

This is the second major failure of my freelance career. The first being when I agreed to restyle a government agency site of 5,000+ pages in two weeks. I believed I could do almost all the work with a Perl program. This was not the case and after about two months I gave up. The common mistake between that project and this was a gross misestimate of the time required resulting in a loss of faith by my clients.

The first failure was worse as I put a lot of work in and so did many of close friends and they and I got nothing at all. However, this time I feel worse as UW are close friends and at this point it looks like that relationship is completely finished, ending in the worst possible way with me letting them down and them not wanting to try again. I would like to make good, but I'm not sure they will give me the chance and my confidence in my ability to do what's needed is shot to pieces.

The worse thing is that it was really outside my control. I put everything I had into the system and my holiday had been booked since last year. I genuinely felt that it was ready to go when I left and now it seems I couldn't have been more wrong. Underwired didn't tell me that they'd got somebody else to work on it. If they had they would have ruined my holiday, but I would have done everything I could of from New York to fix it for them.

← previous page, next page →

Choose another page: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113 or return to the most recent entries.

Last updated at 11:32, Wednesday June 18th, 2008. All times are shown in 24-hour clock format and are BST.

Rate my journal on bloghop.com: