The I.T. Girl (14 page)

‘Sit down,’ he said as I came in.

‘Is there a problem with
BelOpt
?’

‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘Some values look incorrect.’

‘Because I had the Desktop manager ringing me this morning saying
that you were, and I quote, rude and disrespectful to a member of his team.’

‘Yeah well, we had a fight.’

‘You had a fight? What, you can’t talk to people in a civilised
manner now? You opened this request last week.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me about it? The meeting yesterday, you
said everything was fine.’

‘I didn’t want to alarm you. I thought I could handle it myself.’

‘So, in fact, you lied to me. I mean, there’s less than a week
to your deadline and you’ve put us in a situation where it might all go tits up,
eh? This is exactly why you’re on a revision programme.’

I stared at my hands, suddenly feeling hot.

‘You know the spotlight is on us right now,’ he said viciously.
‘Now, I have to get Sam or Cameron off what they’re working on – probably both of
them – and get them to help you.’

‘Why can’t I just get an extension?’ My face sneered with annoyance,
‘I mean it’s not as if anyone in Belgium is waiting for it.’

‘
Orla
, JR is looking at everything
we’re doing.’ His voice began to crack. ‘I do not want to have to explain to him
why your project is late. I mean, I assume I don’t have to spell out for you, how
things will look if he does get involved. I will have to tell them you lied to me.’
I looked up, meeting his round eyes, steadier than usual. ‘I mean, why the hell
couldn’t you have told when something was wrong straight away? ‘Oh Boris, I have
a problem with
BelOpt
’, ‘Oh,
Orla
,
thanks for bringing that up. After all, that’s what these meetings are for. Now
that you’ve told me, I can do something about it’. I mean, lying about this is just
right out of order!’

‘I can’t take this.’ I shook my head.

‘You can’t take what?’

‘Everything is out of control.’

‘Look. I really need you to let me know when there’s a problem,
alright?
Oh look,
em
...
stop
crying, eh? Take it easy, love. This is not a therapy session.
Why don’t you go and see the nurse,
Orla
?...
What, now you’re laughing? Why are you laughing? Look, go
and see the nurse,
Orls
. Go and see the nurse.’

I wiped mascara away with my fingers in the lift mirror, on my
way down to the canteen. Everyone was going to find out that I couldn’t handle my
job. Sam and Cameron were going to have to help me and they would probably discover
the problem was something simple that I should have found myself. But... what if
they couldn’t find the problem?

In the canteen I poured a cup of coffee with unsure hands and
headed for our booth. I wondered where Sam had got to. Had he finally left for good?
I stopped before I got to the booth. He was sitting there with his head in his hands.
I looked around. Maybe I should sit somewhere else? We hadn’t spoken since the day
he did my German code review. I remembered the first time we had a coffee together.
He had warned me about taking on METX. I thought he was being patronising – it was
my first rollout and he had been helping me with the steps. After writing the upload
requests to get the code on the live server we had come down for a coffee, bringing
the laptop with us, so we could check the rollout from the comfort of the canteen.
It began its gentle whirr on start-up. Sam tapped on the base of it with his thumb
and then sat back, letting it run by itself. I still wasn’t used to our altitude
and had pressed my head against the window, looking down on the ants below coming
and going around the fountain. Everything looked in slow motion.

‘This system is ridiculous.’ I remembered Sam saying. ‘It’s such
a cumbersome procedure rolling anything out. This’ll take about half an hour to
be completed. Always make sure you double check afterwards.’ I remember noticing
how many times he said ‘
you should always
double-check afterwards
’.

‘So... what does happen if something goes wrong?’

‘You’d be fired.’

‘What?’

‘They’d assume you were trying to sabotage the company and fire
you on the spot. You wouldn’t even have time to collect your things.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘Exaggerating slightly.
This place is
pretty heavy-handed.’ His face twisted. ‘And it depends on the project. The higher
the profile, the more they’ll need a scapegoat.’

‘Right.’
I wondered if he was often
in trouble for making mistakes. Maybe he just wasn’t good at his job.

‘It’s a blame culture.
Comes from the top down.
Only thing they know how to do.
Bunch of clowns.’

I wanted him to stop talking. I’d find out for myself how to
handle working here and I didn’t want someone else’s negative experience bringing
me down.

The laptop beeped then and he typed in the commands for us to
remote-login to the live server.

‘Half the files are there already,’ he said, showing me the list.

In my head I counted the number of files left to go.

‘It will take a while,’ he said sitting back, ‘so, how are you
finding London? Are you here on your own or –’

‘Yes, here on my own.’
I was thrown
by the personal question. ‘It’s a bit overwhelming, London.
So
much to see.’

‘What do you do on the weekends?’

‘Well mostly house hunting. I’d really like to get my own place.’

‘Where are you looking?’

‘Everywhere.
It’s a nice way to get
to know London, actually. If it’s on the A-Z I’ve probably been there.’

‘Well, if you need someone to give you advice, let me know.’

‘Oh... thanks.’ It was the first time I had experienced him being
sincere. He was usually sarcastic, flippant at best. Did this mean I was accepted?

‘I could check out a place with you if you like,’ he continued,
‘If you need a second opinion.’

‘Thanks, Sam, that’s really nice of you.’

He nodded, puffing out his cheeks with air. ‘Is this all your
files?’ he turned the laptop around and pointed at a list of filenames in a white
font against a black background.

‘Yes, that’s all of them.’ He wasn’t trying to flirt with me,
was he?

‘We have to check the start and stop times for your feed and
then we’re done... See those METX files?’ he pointed to another list of files on
the screen, ‘that Exchange is getting a major overhaul in a few months. It’ll be
a really interesting project, but high-profile, so no one will go near it. That’s
the kind of thing I’m talking about. You know the work here is interesting but the
politics are so toxic it’s not worth the risk doing anything under a spotlight.
You’ll see
,
Boris will have trouble getting someone to
take it on. You should try to avoid it too.’

‘Actually it sounds interesting.’ Something substantial that
everyone had their eyes on was exactly what I had been after.

‘No, believe me. You don’t want any part of it.’

‘I’d like to decide that for myself.’

‘Oh.’ My resolution pulled him up. ‘Well, talk to Boris about
it. I’m sure he’ll be happy to have a volunteer.’ He went back to typing.

I approached him tentatively now and slid into the booth opposite
him. ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘can I join you?’

He looked up. ‘Sure.’ He released his face from his hands leaving
a red print across his forehead.

‘How’s it going?’ I asked.

‘That fucking stupid cunt,’ he said shakily.

‘Jesus. What did he do?’

‘I am so angry.’

‘Okay. Have some coffee. It’ll help calm you down,’ I joked,
daring a smile.

He croaked out a small laugh like it was making him ill and we
both took a sip.

‘Remember he agreed to let Cameron help me with the Desktop requirements?’

‘On
AsiaCap
?’

‘Yeah.
Well, he lied to Felix about
it. Said I did it all myself.’

‘No way.’

‘I ran into Stern down here the other day and he asked about
the project. I said I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support from
Analysis. Turns out Boris told Cameron not to book any time on my project.’

‘No fucking way.’

‘Then Boris calls me in to this meeting room and tells me he’s
been accused of Grand Deception and tries having a go at me about talking to Stern.
Says he’s not going to
cover
for me anymore.
Fucking clown.’

‘Jesus. So, what does that mean?
Grand Deception?’

‘It means he’ll be on more than a revision programme if he fucks
up again.’

‘Ha. Boris should know how to play the game better than that,’
I jeered.

‘You sound just like him.’

I lowered my eyes, remembering Boris was going to ask Sam to
help me soon.

‘You know everything that’s going on here is Boris’s fault,’
Sam said.

‘It’s not all his fault,’ I gently protested.

‘It’s his job to tell management what we need,’ he insisted.
‘We should have proper software practices. Not this meaningless red-tape bullshit
which just makes the job more difficult. And he just slopes his shoulders and says
nothing, looking after his career. And then they go after you because it’s easier
to do that than address the real problems. And all the time he’s laughing about
it down the pub with us instead of fighting back.
Makes me sick.’

‘Yeah.’
I had to agree.

Cameron stood wide-eyed behind my chair early the following morning.
‘What’s going on?’

‘What’s this about?’ Sam came around to the other side. ‘That
clown sent a message I was to support you for the rest of the week.’

‘Oh yeah, finally he’s proactive,’ I scoffed. ‘
BelOpt’s
not pricing properly. Something’s wrong with the strategies.’

‘When you going live?’ Sam asked.

‘Friday.’
I breathed heavily.

‘Let’s see your strategy file,’ he said.

I pointed to the XML on screen.

‘Well, what are the errors?
Syntax?
Functional?’
Sam asked pulling up a chair next to me.

‘I guess functional, the layout of the file is correct.’

‘Do you have the Exchange spec?’ Cameron asked.

I gave him a copy and he flicked through the pages. ‘Where’s
the stuff about the strategies?’

‘In a separate document.
Here.’ I fished
it out.

‘Did Phil take a look?’

‘At the main spec yeah, but not at the strategy
spec.
He said they’re standard and there were loads of examples I could just
copy from.’

I folded my arms and shifted out of the way while Cameron and
Sam went through my XML. They ran the same tests that I had run and then compared
the results with the Exchange example. ‘No syntax errors.’ Sam commented. ‘Desktop
is displaying the data so she’s got the semantics of the file right but as she says
those values are not correct.’

‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘got to go to the toilet.’

I came out of a cubicle and stared in the mirror. My face looks
distorted, I thought. Like I’ve bitten into a lemon and can’t get rid of the taste.
I took my time at the sink. They didn’t need me anyway.

I jumped when the door opened and another woman came in.

‘Hello,’ I said to her.

She smiled and went into a cubicle.

HR or Marketing, I guessed. Sometimes they had to use our meeting
rooms. Or maybe she was lost. I grabbed the towels with the CPR logo and scrunched
them in my hands.

‘
Orla
,’ Cameron said into the papers
he was holding. ‘Did you inform each group of the change in strategy legs?’ Sam
and he were both standing, looking over the specs and then at me.

‘What change in strategy legs?’ I asked folding my arms across
my chest.

‘Up ‘till now,’ Cameron said patiently, ‘we’ve only had a maximum
of twelve legs in a strategy.
As in twelve markets belonging to
one strategy.’
He explained. ‘This has up to twenty-four.’ He held up the
BelOpt
strategy document. ‘So the highest and lowest price
should be calculated from 24 markets, not just 12.’

‘Oh. I didn’t know there was a limit,’ I said.

‘Jesus.’ Sam let out his breath. ‘This will probably require
a hard-coded change for every team involved. There’s no way this is going out at
the end of the week.’

It was as if everything was moving far away from me. I watched
Sam and Cameron access the
BelOpt
website to inform everyone
the project would be delayed. A few rows down, Jerome Ross glided by, filming as
he walked. At the end of the row he held the camera away from his face and frowned
into the mini screen.

 
‘No,’ I said, jerking
back to life.

‘What?’ Sam turned around. ‘
Orla
, you
have to get an extension. Desktop, us, and probably the trading floor, are going
to have to modify their software and then re-test all their components.’

‘
Orla
, I’m just updating the website
to explain the situation,’ Cameron said like a doctor with bad news.

‘No,’ I said again. ‘This is my decision.’ I yanked out my chair
making them both move back from my desk and sat down protecting my keyboard. I finished
dialling the call that Cameron was making and explained to Desktop why they had
to change the amount of legs they allowed in a strategy, adding there was no option
of an extension because it was tied to the CPR Data Centre opening. Trading Floor
protested the request too. There was only one way I could get both teams to make
the change at such late notice – I had to take full responsibility if anything went
wrong.