In Pursuit of Mysteries

“Whoa!” Moment

If you have been following Pacific Northwest news, there has been an ongoing story about a group of ELF/ALF activists that called themselves “The Family” that have been arrested since December. Portland’s Indymedia site has a copy of their indictment from the 20th of this month. There is an article about them in the New York Times today.

The weird thing, for me, is that I worked with one of these people. He was Joe Dibee (known as “Seattle” in the group). I worked with Joe for the last two and a half years or so. He worked for one of my (until recent) peers in the QA org for my group. He and I did not talk much at all but said “Hi” and he occasionally came to my office because one of my tasks was ordering and dispersing hardware for our orgs. He seemed like a decent guy but kind of a non-entity in a way. Not that there wasn’t stuff going on but we didn’t really connect on any level. Other coworkers have told me that they had spoken to him about outdoors and environmental related things and it was clear that he cared a lot about them.

At the beginning of the holiday season, he left work (one assumes that this is one he ran) but I didn’t really notice because it is the time a lot of people take off during December. I only noticed about a week or so before all the news stories hit (after I got back from my own trip) because it was mentioned that he was no longer working with us and that seemed odd. Suffice it to say, it was handled professionally and was not stemming from his legal matters directly. Asking around, I began to hear rumors of the FBI and such. Finally, on the 20th, the indictment went up and news stories started mentioning him by name. We’ve talked about it amongst ourselves at work but everyone just kind of shrugs and says, “Well, that’s pretty weird…” and moves on. I don’t think anyone knows what to do when you realize that your coworker is accused of providing times for incendiary devices for ELF attacks.

This Seattle Times article discusses it a bit and has a picture of him: link

Coffee Day on the PM Team

My first task on the PM day was to take much of a day off and go with my new org to Zoka Coffee, a local specialty coffee roasting company. This was part of getting the team to hang out, raise morale, and get to know people.

Many of us on the team have worked together for years but there are a number of newer faces or people, like me, who have changed roles.

There was a presentation on coffee production from farming to roast and Zoka’s business while we had much fine coffee. We learned how coffee tasting and quality control works through a bit of coffee tasting. We did tea tasting as well. Then there was a presentation on proper espresso making by their barista trainer who also competes in the barista competitions. We had a  bit of lunch and got to visit the roasting portion of the operation and see how that works in close detail.

All in all, for a coffee lover like myself (it is just about my only vice), a fun time.

Tony, who runs the PM org (my new boss’ boss) put pictures he took up at http://www.tonychor.com/photos/2006/zoka/index.htm. You can see me at http://www.tonychor.com/photos/2006/zoka/img_0043.htm though it isn’t the best photo of me. :-)

New Role

I have now officially converted from being a Software Test Lead reporting to the Director of Test for my department (Internet Explorer) to being a Project Manager on the Program Management team in the same group. I’m reporting to a Program Manager Lead that I’ve worked with for three or so years now and who I have a pretty friendly relationship with. Technically, my role still reports to my old manager to the extent that he will be turning in my review but I am having a “semester abroad” working for the PM team and “dotted line” reporting to my new manager. My day to day work and my coaching will be done by my new manager and my title has been changed (which we were in the process of doing even when I was in the test org since I don’t really lead a test team and haven’t for a year now).

This is something that came to a head during the last two weeks with some work that I’d been investigating for the team and which we’ve committed to do. I’m not going to speak publicly about the project, which hasn’t been announced, but my work will be focused on external customers and our relationships with them. I’m going to continue to run the blog for the IE team and I’ll probably wind up working on related areas in this combined space over time.

After eight and a half years as a full time employee in test, I now work for the dark side. My questions on where to get khakis and polo shirts for a good price was ignored by the PM management team…