I hate this time of year for a number of reasons.

1. It is almost always some form of crunch time at work which involves running manual tests. I hate doing that.

I always find myself asking if these tests are really worth the time spent running because code hasn’t changed there in about 6 or 7 years now. I find myself removing several of them because they are things that should be done when ever your running other tests (redundent). I find myself thinking a lot of test cases should be lumped together and I wonder why there are 20 when there should only be one. I find myself asking why we aren’t doing more tests that attempt to break stuff rather than confirm that something works – hey, we did that already… time to try doing naughty things. (No, I don’t stick the the test case, I usually deviate and do a bunch of nasty things or try different things – it’s the only way to stay sane.)

I find myself missing the work I do on automation.

Maybe it’s a case of losing interest in the product I’m working on because I’ve been working on it, in one form or another, for 11 years now. Granted, I’ve had affairs with some other products and I’ve always got my hand in other things.

2. The days seem to blur by. It’s dark in the morning and it’s dark in the afternoon when I start heading home.

It’s depressing. It makes me feel old.

3. It’s cold and snowy, or worse, cold and wet.

Cold is bad. People get sick, they bring that crap to work or send their kids to day care when they’re sick. They bundle up more.

Yes, bundling up is bad. It makes oogling the women more difficult to do.

4. This time of year tends to bring lay offs.

Merry Christmas! We’re letting you go.

I understand it makes sense for a business (financially) to do it at this time, but it’s still sort of shitty. Not that I’ve been laid off. I just have a feeling it’s going to come (not necessarily for me) due to the way the economy is and a number of things they’re doing to cut costs.

I always feel guilty or uneasy (awkward) when people are let go, even when they probably should have been a long time ago. This time around will be extra difficult because we’re a skeleton crew as is and I like the people I work with.

We did alright the last couple of years, so here’s to hoping this year (given the economic issues) isn’t all that different…