nightwolf

I haven't posted in here for a while, but given I've just had my end of year review, I might as well. This year has been mad, the role was a step up for me way back in 2020. But I decided to really go for it and push hard to learn everything I could. So this past year has been really interesting and I've had to really try to find a voice. On the other hand, I've had a few (men and that is relevant given the field I am in) really speak out against me, not understanding why I was hired, why I wasn't doing x, why I was doing y. Putting me down about my role and the things I was or wasn't doing. I told my manager as such in my end of year, to which he was surprised. He's heard nothing but "amazing feedback about you, everyone speaks of you highly". I even later found out that I've been put forward to my director as one of three (out of 50+) to be outstanding. He's pleased I was able to deal with it on my own, but very unhappy that it happened. He's a good chap, which is rare from my own experience of managers. This also means I'm getting a promotion, my first internal one if it gets signed. I was thankful I got to chose whether I wanted to continue my career path as it currently is (which was absolutely fine with my manager) or take the step up. I chose to take the step as I want to see what happens. So that's neat. Will hopefully see more about that in the coming months. Honestly working in a male dominated field is really, really hard sometimes. I'm the only senior woman in my particular team and the only person in my role in the whole company. I'm glad for the chance to prove myself and people think highly of me, but good lord I need to shake some of this imposter syndrome off. Perhaps 2022 I can finally gain some more confidence...and perhaps the new title.

Very lucky! Ours left without cleaning and no instructions for anything. Had to figure out the water heater and it took ages for us to understand it (its old so instructions online were hard to come by) and I spent a solid week having to clean the damn house, they'd not even cleaned the sink so it still had food bits in it. Given how pushy they were to complete they had time to clean at least a little bit, bastards. Respect to yours for doing what they could for you. Otherwise that looks great! Pictures look like you don't have much to change? Any immediate plans?

Congratulations! Its finally done!

This gave me a hell of a chuckle. We're slightly gutted that we didn't have the original wedding date 04/04/20 (let's blaze it because I'm literally 14).

Whelp. I wanted to leave a love/like/hug or something to all of you, but nothing seems to match, know that I read all your responses and I'm really hoping for better things for 2022 <3 For me? I was just getting underway with my new job after joining end of 2020. I later got a mini promotion just after my probation in June. We finally got married 0/304/2021! There were 6 of us lol We immediately decided to start buying a house. Which we then completed on in September I finally after 18 months of waiting got put on the waiting list for surgery in October. My sister had her second daughter, so two nieces! I've yet to meet her though, damn covid. I now WFH perm due to covid after requesting it since 2016 (different company, but I demanded it here also) So there was some really really good stuff that happened this year. I also found my health tanked (and continues), my mental health put me back into therapy. But I now WFH on a perm basis so that definitely helps the physical side of my issues. I don't think I want another dramatic year this year! But we're steadily working on our new home to enjoy.

I've been after something similar, what's the stand?

Covid and Brexit. *Shakes fist*

Its not really about them taking on the tester role. If you're in an agile test the whole point is that everyone is responsible for the quality of the product. Which means developers should be able to test anything that comes through. It doesn't mean taking over for testers, but they should be able to lend a hand. They coded it after all! Testers should also be able to create automated tests, so I wonder if there's just not enough cross knowledge going on in your team? Sounds painful either way! I've really been pushing for developers on my team to do more than self-testing/happy path, they've found it (it seems) really interesting to learn and we end up learning from them in return. Its slow going, but worth it in the end.

Do your dev team test tickets? From my understanding developers can test too which maybe useful here if your ratio is 6:2. Do me a solid though, don't sneak stuff in under the radar. You'll piss off your QA who are already 1:3 Devs which is really hard! My ideal is 1:1 max 1:2.

It's simply because my dad has literally worked with all the major housing builders in the country (it feels a bit like "my dad owns this company" but honestly his CV is ridiculous). So I've heard just so much about building houses! Good luck it's such a pain. But you'll get something nice I'm sure.

@Raining_again its finally happening, I got a letter yesterday morning! I'm on the waiting list for surgery! It might seem like bad news to many of you, which to be honest I'm fairly torn myself. Yesterday I finally got confirmation that my surgery will go ahead which means: total hysterectomy (sub-total and total are different!) bilateral salpingectomy excision of endometriosis (again) segmental bowel resection So basically hysterectomy plus excision of endo plus cutting my bowels, which is madness. But in a ridiculous way gang it really validates all the pain over the last 15+ years. My organs have been stuck together, growing masses and generally causing me agony...which kind of also explains some of my mental health / capabilities over the years too. One doctor recently pointed out that I shouldn't be able to exercise, let alone work. Yet I had to tell him that nobody had ever given me any pain relief or help with it until it got to this stage. Anyway, its happening. Slightly terrified, kinda excited. This will quite literally change my whole life, I just hope for the better.

One layer down and it already looks way better. Christ alive the things they have done to this house is amazingly bad. But ah well! Perhaps we need a house/DIY thread? @Will I didn't mean to completely scare you off, many many people live in new builds without any issues or live in them knowing their might be issues, just do your proper due diligence and you'll be fine. I mean I've bought a house from the 80s that's solid and look at the wall above!! So if it suits you, go for it. I'd also second Zoopla, though we mostly used rightmove for moving ourselves. I didn't particularly like the idea of using gumtree etc. Big moving day is tomorrow, we've still got so much packing to do, but thankfully all the big stuff the movers are taking is mostly pulled apart. Thank goodness we've got until the 24th to move the rest of our stuff!

For sure! In my view it was more that my neighbours whenever I've been wall to wall have been noisy, either from kids, music or both. Whereas in a detached you absolutely still could have terrible neighbours but the separated walls with space between them really helps. I still say its entirely up to you! I know a bunch of people who are very happy with living in flats etc, I'm just not good with it so we didn't buy one

Personally after living in flats, housesharing, terraced housing, detached housing... I will never again live in a flat, terraced or otherwise if I can help it. Even if I have good neighbours I just dislike having to worry over my volume all the time. Plus what if they move out? I guess I've just had too many bad experiences, but its just not always an option! So whatever you prefer. Its for you, not them.

I love it Goafer, it feels cozy but clean. The study is the only room that needed anything significant doing to it thank goodness. We would like to remove the wall from the kitchen (and re-do the kitchen) but its more preference than a need to be done, so thankfully we can hold off on that for another 4-5 months. Trying not to burn myself out doing everything at once, we've not even properly moved in yet (we've got movers on the 11th). But its all so exciting! Also means I finally hang the picture I got from @Eenuh <3

Having a cleaner is something I've considered simply because my partner has dust allergies and keeping on top of that is practically a full time job in itself. I think I'd much rather have a normal/small house and pay for services, than have a 6-7 bed house and need those services because your house is too big. Also yes that wall made me cringe, we'll be making a nice box for the fuse box and sorting out the wires/holes, but it shows just how bad of a hack job the "bookcase" was. EURGH.

I'm both, such is my nature. On the one hand I plan out everything. I got married, got a new management job and bought a house in the last year. The wedding and house were planned to almost the minute, but the job was taken on a complete whim in the space of two weeks. Which was madness at the time! On the other hand I've done so many things, lived in random places purely because the opportunity came up and I felt the need to just do it. Which is scary as hell, but its ended up being amazing. I always feel some of the best things that have ever happened to me have been the non-planned things, that come out of nowhere and I say yes too. I'm sure you'd do well living abroad Ashley. I agree with others here, if your gut it telling you to go, you'll figure it out as you go, rather than planning super hard before hand. If it doesn't work out, what's the worst that happens? You come home? ./shrug

Yup, we're in the Cambridgeshire area, so I'll let you all see how pricey it is, never mind Cambridge centre itself. We bought a house at 260k, a 3.5 bed (downstairs has a study that's big enough for a single bed bedroom), which is more than fine for two people - we've just finished renting on a 3 bed 2 bath so we know its more than comfortable for us. A friend has a 5 bed house, doesn't plan for kids. Has a half a million pound mortgage. I nearly died hearing it - why do you need that? Their partner doesn't earn nearly half as much as they do, so it ultimately feels like overkill. The mortgage repayments make me shudder looking at them . In better news, we managed to rip out the terrible DIY walled bookcase they had made, you can see from the photo just how badly it was done because of how many wall plugs all in random places.

As a manager in QA I can tell you waterfall is awful and disregards QA by most teams, whereas agile allows us to be seen at the same table as developers. I'm all for it. I honestly could go on about it for a while (and have qualifications in agile so I'm also biased there too).

You'll get the issues of new builds and I would implore you to double check who you buy with. Dad has worked in the building trade for so long I could never think to buy one.

Yup! Its all cleaned now anyway and ready for us to do some of our own work to it. Its certainly better than my colleague who was supposed to exchange today and complete tomorrow and it looks like it hasn't been done. I was going spare having a week between exchange and completion! I can't imagine how they are dealing with that. It shouldn't be allowed for either party to go quiet when you're so close to the end.

Yup I bet. Honestly the ride we had with it was a mess, but we certainly aren't alone! We've managed to get in and get stuff done, they'd not even bothered to even remotely clean it, so it was fairly disgusting. I guess not truly surprised given we also then had to remove a massive bookcase they had bolted to the wall that was DIY'ed and covering up the sodding internet. At any rate its now ours! So no more stressing over it.

After 4 and a half months - we're finally off to go pick up the keys. Thank fuck.

We actually had a very similar issue come up in our homebuyers. Unfortunately how it works from my understanding is that the surveys you do (and your solicitor does) come after the offer. So you do have to as a seller put up with re-negotiation. For us we just said that we would let it slide but instead they filled up the small pond in the back garden for us instead. To not turn up is rude as hell, but ultimately an offer doesn't mean a whole lot, its just an agreement at the time of it, there's no way to know as a buyer until those valuations and surveys happen that its actually worth the price. Though the sellers (until exchange) are totally fine to walk away at any point. So hopefully they are up for negotiating if another buyer notices it (because if they do their due diligence they will!)

Actually found myself liking that, a little less interesting than other stuff, but pretty good.