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“Is there anything else I can help with? Some other projects I can work on?” I ask in desperation. “Being bored won’t help me rest.”
Sandra sighs. “What about your app? You can always work on that. The cleaner that code, the higher the chance it will impress people.”
Is that a hint? Do I need to prepare a resume and use that app as my portfolio?
“Did you send a link to my code to the development department?” I ask, fishing for more hints on my fate.
“As soon as I got it,” she says.
“And?”
“I haven’t heard back from anyone yet. I’m sure the dev team will review it in due course.”
Unless I’m fired. “Okay, thanks, Sandra. How about I swing by the office tomorrow, after I’ve rested for the remainder of today?”
“Is that what you and Mr. Chortsky discussed?”
“He didn’t exactly define the word ‘rest’ for me, if that’s what you mean.”
She heaves another sigh. “Fine. As long as you’ve rested by then, I’m free at eleven tomorrow. Would that work for you?”
“Yep. See you then,” I say and hang up before she can change her mind.
* * *
After I eat lunch and feed Monkey, I decide to do what Sandra said—check on my app source control repository.
A surprise is waiting for me there.
For the first time ever, someone is collaborating on the project with me.
The first message is about a bug report.
Actually, it’s more than that. It’s an unwelcome critique of the app as a whole—dripping with cattiness.
Quaint app. Not bad for someone who’s never coded a day in her life. For your information, if you aim the app at an image of a cartoon character’s face, the returned lookalike isn’t the same character. So, for example, I used it on Daffy Duck, and your app decided he looks most like Donald Duck. If you think about it logically, Daffy looks most like Daffy.
Hmm. I bring up a picture of Daffy on my work phone and use Precious to aim my app at him. The app indeed says he looks like Donald instead of himself.
So this is a legit bug—especially if one forgets for a second that the app was made for people to use, not cartoon characters. At least a duck looks like a duck. If the app claimed Donald Duck looked like Bugs Bunny, that would be worse.
I check out the helpful user—screen name CrazyOops. No profile image, but the screen name itself is enough for me to guess who this is. First half must refer to (You Drive Me) Crazy and second half to Oops!…I Did It Again, both songs by Britney Spears.
I’d bet Monkey’s liver this user is another Britney. As in, Britney Archibald. She must’ve been dying to find a bug in my code to retaliate for the numerous flaws I found in hers.
Hey, at least it means the development department got Sandra’s email, and some of them are looking at my code. Maybe the others are less biased. In fact, I see a couple of other messages already.
First, though, I record CrazyOops’s IP address. If she’s made other accounts in order to further diss the app, I’ll know it’s her.
Surprisingly, the next message is not a bug report. Instead, someone located the reason the app was doing what Britney bitched about and fixed it.
Holy binary. Who is this mysterious do-gooder?
The screen name is Phantom, and the profile picture is of the half-masked face of the Phantom of the Opera.
That’s not a lot to go by. Maybe she or he is someone who likes the classics—but that can be lots of people.
Putting aside the mystery of the identity of this person, I check out the next message from them.
