Pulling Teeth

I'm a nice person by nature. I'd rather do things by treat than whip - so when it comes to asking, I tend to do it nicely, perhaps with a packet of bribery-fudge on the side.

Which, unfortunately, sometimes proves a problem. I'm too nice.

Take today, for example. HUGE deadline, have to get loads of information out of loads of people (who are not terribly communicative to start with) - and then still compile that all into a readable mass. Difficult when you're guessing at how it's supposed to work at the best of times, with the aim of making it understandable for all. Even more so when you're dealing with folk who talk another language.

Yes, programmers. Developers. IT people. Whatever you want to call them.

Now I'm not saying they're not lovely individuals - but getting information out of them is like pulling teeth. Chicken teeth. They're really good at what they do - so good that mostly they don't feel the need to explain to anyone else how to do it.

Trouble is, if a bomb were to go off in Development and, sadly, all our IT blokes were rendered mere dust... well, things would seriously collapse. They all sit and do their thing, but only they know what they're doing, how, or why.

Today I've been tasked with getting that knowledge out onto paper. Not just individually, but as a collective. And not just as a collective, but as an HISTORICAL collective - which means things they've done and forgotten about, as well as what they're doing right now.

Eish.

Needless to say it hasn't been a roaring success thus far.

But I'm not only nice, I'm an eternal bluddy optimist - so I live in hope.