In an ongoing project, where we (especially myself) were initially and customariliy placed in an inferior position of accepting whatever the other group gave, we finally got the say and real decision making power to get what we want in the project.

Initially, the situation was pretty dreadful. Imagine if you will.... we wanted 100 things, they only want to give us 25 things, and of those 25 things, we might not really get the full items. HOWEVER, they wanted to broadcast to the higher-ups that they provided whatever we wanted by the end of our financial year.

You know, if it's just an operational system, i wouldn't be that bothered with it. However, the project is much intertwined with the integrity system, which i am practially solely held responsible for now. Would i accept responsibilty of a 75% discounted system? Hell no... and so i pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and .. you get the picture. This discounted thingy is still an on-going issue, but at least we are grabbing more say.

One of the biggest issue, and it's one that came out of nowhere, was certain formats were used. As most of the parties that made the initial decision left our divison last year, it became a "my understanding is blahblahblah version A" vs another "my understanding is blahblahblah version B". 死无对证 so win liao lah?

Either the ignorance, or the drive to co-exist with the other group, made the middle-ups look very bad in some of the prior decision-makings. From my si-fu's prior experiences with them, i know that i cannot just depend on them to support us. The other group has a CISSP "expert" who stated in a mail that he thinks that one of the decision made by his team is secure. My si-fu had some battles with him in the past as well, so i know that i need to get my ammunition ready. What did i do?

So i went to ping real experts in the security field, internally and externally. Some of them i've known for quite some time, some of them i just sent them a cold-call enail or voice mail. Not surprisingly, ALL of them supported my stance, and surprising, are willing to be quoted as such.

In one of my 1:1s with my boss a few weeks ago, as we went through our issues list, he asked me how would i feel if the middle-ups sided with them. My reply was that if that was the case, i want to escalate it upwards and sidewards, to the GM and GVP, not only of my division, but the main product divisions. There was no way i was going to give in on this, and i conveyed my plan to quit and go back to Singapore if the middle-ups do not allow me to escalate it. (Sidenote: apparently one of them tried to block my si-fu last year from escalating an issue).

Anyway, with my firm stance, my boss and his boss, the two project managers managing this project all pushed to get this formats issued leaned my way.

Apparently, someone that managed this project in the other group did a sobbing session when it was realised that they've lost.

Hooray.

Adding to this great situation, i got some vouchers from a major product's service pack build team, as i've went the extra way to make sure their files go through towards RTM without issues.

To follow on this jovial theme, i was enjoying all the secrets and horrors from PostSecret, wondered if i should get some Tees from Busted, especially this t-shirt design, an almost academic research into Singlish, thinking of getting this, while wondering why these stuffs are so interesting and cute.

Okay... enough for one of my longest posts ever.

Lunch here i come.