the big work project

Yesterday was the day. The day that my big work project that started last year was finally completed, and launched. The big work project was a redesign of our site. We had to comply with certain standards and templates – but the backside of the site was overhauled. And it was my job to get it into working order for the launch.

This all started in October. In fact, the day I flew to New York (on my birthday) for my cousin’s wedding, I had to go to the newspaper there (since we’re owned by the same company) and sit in on the first of MANY conference calls. We were delivered the templates to start working with in November.

I thought everything was good to go (with a few minor details to be worked out) and then we ran into some problems on Tuesday. I haven’t felt that amount of stress in some time. I had programmed two pieces that didn’t go along with the standards, but they were big in the numbers game – money and page views. After four calls, each one escalating and inviting more important people (way more important than me), we came to a compromise yesterday. I felt like I had won a huge battle.

I’ve had dreams about this redesign. Nightmares, really. And on Tuesday I got a list of issues, with level of priority. Some were listed as “fatal.” (I then asked someone if they really thought missing Beer Guy content was a life or death matter.)

The launch went pretty well. We didn’t even have “real” problems until after 6 p.m. – about the time that all of our most helpful support staff leave for the day. I spent the next several hours trying to fix things, send emails, call support staff….all while keeping my temper in check. It was pretty frustrating. Even this morning we’re dealing with issues. You can’t please everybody, I guess.

But here we are. New site. And nobody died over the site. Not even over the missing Beer Guy content (because it was eventually filled in.)