The I.T. Girl by Fiona Pearse Page B

me of smoking and clicked through the job sites I had applied
to. My cover letter was the same as last year, it didn’t need to change. But my
C.V. had a new paragraph about my fictional travel over the past six months. I hit
the delete button, removing it from each site.
    As people opened up their notebooks, Boris read the minutes of
the previous Monday’s meeting. I stared over at the building next to ours. The glass
was tinted so I could only see shapes moving inside. The top disappeared into a
fat purple cloud that hung low across the sky.
    ‘Let’s get through this quickly then.’ Boris clapped his hands.
‘I know you’re feeling the pressure.’ He pulled a tight smile. ‘We all are at the
moment. That Data Centre deadline is looming.’
    Each person gave their project status. It was an opportunity
to share information and raise concerns but the complaints made at the start of
the merge were beginning to peter out. Small projects made stats look good, we were painfully aware, watching Felix’s emails going
around saying how well everything was coming together.
    Cameron gave his status. ‘I think I’ve fixed that Bahrain bug
now.’ He had because I’d fixed it for him. ‘And I’m looking at an XML feed. Also, trying to find some time for training tutorials, on the C++.’
    ‘How do you feel about taking on the Warsaw upgrade mate? A little C++ jobby , eh? It’s a small
one.’ Boris coaxed.
    ‘I donno .’
    ‘We’ll talk about if after, mate.’ Boris reassured him. ‘Sam.’
Boris looked along the row for the next status.
    ‘Working on Sweden,’ Sam said.
    ‘Let me explain this to you again, Sam. You each give a status
and raise any concerns you may have. Working on Sweden and it’s all going swimmingly.
Working on Sweden and it’s all going tits up would even
give me some indication of how you’re actually doing. This is how this usually works.
So start with Hi I’m Sam and I’m a programmer, if it helps.’
    People started to snigger. Sam’s reluctance to take Boris seriously
as a project leader was a regular meeting highlight.
    ‘Have to make some changes based on conformance tests but it
should be fine,’ Sam offered. ‘It’s going swimmingly. Since when I started the project
we were still in separate teams and an analyst did the analysis and I did the coding.
That’s how this usually works.’
    ‘ Orla ?’ Boris
turned to me, ignoring the dig.
    ‘Well, I’m handing over AsiaCap to
Sam. And I guess I’ll be starting BelOpt shortly. Also,
have a new bug report this morning for Madrid. Actually it’s a functional update,
not a bug. Working on the design for that. And that’s it.’
    ‘What’s this bug report?’
    ‘They’re getting duplicates. Exchange is sending them so not
our fault but I’m going to add some code to filter them out.’
    ‘Okay. Are you happy with that?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Are you happy? Do you want a second opinion or anything?’
    ‘No I do not!’
    ‘Okay. There’s no need to be so defensive.’
    I went back to staring out the window as chuckling circled the
room. I had only just started the revision programme and already Boris was treating
me like a junior.
    I tried to look busy, sitting low in my chair and continuing
to frown at my screen if anyone leaned over the wall of my cube, until they spoke.
But Sam came round to the back of my chair and rattled it. ‘Shall we get this handover
out of the way?’
    ‘ Oi !’ I jumped
forward reclaiming my chair. ‘I suppose now is as good a time as any.’
    ‘The poisoned chalice,’ he said.
    ‘No. I already took that myself. Em ,
listen...’ I lowered my voice. ‘I don’t want anyone else to know about my programme.’
    ‘Okay.’ He sounded accused.
    ‘No, it’s just that Boris was really obvious in the meeting.’
    ‘I’m sure everyone thought he was just being over-cautious...
because of METX.’
    ‘I guess... it’s just... I want to get through this thing as
smoothly as