Monday came, as it will, and I learned how to do the last little bit of the particular task as a result of a frustrating conversation in which the server guy I asked for help insisted he didn't know how to do it and didn't seem to even know what conceptual universe I was speaking in. That this somehow gave me the information I needed to complete the task is left for one of those logic puzzles that makes the logic puzzles the most skimmed-over part of the magazine. Anyway, I was able to create the macro that pulls up the pictures that interface the terrible ancient program with a sliver of the web site it ought to be.
Anyway, the company owner eventually came in and wanted to see it, and I demonstrated by pulling up a sample data screen from the application, and clicking the toolbar button I'd installed to summon the web page. The owner was thrilled, and he offered a fist-bump to me which I was not expecting and was wholly unprepared for. With my right hand trying to demonstrate something on-screen I was left trying to backhand fist-bump with my left hand which turned out as sorry as you might imagine. (Tuesday he even brought in some people from the other office, which isn't as tightly run as ours, to show it off.)
And now what's got me worried is ... if I understand the directions I got from the server guy who didn't know what I was trying to do ... I believe that it's possible the macro I built and the toolbar button I meant to add to just my copy of the software for demonstration purpose may have been made a globally available thing to every customer the company has, including those who have nothing to do with the client this thing is being designed for. No change control, of course, no person in charge of the user interface, no consideration that for nearly everyone the service shouldn't be available and even for then it's still in development states, and never mind that if I understand the setup rightly everyone in the company has the same level of power, even if a good number wouldn't have any idea how to program. I'm certain the macro I wrote is available company- and probably customer-base-wide now even if it's not embedded in the software. This can't be right but I don't see where I'm wrong, either.
Trivia: Two-thirds of all cornstarch is used to make paper and cardboard. Source: Twinkie, Deconstructed, Steve Ettlinger.
Currently Reading: Scandal! Amazing Tales Of Scandals That Shocked The World And Shaped Modern Business, Editor Cait Murphy. I think. It's a collection of articles from Fortune magazine from the 1930s up through Bernie Madoff, so while who wrote each piece is clear who collected them is less so.