Why Am I Angry?

No--seriously, it's a valid question today.

Brief background: we have two buildings--Hyde Park and downtown. The downtown building is staffed Monday thru Saturday; I get most of the Saturdays, but part of my job is ALSO to cover for the evening-shift person downtown when he schedules a day off. So this Tuesday just past, I was informed by my boss that this had happened, and that I'd be working 1 PM-9:30 PM downtown on Friday.

Well, pleh, I said, because this means that I leave downtown at 9:30, arrive home at 10:15, and am then expected BACK downtown at 8 AM Saturday morning. Again--pleh. But whatever. I can deal. It's part of the job.

Anyway, on Thursday, as I walked in, three separate people including my boss asked me "Hey, is Bobbi Smith's computer ready yet?" I had two builds in the works--Bobbi Smith and Joe McBlow. I knew Joe McBlow was scheduled to start on Monday, and so I had to have his machine done by the end of the day; nobody had told me anything about Smith, but when three people ask you about something as you walk in the door, you sort of assume that it's high-priority.

So I spent the morning and early afternoon working on Bobbi Smith's computer. As I finished it up, I came across the note on the bottom of the final page of the spec sheet: This machine will be set up in the user's home in St. Paul, MN. Which means that there was absolutely, positively NO rush to it--I didn't have to break my neck to get the machine done after all, because the user wasn't even expecting it yet.

Along with the change in priority, the fact that someone's computer is going offsite means OTHER things change as well. It's the sort of thing I should know BEFORE I start, not after I finish. I spent way too much of the rest of the day trying to find out what I now needed to change, what I needed to do to fix it, and why, exactly, I wasn't notified of this beforehand. No one seemed terribly sympathetic or interested in helping me solve the problem. As a consequence, I only got to work on the McBlow machine at about 4:30 PM.

There are two ways to set up a computer if it's been used before--one quick but corner-cutting, one slow but correct. Normally I'm all about correctness, but I had two hours to get this computer configured start to finish...so yeah, I took the quick-and-dirty route. To be fair, I tested EVERYTHING before I declared it was finished, and everything worked.

I asked Max, my cube-mate, to do the quality check for me and deliver the machine on Friday while I was gone. He said that was fine, he'd take care of it. So Friday at 1:00, when I got downtown, I checked my mail and found a note from McBlow's supervisor, asking if the machine would be ready for Monday. I immediately e-mailed Max to ask what the progress was, and I got a one-liner response:

"Erwin had to rebuild it."

HUH? I said, and picked up the phone to call Max. "What happened?" I asked.

"I dunno--I came in this morning and he was working on it. He said it was supposed to be a full rebuild, not just a new profile."
"Okay, yeah--but how did he even know that's what I did? I never asked him to TOUCH that computer," I said.
"Nobody tells me anything," said Max.

So I called Joe. "What's the deal with Erwin rebuilding the McBlow computer?"
"What are you talking about?" Typical Joe--he's always the last one to know.
"Erwin is rebuilding the McBlow computer, even though I never asked him to look at it, because he says it's supposed to be a full rebuild. But he's not on that ticket and he has no business inspecting my work."
"Well...why didn't you rebuild it?" (Okay, granted, this is the six-million-dollar question. I -should- have. But I didn't.)
"Mainly because I ran out of time from working on the other machine, and figured as long as I wiped all the files from the previous user and tested everything, I could get it done faster..." (Hey, at least I'm honest.)
"Okay," he said. "But I don't know anything about it."

Finally I called Erwin. Now, if you'll remember, Erwin and I don't get along well. I find him to be an insufferable, complaining jerk who's only out for himself and has no sense of teamwork whatsoever--and he irritates me. He's the only one of my colleagues I actively dislike. So for HIM to be the one ratting me out, or making me rat myself out, makes it a billion times worse than if it were Alex or Max. So I asked him, "What's going on with the McBlow machine?"

"Well, you were supposed to rebuild it, not just add a new profile."
"Yeah, but everything worked when I tested it."
"I tried ApplicX and it didn't work, and then I started looking around and realized it was just a new profile, so I figured I'd rebuild it just to get it done."

Small problem: ApplicX worked FINE when I checked it. And that STILL doesn't answer the main question: What the hell was he doing looking at MY work anyway? I don't check HIS work without being asked--what made him think he was supposed to look at mine?

So, back to the original question: am I angry...
a) ...at myself for getting caught taking a shortcut, especially because it's something I don't normally do?
b) ...at Erwin for messing with my stuff without reason?
c) ...because it was Erwin who found MY shortcut and exposed it?
d) ...because Erwin is a colossal ass-blister who can't even get his OWN work right, so what the hell is he doing calling ME out on MINE?
e) ...all of the above?

I think it's e--all of the above. But from now on I'm carrying my cabinet keys with me; if someone needs something out of my desk when I'm not there, that's just going to be too damn bad.