Minimum Viable Trespass

Now and then, a flock of wild turkeys visit our backyard.

Now and then, so do a couple of turkey vultures.

In five years, I’ve never seen both of them in the yard at the same time, until Monday morning, when I popped my head out of the back door to see why the dog sounded so happy; he makes a distinctive “FRIEN! FRIEN!” wurfle-chirp noise when he sees a little kid or another animal.

He was excited about our vulture couple, who were perched on the back fence looking like they were chatting with the neighborhood wild turkey flock who were turkeying around in the grass behind it. The vultures ignored him but hopped off the fence to join the turkeys when I wandered over. The turkeys didn’t seem bothered by their presence at all and continued to strut around in the weeds as if it was just another day.

None of the unexpected visitors seemed ruffled about having been caught trespassing, though I suppose it could be argued that we were the ones trespassing, and at least some of us had been doing so for five years.

My contract ended yesterday, which was half-expected. Initially, the customer had given written notice expressing their intent to exercise the next option year, but they changed their minds two weeks later, then thought about changing their minds in full or in part for the remainder of our time there.

As a team, we assumed that the initial ‘no’ meant ‘no’. Most of us then spent a month tying off features in progress and tidying documentation.

I had to go the opposite direction, move out of an application suite’s requirements and design phase, and build a minimum viable product (MVP) of one of its key components before I transitioned off the contract. The intent was to give the client stakeholders something they could play with a model they could reference while working with my team’s replacements.

Surprisingly, the lead stakeholder enjoyed the MVP so much that he requested that I put it into production before I left. This was a serious well, okay … are you sure? for me, but he was certain, so I got it done, and all of the new live environment assets handed over with the rest of the project materials.

So, now … what? I’m another corporation’s employee for a change instead of working for my tiny little company, and they’ve given me a spot on a bench for two weeks while they figure out what I can do for them next. Fortunately, they have quite a few open roles, so I’ve been sitting here interviewing instead of constantly checking my phone to see if I can feed some of my popcorn to the local wildlife or, more importantly (in his opinion), the dog.