Somedays I Wish My Life were a Documentary
Today I had a disagreement with my manager - he said we never agreed to a certain set of pricing rules in the risk server, and I said we did - specifically at the request of users. These types of things happen all the time for a ton of different reasons, and I'm sure he remembers it as he does because he thinks it was implied that the other things would also be involved. Specifically, when you filter out events based on the data in those events you have to be careful not to filter out too much or too little. Today we were filtering out too little, and his opinion was that he never would have agreed to the rules in place that allowed that data to get into the system.
I begged to differ. I recounted for him the meetings with the users that started the revision of the rules, and what subsequent meetings discussed, and the modifications to the rules as those series of meetings continued - until we arrived at the rules that we now use.
However, it never pays to remind someone that they mis-remembered, so I added in yet another facet to the rules to check for the data that slipped in today. It took me about two hours to get it in all the systems that it was needed, but in the end, it's a better set of rules, and will give the users a higher-quality price feed - which is something that will please everyone.
Had my life been a documentary, I'd have been able to rewind to the date in question, play for him the relevant clip(s), and there would have been no reason for a conflict because there would have been no reason to disagree. Facts make arguments moot. And yet when you start to record things - like meetings, it generally makes people feel very uncomfortable because they instantly know that it's a possibility that they will be shown their poor memories at a later time. This tends to really put a damper on the process.
So while it'd be great, it's not likely to happen. Too bad.