(no subject)
I've been asked a few times what I do at work this summer. This post is an attempt to resolve those questions.
Today is by far the weirdest day I've had here at work. And it caps the end of a pretty weird week too.
First, this week was the first week of full-on user training for the room booking software. And owing to Murphy's Law (that anything that can go wrong, will), massive software breakage always occurs during the first week of training. This was no exception.
See, yesterday's training had gone pretty well, if slowly. I wrote down five or six things that had to be changed, fixed them, and as I left all was well. So it figures that today, when I arrived and opened up Outlook, my inbox immediately inflated to twice its size. Seems yesterday, when I had fixed the problems by adding some fields to a form, I had screwed a few other things up, and some users had were getting flustered. John, the head meetings coordinator, had gotten some angry calls and found some other problems of his own, and when the shit hits the fan, the summer intern mops it up.
So I spend half an hour bringing the system back to where it was yesterday. Before training is to start today, John stops by to talk through a few other questions he has about the system. He shows up on time, two bottles of water in hand. One is half empty, and he hands a second one to me. After all, he says, "it's important to stay hydrated." Right.
Training starts twenty minutes later. All is going well;I've only written down two problems that need to be fixed, a record low. Jimmy, the trainer, has clearly hit his stride, and training is all set to get out forty-five minutes early.
Then a computer freezes on an important screen of the program.
Then another.
And before I know it computers are freezing in this lab left and right and the entire room is stopped except Jimmy's computer. I try some quick operations on a computer in the lab to no avail, and run to my supervisor to see whether he can think of anything. But Marc has been tied up with the billing people for the last week and has been on the same conference call for about the last five days (by this point cobwebs are forming on his arms). Marc sends me to Gary, who runs and maintains the physical server where the room booking software resides.
Gary and I sit at his cubicle. We talk about what the problems could possibly be. He restarts the web service inside the computer, which works temporarily. And the freezes start again. I hear a loud crunch from Marc's room, but know I have to get back to training so don't stop to investigate.
By the time I'm back at training, Jimmy is running out of ways to stall. We eke out just a little more time from the server and training ends gracefully - barely. Gary comes in and Jimmy rips into him: Why are you such a bad administrator? Why does your server blow? The scuffle culminates in a mock fight in which Jimmy picks up swivel chairs and pretends to hurl them at Gary. John and I sit in our own office chairs laughing.
I go back to my room to check my e-mail. I pass my boss Marc's room on the way, and Marc is standing at his side table unpacking a new phone.
"Is that what that crunch noise came from twenty minutes ago?" I ask.
"Yeah," Marc says. "I was talking to Bonnie." From accounting. He fishes the crushed phone headset from the trash and hands it to me like a trophy. Pieces of the plastic are missing, revealing wires and small circuit boards hanging out at odd angles, clearly large distances from where they belong.
Jimmy's been eavesdropping and walks in. "I am NOT getting on your bad side," he says.
"Don't worry about it," says Marc. He pauses. "I should have broken the rest of the phone too."
John's been letting me make lunch up in the kitchen lately. When I return with my tuna sandwich, Gary and Jimmy walk in to my office. Gary tells me to open up the room booking software and page over to the Test Room, where users can play with the room booking system with impunity and any reservations will be ignored.
"Why?" I ask.
"Oh, just go," says Jimmy. Famous last words.
Turns out that Gary had taken a photo of me earlier on in the day with his cell phone camera when I wasn't looking. The photo of the Test Room was now my conference room, with me in it, typing at my computer. Nice. Wonder what Marc will make of that.
For an hour or two I'm actually productive. I'm talking to Marc about some questions I'd had regarding the system. That's when the phone rings.
It's PeopleCube Tech Support. See, I had realized that the only way to get them to help me was to report anything that I need help with as a bug. Their support group is so eager to close bug reports that when I report my problems as software bugs, I often receive help the same day as I report them. When I call support to outright ask for help, it takes weeks.
So today's call is regarding the "bug" I had reported where some database calls I wanted to make weren't coming out right, and I wanted some help getting them in the right shape. Next thing I know, my supposed "bug" actually *is* a bug, and the support techs are perplexed, and trying to get me to help them troubleshoot the problem. So I start feeding them information, and -
"Hold it, hold it," says Rick, the tech on the phone. "You're giving me too much information. I'm going to get another tech on the line."
Wow! It's like a slumber party! A great big bug-tracking software-fixing conference-call slumber party!
So now they're talking about getting a remote computer connection going, so they can try to fix our server from their end. And that means getting Gary in on the action, because I don't have login rights to the server on which the software lives. Gary starts yelling at me, the normal "this is going to take way too long and they won't do it right" bit. Indeed, a full hour later, the call ends in defeat.
I run out to an ATM to get some cash to buy one of the computers they're selling to staff for $50. When I return I'm told I can have it for free; I just have to get the CIO, Bob, to sign the paper.
When I go to get it, Marc, Bob, Jimmy, and Vivian (the receptionist) are standing around talking about the impending floor move, and how about I take home my free computer when I help them, hint hint, with the floor move. I tell them I'm going up to Montreal that weekend. So the conversation turns to Montreal. Specifically, Jimmy mentions the strip clubs, which he had heard were legendary. I tell them I don't have much experience with those (which is true) but I can tell them where to get cheap smoked meat, which is a Montreal specialty and like porn for the stomach. They laugh.
That's about when I go back to my office to write this entry. Talk about a day in the life. I am so gone for the weekend.
Today is by far the weirdest day I've had here at work. And it caps the end of a pretty weird week too.
First, this week was the first week of full-on user training for the room booking software. And owing to Murphy's Law (that anything that can go wrong, will), massive software breakage always occurs during the first week of training. This was no exception.
See, yesterday's training had gone pretty well, if slowly. I wrote down five or six things that had to be changed, fixed them, and as I left all was well. So it figures that today, when I arrived and opened up Outlook, my inbox immediately inflated to twice its size. Seems yesterday, when I had fixed the problems by adding some fields to a form, I had screwed a few other things up, and some users had were getting flustered. John, the head meetings coordinator, had gotten some angry calls and found some other problems of his own, and when the shit hits the fan, the summer intern mops it up.
So I spend half an hour bringing the system back to where it was yesterday. Before training is to start today, John stops by to talk through a few other questions he has about the system. He shows up on time, two bottles of water in hand. One is half empty, and he hands a second one to me. After all, he says, "it's important to stay hydrated." Right.
Training starts twenty minutes later. All is going well;I've only written down two problems that need to be fixed, a record low. Jimmy, the trainer, has clearly hit his stride, and training is all set to get out forty-five minutes early.
Then a computer freezes on an important screen of the program.
Then another.
And before I know it computers are freezing in this lab left and right and the entire room is stopped except Jimmy's computer. I try some quick operations on a computer in the lab to no avail, and run to my supervisor to see whether he can think of anything. But Marc has been tied up with the billing people for the last week and has been on the same conference call for about the last five days (by this point cobwebs are forming on his arms). Marc sends me to Gary, who runs and maintains the physical server where the room booking software resides.
Gary and I sit at his cubicle. We talk about what the problems could possibly be. He restarts the web service inside the computer, which works temporarily. And the freezes start again. I hear a loud crunch from Marc's room, but know I have to get back to training so don't stop to investigate.
By the time I'm back at training, Jimmy is running out of ways to stall. We eke out just a little more time from the server and training ends gracefully - barely. Gary comes in and Jimmy rips into him: Why are you such a bad administrator? Why does your server blow? The scuffle culminates in a mock fight in which Jimmy picks up swivel chairs and pretends to hurl them at Gary. John and I sit in our own office chairs laughing.
I go back to my room to check my e-mail. I pass my boss Marc's room on the way, and Marc is standing at his side table unpacking a new phone.
"Is that what that crunch noise came from twenty minutes ago?" I ask.
"Yeah," Marc says. "I was talking to Bonnie." From accounting. He fishes the crushed phone headset from the trash and hands it to me like a trophy. Pieces of the plastic are missing, revealing wires and small circuit boards hanging out at odd angles, clearly large distances from where they belong.
Jimmy's been eavesdropping and walks in. "I am NOT getting on your bad side," he says.
"Don't worry about it," says Marc. He pauses. "I should have broken the rest of the phone too."
John's been letting me make lunch up in the kitchen lately. When I return with my tuna sandwich, Gary and Jimmy walk in to my office. Gary tells me to open up the room booking software and page over to the Test Room, where users can play with the room booking system with impunity and any reservations will be ignored.
"Why?" I ask.
"Oh, just go," says Jimmy. Famous last words.
Turns out that Gary had taken a photo of me earlier on in the day with his cell phone camera when I wasn't looking. The photo of the Test Room was now my conference room, with me in it, typing at my computer. Nice. Wonder what Marc will make of that.
For an hour or two I'm actually productive. I'm talking to Marc about some questions I'd had regarding the system. That's when the phone rings.
It's PeopleCube Tech Support. See, I had realized that the only way to get them to help me was to report anything that I need help with as a bug. Their support group is so eager to close bug reports that when I report my problems as software bugs, I often receive help the same day as I report them. When I call support to outright ask for help, it takes weeks.
So today's call is regarding the "bug" I had reported where some database calls I wanted to make weren't coming out right, and I wanted some help getting them in the right shape. Next thing I know, my supposed "bug" actually *is* a bug, and the support techs are perplexed, and trying to get me to help them troubleshoot the problem. So I start feeding them information, and -
"Hold it, hold it," says Rick, the tech on the phone. "You're giving me too much information. I'm going to get another tech on the line."
Wow! It's like a slumber party! A great big bug-tracking software-fixing conference-call slumber party!
So now they're talking about getting a remote computer connection going, so they can try to fix our server from their end. And that means getting Gary in on the action, because I don't have login rights to the server on which the software lives. Gary starts yelling at me, the normal "this is going to take way too long and they won't do it right" bit. Indeed, a full hour later, the call ends in defeat.
I run out to an ATM to get some cash to buy one of the computers they're selling to staff for $50. When I return I'm told I can have it for free; I just have to get the CIO, Bob, to sign the paper.
When I go to get it, Marc, Bob, Jimmy, and Vivian (the receptionist) are standing around talking about the impending floor move, and how about I take home my free computer when I help them, hint hint, with the floor move. I tell them I'm going up to Montreal that weekend. So the conversation turns to Montreal. Specifically, Jimmy mentions the strip clubs, which he had heard were legendary. I tell them I don't have much experience with those (which is true) but I can tell them where to get cheap smoked meat, which is a Montreal specialty and like porn for the stomach. They laugh.
That's about when I go back to my office to write this entry. Talk about a day in the life. I am so gone for the weekend.