April Showers
Wow, is April almost finished? Where the **** did it go?
I might ask the same question of the first third of 2009. The work projects (and their aftermath) have kept me hopping, along with also being the go-to guy for various system outages we have at work (voice-related). I really need to get my team feeling more confident, especially since there will be periods this year where they will NOT be able to reach me at all. That I think will be the biggest challenge. I think it will also be in some degree a measure of self preservation and guarantee of marital happiness.
The last outage, which began when I was in Scottsdale on business, stretched from Wednesday to Friday. I had team members working on it at first, but then I had to step in first when I was still in Scottsdale and it was late at night there (wee hours in Pittsburgh), then fret on the plane ride, then work on it again over Thursday into the wee hours and for hours on Friday.
What irks me the most about situations like this is the business users always demand an ETA. Never ask, demand. Never mind that any ETA in a situation with a pile of unknowns is a pile of bullcrap, they still want one. So my mistake was giving my hubby an ETA. When the one hour turned into three and a half I had fears of being relegated to the doghouse. It was a close thing, the only thing saving me being we don't have a doghouse.
The challenge next week is the post mortem, which entails root cause analysis, strategy to prevent a recurrence, identifying skill-set gaps, and then talking to the affected user groups about all of the above. They're not interested in reason, they just don't want to feel the pain anymore. Can't say as I blame them, but I do wish people would be reasonable.
Our installation of a new IP phone system continues to drive me insane as well. There are still plenty of ghosts in the machine. It all screams local area network issues, but I have a bunch of data network engineers who fall into the classic bucket of guys who don't understand voice and have a complete mental block. The only thing that will save me is that every other application in the facility is also in major pain due to the network. I think it could be very interesting once the $^*% really hits the fan how they address this issue.
On a side note, the trip to Scottsdale wasn't a complete dread-fest. I got to deepen a vendor relatioonship, meet some interesting people not related to work (general bear community there), and hit a wonderful place called Fogo de Chão. It's a style of restaurant called a churruscaria or Brazilian steak house. It's a gourmand's dream come true: the salad bar is well appointed with luxury vegetable fare as well as conventional vegetable fare, prepared salads, cheeses, and cold cuts. When you're ready for the main course, the gauchos bring out mashed potatoes and polenta and fried bananas, but that pales next to the skewers of roasted meats that they bring to your table, where you can choose rare to well done from the same skewer. I found you have to be very quick with the coaster they give you that says in Portugese, "No, thank you."
So far the stress of work has been wreaking havoc on my digestive system. I have had an endoscopy (minor stomach irritation, so the Nexium is working), an ultrasound (no gallstones, no tumours), and my next is a gallbladder stress test. They will give me a hormone to cause the gallbladder to contract but with it is a radioactive dye that will light my gallbladder up like a beacon, which they will then scan to see whether efficiency is at <30% (yank the bugger), 30-50% (likely to yank the bugger), or >50% (leave the bugger alone and go for the cardiac stress test...yikes!).
Unrelated to all this, Hugh's nephew and his wife have presented us a new great-niece (Peyton, who has an adorable shock of dark hair). We're still waiting for my sister to go. Her doctor looked at her this past week and declared the child will be at least a nine-pounder. Since Alice was 10 lb 10 oz my mother is looking at recouping her revenge on the pain she got on delivering my sister. Alice is so desperate to go she is trying all sorts of things to induce labour. All that she's succeeded in doing is registering on the Richter scale.
Hugh and I had a great time at the beginning of April at Drenched Fur in Erie. We connected with old friends, met some new friends, relearned how grouchy someone can be without coffee, and raised a wad of cash for the Burgh Bears at an after hours party.
Speaking of fundraisers, we have amassed about $1,500.00 for the Pittsburgh Zoo...in this economic climate, no less!
Time to go and clean the deck now. Maybe that's what I need to do is a monthly contribution.
I might ask the same question of the first third of 2009. The work projects (and their aftermath) have kept me hopping, along with also being the go-to guy for various system outages we have at work (voice-related). I really need to get my team feeling more confident, especially since there will be periods this year where they will NOT be able to reach me at all. That I think will be the biggest challenge. I think it will also be in some degree a measure of self preservation and guarantee of marital happiness.
The last outage, which began when I was in Scottsdale on business, stretched from Wednesday to Friday. I had team members working on it at first, but then I had to step in first when I was still in Scottsdale and it was late at night there (wee hours in Pittsburgh), then fret on the plane ride, then work on it again over Thursday into the wee hours and for hours on Friday.
What irks me the most about situations like this is the business users always demand an ETA. Never ask, demand. Never mind that any ETA in a situation with a pile of unknowns is a pile of bullcrap, they still want one. So my mistake was giving my hubby an ETA. When the one hour turned into three and a half I had fears of being relegated to the doghouse. It was a close thing, the only thing saving me being we don't have a doghouse.
The challenge next week is the post mortem, which entails root cause analysis, strategy to prevent a recurrence, identifying skill-set gaps, and then talking to the affected user groups about all of the above. They're not interested in reason, they just don't want to feel the pain anymore. Can't say as I blame them, but I do wish people would be reasonable.
Our installation of a new IP phone system continues to drive me insane as well. There are still plenty of ghosts in the machine. It all screams local area network issues, but I have a bunch of data network engineers who fall into the classic bucket of guys who don't understand voice and have a complete mental block. The only thing that will save me is that every other application in the facility is also in major pain due to the network. I think it could be very interesting once the $^*% really hits the fan how they address this issue.
On a side note, the trip to Scottsdale wasn't a complete dread-fest. I got to deepen a vendor relatioonship, meet some interesting people not related to work (general bear community there), and hit a wonderful place called Fogo de Chão. It's a style of restaurant called a churruscaria or Brazilian steak house. It's a gourmand's dream come true: the salad bar is well appointed with luxury vegetable fare as well as conventional vegetable fare, prepared salads, cheeses, and cold cuts. When you're ready for the main course, the gauchos bring out mashed potatoes and polenta and fried bananas, but that pales next to the skewers of roasted meats that they bring to your table, where you can choose rare to well done from the same skewer. I found you have to be very quick with the coaster they give you that says in Portugese, "No, thank you."
So far the stress of work has been wreaking havoc on my digestive system. I have had an endoscopy (minor stomach irritation, so the Nexium is working), an ultrasound (no gallstones, no tumours), and my next is a gallbladder stress test. They will give me a hormone to cause the gallbladder to contract but with it is a radioactive dye that will light my gallbladder up like a beacon, which they will then scan to see whether efficiency is at <30% (yank the bugger), 30-50% (likely to yank the bugger), or >50% (leave the bugger alone and go for the cardiac stress test...yikes!).
Unrelated to all this, Hugh's nephew and his wife have presented us a new great-niece (Peyton, who has an adorable shock of dark hair). We're still waiting for my sister to go. Her doctor looked at her this past week and declared the child will be at least a nine-pounder. Since Alice was 10 lb 10 oz my mother is looking at recouping her revenge on the pain she got on delivering my sister. Alice is so desperate to go she is trying all sorts of things to induce labour. All that she's succeeded in doing is registering on the Richter scale.
Hugh and I had a great time at the beginning of April at Drenched Fur in Erie. We connected with old friends, met some new friends, relearned how grouchy someone can be without coffee, and raised a wad of cash for the Burgh Bears at an after hours party.
Speaking of fundraisers, we have amassed about $1,500.00 for the Pittsburgh Zoo...in this economic climate, no less!
Time to go and clean the deck now. Maybe that's what I need to do is a monthly contribution.