.:: Yolospat ::.

Work has been busier this weekend then it has for a long time. I’m merely “on call” which means I only get called if there is a “Priority 1″ or “Priority 2″ system outage. Mainly, one of our sites has to be completely down, or partially down. This weekend, it seemed like everything was down, especially the last 48 hours. I’ve gotten calls back to back all throughout the night up until this morning. I feel bad because my poor husband got woken up each and every time the phone rang. As for me, I’m exhausted as I’ve had little to no sleep.

The good part about all of this is I get some days off due to all of this. I have a doctors appointment Tuesday at the FFC with Dr. C anyway, so I’m going to take that day off for sure.

I’ve been lax with updating my wordpress plugin’s and such lately too so I plan on getting my site all up to date today. I’ve also finished a few afghan’s that I’ve made for friends which need a few finishing touches and hopefully I’ll get those out in the mail this week. Pictures coming soon on that.

Now for WP maintenance.

I’m so frustrated with my job. Sometimes, especially when I feel like I’m putting 150% into my job, I’m getting -50% back. Because I’m one of two people that knows how certain things work around here technology wise, I work more and spent more time on getting the problems fixed because problems don’t go away, and our department doesn’t exactly grow in size. In fact, it seems to get smaller. I’m not the only one here that feels this way.

It’s frustrating. I was asked to research out a problem today that I had already exhausted my resources on. All fingers pointed to one individual to fix the problem. I was told not to dump this problem on this individual, so I went to seek help from other individuals. They all said “Ask IndividualIAmNotSupposedToAsk” … nice. Nothing like being a ping pong ball. I think more time/effort is spent on politics then the actual issue. This has been such a problem lately. I’m so not down with drama, or the politics, I just want to do my job and make technology work. I like technology, but it’s only nice when it works, ya know? That’s my job. I fix things. Being completely frustrated with that I set that problem aside.

Then I get a call. It was one of those arrogant men who thinks all woman are secretaries if they are in IT, because they just aren’t smart enough to “actually” be in IT. I just love those types, you know, they talk to you like they are leaving a message on an answering machine. Anyway, this guy was telling me about a server of his, and why it wasn’t working. It’s a Linux box, right? He was getting the error message “Boot device not found” .. he wanted to know what to change in the BIOS because he thought it was a hard drive problem. I wanted to make sure the hard drive was getting power and he says he was positive that that CDROM was. Caught off guard, I asked him to tell me what he tried. With a snooty tone he says he threw the Windows XP Boot CD in the drive and was able to install Windows.

:: head desk ::

When I was silent (more so in shock) he told me, he has Degree’s and he knows what he’s doing.

I’m so ready to go home.

This is what I have learned about putting in the extra effort at work the last few months.

1. Your a fool for doing it.
2. Comp time is something that doesn’t exist.
3. You just got used.
4. You need to find another job.

What has this job done for my boss? It’s turned him into a liar. My boss is also a friend of mine (was?). I guess I’ve lost a lot of respect for him.

Sad.

I’ve been “boss” this week at work because my boss is on vacation. When I say “boss” I don’t mean being drill sergeant yelling at staff while holding some scary looking stick threatening to pound anyone’s face in who even hints at slacking off. I mean, make sure all work is done and bosses boss is pleased and doesn’t yell. At least too much.

The bulk of what I’m doing are the jobs and tasks I never really wanted to deal with before, because it would have taken some actual thought and I would have had to logically thought about something. I used to just “leave those” to my boss who always used to “take care of those jobs” .. well, guess who’s taking care of them now? Guess what. They aren’t so bad. In fact, they have become quite fun. Weird. Someone has to do them. They take patience sometimes. They are really fun sometimes. My appreciation for those jobs had totally changed. I’ll probably continue to do these takes after my boss gets back. I sort of feel bad for slacking on those before. Whatever. Moving on.

I’ve been saying “moving on” lately too. I would send out department emails, someone would be defensive about something, and I would reply “moving on” or “moving forward” because frankly I don’t care about excuses, I don’t care about setting the story straight about who did what and when. What I care about is did A, B, and C get done? If it did, I really don’t care how. Smile!

I think that everyone needs to be boss for a week because it’s opened my eyes up to everything my boss puts up with. I have a new appreciation for his position and I feel like I’ve held together what could have easily fallen apart. I even got kudos from the bosses boss, so stick a fork in me, I’m done!

I have been, BUSY. So busy that I’ll be writing to my advisor tomorrow to drop one of my classes. I think I’m going to drop Java, I think. I’ve been staying late at work mostly due to our lack of competent support staff. I’ve had to fix a lot of mistakes lately for people. It’s extremely frustrating. I’ve been handed this huge job of configuring and maintaining the Altiris Helpdesk, including custom automation, setting up notify rules, and building custom forms that integrate into the software and database itself. I’m not a DBA, but I feel like I’m soon becoming one.

The other night I was playing around with Ruby on Rails. It was a lot of fun. Even with all my web development experience, I never really learned about database stuff. I just knew how to set up MySQL to work with whatever web application I needed. After playing with Ruby on Rails I learned a great deal about SQL syntax and how to install, and create databases (through command line). Fun stuff. Dangerous for me however, because my idea bank really starts to expand when I learn new things. When I get to work Monday my head was exploding with all these idea’s for Altiris Helpdesk and how I was going to make it rockin’. I’ve already done some code customization work to it that was noticeable to everyone right away so that was good. Even a little encouragement and the idea’s in my head explode. That’s where I get into problems. I have to start one idea and take it all the way, then start another idea. I tend to switch what I’m doing about every 5 minutes, it even annoys me. Point is, there are some things I want to start working on now, like the custom forms but that’s not exactly the most important or demanding feature they want implemented.

So when I learned that the IT Director wanted to get the email notifications and automation running first I thought, shit. I’m going to have to document all of this. My mind works with visuals so to make these automation tools the idea’s explode but if I don’t get them down in a flow chart of some kind I get lost and I can’t keep up with my brain. So I spend a lot of today writing those logic flows out, and I spent a lot of that time being completely distracted with down systems and down networks.

I’ve been so busy dealing with work fires (you know, shit just breaks sometimes) from our sites it’s emptying my tank fast. I was on a conference call for 2 hours tonight, and on the phone with network engineers for an hour and I wasn’t done working on putting these fires out until midnight. That’s a 14 hour day today people and keep in mind that I’m a full time student. Yesterday I wasn’t done until 10 PM. Do not want fires, I want to work on these projects and get my homework done and stuff.

I’m still not feeling well.

Well, it was sort of made of win. Pepper went to the vets to get his cast off today. After taking xrays his vet decided that his little bone isn’t quite healed good enough and they put another cast back on him for the next 2 or 4 weeks. Poor little guy, I’m sure he’s forgotten he even has 4 legs.

Other than that, it was a great day at work. I’m getting a lot done, and I have some huge projects on my plate for the week which feels great. I also got a raise, and I happen to be one of the two in my department that aren’t … :: cough :: … leaving the company not by their choice soon (if you know what I mean).

So what does that mean? That means I get more money, and they think I’m a smart valuable cookie. That makes me feel good
Got Brendan a new phone today too since he put his through the wash. It’s an LG Shine (black). It’s amazing how phones really haven’t come super far, of course when they aren’t iPhones.
Finals going on today and tomorrow. I haven’t been playing WoW because of this, and because I have to pull off at least a B in these classes. I miss WoW

My job has been frustrating lately and I’ve been really whiney about it. It ranges everyday with every issue. Overtime it just becomes defeating. I talked to my boss about it yesterday and my bosses boss today. Talk about a breath of fresh air. My bosses boss is always one to vomit positiveness and he didn’t fail this time even mentioning that I’m one of the most valuable people in my department. He doesn’t usually say those things lightly.

Ultimately this isn’t what I want to be doing all my life. The IT support/tech/network field. I’m a software geek, I want to make and create.

I need to finish school first.

I did get sleep last night. Stupid sleep, I hate sleeping. Waste of time! I could get so much more done and I could learn so much more without having to depend on sleep.

I have really really awesome bosses. I’ve been lucky in that sense.

More upbeat entries later ..

So, I broke down and bought another power adapter for my Macbook Pro aka Lexi. See, Lexi goes everywhere with me. I don’t go many places. I don’t have much of a life other then work and school. When I’m not at work, you can find me in my front room office working away on homework consisting of some Java program while pulling out my hair but eventually the light bulb goes off. This meant I was unplugging my power adapter to lug it to work where I would plug it right back in. After a few months of doing this I’ve noticed a lot of wear on my power adapter. It’s just so much easier to unplug while leaving the power adapter plugged in and simply plugging into a new power adapter at work. It’s going to save my wear and tear too, and I’ll stop hitting my head on the bottom of my desk when I’m either plugging or unplugging from the power strip.

I’m trying to make my life easier, I really am.

Speaking of Mac products, I got a mighty mouse for my MBP and after a few weeks it would stop scrolling down. I was within my 30 days of purchase so I simply took it back to Bestbuy and got a new one. Then this new one did the same thing. I should have googled it the first time, but it’s a simple fix. The little roller-ball gets dirty see, so to make it clean I did this:

1. Turned mouse off so it didn’t cause havoc all over my screen.
2. Got a new blank piece of printer paper and laid it flat on my desk.
3. Turned the mighty mouse upside down and went up and down the sheet of paper with the roller ball.
4. I’m horrible at explanation, here watch this video.

Thanks little man. I just might subscribe to you.

I think I’ve known this for a long long time, but today it’s been present in every way possible. I’m ready for a career change. No no, I’m still a geek and the computer industry will always be my passion. I’ve been doing tech support since 1998 and at this point in the game, I’m completely burnt out. It’s just not what I want to be doing. My focus in IT has always been development and programming and with school I’m making the necessary steps to get to that point but more then ever I want to find an entry-level position in that field. Something to get my foot in the door, and eventually my life long dream of being a Software Engineer at Google.

So, I’m going to start looking for something. The tricky part is the time in between paychecks that might be hard, but at the same time, we just got our tax money back and we threw that into savings and paid off our credit card.

Baby steps are always hard for me. I always want every thing to happen fast but like anything big, it’s a slow process especially to work toward the end goal.

I have the next week off from school which is a nice change but I’ve been filling up my extra time with WoW which might not be the best idea.

I was going to have a BBQ this Friday with all the people from work, but I’m starting to second guess that and since I haven’t advertised it I might just forget it all together. I overheard a work friend today putting tech support down and it just put a bad taste in my mouth since he’s been a friend for years. In fact, I’m the one that trained him when he first came to the company. I guess you can’t always trust every one.

There is a classic problem I see day in and day out in my job which is not only frustrating but counter-productive in a way. Let me give you the scenario.

A service on a server goes down, thus causing several of our sites to down. We have 4 different IT guys with their hands in that server all restarting the same service that went down all in a matter of minutes. They are all thinking that this server “omg restarted itself and I didn’t do it” when it was really just another IT guy restarting the service. I have to admit, I logged on and saw all services running, then I saw them restart. I figured it out right away what exactly was happening and by looking at who was logged into terminal services confirmed my suspicion. Oy.

You know how when you disturb an ant pile, all the ants start running around in circles trying to fix and repair that damage. That’s IT here.

It’s frustrating. We have procedures in place for a reason. I wish I could do something about it.

You know what’s extremely frustrating? People who don’t even try to read directions, or do things for themselves. They just ask other people without putting any work into finding the answer.

I created a wiki here at work, for easy access to FAQ’s, procedures, bug fixes, and contacts. I have one co-worker that not only refuses to bookmark the site, but will ask me, Jen, what is the number for so and so. Jen, this site is getting timeout errors. Each and every time, with the upmost patience I direct him to the wiki site, and step by step I show him how he can find this huge database of information right at his finger tips. It never fails, 10 minutes later, the wiki is closed and he’s asking another question that seeks an answer, and ironically that answer is found on page one of the wiki. The same page that comes up each and every time he clicks on that wiki link.

Sigh.

Everyone who knows me (mostly) knows that my ultimate dream is to work at Google. Every once and a while I’ll go to their job site to see if there is anything new and/or exciting. First place I usually head to is the student section where jobs are advertised for new graduates, because one day I will be a new graduate. Google never fails to deliver.

In my visit this morning I learned they have a Google HQ in Atlanta. That is just way too cool. This is just a dream for me now, but one day I hope to accomplish it and for that to happen we would have to move. Again. I hate moving. This solves everything.

So, thank you Google.

Since I’m working the night shift for next week, and I’m assuming the next 3 weeks, I’ve come to realize a few things.

1. Everyone is in bed when I’m ready to talk and jabber. The dog knows more secrets than he should.

2. The minute I’m about to go to bed in the morning (around 6-7am), I’m bound to get a work call. It’s unenviable.

3. Night time, especially around 4am, is the best farming time in WoW.

4. I have lots of quiet time.

5. I have the next 3 days off.

6. My “day” consists of 2 different days since I’m up from around 4pm to 7am. It’s really hard to tell what day it “really” is. Wait, what’s today??

7. I really miss insomniac movie theater on VH1, or was it MTV?

8. When I’m ready to go get my oil changed, I can’t find a 24 hour oil changing facility. What do the rest of the people who work night shift do when they need to get their oil changed?

Anyway, it’s different and weird. I haven’t worked the night shift in a year or something. I forgot about the silence of it, or the oddness. I’m a night person by nature. Night time, this time, these hours, are my prime time. I can wake up so much easier, I can go to sleep so much easier, but, I can’t get anything done.

I have a new boss at work. My previous boss is going to the middle east for the next month, and my former co-worker (now, new boss) is my boss. Good things are going to happen, I just know it. I’ve already been given new projects that I am going to have a blast doing.

Lots of things will be changing, and I can only see them changing for the better. I also started my 401K plan on Monday since my company just offered it to us.

I have new found excitement about my job, this is good.

Interesting night last night … My boss asked me if I could work late to get this certain project done, because of course, it was going live the next day (I’ll never understand why everything is so last minute at my job, but it is, and it drives me crazy). So I agree to it because I actually like overtime. No no, I like the money that comes with overtime, that’s right.

So, I informed my boss, sure, I’ll work on it, but I had to run to the Hollydogs Inn and make reservations for Jonah. Brendan and I were really fighting with the fact we would have to board Jonah especially after I saw the conditions of the boarding area of the last place we put him up in when we went on our honeymoon. Anyway, Brendan found the Hollydogs Inn which isn’t too far away, and it sounded like the perfect place, right? First impression was, it is soooooooooooooooo much better then the last place, but I was expecting more. Whichever the case, Jonah will be happy in his hotel where he can play with other dogs, and I will worry less about him then if we boarded him at the vets office like before. Moving on ..

When I get home, I eat a little dinner, then I get situated, and I let my boss know I’m ready to start working on the project. He said that it should take a few hours and I should be done by 9pm.

Riiiiiiiiggghhttttt.

The project was easy, it was just time consuming and tedious. At first I couldn’t VPN into work, then I couldn’t log in via WiSSH to my computer. After a bigillion calls to different people later, I found out my boss had Marci reset everyone’s password in our team, then failed to inform us of this. So I’m already an hour late starting this project. I’m starting to stress. Then I start to relax, because I wasn’t going anywhere until it was complete.

This is why I went to bed at 3am….. :: yawn ::