This Video Sums Up My Work

Simply said, I run each and every time my servers do something like this. My employees DO throw things when things go down. Change this man into a woman and it's me!

&*&*#&!*(#()$#) (Insert Swear Words Here)

Some days it isn’t even worth it. Some of the most basic things that need to be answered, can’t be answered. And when I have a hundred and one things that need to be done, the damn freaking ass boss just starts this crap “I don’t know what to tell you” and “I don’t know” and “I don’t have an answer”. Well, it’s simple – do you want to spend the money or do you not want to spend the money? Do you want me to just patch things together as we always do or do you want to do it the right way? Do you want me to work here forever and ever and ever like a freaking ass slave, or do you want me to be like a human being and actually work a regularly scheduled week?

 

How can I continue to support technology that I have no say in and no control over? It’s insane. I need things and I need things approve. I need decisions – not non-committals. This is ridiculous. We have a $20 million + budget and I can’t even get a $4,000 server approved. But yet wave a freaking new blackberry in his face and suddenly it is a must have!

 

What happened to what the real needs are? What happened to listening to what is right? What happened to TELLING your staff what you want and not letting things just hang in the air forever and forever and forever.

 

This is bullsh$t. There is no freaking way someone can work like this month after month after month. There is no way that someone can expect to be nice and kind with month after month of this sh!t.

 

And now, I get a freaking book that I’m supposed to read and do “homework” assignments because I’m a supervisor. Well, I don’t supervise anyone and I can’t make any decisions, why should I have to do homework? Do I really want to read Stephen Covey’s 8^th Habit book – NO! I don’t have time. I want to have time to get certified. I want to have technical letters after my name that mean something – that say I know what I’m doing. I want to be able to tell stupid technicians that they don’t have to talk down to me because I know what the hell they are saying. Now that means something. That means more than reading a book and doing homework in it. Like I have time for homework?

Maybe I should do the homework over doing the 7 freaking videos that have to be done by October 24^th with freaking pop-up boxes on one of them no less – that the same boss that can’t make a decision can’t seem to write!

Notes from a Holiday Weekend

First, thanks to geeka for sending me this wonderful article. I know that the PG won't ever read it or ever listen to it - but it is so my situation at the office each and every day! http://www.lifeclever.com/jason-fried-working-closely-together-aint-productive/

Now, a couple notes about the weekend:

1. I completed the Steelers/Gatorade 5K in record time ever. I walked mostly (but jogged a good bit) and finished in less than 45 minutes. The time was somewhere near 44:36, but I won't know until offical chip times are in.

2. My sister and her preacher-wanna-be-husband (PWBH) just visit to play wii anymore.

3. My sister has to be bigger than me by now. She is wearing clothes that I stopped wearing and they look awful on her.

4. How long after a wedding are you required to look at wedding things like it is important? My sister brought another "scrapbook" on Sunday and made me and my mom look at it. Plus, the next time we are supposed to see "the wedding video". I thought this would be over by now.

5. I'm sick of hearing the phrase "son of a motherless goose". PWBH just says that way too often and I'm really sick of it. It's a stupid phrase and it totally takes way too long to say it. PWBH thinks it's funny, but it's not - it's annoying.

6. Totals for the prayer - 2 Oh Lords, 4 Oh Gods, 1 Bless your children who are straying (that's me!), and 6 Almighties. Yes, prayer is now a game between me and my mom.

7. I had 5 emails Sunday night to remind me about the phone system at work needing to be changed over. Needless to say, I hardly slept at all on Sunday and I had crazy dreams all related to the damn phones. Thanks to the PG and Stinky to ruin my extra day off.

8. My scanner doesn't work with the Mac! Boo-hoo! More work to do at work. Groan!

Meme? Yep

After four really long days and one huge water main break that may make me wake up early if water isn't ok at work - I'm finally going to get to this Meme that Image Goddess tagged me with a while ago.

The Four Things Meme

Four Jobs I Have Had In My Life:
A Michael's Arts and Crafts Sales Associate (twice - once during undergrad and again when the school loans hit the mailbox!)
Van Driver for a disabilities organization
Toys R Us Cashier (during the Pokemon craze!)
Jack-of-All-Tech-Trades (that's the current one)

Four Places I Have Lived:
Pittsburgh
My Aunt's House in Pittsburgh
My Godparents House just outside of Pittsburgh
Work

Four of my favorite foods:
Sausage
Salsa
Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream
Doritos

Four Places I’d rather be right now:
Walt Disney World
New Orleans
Disney Cruise Line
Toronto

Four movies I can watch over and over:
While You Were Sleeping
Shawshenk Redemption
Any of the three Pirates movies
A Knight's Tale

Four TV shows I like to watch:
Las Vegas
Ugly Betty
Kyle XY
Clean House

Four websites I visit daily:
YouTube
Microsoft
Post Gazette
My work's webpage (it opens up automatically)

Four early musical influences:
Nelson
Madonna
New Kids on the Block
Annie, the musical

Four Computers I’ve Owned:
NEC desktop
Dell Desktop
laptop given to me from geeka
multiple and always changing selection from work now

So, I was guessing that I'm supposed to tag four people - how about two? Sorry, geeka. And, since I gave the whole outline of how I know geeka and Image Goddess - Steamed Puddings you are tagged.

When it rains - it pours

We've had water main breaks at work before. Usually it's not too bad.
Well, follow the link below for what I have had going on at work today.

It isn't bad enough that I have enough work to work the entire Holiday
Weekend -- but now, I can't get out of my building!

"More Raw Footage From Oakland Water Main Break - Video - WTAE
Pittsburgh" The link:
www.thepittsburghchannel.com/video/14013767/index.html?taf=pit

The water has sort of stopped now, but now there are huge chunks of road
broken off and all of the roads here are blocked. We have no way out!

Signs that your "Backup Person" shouldn't be your backup

I have a person who is supposed to be my backup person to network issues. She is supposed to step up and help me when things are not easy and when I can’t just simply do enough things to get things done. It’s actually a joke. It’s a big joke. Really, she doesn’t qualify has help. She doesn’t qualify as backup either. Here are just some ways that you can spot if someone shouldn’t be your backup:

 

1. They need directions with pictures on how to empty out the internet cache.
2. They need directions on how to hit the button that says “CLOSE” on a pop up box.
3. They write emails bashing the technical help desk and send it to the technician that they absolutely bash to pieces in the email and forget to send it to you.
4. They call helpdesk to have them reboot a server because they are afraid (even after they were given one-on-one training by a big-wig Microsoft trainer who knows the network personally).
5. They always offer to help but suddenly are “going to be late” on that day.
6. They don’t respond to important emails
7. They forget how to install printers.
8. They forget how to turn a computer off.
9. They forget that we have updates running automatically at night.
10. They forget to tell you when they have changed toner out so you don’t run out of toner.
11. They bitch about you behind your back.
12. They mess up changing a user’s password.
13. They tell people to go to them first with any problems.
14. They can’t install regular printers, but they can manage to install the color printer for their friends.
15. They install game software without seeing what they were installing.
16. They gave someone the secondary administrator password to a regular user who said they knew what they were doing.

 

 

Ways to Update My Resume

So, my wonderful CEO decided since I have a Masters in Social Work, I need to apply to be a Field Instructor. It’s a non-paid thing and it has an application a mile long. The hardest part is that I have to include a resume. I haven’t updated my resume in ages. But then, there hasn’t been much to update.

 

I can update my job title as here was my progression: Development Associate, Community & Technology Facilitator, Community & Technology Coordinator, and now Technology Coordinator. Wow, how exciting is that!

 

But then, I have to write what I do. So I guess I have to find a way to promote myself as being the technology slave in good terms that sound professional. I guess installing toner for the idiots who don’t know how to install it will be: Performing maintainence and upgrades to hardware. Then, when I have to clean the toner out of printers because someone has managed to break the toner that will be: Creatively enhances usability of hardware.

However, this is already getting boring to me. The easiest way to describe what I do is as slave.

Which leads me to the other gripe of the morning – and it has to do with the damn stress management class I have to go to. In class yesterday, she told us that we choice be pessimists and optimists and that we can control everything. However, I would say, when you entire job is to handle everyone’s problems and their pessimistic issues. I don’t get to hear “Oh this is working so well”. No, I only here “this doesn’t work” and “this never works” and “you never can get this to work right” and “you broke it again” and “you didn’t do this for me”. Yeah, I can really turn those kinds of things around. I wanted to tell this woman it’s a two way street – that if you get shit in, you are going to give shit out. That’s reality. That’s life. There is no way to make shit into floral potpourri!

I Should Be Working - Instead, I'll Blog

Since I haven't blogged a lot of late, I'm going to try to get back on track. It took Image Goddess to get me back on track, although I was reading hers and Geeka's blog almost every day. It was also knowing that someone else was reading my blog. It was a big shock to go to Steamed Puddings to find out that I was even mentioned. So, before you continue on, you might want to read how I was mentioned on Steamed Puddings first... because I'm going to answer how I am actually attached to Image Goddess and Geeka - so if there are more of you out there reading, you know the story.

Of course, we protect our identities. This isn't because we are scared (ok, well, we are sort of scared and if it gets known, our honesty might just drop off and then we would be boring). If I didn't protect my identity, I couldn't possibly talk about my boss the Pocket Gay or complain about my co-working Texxxxx-aas (think of it of how William Shatner says it in Ms. Congeniality).

Ok, back to how the trio of us know each other. Truth is, I've known Geeka since middle school. Yep - we were in chorus together in middle school and we are still friends now. All through middle school, high school, college, and multiple years of post-college education. But I must admit now, I am no longer an academic-minded person. I got my masters in social work (yeah, it makes no sense now...) and I got out into the workforce, working a technology-based job for a nonprofit that likes to give us a salary in peanuts. Through all of those years, Geeka has been there for trips to New Orleans, watching my dog, and all other crazy sorts of things. It has only been the last few years that she moved so close to me that we shout things to each other practically every other day.

It was from Geeka that I met Image Goddess. It was sort of a friend-of-a-friend thing until we had someone else in common - the same odd-Canadian PT guy when we were both hurt and partially cripple. One day, I was there, doing leg lifts for a bad right knee and I looked across the room and this girl looked like someone that I knew. I think we both had that thought, but it was Image Goddess who asked the odd-Canadian PT guy if it was me and then we got to spend a lot of time together in PT. (Between the two of us, I think we have a whole good body and a whole bad body). Image Goddess was there when I practically tried to shove the odd-Canadian PT guy's head in my crutches when he wouldn't let me off of them - and this was for when my LEFT knee went bad while fixing the right knee.

So, maybe I have answered some questions of how three of us know each other. Even though I may be sarcastic here, I'm even more sarcastic in real life - something that I am trying to fix - but that is a blog for another day.

So it ain't so ---

Your Score: Angelic

You scored 70 on cruelty!

Is that a halo above your head? Your cruelness is basically non-existant

Link: The Cruelty Test written by legend1979 on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Something has to be wrong on this test. This can't be right? I'm known as the techie bitch or or the bitch techie -- there is no way that I am angelic. Hell, I strive to be known as a witch and I made a personalized ring tone at work for my phone if the Wicked Witch saying I'll get you my pretty... and your little dog too!

Take the test... and find out how wrong it is!

Reaching a Goal

I've been so quiet of late and there are lots of things going on. There are things that I'm not sure that I'm ever going to post about and then there are other things. But then there is my goal that I finally reached. I've been doign Weight Watchers on and off for three years. We really started it three years ago at work and then they would quit at work. I didn't gain all the weight back, but I didn't really lose any more until it started back up at work. This past fall - enough was enough... I joined up outside of work - which was good because the work group this year was just awful, but that is another story. I thought I would be excited when I lost a total of 50 pounds. It was great and exciting, but it didn't seem as big as this goal. You know those scales at doctor's offices... you have that big weight at the bottom. It has been on a number that I hated so much - and it has been there forever. I know now the next time I go, it has to move down to a smaller number. Now that seems more exciting than a fifty pound total.

One good thing about today

I made my first training video for work with iMovie without needing geeka’s help – and I was able to complete it in under an hour!

 

Bonus gift: I was even able to export it and get it be viewable on a Windows Machine!

Pray for Me

I know – me the most unreligious person around, is asking you to pray for me. Well, I’m going to need it today. Let’s just say, this bad day started out yesterday when I got an email that said, “It looks like the loader might be failing I will give you a call tomorrow.”  This would be our tape autoloader at work. This would be the tape autoloader at work that does all of our backups for all of the servers we have in the building. *This is really bad news!*

 

Since that email, things have just been going down hill – and fast. I have a special eNewsletter that I’ve been working on this department that can only find things wrong. It looks great, but the company we use, for some reason has problems with apostrophes, hyphens, and quotation marks. Of course, this department does not want to rewrite their text because then it will look to “FORMAL” and they are more “informal kind of bunch”. Fine, I can try to figure this one out – it is just an email to the company, no big problems.

 

Then overnight, I got 40 messages from our antivirus software about a full quarantine and items that have expired and items that have not been able to be scanned. WTF? WTF? Yeah, so this scares me and of course no one has ever showed me where on the 10 servers we have where to go look into this. I did this once before, when I only had 3 servers to work about.

 

I have changed 4 passwords this morning and I am booked almost every second of this day with meetings and such. Add to the fact that two coworkers are after my head right now and they just want me gone – even though they were the ones that were entirely wrong. Another coworker is upset at me because I think she is breaking dress code and of course one of the people who wants me head told her that I’m the only one complaining about her clothes (ah, truth is, about 8 people say she wears bathing suits to work).

 

So, maybe I need to pray to the god of computer gremlins. Maybe I need to pray to the god of ‘just let me get thru this day’. I don’t know. But I need it – NOW!

My First Meme

This is my first meme. I've been tagged by Image Goddess who is my PT-buddy and who has been battling the summer-crud that has been going around.

Rules

1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog

Random Facts

• When I was in middle school, I wanted to be a physical therapist/athletic trainer because I was so into sports. Needless to say, I probably would have been able to save myself some grief and money in physical therapy had I done that career path!
• I am one of the first members of my middle school’s Sports Hall of Fame for participating in softball, swimming, and soccer. It is one of the rare things that I still display from my sports life.
• I started to write fan fiction for a television show named La Femme Nikita almost a decade ago and I still write fan fiction based off of that show today. In fact, I would almost say I have a fan base of readers who get nervous if I don’t post at least a chapter a day (if not more).
• I prefer to be around my father’s family rather than my mother’s side of the family. This all sounds nice, but is the most impractical thing for me. My mom’s family is all in the Pittsburgh area while my dad’s family specializes in spreading across the entire United States and moving around quite frequently.
• I used to color in coloring books while in my college sociology class in order to stop myself from falling asleep.
• I love to take photographs and I feel that even with the digital camera, nothing is as good as actual film and photographs. In fact, I really like to take black and white photographs as it is more difficult to do.
• I have published poetry – call it young teenager angst.
• I’m really good at putting the borders together on jigsaw puzzles, but often become too bored to do anything more with the puzzle.

Now, I'm supposed to tag 8 people but the problem is I don’t even read 8 blogs. I have two places that I go all the time and I have not branched out at this time. I know, it’s time to start reading! So, I’ve answered but regrettably, I cannot tag anyone else to continue this on. Any suggestions on fun blogs to read – I’m game for it!

Practical Jokes

Some times I like to pull practical jokes and lately, it has been my pleasure to be able to do this with customized ring tones on our phone system. It is one of the neatest things to be able to do to our phones. I have control of the ring tones and most of them are the normal ring tones and a few fun ones. But there have been so people that just needed specialized ring tones.

 

First there was mine and the “Payroll Bitches” ring tone. I was able to get the Wicked Witch of the West saying “I’ll Get You My Pretty, and Your Little Dog Too”. It’s great – it matches my personality. Along that same time I got our CFO an Elvis ring tone… he sings “I’m All Shook Up” whenever her phone rings. It gives her a smile – which never hurts with the CFO. She controls the money so keep her happy

 

It didn’t end there. I have this woman in the development department named Marci. Her given name is Marcia, but she hates it. Well, I was able to find Jan Brady saying “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia”. What makes this better, is that we got this onto her phone and we turned it ALL the way up. At first, she thought we were doing something to make her phone play that way. She had no idea that it was now her ring tone. She hated it at first, but the nice thing is… she has embraced it as something unique that she can really hear with the ring tone down lower.

 

I tried to get the Facilities Coordinator a new ring tone but he won’t go for it. Often, he saves the day around here, so I was able to get Mighty Mouse’s theme song. You know… “Here I come to save the day!!!!!” It’s perfect for him, but he wants us to record women talking sweet to him. Yeah, he sits next to me so that isn’t going to be happening anytime soon!

 

I also got Mork going Nanu, Nanu… but on one has selected that one.

Of course, when the PG got wind of this custom ring tones and he came up with someone harder for me to do. All these other ring tones were sort of already shortened for me. But no… he wanted a Disco ring tone. Specifically, “Boogie Wonderland”. So the search was one. First, the files really need to be wav files to make this easier. It’s insane to find this, but after about 20 minutes of searching I found a full length version of Boogie Wonderland (that was the real song singing, but not some stupid synthesizer) and then I had to edit it down to a ring of the length of about 4 to 7 seconds. I was able to pull it off and he enjoys it.

 

But now we’ll get to the real practical joke. That would be on Ms. Texas. Yep, my girl Texas who is so against the Steelers its unreal. She is Cowboys through and through. Well, she is on vacation this week and we were wondering what we could do to her. Everyone wanted to decorate her desk, because that’s what she does to us. But, that didn’t seem like it screamed out something we would do. Then I remembered that I wanted to make a Steelers ring tone. Well, it is now done. The ring tone starts out with the fans screaming “Here We Go Steelers” then a robot saying “The Pittsburgh Steelers” and ending with “And The Towels Are Up!”. It’s brilliant! It’s awesome. She is going to hate it. But I know others in this building will use the ring tone too, so I feel that I did something for everyone… not just for a practical joke.

 

And some days, this is what I have to remember. I can work somewhere where we pull jokes like this all the time. I work in a place where I have the power to control the ring tones and the hold music. I have some fun that can make the long days when I want to slap the PG silly. So, I know that I have a long day planned today, but I wanted to share the fun of my ring tones. Who knows what will be next. I will get a feeling someday and just will do it. Maybe I need to get a man recording the “breathless” women for the Facilities Coordinator. Now that would be a hoot!

Why PG's Shouldn't Be Bosses

1. They lie to your face
2. They lie to other people behind your back
3. They like to micromanage.
4. They hate being bothered about stuff that they want to micromanage but don’t know enough about
5. They like to jump the line in a “To-Do List” to be most important
6. They like to make you work on the holiday
7. They think of stupid video concepts that are going to take a gazillion hours to do and not take any of your other work off of you
8. They go to stupid baseball games that they don’t even like in order to socialize rather than work
9. They like to tell you that you don’t need more training
10. They like to get you to do all of their work and take the glory
11. They like to get you to do all of their work and all of the blame when it isn’t exactly done the right way
12. They like to make comments about exercise
13. They notice the color of your toenail polish
14. They call you and leave you messages of music
15. They really, really, really, really like the song True Colors
16. They don’t make anyone else do any work
17. They don’t understand deadlines
18. They are too small to see how big a problem truly is
19. They leave you to deal with political nightmares
20. They let you get so much work that you feel like you are drowning and then they tell you that you are rude and need an attitude adjustment
21. They hire people that should be under you in the chain but decides to make them the same level as you so you have no control over what they do because the PG is the boss and he doesn’t manage the person
22. They suck!

Blah, blah, blah

I have been such a bad blogger of late. It is because as I started to see the light and start planning for my future, I get awful projects thrown onto my desk. I have been swamped with things that are just going to take so much extra time. Some of these used to be things that I liked to do and I would think if I wasn’t under pressure to do, I would like. I would like it even better if I got to make the CREATIVE decisions.

Instead, I am going to be stuck doing a pop-up video to True Colors. Ok, I don’t know if any of you have been to Disney World and Epcot Center during the 80’s. That’s when Michael Jackson was still partially black and mostly liked. His 3-D movie Captain Eeho (or something like) was the rage and would have horribly long lines. But when you got into the preshow, they had this wonderful picture show to True Colors (and I believe it was the Phil Collins version and not the Cyndi Lauper version). It was a stunning piece of artwork and I liked *THAT* more than I liked the 3-D movie. So, even though this sounds good and creative, in the back of my head, I’m thinking that anyone who has ever seen THAT preshow, this is going to suck. And it is stuck in my head. I know how great it was. I remember how stunning the pictures were. I remember the cute little pictures of kittens. I remember the giant balloons soaring in the air. I remember the rainbows and lightening pictures that were featured. There is absolutely NO WAY that mine is going to even be 10% of what that preshow was. It depresses me. It makes me sad. It makes me not want to do it, but I don’t have a choice. The boss has spoken – this is the way it is going to be.

 

So, I plan to get back to my blog. I’ll get rid of the poll that is causing all the popup ads (and since I had to put on a song today for the hold music that wasn’t even in the running, I may not have as much control of the hold music as I thought I did). I’ll do the 8 things you don’t know about me soon. I swear!

 

And then you will get to hear all about the horrible process of making a video that I don’t want to make.

Need Humor

I was going to spend my moment, writing on my blog about how great Grille 36 is. Yes, the restaurant that “The Bus” built, is fabulous – especially if you like portions that could serve 4 people. I call them all “Bus-portions”.  I was actually enjoying time with co-workers and finding it a good day. It is always nice to be appreciated with a meal at a New and Special restaurant.

 

Then, I had to come back to work and actually work. No problem doing that. I answered some emails and addressed some issues about one of our offices and the connection at that location. The internet and network has always been slower there. It isn’t our building and the lines aren’t even really ours. It’s all been kind of ad-hoc’ed together. I’ve troubleshooted problems for months and months… with my boss always saying “Don’t worry about it” and stuff like that.

 

Well, I didn’t worry about it – and what happens? This issue blows up in my face, people believe that I “have done all that I know how to do” – which makes it sounds like I don’t know what I’m doing, and it has gone to the CEO now for “addressing”. It’s crazy… but I have the facts. I have emails. I know what I have done. I know that the only way to fix this problem is to spend thousands and thousands of dollars that none of the departments in that location has the budget to pay for.

So, I’m going to go find humor right now. I’m not going to worry about this issue tonight until the boss response. However, if he does not response or if he does not support me fully on this mess, I will fight back.

 

To prepare, I see a round or two of wii boxing.

You know it is bad......

When the person you need to copy program books that are only 8 pages long… can’t figure it out.

Levity

This describes the week for me thus far. Enough said!

It's That Time Again

I think the time happens about once or twice a week. Sometimes it isn’t as serious while other times, I start actually keeping track of things. The time is when I swear I cannot take this job any more and it is time to move on. I actually start looking for a new job and then realized how truly and thoroughly screwed I am when it comes to looking for a different job. Oh, there is a job at RAND. Oh, the Woodlands Foundation is looking for a Senior Fundraising Director. Oh, that place I never heard of wants an eMarketing Director. Oh – can I actually apply for any of these without lying about my qualifications?

 

I have no certification or stamp of approval that says “Yes, I know how to do this computer stuff!”. I have no proven track record with doing fundraising, because it all goes thru Marci and credit is never divided out. Then, I get worried that I think that I have more skills than I truly do have. I do rely upon help desk to do a lot of the troubleshooting. Half the time, I think I act like a goose with a chopped off head. I never truly know what the answer is. I guess at a lot of things. What kind of place would hire that?

 

There are benefits to what is going on here. I get 17 days vacation. My boss virtually doesn’t do any supervising until he is 4 to 5 months late with the reviews and then he gives the obligatory – your attitude sucks speech. I can create my own hours. I have cool guys at help desk that make me laugh when things are bad. I can talk to Board Members and not have to worry about the stuck-up attitude and entitlement that most Board Members have.

 

But days like this, when my wireless connection might as well be called wireless-less, and when I get ambiguous reports of ‘the state says there is something wrong with our connection’ while there are no hints of any problems – I almost want to high tail it Florida, to work at Disney, where things have got to be easier to understand, where there probably is a boss that would supervise and not let me just hang in this vast wonderland of nothingness.

 

Yep, it’s that time again.