Woooo Hooooo! It was a "welcome" day of sorts!

Now mind you I don't feel that DeJuan gave me a proper "Howdy," but what the hell, it leasts it something. I could have done without his "checkbook" information though. Reading that didn't leave me with a warm fuzzy at all! I guess I'll be letting go of that dead horse, which is a good thing, cause it was getting kind smelly being 17 days old and all.

I've got a little more to say, but I believe it is also "Daily Bitch" material. I heard something on a phone call yesterday. It leads me down a wandering path about personalities. You know, whose got them, who don't, whose bugs you, and possibly, how much your's bug them (GASP!). Is it possble that someone doesn't like you? More about that at another time and another place.

So it's time for me to do the airport thing. Only 2 more flights after this one. Only 4 more days of being away. Only a little more of this situation with expense reports and Amex cards. Will the blog close? Will it end? Nahhh, there will always be something small bugging me and since this has been mostly dealing about work, maybe I'll keep doing it, even when I get back to the "X" becasue there's always something happening there!

Peace out! Word to yo' Moms!

Gosh, You like me! You really like me!

Of course, maybe I present a little diversion into the boredom we know as our employment. First and foremost, Welcome to day 16, of the "I don't think DeJuan likes me much cause I haven't got a welcome note from him" whine. This is the longest running whine on this board! Of course, it may be the only whine in here, but don't worry because I'll be serving cheese later (insert drum noise here)!

Oh yeah, still no Amex Card - Hypocrite alert! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES! WHERE'S MY CARD? Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! Art spending his own money - not happy! This alert is not over - just filtered out. I had a bit of an epiphany last night (much to my wife's chagrin - she got to call me ball-less dork because she knew I would go back without the card). Any ways, I was thinking about this whole card thing. I was told to expect it in 8-13 business days maybe sooner. Hmm, okey-dokey, I'll go with that. Now, if I don't get the card in the mail within the next 3 days (thurs, fri, or sat) then I won't need it. I mean if it arrives Monday, why bother having my wife Fedex it to me? It would take a day or two, so I'll end up having it only for one day? So I'll check with Amex myself!

Call #1 (main corporate Card number)...blah blah...Ok Mr Art...you SS# number only shows one card which is cancelled. What you might want to do is call the application number and see what the status is. (that seems like a good idea) Thank you!

Call #2 (application status number)...blah blah...Ok Mr Art...(I explain ENTIRE situation)..hmm, Okay I see what happen. It looks like the application came in at the same time the card was cancelled. This caused the application to be denied (not processed) because it appeared to the "system" that you already have a card and we don't allow people to have to corp cards in the same name. I see what has happened and I'll approve this application right now. It will take a couple of hours to process but it WILL go out today for delivery tomorrow (so I will have it Friday night). We are really sorry about this, but these situations aren't typical....blah ...blah..Have a nice day!

Ahem! This is the part where I go AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now do I feel better? Nope. Someone is gettin a lump of coal in their stocking this Christmas!

What do I say? Catch you later!

Good day to you!

And then you woke up to the screaming hell that is your life!!! Just kidding, I love my job, no really I do! No wait, get away from me with that needle! I don't want to put on the hug me sweater!

Welcome to day #14 with no "Welcome to my house" from Dejuan. Not that I'm feeling testy or anything, after all, I'm used to the fine mushroom treatment I got from Ed, so why would anything change? My manager (who prefers not to be named in my blog), got an official-type note to confirm a conversation that I had with Mr. Steve. Basically, everyone is all done effective May 31. Niiiicccce! Good thing too! I'm done effective the 23rd and I'm planning on taking some much needed "decompress" time during the week of the 27th. So you folks won't get to see my shiney face until June 3rd.

You know I have to admit, that I'm a bit of a hypocrite. Yeah I know, it's hard to believe, but I went back on my word. See I said that I would come back and stop this whole nonsense if I had to pay out of my pocket, but yet here I am. Ed took his card back, and Dejuan is promising me that his in the mail. What do I do? Quietly acquiece to the whole thing. If Dejuan promised then I'll believe him. Of course I wasn't looking at that other hand that had a tube of KY jelly in it. Needless to say 13 days later and $300 in the hole, here I am. Well at least I have plane fare home, a rental car, and a hotel room. What more could I want? HOW ABOUT THE FUCKING TRUTH ONCE IN A WHILE? HOW ABOUT A COMPANY THAT WON'T BEND YOU OVER LIKE A HORNY SHEEP SHEPARD THEY ARE AND TAKE THE SKINBOAT TO TUNA TOWN???

Okay, that was uncalled for I know. You get the general idea. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. You know what? I don't care. There's a shock right? Speaking of shocks, someone is in for a good one. I wrote by "Lessons Learned" paper today. This is what I'm giving to the managers when I leave. You know how that works, it's everything I observed, my opinions, inefficiencies that could be corrected. Just imagine a politically correct Blog and you have the idea.

Well it's time to get back to the hotel. Later!

Alright! So no post Friday (May 10) since I was building a server AND I left here about 12:30 to go to the airport. Hope everyone had a nice mother's day, especially Ms Gina and my sister-in-law The Liz-ard (as I call her), two of the newest mom's I know!

Now on to the Blog! Had a reletively good flight in, if you don't mind bouncing around the cabin. When we left Roch-cha-cha, it was a bit on the foggy side. The cloud deck was around 150 feet. That was pretty cool watching the planes go "poof" into it. At least until you're on one of those planes. Typical "dick-in-zipper" day the air line though. They had no flight crew (cause they were at the hotel using up their federally regulated sleep time) so they couldn't move the plane up to the gate. Cool, get to go out of the terminal, onto the tarmac (did I mention it was raining?) and wait on the stairs until they finished wheeling Methusalah's grandmother into a seat. Then our 7:40 flight didn't leave the ground until 8:20ish. Just a weee bit behind the schedule. I like a little turbulence, let's you know that you have to have something inherently wrong with you in order to strap into a big silver tube and buzz around the countryside.

Once I got to work, it looked like a good Monday, at least until Mr Lee started cursing. Apparently someone broke his server and you can be sure who is trying to pin it on! Yours truly. What really bothers me, is that I'm hearing it from the other side of the fence. He said some words to Ms. Pat along those lines of idiots screwing up the server, she told him, how could they do that, they you HIS APPROVED documentation. Of course he was not there supervising the whole thing, but come on, this is me. If there was a problem I would have seen it long before he did. It would have cropped up in all the reboots I did. The last time I saw it working correctly HE was working on it. Something smells funny here and it's not my cologne! I feel bad because he's been taking a lot of heat from his fellow co-workers and it may have been me, but I rebooted several times and it worked fine, I almost want to offer my help, but I know that deep in his little red-neck heart he thinks I'm the ignorant fuck responsible for him having to bust a hump to get it working.

Screw it, guilt is for suckers! I did it and I'm glad I did it! You know what? I'll do it again! Well as soon as I figure out what "it" was, I will, mark my words.

Time for dinner - Later!

Hooray! I have something to do! I was talking to Ms. Pat (our tech writer) and was telling her how NOT busy I was and before you could say "can I help you with anything?" I'm proofreading her server build documents. This is great! Not only do I get to review the docs, I get to build servers using the docs (very important) and as an added bonus, my name (might) appear on the docs themselves since I assisted. FINALLY! Something usefull to do! Now onto the really fun part!

See, down here they have two teams, one is deskside and one is Mail/server. Now the deskside get to do some work on the file & print servers, but they have NO rights to the Exchange, BDC, or PDCs. Did I mention that DS cannot even change passwords? Apparently they have NO RIGHTS to the main domain. Oh sure they can add people to the building specific machine domains, much like our ****CR1 (wink, wink), but they have no ability to do anything in the ***MC domain (follow me? I'm using this for an example). See the Mail guys look at the Desktop guys like they are morons and the Desktop guys think the Mail folks are prima donnas!

Now imagine if you can, our chunky little hero arrives on scene with a team of very proficient SAs. Apparently when they create our accounts they add us to the Account Ops group. This allows us to log into the Mail guys special domain. Now in the process of building a BDC, one of the Mail guys who we'll call Mr. Lee, see that I can log in. This immediately confirms his worst fears: A desktop SA has the same rights as him! His panties bunch up and his dick twists up into a knot and he goes crying to his Team lead (I'll go into the infra setup later) and before you can WHAT THE FUCK? I can no longer log into this server. Let me explain why this happened.... See Ms Pat has been working with the teams here to get the docs corrected, created, and generally in order. Well, not everyone is really open to this idea because they have to set aside time for her (see my previous blog about her and the handrails). So Mr Lee is told he has to build these servers as part of this rollout project they (the mail guys) are working on. All of a sudden Ms Pat has a brainstorm and decides to let me and a couple of the desktop guys build the server. Proof positive that the build documents are correct especially if someone who has SOME server experience can do it. Mr Lee is told he has to "supervise" this rather then do it and he freaks and starts babbling on and on about how he is too busy. Next thing you know, Ms. Pat tears the handrails off the back of Mr Lee (mounted their a month earlier for easy access to riding his ass around) and turns them into steel nun-chukas and proceeds to beat his ass down like the whiney little bitch he is. Okay, so what really happened is that when he started whine, Ms Pat said that we (as in him and her) should go over to the appropriate manager's office and discuss it. At that moment he caved and said he would comply. SMACK!! WHO'S MY BITCH NOW??

Now Mr Lee did not take this well at all, you could tell he was fuming, but with no way to get back at her, he struck back at us. Bringing us to where we are today, with your hero in the middle of one really smelly shit storm. Because even if we did have those rights by accident, the PROCESS was not followed to take them away and THAT is the core of this little feces flurry! Now to top it all off, since he pulled my rights, while I was logged in, my profile appears to have corrupted something on the machine, so we have to spend 3 hours rebuilding it so we are sure that nothing is wrong with it. I mean it is a BDC and can't have any mistakes on it, now can we.

Check you later, the wind is blowing in and it don't smell good!!

All right..I'm a day behind! So sue me! It took me that long to recover from the plane ride. The plane ride? Oh yeah!

See a certain admin has been breaking her hump trying to keep up with all the renovations over at ED's house, now that he moved out and DeJuan moved in. So needless to say she had no idea about who to talk to about making travel arrangements. Also, note to all who read this, if DeJuan does anything like his expense reports we are in for a good time. He is a one cheap fucker! (my opinion) So this poor admin who well call "Shelly" works for 3 hours getting just ME travel arrangements for Monday. Since DeJuan decided not to expedite the Amex cards, we can't even book our own travel plan (hotel, air, car). So she finally gets it straight and rather then getting me book on Airtran, DeJuan's folks get me booked on US Air for 3 times the cost of my normal ticket! ON A PROP JOB!

Monday rolls around and I ride a plane (not a jet) for 1.5 hours with a 3rd of my ass hanging off the seat and my left leg in the aisle keeping the other 2/3 out of the middle. FUUUUUUCCCCKKKKK! After this, I have to wait 25 minutes for them to drag my luggage into the terminal! At lease the car was all set and I had a nice ride into the office here. I left the house at 5:30 and walked into the building at 10am. My butt still isn't talking to me. After I talked to Shelly and explained what had happened she again busted her hump to get my tickets moved back to Airtran. Props out to her all the way!

While on my flight, I started getting to thinking about this whole mushroom thing and an evil thought blossomed. A manifesto! Every good revolution needs a manifesto, and so I have drafted one. If you want a copy, e-mail me and I'll get you one. A certain manager who prefers to not be named in my Blogs, has also been doing a good job trying to obtain us info about DeJuan and the quiet treatment he has been giving us. Let me digress a moment on this one thing. See I know bullshit when I smell it, and when I saw that one of the reasons they DeJuan had not spoke to us was that "they did not have everyone's address" and they use L-notes. Hmm, I really don't need to say anything, because many of my fellow mushrooms spoke up. You know what I'm saying here? They never heard of a DL? We have a really special one made just for us? I'm here on a whole nother account and I can send e-mail to everyone who still works for Ed. Nuff said!

As per today (tuesday)? It was quiet today. I did 2 tickets! Wow! Good thing I'm here, because I know that those would have gotten someone in trouble. Mr Roy and I had a little chat today about going home. He mentioned that things had been slow where he's at but it pick's up in spurts. Then we got into the whole "how long are you staying" talk and he made mention that they like having us around because we'll be filling in while some people go on vacation. HUH?? Oh man, now I know I'm done come May 23. I am so freaking out of here! These "guys" are so clueless that they'll be screwed whether we're or not. They need to hire people. Plain and simple. What do we do when one of us goes on vacation? We all team up and pick up the slack! See, I don't think they need us, I think they need to hire people LIKE us working here ALL THE TIME (as in start firing your poor performers - worked for us). Mr Bill was right (not to honk our collective horn) but you guys don't realize how good we are! Save me from shitheads like this!

17 Days and counting! (Till I'm back at the big X and this fun is over) Don't worry, the blog will live on!

Whooo Hooo!

Some dumb shit (who shall remain nameless but you'll know who I'm talking about) figured out today that if he rode with me to the airport that he would not have a way home come Monday! Duhhhhh! I've only been PMSing about this for a week now. No credit card = no plane ticket on Monday. Pretty simple to figure that out, but he only caught on this morning! Although today I just found out that DeJuan got our new paperwork and I should have my new card in 10-14 days. Hmmm...that means I should have it by the 13th? I plan (if it is okay) on coming back (being done with this TDY) near the end of May. Come back for a week or two to Rochester, and then come back here for a week or two? Uhh...riiiiggghhhtt. Of course I've heard a lot of the "locals" here would prefer that Shithead (my new name for the Dick that shall remain nameless in my blog - he lost his Mr title, so I'm a little pissed) go home rather then me. Wow, I'm glad they like me that much and recognize my customer talents. Well either that, or Shithead is no Mr personality. Of course Me staying ain't happening without someone coughing up some sort of incentive (i.e. bonus money, raise, etc.). The novelty done wore off this shit, I don't care how much everyone likes me.

Well I'm outer here! Might be another update today, maybe not. Gotta get home to the wife, get me some quality time! ;)

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Today we are going to talk about leadership. Those who are, those who want to be, and those that are not. We have several fine people leading us in our everyday life, in our jobs and in our private lifes. Let's focus on work today. See if you are designated a manager then you are expected to manage, but if there is no manager, sometimes you are expected to lead yourself, self direction is a good thing. Sometimes in this situation, you may be a group of people with a real manager or you may have a manager, but feel that this person is not your manager, because your manager is in another city. Often times, one of the members may take it upon themselves to become an impromptu manager. I have just personally experienced this. See, sometimes a good manager has to have experience, people must like him or at least respect him, and AGE does not necessarilly make you a manager. On the other hand sometimes people have a tendency do things without thinking, or they have thought about it and they are doing it on purpose to make you look bad or make themselves look better. Case in point:

See when we first started this assignment, we were here for a week (with no IDs for the ticket system) so we had a lot of time to observe the practices in use and ask questions (this is what I did). Now for awhile all us (TDY) were getting together at breakfast and talking. I made mention that I had drawn up quite the list of what I had done this week and sent it to the local manager we are reporting to. Needless to say, when I get settled in to work and I'm getting my message together, what pops into my mail box, but a letter from the SA I had been talking to about my idea, giving a status report for all of us for that week. Wow, what a fucking idea, wish I would have had it! Wait I DID! Well, not really, I was only going to report on myself since I don't want anyone to think I want to be a leader, because we don't need to have one for just 4 of us!

Now flash ahead to this week. I had told all the SAs we were working with that I would like to be the point of contact for this particular project that has had a lot of new machine being re-imaged and set-up (to me it made perfect sense - I mean why have 3 different people handling the machines - makes one person responsible - I thought it was a good idea). So I'm checking the tickets, and here is an order for 4 more machines but the SA in question has ignored my request and is doing them. I told him that I thought I was going to handle those tickets for that project and he proceeds to start getting "huffy" so I figure, I'll drop it after all I have to work with him rather closely for the next month or so. So last night I pick up one of the TDY guys from the train station, and we are talking about how much work we are NOT doing since it seems like we have caught them up. He tells me that he is telling the "higher-ups" that he will be done at the beginning of June. I agree with him, 2 months is a long time from your family and the contribution we are making now, seems very small, I mean we are closing tickets, that's it. I could be doing this back at the "X" rather then here.

Yesterday morning. So we come in and I'm having (what I think is a confidential talk) with the SA in question. He is nodding and agreeing and basically following right along agreeing with what I said. Day continues without incident until about 2 pm, when (according to him) his pager goes off and it's Mr. Bill. Him and Mr Bill are apparently really tight, apparently so tight that this FUCKING ASSHOLE proceeds to tell Mr Bill what I told him (in assumed confidence) WORD FOR FUCKING WORD! Was I evesdropping? No, my cube is right next to him and you would have to be deaf NOT to hear what he says to anyone. I'm shocked, mortified, astounded! Why? Well because, I got part of the information from someone else whom I'm sure did not think it would get "around" to the wrong people. But WAIT, it gets worse! How? Well after he gets off the phone with Mr Bill, I confront him about what he had said and he basically just blows me off. Okay, I deserved that, it's not the first time I've worked with him, and I know this guy is like a mule when it comes to trying to tell him something (won't admit guilt or change when he's wrong). So I go over to talk to Mr Tom (who's been great fun - he's the project manager here on TDY) and explain what just happen when out of the Mr. Steve's cube come ASSHOLE! He just told him! HOW DO I KNOW? Because he stops as I'm standing there talking to Mr. Tom and says to me that if we want to leave at the end of the month just to let Mr Steve know. WHAT? YOU FUCKING TOLD HIM TOO? DOES IT NEVER FUCKING STOP WITH YOU? DID I FUCK WITH YOU IN A PAST LIFE? JUST WHEN DID YOU THINK YOU BECAME MY FUCKING LEADER? WHO NOMINATED YOU TO BECOME THE HEAD OF THE GROUP?

Needless to say I was shocked. I was ready to blow, but I think at that moment my brain cut out and just left me hanging slack jawed in amazement. Mr Tom said I should have popped in the mouth. Oh believe me, I thought about ripping his head off and taking a shit in his skull just so I can say he truly is a shithead! Being the man of cruelty I am, this motherfucker will get his due at a later date. Because I'm going to dedicate some serious free time for some truly great payback. The worst thing is that Mr. Rudell warned me and I failed to heed his advice, now I've learned, the dark side lives in all of us.

-Art "Atomic Wedgie" Crego

Well the day is just about done and nothing really exciting going on here. Looks like some of the migration projects are beginnning to start. Rumor mill has a certain federal dept coming in to start looking over stuff. I've been added to the "move" on-call list. This means that every thursday, they take turns helping customers with moves. Wheeeee! Disconnect & reconnect, disconnect & reconnect. Can't wait, next thursday is all mine!

My buddy Howie strikes again! He fell over and out of his chair! It was hilarious! I heard the crash and stood up and 20 people all did the same thing. All the heads poking over the cubicles like little prarie dogs, so I did the first thing that came to mind. I started clapping and Howie got a standing ovation! He got a little red-faced but he was smiling the whole time.

The family is arriving today for a weekend here. We are gonna cruise DC and then go check out the Baltimore aquarium, it's supposed to be pretty cool.

That's all for now! Have a great weekend!

****note this should have been posted on 4/25 but BLOGGER was having problems****

First and foremost! I've started the "bitch board" so any of you that feel like talking back about what is going on at work, that is the place to do it. You should be able to join the board by finding it and go from there. If you can't get in, then e-mail me and I'll send you the invite, which is the easy way to go too!

Wasssup here? Not much, over the past 2 days I built 4 workstations, 3 SQL servers, and 1 (regular) server. Mind you I did them all from an image and installed the SQl server software extra. That was fun. Now I'm rebuilding a web-server which is pretty easy. Then I had to deliver all of those bastards, needless to say, I'm pretty sore right now from "totin' and liftin' "! Although I did do a lot today, I also helped out our local asset manager by organizing his room and cleaning up (tying up cables) mice and keyboards. Loads of fun, but at least I feel like I'm being used to my full extent.

Today, I made a new friend, Howie. Howie is my new victim, I love playing with his head. He's alot like Mr. ScubaT (you know who I'm talking about), he came from a helpdesk and he's so shiny new he squeaks when he walks. The perfect toy! He was rolling the cart down the hall and I hear CRASH and then he comes around the corner all nervous looking. He was bringing a computer back and it tipped over. I had to pick on him a little about that. THEN he tried to cover it up (he broke the NIC somehow) when he asked the tech lead for help. Too funny!

Besides that, nothing much going on, just getting set for the weekend. I'm staying here and my family is coming up for my birthday. Hopefully we'll here something tomorrow about the whole Dejuan caper!

Later!

Well, not much today. Yesterday they had a bomb scare here, so everyone got a half day since it happened at 11am and they didn't re-open the building until 6pm.

Speaking of bombs, I opened up a board on Yahoo where we can discuss the impending shaft "they" are calling the transition. Go here or send me an e-mail and I'll send you an invite to make it easier!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transitionvictims

So Mr Steve came by and explained how we have to start doing our finaces for a week or two while "they" get their collective heads out of their collective asses and get us some credit cards and expense reports. You know, the novelty has quickly worn off of this whole thing. I don't feel like I'm being utilized correctly, The workload (IMHO) doesn't merit having us here (unless something big is going to happen really soon), and I miss the family. Now I'm going to have to jump through hoops and depend on someone else, which leaves me feeling like I'm bad because I won't carry $650 of debt for a week at a time so I can help the company. People knew we were out here on this TDY and still no one has answers about when we are getting our stuff. All I can do is count on other people to make sure it is being followed up on. As if they don't have enough to do, the 4 of use on this TDY are a blip on the screen and then it's not even a big blip. I think we 4 should just say screw it and come home until we get it all straightened out. Something tells me it would happen a lot faster that way. Either that or they would "find" some EDS people who aren't getting dinked to come and fill our spots.

This whole transistion thing is such a clusterfuck that I'm amazed they are even trying it. I think it would be better if it wasn't rushed, but they are and it is going to be bad. Trust me on this one! Maybe not the whole thing, but there are going to be major pitfalls. Anyone want to make book on how many will NOT sign? I'm saying 5 minimum. I've got a feeling about that number!

I'm done. I wanna go home, I wanna go back to the tower and relax at my desk. Later!

Wow, talk about a good time! I left work at 2:30 to get a jump on traffic and the lines at the airport. Ooops, jack knifed trailer on 95, slow traffic, It was like I never left an hour early. Then once I get to the gate, me and Mr Tom decided to do the cocktail & sandwich thing. We find that when we get back to the gate, the flight has been delayed 2 hours AND moved to another gate. Long story short, instead of getting home by 9ish, I get home at 11:15pm. I stopped and thought about it, if I would have left work and DROVE home, I would have gotten there about the same time, maybe sooner.



Remember - I'm back in Roch-cha-cha this week so don't expect an update!

Hmm...I guess I consider myself a dork!

It appears that after a phone call this morning, I missed calling in to a conference call yesterday. I had the days messed up in my head. Me? Mentallly confused? There's a news flash right? Anyway, yesterday's post wouldn't have been like that if I would have been paying attention to the DATES! Thank you to my "immediate superior" for calling me and asking why I missed the phone call yesterday. That's too bad, because I know I would have fell off my chair giggling.

I'm really looking forward to "our" lunch next week since it will be good to see everyone again. Especially now that we are one big happy family AGAIN! I know that some people might think of me as that one "special" reletive that everyone seems to have, but hey, you gotta love me!

I've had people writing me about how to get to this site, because people are talking about it. I've even been told that my boss's boss may be viewing this. If so, then Throw yo' hands in the air!

So today I'm taking a little abuse from the "guys" down here, because yesterday I did something really dumb. I moved a printer from one location to another. Long story short, the port on the hub was bad, so we moved it to a new port. Now the fluke says it's working but the printer won't ping. Of course we have three people involved, me, one of the "guys" and the tech lead. Needless to say the tech lead asks the magical question, is it plugged in? Well, it was, but not in the right spot! I had been finger the holes in the back (rather then spinning it around AND LOOKING), and found the one that "felt" right. I plugged it in and heard a "click" so I thought I was good. Did you know that you can plug (and I use the term plug verry loosely, more like wedge) a RJ45 cable into the appletalk port on JetDirect card? Yeah...that's me, I'm a dork. So now the abuse begins!

Gotta go....need coffee!

Uhh...how do I say this?

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN ROCHESTER????

Yeah, I think that just about sums it up. So I'm sure Mr. (someone who is my immediate superior), is thinking that this fat man either has a crystal ball or knows where the leak is. Well it's niether, I can read the evironment, after all I did say it last week.

It was a quiet day here, with the bi-weekly team meeting. We (me and Mr. Dick) got some "props" shouted out for our most excellent work. Besides that, it's just ticket after ticket!

Later...I gotta have a beer!

ALERT!! ALERT!! HOT RUMOR!!!

Dig this! You may have seen an org announcement come through concerning our buddy Mr. Skip. Seems he is stepping down because of personal problems? The personal problem is the chunk of ASS he is missing from NOT TELLING (as in keeping it a secret - assuming that they knew) the execs at the big "X" about our little transmogrification. Can you say "I'm a mushroom farmer too!" I knew you could! Seems they found out the from an article someone saw in E-week!

I'll go you one better - speaking of mushrooms, there are 3(?) other contracts that are involved who know NOTHING! Dick, squat, bumpkiss, (add your own term here)! They will be finding out the day of the townhall. All they know is that an important announcement is going to be made. Blindsided? I don't think so, but I know they don't have the inside track to the info that we do.

Someone better invest in some cast iron undies, cause folks will be looking to rip off a chunk o' Ass!

I got to get a tylenol - my head hurts from giggling!

Alrighty then! Needless to say, once again we ran out of IP addresses!! I was really worked up over this because I had 3 separate people come up and tell me that need to make sure that I release the IP after I finish "imaging" a machine. Yeah, that's how close to the edge they are. Needless to say I went batshit right after that (along with one or two other SAs) and wrote to Mr. Eugene for help on how to explain to these Server FUCKS how you configure this properly. Now I only say this cause I got several lines of bullshit when I told them they should change the lease expiration to less days. Whatever!

Now I realize I have talked alot of shit about this place, but let me tell you the neat stuff. First of all, the WHOLE network is 100Mb (even between the buildings) and it is fast. Second, they run Windows 2000 on all the desktops (although most servers are still NT 4). The image they install vis'a'vis "Ghost" is very stable and quick (even though it pulls over the network). Fourth, they have some pretty nice perks like the automatic hot drink machines (two per floor). These a like mini-vending machines for coffee, cocoa, tea. Not to mention the water /ice machine combo (the industrial kind). The place is in a Tech developement area which means the traffic is not bad and the parking is great (3 story parking garage next to the main building). I noticed that a certian "VirusScan" company is next door.

Well, there, I gave them the respect that they deserve for the good stuff. On the other hand they have now been able to sit at their desks a little more lately. I actually got commented to (from one of them) about how we are "all over the tickets." I said it's nothing special, I do this everyday and my queue is always being worked. I've also been showing them the merits of closing non-contacting customers. No reply - no work! They are learning, but it's taking some time.

Hasta la vista!

Well, it's friday, and I know I didn't do an entry yesterday. Sorry, I get tired just like everyone else. I've actually been working about 46+ hours a week. I get in at 7:30 and don't leave until 6pm. I actually have found that some of the customers are staying that late.

Gossip update!!! I've heard that the "deal" is done. The date of transmogrification will be April 30! Can't tell you where I heard it and I won't mention any names, but I believe it's true.

It will be interesting to see what happens, just from the point of traveling back and forth. I mean if "Ed" wants his American Express back, he will most likely just cancel the thing. So that means that "DeJuan" will have to give me one becuase there is no way I'm paying this out of my pocket. Which means I'd be back at the "X" real soon.

What's been going on here? I've been watching Ms Pat put handle bars on some of the server guy's asses. She gets on one them and is like a rabid pitbull on crack! They piss and moan because they just don't understand why they have to have a "standard" for the servers. Don't even get her started on the naming convention for the tapes, I heard her talking about that trying to make her case, and it's cool, because she has the power of a manager when she starts making her "suggestions" and what not.

Only about another 45 minutes and I'll be climbing into the car for a ride back to the airport to go home to Rochester. Am I happy? Oh yeah, I miss my family (wife, kid, and cats). Gonna have to upgrade the ticket to get the business class and the two free drinks!

Later Gators!

Well today, we did what were supposed to do CLOSE FUCKING TICKETS! I know, no need for profanity, but finally after almost a week and half they got me and the guys IDs for the ticket system. So today, I closed 7 tickets. (Now doing the R-E-S-P-E-C-T dance).

How ya like me NOW? No longer just the funny little fat man eh? What's that? I can't hear you over the TICKETS I'M SLAMMING SHUT!

I know... that's not nice, but sometimes these guys get a little whiney, just like us, but when we whine we are usually working too. I'm not sure what is going on with the leadership / mentor roles, but it really gets wierd. Especially when someone starts talking about "aged cases" and how they have some tickets over 4 weeks old because the customer is too busy for them to do whatever work they need done.

WHAT? You heard right, 2 calls, and hold for us. Here they keep it open until the customer says "I'm done." Unbelievable, me and Mr. Dick had a good little conversation and then the whining started. I told them straight up that they have to go to their manager. Open door some of the CDEs and tell them what a crock that is and how the customer "abuses" it, thus causing them to have bad metrics. That was greeted by mumbles and confused looks.

Their "team/tech lead" is a good guy, but I don't think that the rest of the team respects what he has to say, either that or he was going on about the same thing again. They walked away, going to get water or whatever, while he was trying to get their input. Wacked man...really was. After a couple of minutes it was just me and Mr. Dick talking to him trying to figure numbers with him.

Oh well.... Let's see what tomorrow brings....

I'm making like a baby....I'm heading out! (Thanks Nelson!)

Ok, so what happened today?

MORE OF THE FUCKING SAME! Sorry, just a little bent because of the reaming I just got from Ticketbasterd (Ticketmaster). That is going to be a Daily Bitch because a mention in the Bitch log won't do it justice.

So we went to an "all-hands" meeting yesterday that lasted 2.5 hours. Quite the dog and pony show. All the new people were there from other "accounts" because all the original people got "moved" when the account exploded. There was a huge slideshow presentation that had alot of the same stuff we do (ie their call time & resolution). These guys have 8 hours to close an 02 type ticket. Must be freaking nice, but they are pissed. All I can do is shake my head. I heard it said before. This place is exactly where "X" was 5 years ago. Most all the customer hate thier "support contractors" for one reason or another. The big boss stood up yesterday and told them to "get the fuck over it (I'm paraphrasing) because we are going to work HAND IN HAND with them to make this work!" That's what he said, what I heard was...we signed the contract and right now it would hurt our ass a lot if we tried to bust out of this, to the tune of 70 million, is what I heard.

So after 2.5 of sitting there, my ass hurt it so much, it didn't fall asleep, it slipped into a coma. Looks like I might have an ID for the ticket system real soon. Ooohh and I got voicemail today! Hoo-freaking-ray!

Peace out Beeeyyyaaattch!