Tag Archives: Office

IT Fun-And-Mental

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angrycomputerI freely admit not all days are comical in the IT world.

There are days, like today, where the computer screen is your closest companion, and a query your confidant. It is these days which cause you to question your sanity….repeatedly. They also afford you the time to work on your four letter vocabulary. As of an hour ago, I do believe I have hit every four letter, foul intended word today. Not exactly the goal I set for myself this morning.

So, as a respite from my unintentional goal, I thought I’d share a few IT fundamentals:

 

  1. Coders have been known to flip off their computers. It doesn’t accomplish anything, but it sure makes you feel better.
  2. Error messages when queries fail are not always helpful. Example: Msg 2714, Level 16, State 3, Procedure X_ScrewedUpQuery412, Line 4 [Batch Start Line 9] 
  3. We may be quietly staring at our computer monitor but, in our heads we’re cursing like an old sailor.
  4. Damn-It dolls are a good investment.
  5. Stress balls are only good for throwing at other people.
  6. If we are scowling, and mumbling, place a caffeinated beverage on our desk and quietly back away.
  7. We tend to keep toys at our desk. Momentary mental distractions can save the life of our current project….and the person who requested it.
  8. We are actually very polite, interesting, ‘normal’ people. Unless, things are blowing up, failing, malfunctioning, or not functioning.
  9. We have a verbal filter when professionalism is called for, however, when surrounded by other IT personnel the filter is disabled. This can, occasionally, be a bad thing. More often then not, it is greatly appreciated.
  10. We understand end users do not speak geek. We attempt to speak non-geek, but even our non-geek can be too geeky. We’re just hard-wired that way.
  11. We really do enjoy helping you. We thrive on problems and challenges.  We just really like when you follow the process for reporting issues, and take the time to do basic troubleshooting.
  12. We don’t all live on hot pockets and caffeine but, we can make a valid argument for their inclusion in daily life.
  13. We do have different levels of geekiness. Some of those levels include nerdiness. And yes, there is a difference!

And last, but not least….

IT people are either dearly loved, or severely hated, depending on what is, or is not functioning.

 

Yours Faithfully,
R3b3l G33k

R3b3l

Observations from the Desk of…

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Observation from the Desk of the Fitfully Frustrated:

 

The answer is always simple. Once you’ve incomprehensibly complicated things for a multitude of days.

hairpulling

 

Yours Faithfully,
R3b3l G33k

R3b3l

Telepathically Typical Days

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A typical day in the life of an Analyst.

You start the day with making it into the office. Sounds simple enough, but imagine if you will, Lilliputians. Everywhere you look, Lilliputians. You move…they break…you fix…Lilliputians. That’s a little morbid. Let’s try this…

images

At any moment your phone can ring. There can be an issue with the system. Users can’t access it. It’s throwing an error. A batch is held up. It isn’t working as expected. This call can come at 3 p.m. or 3 a.m. And you’re on this call until it is resolved. Five minutes, five hours, doesn’t matter.

Not surprisingly a large majority of these calls come at 1 a.m. It’s like the system KNOWS! “Sshhhh, she’s sleeping soundly. Looks like a great dream! Let’s break! She won’t mind…”

If you’re lucky, the issue takes 15 minutes to resolve. Then you’re off and running. You get your shower. You get your breakfast. You make it into the office. Life is good!

Once in the office you have to make it to your desk. No problem! Well….if you sneak in the back way you’re pretty safe. Walk through one of the departments though and WHAM! You’re caught!

It’s not a huge deal. They’re either going to catch you, or submit a ticket. Either way, you are going to work on their issue. Now, it can be a big deal if the system broke between leaving the house and reaching the office door. It happens. Dang gremlins in the system. They know! They plot, and plan. Evil little things!

You’ve made it to the office! Congratulations, your award is work!

It takes a few minutes to boot up your system, open all of your programs and glance at the never-ending stream of emails. Email is a trap! The oubliette of electronic communication. The place of forgetting.

You either forget to read your email. Read it and forget to reply. Forget to hit send on your reply. Forget what the email said…and read it twelve more times, or simply forget there was life before email. I forget to hit send on emails. I have wonderfully written, well phrased, magnificent novels still waiting on my desktop for me to hit send. It’s a curse. Plus send is so overrated these days. Telepathy, now I can get behind that thought!

So, we’ve made it into the office. We’ve booted our machines, and avoided our email. We’re now ready for the day….to end.

Tomorrow… we’ll talk coffee!

Yours Faithfully,
R3b3l G33k

R3b3l