Archive for the ‘ Rants ’ Category
You know who you are.
Yeah you. The one that I spent a shitload of time on planning and working on making a cohesive plan for. The one that ignored my plan and claimed that they are uninformed about said plan. The one that gives me the stiff arm whenever I try to explain and be collaborative. Then gives me shit about not being collaborative.
You know who you are.
Someday I am going to cover entire office in green jello. Shitloads of green jello.
A new Amazon Kindle 2: $360
A book that I would read (picked at random), Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert (published 1969): Paperback, $7.99
Same book, but for the Kindle: $7.19
Difference: 80 cents.
Assume, if this price difference was the norm between a physical paper book (printing, distribution, materials) and virtual e-book (no printing, cheap distribution, no materials), for a book written 40 years ago (!), then let us think about this…
I would have to read 450 books purchased through the Kindle to make up the cost difference between the Kindle version and the paperback version.
I read about 1 book every 2 weeks.
450 books at 2 weeks a book, equals 6300 days. Or 900 weeks, or 225 months, or 4.3 years.
The value proposition is not there. A book should be a fraction of the price to offset the cost of a ebook reader… and that experience should be universal for any book I may want to read. Distribution costs for the publisher and Amazon are almost nil, there are no physical material costs associated with the book, and there is NO marketing associated with the book. The royalties for the book are going to the Herbert family, not the original author (thanks copyright law).
So why only 80 cents? Why not 4 bucks?
Sometimes I wonder what it would take to get a glowing approval rating from my coworkers, my boss, my peers, my clients. I mean, seriously, what would I have to do? What would it take? What kind of person would I have to be to accomplish such a feat?
I think no matter how hard you try, you would run into a wall. The law of diminishing returns would kick into effect, and before you know it, your outputting such a high rate of effort, your overall incremental gains approach zero.
You would just burn out.
I try. I really do. I try hard to make people happy. I take on their problems in a detached manner so I can effectively prioritize and manage the issues at hand. But for some people that just isn’t enough.
Unless you are bleeding their blood, your efforts are just never enough.
That is frustrating. Because it feels so hypocritical to me. They are expecting the world of you, but I know that I don’t hold such high expectations of them. In fact I carry little to no expectations of them. My boss is probably the only one that I really expect things from. My coworkers, not really. My peers, nothing much. My teammate, a little here and there, but still nothing major.
Perhaps that is not hypocritical. Just human nature. But I still want to be the best.
Maybe that is what keeps me going. Maybe that is why I take the complaints like I do. I am told not to take it personally, but seriously, when you want to be good to everyone, and be regarded as good by at least most of them, you have to take it personally.
That is the only way you take ownership in getting it appropriately addressed.
Coming to work everyday and dealing with users… no problem.
Trying to stay on top of ever-changing business requirements… (kinda) no problem.
Learning the latest and greatest technologies for possible implementation… no problem.
Managing my boss… um… Problem.
He likes to get into technical details. Generally a little too technical. Because in terms of service/cost/provisioning, the technical details rarely matter all that much. It is a function of the business, the environment, and the desired outcomes… i.e. the requirements drive the work, not the technical stuff. The technical stuff is mostly about implementation. And he has told me multiple times he does not want to get tied up in implementation, that is what I get paid for.
Really?
I have a litmus test saying otherwise! Time and time again, it is all about technical details, not about satisfying the requirements, and the cost/planning/schedule of the project. The interesting part is that you would think he would want to dwell in the world of the project planning.
That is where all the glory is.
And money.
SPTM: STOP PERPETUATING THE MADNESS. (spit-um?)
A chain of emails out of control in your organization?
Click reply-to-all and continue the mindless drivel of the email chain!
Eventually, the mindless reply-to-all’s slowly work their way up the mgmt food chain, until someone with authority replies to all to tell everyone not to reply-to-all.
A Self Perpetuating Idiotic Chain of Evidence… SPICE.
So next time, remember the SPTM, ditch the SPICE.
Generally whenever anyone posits such a remark in a conversation, it is usually because they are actually big fat jerks.
However, I am not a jerk. I am a type-b, laid back personality, and I usually take things as they come. I have my moments though, and this morning I definitely had one.
I was Starcracks, getting myself a cuppajoe, when I stumbled upon not only one of the most frustrating social situations one can encounter, but two.
You know em. They are the people that stand at the coffee bar (where the sugar, spice and creamer is at) and take 20 mins to mix their drink to seemingly scientific levels of precision where they can taste if their damn iced half-whip, full foam, doubleshot, barista spit, double pump mocha has exactly 24 grains of sugar. Not 25, nay 26 is right out, nor 23, for that is too few. Exactly 24. And they have to mix it all so damn slow, I thought the world was going to start spinning backwards like some parody of a Superman movie.
With one such individual, you can still mosey on up and get your dash of creamer and be on your way. But with two! With two, you my friend are fucking stuck.
I couldn’t mosey on up. I couldn’t even reach the creamer if I wanted to. So I had to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Happy Birthday!
Merry Christmas!
Happy New Year 2009!
And wait…
Damn.
Granted, if this is the worst inconvenience one can suffer, I will gladly take it. But still. You just want to dump your 180 degree coffee on there damn head and tell them if they want to take 20 minutes to mix their coffee, they better well do it off to the damn side and at least attempt to be polite to the other customers.
So here’s to you, coffee scientists everywhere, hope you have a great day!
But… tomorrow I hope you dump 2 grains of extra sugar into your ass-clown excuse of a drink and suffer the unholy consequences!
My wife and I have a recurring fight that we cannot seem to meet in the middle on. And it all has to do with how I like to spend my downtime.
I like to play online video games. To me, video games are no different than watching TV. If I had a choice between watching an hour of TV and gaming for an hour, I would pick the gaming. Without hesitation.
Because, for lack of a better term, TV sucks balls. All of it. We have hundreds of channels and they all have shit on all the time. So, absolutely, give me my games. At least online, I am actively involved with something.
Games give me an odd sense of community. I know it sounds weird, and ultimately superficial, but there is a sense of community with online gaming that lends itself to some primal sort of gravitas with the other players. Achieving goals and fighting bitter battles, is the equivalent in many ways to chess. Just think of it as online chess, but with rockets.
Now I admit, sometimes, I can be selfish. But at least I recognize the fact I am being selfish when I do it. That is huge for most guys. Most rarely are able to see past their own nose when they are being dicks. As a result, I try to spend my time playing when it absolutely does not interfere with family or work. And that leaves odd hours to play. Either late at night or when the family is tied up with something else, like a swimming lesson.
The basis of the fight I think is that my wife views video gaming as being a poor choice, anytime. They shouldn’t interfere with her expectations at all. And most of the time, she does not communicate those expectations. Like most women, she expects me to just to know better. Same planets, different worlds.
I hate the fact that I am relegated to having to make a choice between family, work or games. I don’t think they have to be mutually exclusive. I think you can have all three in a balance that offends no one and makes everyone happy. I love my wife, and love my kids, and I love the time I spend with them. It is invaluable. And games will never replace my family. But when I want to have some downtime, I think I should be able to say what I can do without any repercussion or recourse.
In my opinion, there is nothing unreasonable about that. Especially since I see the big picture. I understand the need for balance. And I think that fact alone is what makes me right.
The response I get the most often is that I don’t care about my wife’s feelings or her being honest with me. And it has nothing to do with that. I listen to her, I try very hard to understand her side. And I apologize when I need I to. I know when I am wrong. But I think the deeper issue is about choice.
What we choose, is who we are.
And I am a gamer. Father/husband first, computer geek second.
But a gamer, never the less.
Like peasants of old, scratching at the muck, discussing who voted for the King of England (insert Monty Python quote here), our faithless users wander about the digital landscape wondering why they don’t have quantum computers that can’t do their job for them without producing some sort of error and making them coffee all at the same time.
Garbage in, Garbage out. If the user screws something up, they never take the responsibility, they blame the system.
I have a user that places a help request for a file restore. I send a email reply asking for the path and filename and the date he wants it restored from about one business hour after he places the request. He does not respond. At all.
Two days later I send another email, asking again. What a surprise, he does not respond.
I call him, asking what he needs. He replies that he cannot read my emails. (He apparently lost his eyeballs somehow? I have no idea how he is functioning in his job if he is not reading email and just sending it. They are plain text emails, no pictures, no attachments, and our mailboxes are on the same damn server.) Somehow, I get the info I need to perform the restore.
He calls back after I perform the restore. Wrong file (oh so he does read email, just not any from me). So I get a different date restored for him. No call back that anything is wrong. No email. Nothing. I assume all is well. After all I have a thousand other things to go do since I have two offices moving, a corporate re-ip underway, and a MPLS WAN to deploy.
So now, a week after all that happened, I get another ticket from his SUPERVISOR, accusing me of ignoring the request and not addressing it in a proper time frame, saying that not only did I skip the user’s request once, but TWICE.
My word, this world is full of douche bags.
Listen here, mate. Just because your employee can’t read emails, and he can’t follow through, and he can’t get shit done on his own time is not, in any sort of fashion, my fault. You do not shit on the IT guy just because you can’t manage your employees effectively. So instead, why don’t you try a little respect and get all the info in hand before you go shooting from your damn hip. Just a thought. You cannot shit on my head and expect me to thank you for the damn hat. (That is my boss’s job, not yours.)
What a tool.
Here is a brilliant rant about the state of music biz from a CD cover artist… the guy that has made many of NiN’s covers.
Whether this guy likes it or not, iPods have become synonymous with music – and if I filled my shiny new 160gb iPod up legally, buying each track online at the 99 cents price that the industry has determined, it would cost me about $32,226. How does that make sense? It’s the ugly truth the record industry wants to ignore as they struggle to find ways to get people to pay for music in a culture that has already embraced the idea of music being something you collect in large volumes, and trade freely with your friends.
Already is the key word, because it didn’t have to be this way, and that’s become the main source of my utter lack of sympathy for the dying record industry: They had a chance to move forward, to evolve with technology and address the changing needs of consumers – and they didn’t. Instead, they panicked – they showed their hand as power-hungry dinosaurs, and they started to demonize their own customers, the people whose love of music had given them massive profits for decades
My company was purchased in April of 2005 roughly, and our new parent company wished to exchange Global Address Lists with us. (Global Address Lists, GALs, are a company directories accessible in your email client.)
No big deal, right? We had been doing it for years with our previous parent company. And thanks to a fellow partner-in-crime from a sister IT department, it was relatively easy. Click, click, done.
Some backstory might help here… our new parent company outsources all of their IT to a couple different companies.
We give them our GAL, they give us theirs, and I import it, no problem. (Keep in mind it took months to just get it from them, no joke.) We agree that we should do this at least every quarter, perhaps even once a month.
They don’t import ours. And they don’t send us updates.
Flash forward a year. People are complaining that ours is out-of-date and that it is completely missing on the parent company side. I contact them again, exchange GAL files again, and again, it took like a month to get it.
Then I talk to the admin on their side. He has no clue how to import it easily. I say no problem… here are the steps I take, here is the source code that makes the deltas between the old stuff and the new stuff, here is the commands we use to export and import the info. I made it super easy.
I don’t know if they import ours or not. I update our side. Again we agree that it should happen once a quarter or once a month.
Flash forward another year. No updates from them, and they STILL haven’t imported ours. The CEO of their company gets on them and I get a phone call asking how to do it. I send the same info I sent before… the steps, the commands and the source code.
I import theirs again.
This week I get an email from their admin.
Guess what he was asking me?
How to do it easily. He didn’t want to “reinvent the wheel” (his words). He didn’t want to dig through the source code – I looked at it, and even I, not a programmer in the least, can read it and understand it easily. I don’t get it.
Have they imported ours yet?
Nope still working on that from APRIL.
Takes me 20 minutes. Takes them 6 months?
WTF?
