Still standing
Posted by swingate | Filed under Work
I’m still here. Not much to say…well, actually lots to say. I just don’t feel like saying it. I got laid off three months ago. I’m okay money-wise so no worries for a while. I’m using the time off to brush up on IT certifications and get in shape.
I’ve been bustin butt in the gym and I’m down about 10lbs since. Hoping to lose another 10 by the time I go back to work. I’m not gettin in as much cycling as I hoped but I’m about to fix that.
Stay tuned!
It’s ya burfday…
Posted by Dubbayoo | Filed under Amore & Vita, Cycling, Work
It’s been a while. I can’t get motivated to do long posts anymore. I wish I had dictation software. I come up with long blog rants while I’m at my desk or in the car but i don’t have the time nor energy to type them all out. I’ll spit out a few brief thoughts now and commit to more frequent but shorter entries in the future.
First off, my birthday presents to myself. I have no idea what anyone else got me because I’m still at work and somebody was late putting stuff in the mail. Better to be late with that than something else.
Reynolds Assault full carbon clinchers wheelset. :insert Tim “The Toolman” Taylor arrgh sounds:
Second, I now have enough money set aside to get Lasik surgery. I just need to find a place to have it done that won’t leave me blind. I’d have to return my new wheels and trust me, you don’t want that.
Also, last week was the annual Angry Sex Bowl. My Georgia Bulldogs vs Belle’s Tennessee Vols. We call it the angry sex bowl because no matter who wins one of us is really pissed off…unless it’s a tie, then we’re both pissed off. Thankfully they don’t do ties in college football. My team won for the first time in three tries. We never mention the game once it’s over so that’s all you’ll hear from me about it.
What was the number one song the day you were born?
Speaking of close calls…
Posted by Dubbayoo | Filed under Work
I forgot to mention another I had last month. Luckily this one didn’t involve my life, just my livelihood. Four years ago, just before I accepted the job I have now, I accepted a job with IndyMac Bank. I knew I wanted the job I have now; I just wasn’t sure it was going to be offered to me. The job at IndyMac paid more but the commute was going to be 90 minutes on a good day. The mortgage industry was flying high back then and they were expanding rapidly. Much of the office space I toured was still empty or under utilized.
Luckily a few days before the IndyMac start date my current employer called me back and offered. I probably could have used the IndyMac offer as leverage but I didn’t want to push my luck. I really wanted the job.
Fast forward to last month – the mortgage industry is in total meltdown. IndyMac Bank announced layoffs of 3,400 people….and that’s BEFORE the federal government took them over! It’s possible I would have had enough seniority by now to survive the cuts but I’m glad I don’t have to worry about that. With the raises and profit sharing I’ve gotten I probably make more now than I would be at IndyMac anyway. I guess I do make the right choice sometimes. 
People I’ve never met but would like to kill anyway
Posted by Dubbayoo | Filed under Work
1. The public restroom toilet paper roll designer guy – Through what reasoning did you determine that 1.8 squares was enough paper to wipe your ass? You sorry tree-hugging Al Gore wannabe bastard. I feel like global warming your balls with a flamethrower. I hope every toilet you use for the rest of your rotten life works that way.
2. 1and1.com – our website host. Every other fucking day you send me an email stating the following:
It has come to our attention that the name server settings for mycompany.com are incorrectly set to:
DNS1: ns0.dnsmadeeasy.com
DNS2: ns1.dnsmadeeasy.com
DNS3: ns2.dnsmadeeasy.com
DNS4: ns3.dnsmadeeasy.com
With these settings neither your website nor your e-mails can be reached reliably via the mycompany.com domain.
For the domain to work properly please make sure that following name servers are set:
DNS1: ns0.dnsmadeeasy.com
DNS2: ns1.dnsmadeeasy.com
Soooooo, what you’re telling me is I need to change my DNS settings to WHAT THEY FUCKING ALREADY ARE!!!!! Nevermind that our website works fine and has for 8 months despite your apparent cluelessness. And why is it every time I respond to say these emails aren’t necessary your tech support dipshits give me a different for why I need to make the non-existent changes anyway? I hope your office toilets give out 0.9 squares per pull. Please die.
Back In Business
Posted by Dubbayoo | Filed under Work
Well, telecommuting is over for now. We managed to get set up in temporary office space three floors down last week. We’ll be down here for 2-3 months while they are repairing the damage to our floor. It only took three days to move the phone/computer systems and furniture, although we didn’t move every single thing. We had custom-made desks in our old digs that won’t fit in the new office.
I finally have separate A/C controls for my office, not that they actually work. If the A/C is on it’s 70 degrees. If it’s office it’s about 80 degrees. The actual temperature adjust doesn’t seem to do anything. It beats upstairs where the person in the office next to me controlled my office too. She was always cold and would crank it up to 75, which was fine for her but my office had all the servers so there was more heat in there. I would break out in a sweat if I stood up too fast. On the plus side, if there can be one at such a time, the move was completed just before my annual bonus was decided and yes, Virginia….there is a Santa Claus.
I have managed to make it through another Christmas without actually setting foot in a store to shop. God bless online stores. I’ve forgotten what its like to fight over mall parking spots at holiday time.
I still have four days of vacation to use up before year end. I can only carry one week over to 2008 and they won’t pay me cash for it.
Fire In The Hole!
Posted by Dubbayoo | Filed under Work
Well, this has been an interesting week to say the least. There was a fire on our floor (6th) of the building my company is located in. Apparently a computer at Mary Kay Cosmetics caught fire and it demolished their entire suite. Something sounds fishy about a computer getting that hot but thats their story and I guess they’re gonna stick to it. We were not there at the time, however there was no real damage to our offices other than smoke and soot. The firemen destroyed our front door to get in and thats when most of the damage occurred.
Regardless, we have not been able to work in the office at all. At first I thought this would be a nice couple days off while the building management cleaned up. The first day I was able to stay in PJs and just get everything done by phone. Instead I’ve spent the whole week driving to homes and making sure everyone can access crucial applications from home. As luck would have it we recently outsourced our email, website and CRM database to external providers. The only thing they’re really missing is print functionality and the phone system, but even that could be worked around. We have VOIP and it’s possible to give everyone VPN access; then they could make/receive calls at home using the company phone system. I’m not sure I want to go down that road…actually I’m positive that I don’t. It’s been a real PITA already because some of the people apparently have computers purchased during the Reagan administration. I’ve worked harder this week than I do when I’m actually in the office.
At first the building management said we’d likely be back to work on Monday, if not Friday. Well, I found out this evening we won’t be able to go back for TWO MONTHS!!! We may end up moving since being being out of our office for 30 days gives us legal cause to break our lease. My boss hates the management anyway so thats been debated for a while now. This could be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
On the plus side we have been able to do business extremely well considering the circumstances. We have hardly lost a step so far. Our disaster recovery plan has worked better than we could have imagined. As the Network Admin I’m feeling like I really earned my keep this week. It’s almost unheard of for a company of ten people to have a full-time Admin but they have had one for over ten years and right now they are glad they do. I still need to get a portable drive as a secondary off-site data backup. I may take everyone’s computer to their home along with a CD/DVD containing the shared files.
Very important to shine right now since my annual bonus will probably be decided within the next ten days. Keep your fingers crossed.
Pwned by the consultant
Posted by Dubbayoo | Filed under Technology, Work
So last week we had a new VOIP phone system installed. This required replacing our DSL connection with a T-1 line to support both voice and data. The install was pretty seemless, although now I have to learn Adtran OS to edit my firewall rules. They advised we use that instead of our Juniper to keep latency down.
Everything was all hunky dorey so Wednesday we shutdown the entire office and take a group lunch to discuss all the recent changes to the network. We also recently outsourced Exchange services and our CRM database. The boss caters food to his home and we all dig on. My phone rings twice but I just ignore it.
We get back to the office two hours later to a downed network and several frantic voicemmail messages from the technician that installed our phone system. It turns out he’s responsible for our network being down. He decided on his own to futz around with our firewall settings without notifying us first. Apparently the Einstein had five browser windows open to several different clients and he wiped out our entire configuration thinking he was editing someeone else’s FW. Ths locked HIM out so he couldn’t undo the damage before we got back. He’d been trying to call me while we were at lunch. He’s actually lucky I didn’t answer because the boss would have had a few choice words for him. There are only 2-3 times a year we close the office for lunch so he picked the worst of all possible days to do this.
He walks me through recreating the right configuration in about 45 minutes or so. Of course this was after he asks me to connect to a desktop sharing website so he can take over my computer and do it himself which I obviously can’t do since we have no fucking internet access. The boss was NOT happy….AT ALL. Needless to say he has been made persona non grata at our site. A fun time was not had by all.
