I can’t go into many details, since this is live TV and all that, but I just got off a phone call with Many Important People saying that the 160-odd…
I can’t go into many details, since this is live TV and all that, but I just got off a phone call with Many Important People saying that the 160-odd hours of writing policies and procedures I did about a month ago, and have since been waiting on approval from the Powers That Be, all needs to be tossed out and redone by Friday, because it’s too “forward-looking.”
What is the sound of one man slamming his forehead against the wall?
I think I’ll take an early lunch.
Remember all those policy documents I was slaving over a month ago? My boss (here with me in Philly) mentioned that his boss (the CIO) identified them as “an example…
Remember all those policy documents I was slaving over a month ago?
My boss (here with me in Philly) mentioned that his boss (the CIO) identified them as “an example of how the new organization is working.”
On the other hand, he also informed me (though not accusingly) of some personnel management issues I’d flubbed and he’d fielded. So it’s been (at least on that front) a less than unvarnished success.
Ah, well. At least I’m home at a decent hour tomorrow afternoon.
The hotel I’m in is literally across the parking lot from one of the office buildings my company is in, here in Conshohocken, PA. As our group was crossing the…
The hotel I’m in is literally across the parking lot from one of the office buildings my company is in, here in Conshohocken, PA.
As our group was crossing the parking lot from one of the buildings to another, our hostess waved about her and said, “Oh, those are the two hotels that had the bomb threats, you know.”
Needless to say, my hotel was one of “those … two.”
I actually knew this (I saw the EVERYONE mail last week). I just didn’t need reminding.
Doyce refers to hidden bias test on tolerance.org. It’s an interesting test, and I was all ready to start discussing what the results I got were … … when I…
Doyce refers to hidden bias test on tolerance.org.
It’s an interesting test, and I was all ready to start discussing what the results I got were …
… when I realized that this is a public forum. And I am a manager, with supervisory responsibilities over a variety of people. And there is a slender chance that someone from that group might read what I wrote here, and would decide it was grounds for a suit if that person were ever to be disciplined or let go.
So … sorry folks. Take the test. Read the site. Good stuff. ‘Nuff said.
When people think that they, or their guru, have The Truth — ‘This is It!’ — they are what Nietzsche calls ‘epileptics of the concept’: people who have gotten an…
When people think that they, or their guru, have The Truth — ‘This is It!’ — they are what Nietzsche calls ‘epileptics of the concept’: people who have gotten an idea that’s driven them crazy.
— Joseph Campbell (1904-1987)
Well, my interview bit led off the video montage. No laughter, but I wan’t struck by lightning, nor has my e-mail stopped working.
OTOH, the interviewers did refer to my question specifically a few times. The question of MS’ behavior came up repeatedly during Ballmer’s segment.
Ballmer is a big, jolly, balding, teddy bear of a man. He looked and sounded like someone whom it would be fun to have over to dinner, fun to work with, or even for. He reminded me of some of my friends.
And listening to him and his answers and resposes and statements, I had an epiphany.
Microsoft is not evil, any more than a shark or a bear or a scorpion is evil. Not evil, just very, very dangerous.
Because they’re geeks. They’re in this business, most of them, because they like to see people using the neat stuff they’ve built. They’re convinced they have the right answers, and they are enthusiastic about spreading, not to mention enforcing those answers.
Enthusiasm is an interesting word. It literally means embued with the divine spirit. You’ve got God on your side, rooting you along.
MS isn’t really intrested in quashing the competition. They just want people to use their stuff. They don’t mind other peoples’ products or standards. It’s just no fun, no source of pride, unless they can improve on them.
(The only animus I heard from Ballmer was toward Sun. Real anger there over the Java litigation. Although, even there, Ballmer made it clear that it was not enough to simply license a Java VM — if they could not “improve” it, then they could not feel “pride of ownership.”)
MS realizes it is not liked. Ballmer seemed a bit confused as to why, but recognizes it. He said they were “humbled” by the lack of support from their friends during the anti-trust proceedings.
They just want to be liked. In a way they remind me very much of the United States. We want to be liked. We don’t understand why people don’t like us, why they reject the ideas and products we impose on them as the “best” way. We’re willing to cooperate with others — as long as we get our way.
Because we’ve got the right idea, and we want to “see people use our stuff,” right?
In the best light, Microsoft is the big, geeky friend who comes over to your house, takes over your keyboard, downloads a bunch of software, and reconfigures your PC to be “better.” As a “favor.” And then leaves, sure he’s done the right thing, while you try to figure out how the heck to connect back to the Internet again, and what happened to your old e-mail.
I’ve been there. I’ve had it done to me. Hell, I’ve done it myself.
In the worst light, they are holy warriors, out to spread the Word, and willing to sadly (but with some bewilderment) behead anyone who won’t convert.
Ballmer was quite clear on it. “Nobody wants to be the 800 lb. gorilla,” Ballmer said (in response to my question, hoo-hah). But … what motivates his people? “To see people use their stuff.”
Not to serve mankind. Nor to make lots of money. To see people use their stuff.
Thqt’s ego, sure. But it’s true. I’ve done application development. It’s 100% true. The worst thing a creator, an author, can face is being ignored, having yor work shelved. You live to have your “baby” used.
Sure, there are greedy people at MS. And there are power-seekers. But I’m willing to give the company as a whole the benefit of the doubt. They think they know the best answer to everything, and they want to give it to us. Hard.
If only we’d lie back and enjoy it.
Each day at Gartner they start with a couple of keynote speakers. Today it was the CEO of Intel and the CEO of HP (soon of HP and Compaq both)….
Each day at Gartner they start with a couple of keynote speakers. Today it was the CEO of Intel and the CEO of HP (soon of HP and Compaq both). Hefty stuff.
So tomorrow they have the CEO of Compaq (soon to be the President of Something) and Steve Ballmer, the #2 Guy at Microsoft after the Billster.
Before each keynote, they flash a series of “questions from the attendees” on the screen. I volunteered.
“Steve, how can Microsoft move beyond its image as an 800-lb. Gorilla into a role as a leader who makes life better for everyone in the industry?”
Or something to that effect.
The cameraman and interviewer both made, “Wow, that was great” noises. Either it will end up on the virtual cutting room floor, or it should get the first laugh of the morning. I’ll let you know.
Naming no names, places, or anything that could be traced to the event by lawyers, but … A particular manager who, several years ago, contributed to one of the most…
Naming no names, places, or anything that could be traced to the event by lawyers, but …
A particular manager who, several years ago, contributed to one of the most hellish Death Marches in my professional career by expressing double-facedness, a lack of support for the 18 hour days I was putting in, and a willingness to stab anyone in the back who got in the way, is being eased out. And in such a way that it is expected the person might go ballistic and write some horrifyingly incendiary e-mail to a client.
So I was asked, for a number of convoluted reasons that had nothing to do with my knowing this person, to assist in setting up a quarantine on their outgoing Internet mail, so that upper management could vet it and (unstated) hopefully catch any such bombshells and use them as grounds for termination. Being a dutiful corporate stooge, I was happy to do it.
And even happier when they finally revealed the name to me ….
When you burn too many bridges, eventually you get caught in the flames.
I have no idea why, but our corporate Internet access is majorly sucky. The latency (I suspect) is so bad, that pages time-out left and right. I was on the…
I have no idea why, but our corporate Internet access is majorly sucky. The latency (I suspect) is so bad, that pages time-out left and right.
I was on the Gartner site today, trying to build my agenda for next week’s symposium. I was successful in about one click out of three.
I dialed out on my modem. Every click is now successful.
I would complain about this, except that I’m not supposed to have outbound modem service any more, due to the security issues.
For big downloads, using my company’s setup is keen. For casual browsing, it’s NFG, even for work-related stuff.
I wonder if I can expense back my ISP …?
“Mark me up, Scotty.” You never know what might come in handy. When I was in college, we all did stuff on the college mainframe. PCs didn’t come in until…
“Mark me up, Scotty.”
You never know what might come in handy.
When I was in college, we all did stuff on the college mainframe. PCs didn’t come in until after I graduated, scarily enough.
Most people who wanted to “word process” used a text editor. We used one called EDGAR (since it was a VM/CMS system). This was sort of like word processing with Notepad, except without line wrap.
Those who were Privileged could make use of Waterloo Script. This was a markup language written and made available through the U. of Waterloo in Canada. WScript was cool. You could type “.pp” in front of a bunch of text and, voila, when you processed it out through the virtual spooler to the virtual printer, it came out as a formatted, justified paragraph. Yowzers!
There were, of course, far more commands than just that. And it had a macro language, so that you could create a set of elaborate markup tags to do tables of contents, standard MLA formatting, all sorts of keen things.
By Privileged above, I meant faculty. And, of course, the computer center staff. Using the mainframe for word processing by students was exceedingly frowned upon as a frivolous use of a valuable resource, which resource, if we absolutely must extend it beyond the faculty, really should be used only by Science and Math undergrads anyway.
Consider the butterfly-in-the-Amazon impacts of the above apparently irrelevant bits of info above.
Because I wanted to learn more how to use the text editor to word process, I wrote a series of online help files for EDGAR. That brought me to the attention of the Computer Center Powers That Were.
Because I was a History major, and someone had the brilliant idea that maybe they were emphasizing use of the computer for just Math and Science majors a bit too much, I was offered a post-grad internship at the Computer Center.
Because someone else was already going to be heading up the student consultant staff, I was offered the Systems Programmer internship.
Because of that, I ended up working in the computer biz as a career, rather than going on into academa or becoming a personnel manager somewhere.
Also because of that, I landed a job at my employer of the last 17 years.
And also because of my internship, I got to learn Waterloo Script. Which meant I got introduced to markup languages.
Which made my learning how to do HTML a whole heck of a lot easier, conceptually. Since HTML is, too, a markup language (that’s the “ML” part of it).
Which is how it is I’m able to do this blog.
You never know what might come in handy.
I am not unaware that a number of the posts below have been — well, if not gloomy, then unrelentingly serious. Well, these are serious times. Which makes alleviating that…
I am not unaware that a number of the posts below have been — well, if not gloomy, then unrelentingly serious.
Well, these are serious times.
Which makes alleviating that seriousness all the more important.
My world, and welcome to it … The environment is a reflection of the occupant, and in turn the occupant is a reflection of the environment. Read on and learn.
In my office is a book case. Well, there are more than one, but I’m looking at the tall one on the other side of my desk. Given its position, it’s my “show, not use” book case.
On the top is my “museum of old computer stuff.” A 286 motherboard. A 20Mb hard drive. A 2400b modem. A 720k floppy drive. A very early Microsoft mouse (with a steel ball).
I an historian at heart. I would never throw these things away. They are now cool.
Also on top is my Construction Safety Equipment Because I Work For An Engineering Firm, Dammit. That includes two hard hats and a pair of safety goggles.
Also, there’s a Birth Day picture of Katherine in a cute little “daughter” frame.
And a company frisbee.
And a clock whose battery wore down about nine months ago.
Understand me better now?
I’ll save the other shelves for another time.
I am, I think, obsessing over this. And it’s really grinding me down. I know a lot of people who are picking right up, heading back to their daily lives,…
I am, I think, obsessing over this. And it’s really grinding me down.
I know a lot of people who are picking right up, heading back to their daily lives, and moving onward.
I’m feeling progressively tired. Shell-shocked, perhaps. I listen to the news, with avid passivity. I find myself worrying about what move folks will make next. I can concentrate on this, kind of, but not on the work I need I know to do. Bills to pay. Employee reviewed to review. Documents to write, edit, send in for approval. Deadlines to meet.
Not this week.
Oddly enough, I seem less scared than many. I know of several people in my company who have mentioned how much they do not want to fly any time soon. That really doesn’t bother me. I actually have a morbid interesting in checking out the security measures, seeing how the airport experience is different.
And flying. I like flying. Given the tens of thousands of flights daily, that on one day four of them went horribly, horribly wrong is not, to my mind, a reason to give up flying.
A lot of people seem to disagree. That does not bode well for the industry.
Why is this affecting me so much?
Well, for one thing, I’m a control freak. I know this comes as a shock to those of you who know me. I like things orderly, planned, predictable. Not that I don’t mind some excitement, but the fundamentals damned well better be what I expect them to be, or else trauma ensues. I’ve tried to overcome this, and I think, socially, I’m better at not letting this make me instinctively turn down any spontaneous change in plans. Really.
But I do like order. And this is chaos. I like to know how things are going to progress, or at least make assumptions of same. That was probably one of the hardest parts of my divorce — that all those expectations of how things would be 5, 10, 20 years in the future were — well, as defunct as sf movies of the New York skyline now are.
Disturbing.
Another big reason is that a cornerstone of my life is that reasoned discourse will triumph. I am convinced that, if you can just get people talking with each other, you can get them to understand each other. And if they understand each other, they can find an outcome that satisfies both.
Yeah, right. I know it’s not true. At least not always true. But it always upsets the hell out of me when I see it break down. Another reason why my divorce was traumatic, I suppose — and a reason why such an ultimate act of violence just freaks the hell out of me. Because that’s how I try to live my life, and here’s someone saying, “Screw you, I’m gonna do the exact opposite.”
Deeply disturbing.
Another reason I came up with after I had driven a bit further (this was all scribbled on a torn-off bit of fast food bag whilst driving home tonight) was that I’m angry. I’m really, really angry. I’m furious at those — wastes of organic compounds. I’m bloody furious at what they did, at why they did it, at all the lives snuffed out so unjustly, at how it has scarred us all … and at the violation of the safety and security and constancy and hope I so much want to have.
I am so furious, I can hardly bear to voice it.
And that’s the problem. Because I don’t voice my anger very often. Oh, over safe things, perhaps. In controlled circumstances. When it won’t offend, or drive off, or embarrass.
No, really. I can be angry at others, not in the room, and voice it. Almost never at those in the room.
But this anger … this anger is so profound, so burning, churning, yearning for vengeance, for lashing out, for demonization, for dehumanizing, for hurting anyone I even think might be a part of what happened, that I don’t feel like I dare let it out. That to let loose that spirit would alter me in so profound a way that I would never be the same. And I’ve already gone through that once this week.
Still, it leaks out. Anger usually does.
I’m covering for the local IT manager while he is out this week. At the same time as this national tragedy, he’s facing a personal tragedy, the death of his mother-in-law on Monday.
So today I get autoforwarded from his mailbox a message in which …
Well, let’s just say that a local manager was bitching in the most uncomplimentary tones (and untrue allegations) over the support he and his people have received.
I have always run our group as a service organization. So has Doug (the present IT manager). I knew this was screwy, because I’d heard all the tales of the long hours spent in supporting these people, the frequent changes in deployment schedules, the places where our peoples’ hands were tied, the “above & beyond” that our best people had gone in this effort.
And this had all been escalated up the management chain. And the guy who handles site support for half the global organization was pinging Doug to find out WTF, and to get the details before responding to this litany of complaints.
I was calm. No, really. I called in the folks who had been directly involved. I went over the list of complaints. I got the details. I saw, from one guy who is a gem among techies, who frequently, almost embarrassingly, gets kudos from the staff about how he’s been helpful, been supportive, provided exemplary service — I saw the dismay, the disbelieving defensiveness, the way he took this as a personal attack.
And I lost it.
Or I lost it as much as I ever do at work.
I wrote back an e-mail to the inquiring IT manager, copying the person who had forwarded this on to him, refuting every single charge. In the most definite tones I could.
And I actually included the phrase, “This is bullshit,” as I reached the bottom.
Which, for those who know me, must indicate some deep-seated derangement, because I am usually polite to a fault, diplmatic to the extreme. The more perturbed I am, the more formal and careful in tone I am. I am infamous for this in the company, at least from anyone who gets e-mails from me.
This all sounds really silly, as I think of it. But it was indicative of how much anger I’ve got bubbling around in my gut.
Feh.
No pithy conclusion. Gotta work it out somehow.
Maybe I’ll write some more blogs ….
With occasional bonuses of additional ones, too….
With occasional bonuses of additional ones, too.
I really hate dealing with personnel problems….
I really hate dealing with personnel problems.
If there’s one thing I hate worse than the Orbitz pop-under ads (see below/before), it’s dealing with personnel problems….
If there’s one thing I hate worse than the Orbitz pop-under ads (see below/before), it’s dealing with personnel problems.
I spent the first half-hour at work trying to figure out why I couldn’t login. Swapping cables, trying different ports, trying to get NIC lights to blink, the whole enchilada….
I spent the first half-hour at work trying to figure out why I couldn’t login. Swapping cables, trying different ports, trying to get NIC lights to blink, the whole enchilada.
I finally discovered that I could hook up through my notebook’s direct NIC, rather than through the docking station NIC.
A failure in the docking station? An unexpected consequence of something goofy they’re doing to fix our network problems? Evil spirits?
You be the judge.
Plus, my office e-mail is still flaky as all hell. Feh. There are times I wish I were a ditchdigger.
No, not really.
Back in the office after a long weekend. That’s always a mixed blessing. On the one hand, there are the mental pressures of Things that Need Doing which can finally…
Back in the office after a long weekend. That’s always a mixed blessing. On the one hand, there are the mental pressures of Things that Need Doing which can finally be released. On the other hand, it means getting up at 5 a.m. and dealing with … well, the stuff they actually pay me to do.
Last week we had a major server melt-down in the office — two RAID drives on the main NetWare server going bad, which turned out to be actually a bad SCSI cable to the backplane. Non-NetWare services weren’t affected, though, so no major impact on me.
On the other hand, this morning, with most NetWare services back up, our e-mail is running veeeerrrryyyy slowly, and usually timing out after 5 minutes or so of hitting it. Since e-mail is about 90% of what I do and/or how I do it, this is a Bad Thing.
Looks to be one of Those Weeks.
An odd and interesting morning. I’m off today, since my company does a 4-9s-and-a-4 schedule, which on holiday weekends translates into 4-9s-and-an-8 the week before, and 4-9s the week of,…
An odd and interesting morning. I’m off today, since my company does a 4-9s-and-a-4 schedule, which on holiday weekends translates into 4-9s-and-an-8 the week before, and 4-9s the week of, which means 4-day weekends. And that’s enough numbers. Suffice it to say that it was nice not working today.
Margie went in, though, so I’m Mr. Mom this morning. Which isn’t bad. Aside from occasionally becoming clingy, Katherine’s a good Squiggy.
Got to work on my web page (which is progressing nicely, save my inability to FTP the damned thing up to my web site. I don’t know if that’s a DollarHost problem, or a too-many-hops problem between my notebook and them. Irritating.).
[Oops. Had to read to Katherine, change Katherine, and put her down for a nap.]
In the meantime, watching Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom, and (on AMC), Ft. Apache. The second Indy outing is only watchable as an Indy movie. John Ford’s western is good stuff, though, with Henry Fonda, John Wayne, and black-and-white glory.
Off on business. Stayed at the beeyooteefull Marriott Courtyard Old Towne Pasadena last night. Decent enough place, clean sheets, fair-to-middlin cable, good (if pricy) breakfast, convenient location (if irritating parking)….
Off on business. Stayed at the beeyooteefull Marriott Courtyard Old Towne Pasadena last night. Decent enough place, clean sheets, fair-to-middlin cable, good (if pricy) breakfast, convenient location (if irritating parking).
However, their broadband access sucks. I’ve been staying there on and off for a year now (about the life of the hotel). Over the last two months, I’d say the broadband connection works about half the time. Can’t even get link on it. And since it’s with the same notebook and configuration, I don’t think that’s to blame.
So. Annoying.
Gave me the opportunity to watch The Mummy Returns, though, which has been on my list for a while. Glad I didn’t run out and pre-order the DVD. Oh, mind you, it was a decent enough action flick, with the requisite humor, horror, sfx, etc. It just felt like a pale copy of the original. The original was much better than I expected — this one was what I had expected from the original. Not much I can put my finger on — it just felt tired, bereft of ideas, bereft of the killer soundtrack of the original, thrown together in a conference. In fact, I’m probably being harsher on it than I should, because I really enjoyed the original.
Off home tonight, returning around midnight. I had been hoping to sleep in in the morning, go into the office late, but I have a conference call at 8, and miles to go, etc., etc.
Ah, well. Four day weekend coming up.
So Monday I’m off on another trip, this one to Pasadena (again). Major audit report action, plus Talking Nice To People so that they will abide by the policies I’ve…
So Monday I’m off on another trip, this one to Pasadena (again). Major audit report action, plus Talking Nice To People so that they will abide by the policies I’ve written. And smoothing some troubled waters, and bruised egos.
I enjoy my work. Really. I’m getting to do stuff I’ve not been able to do before — set policies. Hoody-hoo.
Getting people to follow them, of course, there’s the rub.
On the other hand, I have three (count ’em, three) performance evals to give. I hate performance evals. I could easily spend the rest of my career without giving performance evals. That’s because, to be frank, I hate to confront people. Oh, I’ll do it, and get me riled up enough, I’ll do it with ferocious abandon. But I hate doing it as a normal thing.
Maybe that’s why I enjoyed Brust’s Issola. Because, like Lady Teldra, I like being polite. I like being diplomatic. I like finding the right way to say things to make people get along and be happy. (Because otherwise, they’ll be unhappy, and blame me, and hate me, and then I’ll live out my life, unloved, living in a cardboard box and eating cockroaches. But I digress.)
Actually, that’s probably the problem I have with GMing games. I really hate to lower the boom on people, to say, “No, you can’t do that.” So that leaves me with two alternatives, neither of which is good.
1. I can use a system that is very heavily ruled, a very accurate simulation, something that requires dice throws every thirty seconds, and comes with tomes of rules. But I hate that, because it’s not fun, and because I hate rules lawyers. It’s not why I’m playing the game, damnit.
2. I can use a system that’s very free-form, very loosy-goosy, that will allow me to have free reign of my imagination. The way literature is. But then I have to deal with munchkins who will try to get away with things that they shouldn’t, and I’ll have to confront them on it. Or not, in which case the game suffers. But that’s not why I’m playing the game, damnit.
So why don’t I just write a book? Because I’m lazy.
I’ve actually written a book. Some day, maybe even soon, when I can allocate a few weeks to it, I’ll finish the final bits (i.e., give it one last read-through and edit) and post it somewhere.
If so, you’ll read about it here, first.