Birthday time again, redux

Well today has dawned bright and sunny. Prolly get to hot and humid later - that's the weather pattern we seem to be in, at the moment - but then that's what the air conditioning is for.

I cant recall if I've blogged about my work hours, so if this is a repeat, sorry: When I started here, I'd come from working 9 day fortnights (8.5 hours a day) in the UK, and so I asked my boss of the time (Doug), whether that was available here. He said sure, altho - of course - it's 9 hours a day here as they usually work 80hour fortnights. So, I work all of week one, and take every 2nd Friday off: and I work from home on Mondays, and on the Fridays that I don't have off.

However, the DBA who preceeded me here (John), keeps forgetting about this. It's been happening for a year, so I'm starting to think it's not an accident that he keep scheduling appointments & other issues on the Friday I'm not working.

I had planned to ask for leave, to cover my birthday, as I always do, but when I checked the calendar, my birthday fell on a rostered day off, so I thought, great, no need! Steven (the new DBA) then asked if he could take the day off, & that seemed fine - we don't really overlap and John would be here to cover any issues.

Then, yesterday, John sends out an email announcing he wouldn't be at work until late morning on Friday, because he's got a doctors appointment. Hmmf. No real way of saying no - he wasn't asking, he was telling - so, here I am, working from home this morning. I wouldn't mind too much, except I was aiming to sleep in :(

Oh well, so be it. John is old & cranky at the best of times, approaching retirement age and very resentful of having to leave PNM and join SAIC - I think it was a contract condition of SAIC that PNM provide one of their experienced DBAs, if they took the contract - and, given that they had 11 friggin' DBAs, I would guess the resentment stems from actually having to, yanno, do some work for a change: plus, I'll admit, production DBA is the least exciting bit, as you don't get to help out with the coding and design, just implementation.

Even so, he needs to rise above it: all he's doing is spreading his misery, and acting fairly unprofessionally. It's a shame, because when he forgets to be resentful, he's actually quite amiable & pleasant, with a quirky sense of humor. Oh well.

It does remind me tho: after 7 years under Graham the Engineer, and his high standards, I'm actually quite shocked at the lack of professionalism and competenece I keep encountering over here - to quite a frightening extent. I know standards have been falling in IT for the last 25 years, as numbers expand (and intellect decreases), but geez, how do some of these buffoons manage to get out of bed and get dressed each day? I keep looking at their shoes to see if they can tie their own laces yet (mostly, no, they depend on velcro'd sneakers).

Let me provide an example (a rant I already had at Ray):
On Monday I got contacted by 3 new consultants hired by our client firm, to do some programming & set up a new software application for them: they couldn't connect to the (existing) databases on 2 servers, so there must be something wrong with the servers (of course).

After much fussing about, we determined there's nothing wrong with the databases or the servers, and it must be their connection file that had errors, so I forwarded them a copy of the master connection file, and forgot about it.

On Tuesday they reported that that wasn't working either, they still couldn't connect to the databases, and there MUST be something wrong with the databases, and WE"RE WASTING THEIR TIME AND THE COMPANY'S MONEY so do something about it. Well, after having to verify (and print off a copy for the IT manager) to prove there was nothing wrong with the databases, I tried to analyse what was wrong, and it turned out that they couldn't even connect to the servers or see them on the network at all. Fine, a network problem, I turned it over to Networks to fix it, and forgot about it.

Wednesday I was of course off on leave, driving to Memphis & back.

This morning, I get a phone call SCREAMING that I still hadn't fixed it and my databases weren't working right and I have to fix it RIGHT NOW!

The databases, of course, were fine. I talked to the Network guy, who thought he'd fixed it yesterday (but hadn't of course) ... it turns out that these turkeys were set up on their own (non-company) PCs, and had no connection of any sort to the Clients network. How they thought they could connect to secured databases on our network, I have no idea - magic wands, perhaps, or ESP.

Anyway, it turns out that the network guy yesterday sent them the VPN software, so they could connect via the Internet, except ... they're running 64bit VISTA and the VPN software only runs on 32bit ... which he had explained to them already.

How this is my fault, I have yet to hear, but no doubt they will try to blame me.

What -really- bothers me is, these guys are supposedly IT professionals with tons of experience, and yet it's quite clear that they have not the slightest idea of how networks are meant to work, or simple network connectivity, or even really how O/S's work.

Talk about doomed projects.

End of rant

Well, enough blither - one more phone conference, then John should be here, & I'll be able to hand over and shoot off to the Satellite for latte's and brunch :)

Birthday time again

Well, a pretty quiet weekend: Cat was very withdrawn and silent on Saturday, but came out of it overnight and was much more positive on Sunday, fortunately: I think she was just feeling lonely and a failure on Saturday, something all too easy to slip into here for her, between the having to make new friends, deal with how weird this place can be, and not being allowed to work - which definitely robs her of a lot of feeling of validation and purpose.

Yesterday we went to Denny's for breakfast (Cat's favourite) - as we're regulars there, we always get exceptionally well-treated, and several of the waitresses have adopted Cat in particular as a person to cherish - one of the shift managers, Carol, is becoming a good friend, someone we always spend half an hour talking to when we go there.

Of course, tipping lavishly and still being regulars when their trade is shrinking at an astonishing rate, doesn't exactly hurt our reception either :)

Wandering off on a tangent for a moment: tipping. I always used to tip in NZ, 5 to 10 percent, and the same in England, but after finding the derisory wages paid to waitstaff here, I've made sure I up that to 20-25%, or more if the service is exemplary: in NZ & the UK, tipping was just a luxury for the staff, to reward particularly good work, but here it is a raw necessity just to earn a living wage. I may have blogged this before ... and I daresay I will again, it still appalls me (and at some level, just shocks me: why is the union not sticking up for them? Oh right, the Americans have been sold a bill-of-goods telling them that unions are a bad thing and destroy the economy. Slick, slick, evil work, there).

Howsoever, and returning to topic, we had a congenial and pretty lazy Sunday: Because I knew it's something she really wants to see, I had suggested going to see the Duck Parade through the Peabody (google ducks peabody hotel little rock to find more about this), but she got it into her head that she wanted a whole 'afternoon-tea-at-the-Ritz' experience, and this is something that just flat does not translate to American at all. I tried talking to the hotel about it (it is the toniest hotel in town after all), but they just could not comprehend, or adjust to the idea at all - the best they could do was to offer appetizers from their Steak Bar , not quite the thing. The whole idea of small sandwiches seems to be beyond the grasp of anyone here, ditto for small savouries ("but why wouldn't you want big ones instead").

Aaaaanyway, I thought it'd be much better to let the idea slide, rather than taking to something bound to cause a massive failure to meet expectations, and just leave her feeling isolated, alienated, and generally sad.

For dinner we went out, quite late by Little Rock standards (i.e. 8pm), to Mimi's Cafe - a chain that tries to deliver an approximation of New Orleans: sadly (or perhaps not, given my intolerance for hot spices), it's mostly in the decor, the food is mostly fairly bland american: quite palatable and pleasant, but nothing exceptional. Perhaps I do them a disservice, they do offer Jambalaya (with tomato sauce, uggh), and Blackened fish, so there are a few strands of Orleannois there. Still, it made for a congenial meal, complete with cocktails, and we both managed to leave the table without feeling bloated & like we'd eaten too much - primarily by leaving half our meals on the plate, of course.

Which is something I'm not sure I have remarked on before: American food, in addition to being staggeringly oversweet (even the things you dont think have any sugar in them, do), comes in amazing, appalling, titanic quantities. I mean, really, more is not always better. Of course, the temptation is always to clear your plate (like we were told as kids, hahah), but it's something we're slowly learning not to do, because of the extremely unfortunate effects it has on our digestion, and of course on our weight.

And lest you think I exaggerate, really, no: most of the restaurant meals here are collossal - a full (large) plate of salad with (sweetened) mayo or dressing (and usually cheeses), followed by a full plate of whatever you ordered - and in both cases I mean, full, as in you can't see any of the plate except the rim. This is, I guess, why Americans habitually ask for doggie bags (now they seem to be simply called home-boxes) to take away the excess, because the meals are so big that almost noone could actually finish them. This is a habit we may have to acquire, to help avoiding this issue (of course, almost all the things we order, taste like rubbish when reheated or cold, so all we are really doing is changing the location where the food is thrown out).

Anyway, work calls, so more idle rants tomorrow.

Julie, Don't Go, I said

with apologies to Wayne & Schuster...

Saturday being Cat's birthday, we decided to go for a slightly more upmarket meal than the diners we've been frequented, & booked in to a midprice sort of place called Julie's (part of a chain, I surmise). We had been there once on a quiet Friday evening and found it quite pleasant, wtih good food and service. Not so much, this time.

Despite booking a table, they tried to fit us into a booth (not a great idea at my size), and when that didn't work, tried to seat us at a table in the bar, where we could be entertained by the blaring TV screen. After putting my foot down, we got a table for two, without too much delay.

For the rest, well ... as Cat said, the ice water was very nice: and the service was excellent, I must admit, but the food was, well, the worst we've had since we got here, and as bad as a bad English pub. My prime rib was both tasteless and tough, to the point that I sent it back, & ordered spaghetti and meatballs instead - which turned out to be two (2) meatballs, with a lot of thin spaghetti and a thick tomato/vegetable sauce, basically dull and uninteresting. I managed about a third of it and gave up.

Cat had beef nacho salad, which she had maybe a quarter of - I didn't ask for a critique of it, didn't seem necessary. We left hurriedly for points eastward, and I can't see going back there as an option. (I did leave the waitress a tip, after getting her promise that none of it would go to the kitchen staff - she really did do a great job, with miserable materials).