Recently in Work Category

I'm just so stoked that I got two presentations accepted for JA-SIG that I can't shut up about it.

Are you subscribing to three different feeds for RSS? If so, you can trim that down to just one feed thanks to Yahoo Pipes. Let's hope they remain unclogged for a while.

Myself: So, how are things going?
Me: Fine.
Myself: Just fine?
Me: Good...
Myself: Good?
Me: Yeah, good.
Myself: What's wrong?
Me: Nothing.
Myself: You can't talk about it, eh?
Me: Not really.
Myself: Why not?
Me: It wouldn't be "appropriate."
Myself: Oh...that thing again?
Me: Yeah.
Myself: Ugh...that sucks.
Me: It could be worse.
Myself: Sure, you could have a red hot poker in your eye.
Me: See...
Myself: Yeah, that really makes up for it...
Me: Not really, but I'll get by. It will blow over. Things will change.
Myself: Kinda stupid that you're writing about this in a public forum.
Me: Yeah, googlebot might narc on me. He's my number one reader.
Myself: You should know better.
Me: I do know better, that's why this is so vague.
Myself: Sure, if by "vague" you mean "only people who have absolutely no clue about anything you do wont know what you're talking about."
Me: Touché.
Myself: Don't go all Frenchy on me.
Me: Whatever. Don't we have any TV to watch?
Myself: Bones is still "recording." Wink wink.
Me: Riiiight. Oh well, time to get some shut-eye.
Myself: BRILLIANT!
Me: BRILLIANT!

Wherein I do battle with php-xslt and win.

This week work was...hectic, to say the least. Monday afternoon a system that I've been having trouble with for some time crashed again. Most of the important information was off the server, but one important piece remained. The resolution was in the hands of a vendor. Unfortunately for me, both hardware and software vendors were out to get me. Well, I'm sure they didn't care one way or another, but to me it certainly felt personal.

During this debacle I get the final word that I have my very own "department" at work. What's changed? Not a single thing. Same job. Same pay. Same everything. But now, I have a box on an org chart to protect. I am an official part of the giant state bureaucracy that makes sure things don't happen too quickly. I made the mistake of telling my family and friends, which led to a number of jokes mostly at my expense or at the expense of the idea of government.

I doubt I need to repeat this, but I'm an unapologetic "big government" progressive liberal. I think, even in these dark times, that it is the duty of government to accomplish thing that are larger than the individual. Higher education is certain above and beyond most individuals. Government is not some abstract concept, it is composed of people. These people are typically trying to do their best. Yes, I will acknowledge that some are just there to pick up a paycheck (which makes government different from private enterprise how exactly?) but at my job most people are there because they feel they are making a difference. They feel that what they do contributes to something larger. Something that is larger than the individual. Something that is larger than the sum of it's parts. These are the "good guys" and they are people that I'm incredibly proud to be associated with.

But back to the "debacle" (because really, it's all about me, me, me) ...it was literally one of those incidents that makes you question if your job is worth the perceived mental pain. I had composed a long and detailed e-mail to my boss asking to be removed from the project. After I finished it, I deleted it. It was just one of those things that I had to "say" in order to get to a place where I could get back into a mindset of solving the problem at hand. And solve the problem I did. The system in question is back online on new hardware and things are relatively smooth.

We all need to let off steam. I do it by composing e-mails that never get sent. I get an amazing amount of satisfaction by typing what I'm feeling. That nobody else ever sees it? Well, that's not important. Sometimes I don't know if I'm a "team player" or a "sucker."

Today I snapped on the inside. Just a little. Some poor shmuck at an unamed vendor's support center got a little snotty with me in e-mail and I got a little more snotty back. Oh I talk a good game when nobody is listening, or reading as the case may be. But when it's face to face or more likely e-mail to e-mail, I tend to compose a really heated response, delete it all, and then start all over. This time, not so much.

Oh, it wasn't bad, I was just very blunt about the support situation. But tonight I got to thinking that behind every disaster lies an opportunity. So what opportunity can be taken advantage of in this latest vendor letdown?

Why'd you have to get so hysterical?
Success, success, success is over
Why'd you have to get
So fucking useless

Bloc Party
Positive Tension

I got nothin'...

Back in July of 2004 I noted that I would need look at subversion. Less than two years later, that time has come. All of our rails, php, and perl code at work is in a subversion repository. We aren't using the http interface, as I just haven't bothered with the authentication/apache configuration. It's RHEL 4, so it shouldn't be a big deal, but it's just as easy to not do it and use svn+ssh. The TextMate subversion integration is pretty slick, as is the OS X Finder integration, in case you are looking for good OS X subversion tools