Okay, I PROMISE I am so very NOT making this up.
This morning was pretty rough at work - the daily sales files weren't making it to our servers for the field guys to pick up, our main server was down, everyone was complaining, the server admin guys were flustered, I had to update management on the situation every 5 min before the poop hit the propeller from a bigwig....
And a little ray of sunshine came across my desk.
Because our users work strictly out of home offices (all 832 of them) we have to be super careful how we send updates to their laptops. So we pretty much set up any updates in a way that hopefully, would not boggle even the most dense individual. KISS is our motto. Well, we've been working to get all of our users up to compliance with an important version of a particular software package they use, like, every minute of the day just about.... so in this case we were ESPECIALLY sensitive to the need to write out every. possible. step. clearly.
Probably most poignant was the fact that the particular issue was forwarded by Satan's minion #1 - and he didn't even blink at it...
Said user sent an email reply back to Satan's minion #1's directive that he MUST comply with the upgrade upon pain of fingernail hanging with the following comment...
"Minion #1, I'm TRYING to comply. But I'm so lost at step number 4. It says to double-click on 'My Computer' but it doesn't say WHICH FINGER!!!"
I simply could not contain myself. I lost it. I'll betcha it took me 20 minutes to get re-composed.
...to make it even funnier, Satan's minion didn't even miss a beat. In his forwarding comments he demanded we escalate an issue to the main Help Desk to be prepared for incidents like this.
It wouldn't have been so funny, if they hadn't been so stinkin' serious about it.
p.s. Everyone wonders why I voted to give them all Gameboys instead of laptops...
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Monday, January 29, 2007
Thought for the day
I felt guilty for laughing at this but this little ditty came from the infamous pageant boards and it just gets funnier everytime I read it:
"Some people are like a slinky, not really good for anything - but you can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs..."
Right behind it was an equally funny yet disturbing post:
"The next time you find yourself on a plane, sitting next to someone who cannot resist chattering to you endlessly, I urge you to quietly pull your laptop out of your bag, carefully open the screen (ensuring the irritating person next to you can see it), and hit this link ."
http://www.thecleverest.com/countdown.swf
hmmm, must be the meds....
"Some people are like a slinky, not really good for anything - but you can't help but smile when you shove them down the stairs..."
Right behind it was an equally funny yet disturbing post:
"The next time you find yourself on a plane, sitting next to someone who cannot resist chattering to you endlessly, I urge you to quietly pull your laptop out of your bag, carefully open the screen (ensuring the irritating person next to you can see it), and hit this link ."
http://www.thecleverest.com/countdown.swf
hmmm, must be the meds....
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Um, little setbacks
Sorry I was gone so long. I had a little unexpected misstep...
It's funny how you can go through so much in life, and then something really small can knock you off your feet.
See, I have the best life and the worst life all at the same time and I stay constantly conflicted.
I have a great big house which most people want but I constantly stay overwhelmed because I fell like I can't keep it up. But my husband won't move because he nearly got killed building it.
I have a great job, but stay constantly nerve wrecked over the abuse I take in it daily. But I can't quit because it's the devil I know.
I have parents that pay for my children to get the best schooling, but it tears my family apart because they think it usurps all of my parental rights. I could pay for it myself, but then we'd have to stop EVERYTHING else we do for fun to pay...and if I put my kids in public school, I'd have to send them 30 min in the opposite direction from where we live from the other 30 min direction I go to my office. So if an emergency happened, it would take me a good 1 hr drive to get to them. The worst thing is, if we did take them out of private school, it wouldn't fix the parental issues anyway, and that's a much bigger story for a later blog.
But there are bigger parental issues - it's hard to explain. Maybe if I dole it out in little bits I can finally figure out why I either let the situation continue, or why the problems are always my fault.
My husband has flexibility in his job, but his family pays his paycheck and never lets him forget it. And he's not a real "happy" person, because he stays in pain and he has a job that's hard on his physical condition as well.
I know much of my troubles are self inflicted, but the straw on the camel's back came a couple of weeks ago.
They do a community sponsored sex-education program at my children's school for 7th graders. I personally wanted to put my son in it, but my mother demanded that we NOT put him in because "it just teaches kids about the evils of sex." Part of the dilemma is 1) we ask the school to lie to her if she inquires (which she does) and put him in...which you can see the fundamental issue with that since he goes to private CHRISTIAN school 2) now my son is the only one not going and feels kind of ostracized. Well, my husband had enough and we got in a fight over it, and I'd had a terribly bad day at work, and then my medical condition flared up (I have a rare skin condition that causes extreme itching when I get stressed out) and it all came together in a lovely case of ....
a NERVOUS BREAKDOWN.
You know, the mind can be a funny thing. Everything can be okay, and you can continue to rationalize, until one day it all just comes crashing down on you. I really tried not to fall. I told myself that it's all okay, I'm just making things a bigger deal than they are. But I just couldn't do it. It's not something you ever want to go through, the numbness I think is the worst part and the crying. I just could not stop no matter how hard I tried. I thought of my children. I thought of the good things I have. But then the thoughts come "nobody loves me" "why can't I do a better job...?" (fill in blanks of better worker, better mom, fix all the family issues etc.) But the numbness just went deeper. My mind just felt like it was going into a dark abyss - and I was clawing my way out to no avail. I don't even have a really good excuse for it. It's not like I lost a child, or I'm going to die or anything. But it's still very real for some reason. I was sick, like the flu, they explained - it just happened to be with my mental health, and I needed to get well.
Thankfully, I'm pretty resilient and they gave me a strong anti-depressent for awhile - but the question is... why? why now?
It's funny how you can go through so much in life, and then something really small can knock you off your feet.
See, I have the best life and the worst life all at the same time and I stay constantly conflicted.
I have a great big house which most people want but I constantly stay overwhelmed because I fell like I can't keep it up. But my husband won't move because he nearly got killed building it.
I have a great job, but stay constantly nerve wrecked over the abuse I take in it daily. But I can't quit because it's the devil I know.
I have parents that pay for my children to get the best schooling, but it tears my family apart because they think it usurps all of my parental rights. I could pay for it myself, but then we'd have to stop EVERYTHING else we do for fun to pay...and if I put my kids in public school, I'd have to send them 30 min in the opposite direction from where we live from the other 30 min direction I go to my office. So if an emergency happened, it would take me a good 1 hr drive to get to them. The worst thing is, if we did take them out of private school, it wouldn't fix the parental issues anyway, and that's a much bigger story for a later blog.
But there are bigger parental issues - it's hard to explain. Maybe if I dole it out in little bits I can finally figure out why I either let the situation continue, or why the problems are always my fault.
My husband has flexibility in his job, but his family pays his paycheck and never lets him forget it. And he's not a real "happy" person, because he stays in pain and he has a job that's hard on his physical condition as well.
I know much of my troubles are self inflicted, but the straw on the camel's back came a couple of weeks ago.
They do a community sponsored sex-education program at my children's school for 7th graders. I personally wanted to put my son in it, but my mother demanded that we NOT put him in because "it just teaches kids about the evils of sex." Part of the dilemma is 1) we ask the school to lie to her if she inquires (which she does) and put him in...which you can see the fundamental issue with that since he goes to private CHRISTIAN school 2) now my son is the only one not going and feels kind of ostracized. Well, my husband had enough and we got in a fight over it, and I'd had a terribly bad day at work, and then my medical condition flared up (I have a rare skin condition that causes extreme itching when I get stressed out) and it all came together in a lovely case of ....
a NERVOUS BREAKDOWN.
You know, the mind can be a funny thing. Everything can be okay, and you can continue to rationalize, until one day it all just comes crashing down on you. I really tried not to fall. I told myself that it's all okay, I'm just making things a bigger deal than they are. But I just couldn't do it. It's not something you ever want to go through, the numbness I think is the worst part and the crying. I just could not stop no matter how hard I tried. I thought of my children. I thought of the good things I have. But then the thoughts come "nobody loves me" "why can't I do a better job...?" (fill in blanks of better worker, better mom, fix all the family issues etc.) But the numbness just went deeper. My mind just felt like it was going into a dark abyss - and I was clawing my way out to no avail. I don't even have a really good excuse for it. It's not like I lost a child, or I'm going to die or anything. But it's still very real for some reason. I was sick, like the flu, they explained - it just happened to be with my mental health, and I needed to get well.
Thankfully, I'm pretty resilient and they gave me a strong anti-depressent for awhile - but the question is... why? why now?
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Time flies....
Wow! Has it been an entire week since I could last post??
I guess I should let you guys in on a little secret - I'm living dog years. Yes, it might have been a week for you, but only a day for me. I used to be on people time, but somewhere around the first child being born, I got stuck in a time/space continuum warp and things have never been the same.
It's been a crazy week...
First - for those of you who are new, I work in corporate hell. And we are currently trying to transition year end for our sales force applications. Normally, it wouldn't sound like such a bad thing, but my two business users are card carrying minions of Satan and LOVE to make my life as miserable as possible. And last year, we had a cataclysmic disaster with closing (never mind the person executing the tasks was leaving the company, and the person taking over pissed off MY boss off so the entire time I was trying to get the new guy to rescue the system, my boss was trying to get him fired for lame reasons so he could get a buddy of his hired immediately...) which not only had the users "down" for creating sales goals and tracking actual sales for two months, ended up making us look like the keystone cops because our outsourced IT infrastructure (a world renowned services company that is referenced by the color blue that shall remain unnamed) kept FUCKING things up every time we'd get close to fixing the problem. To make matters worse, we aren't allowed to express their mistakes and have to take them as our own. ....So, the minions are rubbing it in this week. And I have good guys working for me now, so we are trying to put in as many stop-gaps, fallbacks, and checkpoints into the process as I think are humanly and computerly possible. I guess you could say we're still licking our wounds from last year... and I wish the flashbacks would stop...
Satan's minion #1 called me on Thursday, not to ask how things were going, or how they could help with the process... No... just to chew me out for 45 min about how stupid, incompetent, backlogged, and utterly worthless we are, as if we were looking for ways to be as inefficient as possible. Never mind THEY cut our budget 60 percent, which is what my staffing is based on. So I told him well, you get what you pay for.... needless to say, THAT went over well.
Then my Palm Pilot was lost/stolen. I have been struggling with extreme separation anxiety. I'm so dependent on that thing it's ridiculous. Good news is, my boss said they'd get me a cool replacement if I can't find it after another week...but I still have several more days to flounder.
And now we're getting back to pageant land. Had to take prissy miss Gizmo out of town for additional coaching. We're going for a grand at a big state pageant this month - I've not been as enthusiastic about pageants for awhile but Gizmo has been asking about doing one so I guess we'll give it a go. I hate to do anything half-ass so now we are practicing and getting ready... Where's my reality show???? Preparing for a pageant kind of changes your relative perspective, Yeah I know you're a corporate big shot, but if you REALLY want to impress me - let me see you get an even spray tan on a wiggling toddler and get her to do "surprise face" on cue on stage at any given time of day... then maybe I'll be impressed with you ;o)
Don't have the mensa schedule yet. Will keep you posted (no pun intended ;o)
I'll do better posting regularly now that I'm getting back into the swing of things!
To all who are trying to get in the groove of 2007 - Here we goooooooo.....!!!!!
I guess I should let you guys in on a little secret - I'm living dog years. Yes, it might have been a week for you, but only a day for me. I used to be on people time, but somewhere around the first child being born, I got stuck in a time/space continuum warp and things have never been the same.
It's been a crazy week...
First - for those of you who are new, I work in corporate hell. And we are currently trying to transition year end for our sales force applications. Normally, it wouldn't sound like such a bad thing, but my two business users are card carrying minions of Satan and LOVE to make my life as miserable as possible. And last year, we had a cataclysmic disaster with closing (never mind the person executing the tasks was leaving the company, and the person taking over pissed off MY boss off so the entire time I was trying to get the new guy to rescue the system, my boss was trying to get him fired for lame reasons so he could get a buddy of his hired immediately...) which not only had the users "down" for creating sales goals and tracking actual sales for two months, ended up making us look like the keystone cops because our outsourced IT infrastructure (a world renowned services company that is referenced by the color blue that shall remain unnamed) kept FUCKING things up every time we'd get close to fixing the problem. To make matters worse, we aren't allowed to express their mistakes and have to take them as our own. ....So, the minions are rubbing it in this week. And I have good guys working for me now, so we are trying to put in as many stop-gaps, fallbacks, and checkpoints into the process as I think are humanly and computerly possible. I guess you could say we're still licking our wounds from last year... and I wish the flashbacks would stop...
Satan's minion #1 called me on Thursday, not to ask how things were going, or how they could help with the process... No... just to chew me out for 45 min about how stupid, incompetent, backlogged, and utterly worthless we are, as if we were looking for ways to be as inefficient as possible. Never mind THEY cut our budget 60 percent, which is what my staffing is based on. So I told him well, you get what you pay for.... needless to say, THAT went over well.
Then my Palm Pilot was lost/stolen. I have been struggling with extreme separation anxiety. I'm so dependent on that thing it's ridiculous. Good news is, my boss said they'd get me a cool replacement if I can't find it after another week...but I still have several more days to flounder.
And now we're getting back to pageant land. Had to take prissy miss Gizmo out of town for additional coaching. We're going for a grand at a big state pageant this month - I've not been as enthusiastic about pageants for awhile but Gizmo has been asking about doing one so I guess we'll give it a go. I hate to do anything half-ass so now we are practicing and getting ready... Where's my reality show???? Preparing for a pageant kind of changes your relative perspective, Yeah I know you're a corporate big shot, but if you REALLY want to impress me - let me see you get an even spray tan on a wiggling toddler and get her to do "surprise face" on cue on stage at any given time of day... then maybe I'll be impressed with you ;o)
Don't have the mensa schedule yet. Will keep you posted (no pun intended ;o)
I'll do better posting regularly now that I'm getting back into the swing of things!
To all who are trying to get in the groove of 2007 - Here we goooooooo.....!!!!!
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