Cubicle-American
Journal for the week of 2/20/17
2/20/17 — Federal holiday.
2/21/17
1239 — Back from a week off and into a small shit storm. I decommissioned an application last year that folks were still able to ping. Nothing too major but the fact that it can still be pinged showed that it’s still “technically” active.
We’re going through a health check for active licenses regarding various IBM products, ie do we need more/less/any licenses for those products. Being able to ping applications, during an audit, would force us to purchase new license agreements and I didn’t want to be caught up in that. A server that holds licenses for my application needed to be shut down. It was missed due to poor planning on my part but caught, I hope, in time to shut it down and avoid undue costs, we should know later today. Surprisingly, I only walked into ~500 emails from my absence. A rare quiet week. Now I’m working on a list of tools for Rapid Application Development (RAD) to see who uses/needs them to continue doing whatever it is they do. I have 1 person on my team that uses RAD and it’s just for some Java updates and other small tasks so it shouldn’t be a problem. Meetings abound this afternoon but so far it’s been fairly quiet.
From the cubicle: I came back to the same facial expressions from when I left. Not a real surprise but we’ve had a great stretch of weather and I expected to see more smiles. Only a couple of folks asked how my vacation was…another surprise since no one can stay out of other people's’ lives but I do appreciate the ones that asked. Short answer…it was great and I’m looking forward to getting out of here again. I had forgotten that I cleaned off my desk and wondered WTF happened to all my stuff. It’s like a damn treasure hunt to re-discover where everything is. Last year I had a coffee mug stolen and it made me paranoid but so far, so good.
1422 — Helped a colleague through a compile of some table related programs. These programs are basically just manual entries. She was following instructions from another developer and was stuck. On the mainframe, there’s what’s called a job-card. It points the program to the correct compile procedures, notifies the developer of it’s progress, creates a “dump” which is just a job log, etc. Her compiles were erroring out and it was because her job card was incorrect. Totally understandable for someone with little mainframe experience. We got it corrected and all is well. One thing IBM’s z/OS does is assume a history of the last time the program was updated. In doing so, it’s very easy to skip over the job card as the history will be an exact copy of the last time. Once you update the job card, it will carry those changes forward so you don’t have to do it again for those components. I like bringing the history forward but if you don’t catch it, the last developer will get notified that the program was compiled and they won’t know why or what it pertains to.
1610 — Got through some bullshit meetings and trying to wind down. For a “first day back to work” it turned out better than expected. A friend of mine is in a program that lets folks change departments to get experience with what other do. Her job turned into nothing more than intern work that she affectionately calls “bitch work” and she’s right. Just documentation and spreadsheet crap which isn’t really what the program was promising. My assumption is that each person would be getting a more hands-on experience but they ended up with a very hands-off one. This is a problem with so-called cross training. It never lives up to the hype and turns into “bitch work” very quickly. Management will get a pat on the back for the initiative but won’t listen to the minions and their opinions of it all. I must say, though, a lot of it depends on the teams they’re assigned to. It’s really the responsibility of the team to give people the experience they want versus the reality of the work.
1426 — Out.
2/22/17
0811 — In. Quiet but it’s only the beginning of the day. No meetings on the schedule but still plenty to catch up on. I can’t get a song I want to write about a cat, Boogie, I met on vacation out of my head. He’s jet black and friendly as hell. Boogie rules the roost at a music store, Bluestown Music, in Clarksdale, MS. Jumps on the counters, amps, everything including the owner Ronnie Drew. Ronnie is an older guy, gray hair and tall who makes, sells, and services guitars for a lot of big names in the music industry. Super cool dude and probably one of the most friendly people I’ve ever met. After hearing a Bo Diddly-esque song on the radio down there, a song for Boogie keeps coming to mind and needs to be written. Outside of this journal I don’t mix business with pleasure but I hope the groove stays with me long enough to get the song out when I’m home tonight. Yes, a cat can inspire plenty of songs and Boogie is no exception.
0916 — Pinged my boss regarding a job shadow initiative that the company is running. It’s like it sounds, we submit to shadow another position outside our normal duties to gain understanding of how other business units do their thing. I’m trying to get all the details to submit it to my boss but hopes are low. People always say there’s ‘no time’ to let folks move from one place to another even if it’s a company sponsored program which puts me in a bad spot. My individual development plan (IDP) for 2017 included cross training and this is a great opportunity but it’s only a 50/50 shot of getting it.
1234 — Still quiet for now. A friend of mine got the application/server issue from yesterday solved. The server in question was allowing a link to ping it thus bringing back an error saying the app can’t connect to databases. So, the server has been decommissioned and in 30 days off the grid. Had it stayed “live” (which it wasn’t in reality since there was a denial of service already in place) it would have cost a lot of money had IBM done an audit of the licenses. I’m confident that we’re good now but it was a silly exercise to go through brought up by an Assistant Vice President that is much too paranoid to know better. I get that things cost money but he took it to a level of catastrophic proportions. I’m really lucky to have established good working relationships with many people here. Without the help of my friend, a master of all things in distributed systems, we’d have been fucked on this one.
From the cubicle: I’m breaking my own rule and conducting personal business while at my desk but not using company phone so I think it evens out. The student loan BS I’ve had to go through to get some of my payments refunded is finally coming to an end. The student loan company owed me ~$3500 and told me it would take 30-45 days to get it back. They fucking changed the address for excess payments and didn’t alert my credit union to the best of my knowledge and kept blaming the bill pay folks for not sending it to the correct address. IT’S AN ELECTRONIC TRANSFER AND WHY WOULD THAT HAVE ANY FUCKING BEARING ON IT!!!! Unbelievable. So, now the money is trickling in and I’ll be sending it right back out via their site. All the while interest is still accruing of course and it’s the same as refusing payments in my not so humble opinion. I need to talk a little softer when I’m yelling at people on the phone. Now everyone knows my student payment woes and find it hilarious to witness my reactions. Can’t blame them on bit.
1540 — Listening to Rush. Good way to bring the day to a close. Not real productive today but some small things got done.
1625 — Out.
2/23/17
0750 — In.
From the cubicle: I’ve been thinking about a career change for a few years. Problem is that I don’t want to start anywhere at an entry level and take a big pay cut. My wife is getting a life coaching business off the ground so she can leave her government job. We’re quite worried with the new administration that her funding will get cut and she’ll be out of a job. I get email notices on my phone with job announcements for media related jobs but I have no experience with media outside of writing music for indie projects and voice over work. Taking classes in the DC Metro area is expensive and time consuming. We have access to lynda.com courses that could help get me some education and they’re usually pretty good but no real hands-on exercises. To my knowledge, management doesn’t get notified when we complete the courses but if an audit is done, then I could take a hit with taking non-work related courses. I don’t actively search for jobs at work, not a good idea and it’ll be a career killer. At 47, maybe I’m going through a midlife crisis but thankful I have a good job. Just too much BS to deal with and I want to do what I love…music and writing. Problem is there’s no money in it and it’s mainly a “who you know” industry. I’ve told my wife several times that I’ll stay in a dead end job knowing I can support her and the kids to get to where they want to be and she’s not having it. For about 4 years I ran a small business on the side doing music/voice over/sound design/writing but, when it comes to creative jobs, everyone wants us creatives to work for exposure or “for the love of it” which means for free. Exposure and no pay doesn’t pay the bills. I still have my home studio open and I’m trying to get back down here to do some tunes or voice over auditions but it’s been a depressing time at home and work so the motivation isn’t there.
1637 — Quiet day. One cancelled meeting and going over documentation for a Visa update. This is the same thing that stung us late last year but we put it to PROD at the end of January and all was fine. This time I’ve all but demanded we stay at least 2 weeks ahead of schedule. Myself and a colleague will be taking the lead on it where we were just support last time. All the code changes, WSDLs and documentation are in hand and we can get started after a kick-off meeting tomorrow. Currently firing down a bag of Nutrisystem cookies, white chocolate chunk. Not real satisfying but doing the trick. It’s all good.
1700 — Out.
2/24/17
0728 — In.
From the cubicle: There’s 2 people talking about their upcoming vacations to Rome and other points in the world. It almost sounds like they’re in a friendly competition of where they’ve been in prior trips. This raises up a trigger for me regarding travel. Although I just got back from a phenomenal trip from Clarksdale, MS (Home of the Blues) I’ve not been overseas…something I’ve always wanted to do but never had the time and money. The DMV is full of money, entitlement, competition, and egos. Hearing folks nonchalantly talk about these trips triggers my hatred of the 1%. My logic is that the 1% can do anything they want at any time because of their success, something I’ve been resentful of but actually jealous of over my life. We have our fair share of the 1% where I work. It’s just hard for me to hear all the life experiences that I never got. At 47, I still feel that too much life has passed me by to look for a career change and I’m running out of time to travel and enjoy it. I don’t want to be in my 60s before taking trips, I want to be young enough to enjoy it. The career change is nothing more than a pipe dream and I’ve really given up on it. I know this is all petty BS and whining but thought to share because I know there’s people in much poorer places throughout the country that feel the same which is a stupid argument on my part. I don’t know, it’s tough and still brings out some of the worst in me. Jealousy and pettiness are nothing to be proud of yet I continue to carry both. Oh well.
1628 — Out.
