Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Adventure 43: 28th November 2005
“And so he’s back….from outa Portugal….”, yup he’s back, back to make our lives a misery once again….apparently he was in Switzerland working but we’ve no evidence to support that theory, so who knows…This week has struggled to start so to business….
Monday 28th November 2005
09:00: I’ve been in about an 40 minutes, I really don’t want to be here, but since I’ve unloaded my various accoutrements, Mobile phone, pass, chewing gum, contact lenses, 150,000 odd bit’s of paper etc etc…oh and set up my laptop in it’s docking station, in the vane hope that it’ll fire up the screen first time of asking, I figure I’m here for the duration….
09:30: Nunob is his happy jolly self, Mary is flitting around like a woman possessed (who knows right ?), and Brenty is sat slumped or more like poured into his seat. There’s a head poking out of a Don’tBeDaft fleece top that he swindled out of one of the senior secretaries a few months ago and he’s looking less like he want’s to be here than I do….
10:00: We pop out for a non smoke..since we’re both being good on the giving up theme…inhaling stale smoke smell is about as close as I’m actually going to get to smoking a cigarette today….
11:00: Honest we were only away for 5 minutes, just couldn’t fill the time in with anything sensationally wonderful.
11:15: Just got an email from my old boss Pester, nice to hear from him, though not nice to hear that his boat yard is about to close because the council has decided to build a new bridge, right where his yard is….may be a discount on the old council tax will be in the offing….
12:30: Lunch
13:30: Back now…Almost as soon as I sit down…”Cre8….are the CoLo proxies installed ?”, he asks in that way that he asks things, like he knows the answer, but wants you to confirm it so he can have a go at you, “No not yet, I’ve managed to pin Basra down to Thursday”…I fend…you have to feel a bit sorry for Basra..he’s off here and there down to Posthumouth, up to Gate Shed, back to backofbeyond…he’s never here…except for Thursday, so since it’s his turn to babysit Mr Numbnuts or me as I’m better known, that’s the day we’re going to go.
14:00: I manage to escape to CD2 (Complete Disaster) where our “Test, soon to become live even though they’re really really crap and old” servers are housed, to do some surfing, looking for jobs and generally work avoidance at all costs….well it is the afternoon and I could really do with a nap…
14:30: Back at my desk now, guilt taking it’s toll. I log in to the Smear Desk “help”desk software and check out if any of my calls have moved from “urgent, past deadline” to “no really really urgent now, someone is going to die if you don’t help me” but just one hit’s my “can I do it ?, do I give a toss ?, will anyone notice if I ignore this” radar….this one has been bubbling around for about 2-3 months and I take it upon myself to do something about it….I have to email this guy called Mikael in our Radish office, and see if he still needs his FTP site setting up, now we’ve finally managed to get the new server up and running.
15:00: The message is sent, time to get a coffee ,do the tapes, get another coffee, surf the net, get a coffee……..
16:00: hmmm I could be in luck…auto response (not that auto if you ask me it’s only taken 1 ½ hours to send a response), from this guy Mikael or rather the email server on his behalf…..apparently he’s left the company…well you can’t say I didn’t try…I close the call…..tomorrows another day…I might go for a personal record tomorrow and answer more than one call…well you have to give people some hope to cling to, now don’t you……
Tuesday 29th November 2005
10:00: He’s working away on something, I daren’t ask….So far so good, the hiccups have all worked wonderfully this week and there aren’t any jobs still running, so all I have to do now is document the fact…Basraman is in but his sidekick is off fighting crime somewhere on his own (QuietRob-in)
10:30: Brenty’s looking confused he keeps disappearing off in to the data centre then coming out looking more and more confused….I know there’s going to be a reason for this…”I don’t seem to be able to get the two MacroShaft servers to talk to each other…” he bleats at me…I look at him blankly it normally does the trick, but then guilt catches up with me and I agree to look at the Firewall…….shit! yeah mmmm…a quick re-enable of the rule that stops those two servers talking to each other …no one will notice, quick slope under the rock you came out of….
11:30: Jady Browntan, (Sod Off Desk Manager (1st haven’t got a bloody clue line)) pops her head over my partition (she’s not very tall)…”Just picked up a call about the Macroshaft servers…”, she queries…”Errr…yes that’s all sorted now I think….”, I may have just about got away with my little miscalculation….”ok shall I phone Dubry sprocket (I can’t remember his name), and make sure”..she presses, “good idea”, I’m bloody good at this aren’t I….
12:00: Jady is walking over again…but not to talk to me oh no, Nunob is her target..and in her best “please mr teacher, spank me ‘till I beg you to stop” voice…she informs him that the reason for the outage on the very important Macroshaft servers, was according to the call log, because “someone had changed the firewall” !!!!!! The caller then asks why it is we aren’t using change control…Oh joy….
12:15: “Cre8, has anything been changed on the firewall ???”, comes the inevitable question from Nunob…I think for a couple of seconds but there’s no escape, so I offer up my sword, position myself over it and get prepared to splice my heart in two…or put another way “Yes, that was me, I was housekeeping the rules and I disabled the wrong rule…”, “ahhhhh ok…” he sighs…with a this isn’t going to get any easier sigh…then curiously nothing..I suspect it’ll be stored up for another one of his fantabulous meetings.. I can’t wait…so rather under a cloud of guilt and annoyance at being dropped in it by a so called bleeding mate…you wait ‘till I see him….lunch is beckoning.
12:30: Lunch
13:30: Back from lunch…nothing to report….
14:00: Brenty asks me if I want to go for another non smoke break…I agree…Once we’re out, I query why it was HE BLOODY DROPPED ME IN IT…”what else was I supposed to put in the call ?” he asks innocently, “well anything like the cable fell out of it again or someone had knocked the power cable or anything but “someone changed the firewall”” I mean Christ !!!...I can’t stay annoyed for long…since he claims it was an innocent mistake and he didn’t really mean to drop me in it…still, I’ll make him pay…..one day…..;-))
Wednesday 30th November 2005
09:00: Well I’m here…but only just….I haven’t even had a chance to put my eyes in yet….
10:00: Eyes are truly in, apart from the one that insisted not sticking either to my eyeball or my finger when I wanted them to, and when I didn’t want them to they did…if you see my meaning…I managed to somehow unfold it on to my eyeball eventually though and now everything is in focus….
10:30: The hiccups have been surprisingly well behaved for a change today….only the usual one’s have failed i.e. the one’s that we shouldn’t be doing anymore since the servers don’t actually exist !..I’ll get to cancelling those jobs one day I just know it…
11:30: Preparations for tomorrows OhNo visit are truly underway..I comment that MFI must have had a particularly difficult decision to make…should they put their hosting centre in Baghdad or the centre of London…tricky one but they went for London, even though it’s actually marginally harder to get to than Baghdad…even Nunob laughs…that’s got to be a first….
12:00: The servers are boxed, I’ve even managed to put labels on them and hopefully they’ll get to their destination on time…I should really do some calls but I’m really not in the mood for helping people today…
12:30: Lunch
13:30: Basraman and Quiet Rob-in are in Posthumous again today..”checking out the new site”…mmm code for having a skive if you ask me….so it’s just me and Brenty…all very quiet…
The rest of the day drifts by, nothing much left to report…
Thursday 31st November 2005
08:30: I’ve driven the Mondeo in today..since it’s a bit leaner on the old juice, so I can make a bit more on the expenses claim…(it has to be done)
09:00: Basra is on the phone (as always) explaining the complexities of something to do with the networks to someone who’s also explaining back to him the complexities of something else…this could take a while…so I go an get a coffee…
09:30: Finally I’ve managed to drag him away from the phone and we’re on our way down the motorway into the hell hole that is London…
10:30: An hour in and it’s all going far to well…”I think”, he says, “ we should turn left here”, just past the lights is a turning on the left..but it doesn’t look like the left turn he’s talking about so I drive past it…”ok perhaps not then”, all too late I realise my mistake, and offer to turn around but Basra is confident he can navigate us to the right destination….
12:30: Ok we’re really crawling along now…the last two hours have been spent behind a queue of traffic, all queued up because a bus has broken down in the middle of the road….3 bloody hours…
12:45: Finally we’ve made it…The unofficial “keep it under yer hat” parking spaces have all been taken so damn it we have to pay to park £3.50 !!! That gives us just about 2 hours to get the three servers racked, configured and access tested…doddle no probs….
14:45: Back in the car now with 10 minutes to spare…that was lucky…Basra is disintegrating since he hasn’t had his statutory 27 sandwiches and 300 packets of crisps that he normally has…out of pity I decide to stop at a garage so he can stock up…I buy a sausage roll and a packet of Sweet chilli crisps (maxi pack obviously)…
15:15: He’s not bad at this holding the crisp packet business and I think we’re both now refuelled…
15:30: We’re bombing it down the motorway…Basra nudges me and I wake up..lucky really since I was driving !!!!
16:00: We’ve made it back to work…that’s a bit of a pain really, as now for 1 hour I have to find something else to do…I check the hiccups…nope they’re all fine…storage, yup we’re bound to be running out of that…nope all fine…there’s a stack of calls I could start going through…but no…well I wouldn’t want to give anyone any false hope now would I ?......
Friday 1st December 2005
Well it’ Friday, there has to be lots of good stuff happening…but there isn’t….
Saturday tomorrow and I’ve got an 8 year olds disco to do, should be good fun…not least fitting both Ryan and Jack in the car along with 4 speakers 2 amps and all my lights…not to mention my light board (newly made especially)….
Monday 28th November 2005
09:00: I’ve been in about an 40 minutes, I really don’t want to be here, but since I’ve unloaded my various accoutrements, Mobile phone, pass, chewing gum, contact lenses, 150,000 odd bit’s of paper etc etc…oh and set up my laptop in it’s docking station, in the vane hope that it’ll fire up the screen first time of asking, I figure I’m here for the duration….
09:30: Nunob is his happy jolly self, Mary is flitting around like a woman possessed (who knows right ?), and Brenty is sat slumped or more like poured into his seat. There’s a head poking out of a Don’tBeDaft fleece top that he swindled out of one of the senior secretaries a few months ago and he’s looking less like he want’s to be here than I do….
10:00: We pop out for a non smoke..since we’re both being good on the giving up theme…inhaling stale smoke smell is about as close as I’m actually going to get to smoking a cigarette today….
11:00: Honest we were only away for 5 minutes, just couldn’t fill the time in with anything sensationally wonderful.
11:15: Just got an email from my old boss Pester, nice to hear from him, though not nice to hear that his boat yard is about to close because the council has decided to build a new bridge, right where his yard is….may be a discount on the old council tax will be in the offing….
12:30: Lunch
13:30: Back now…Almost as soon as I sit down…”Cre8….are the CoLo proxies installed ?”, he asks in that way that he asks things, like he knows the answer, but wants you to confirm it so he can have a go at you, “No not yet, I’ve managed to pin Basra down to Thursday”…I fend…you have to feel a bit sorry for Basra..he’s off here and there down to Posthumouth, up to Gate Shed, back to backofbeyond…he’s never here…except for Thursday, so since it’s his turn to babysit Mr Numbnuts or me as I’m better known, that’s the day we’re going to go.
14:00: I manage to escape to CD2 (Complete Disaster) where our “Test, soon to become live even though they’re really really crap and old” servers are housed, to do some surfing, looking for jobs and generally work avoidance at all costs….well it is the afternoon and I could really do with a nap…
14:30: Back at my desk now, guilt taking it’s toll. I log in to the Smear Desk “help”desk software and check out if any of my calls have moved from “urgent, past deadline” to “no really really urgent now, someone is going to die if you don’t help me” but just one hit’s my “can I do it ?, do I give a toss ?, will anyone notice if I ignore this” radar….this one has been bubbling around for about 2-3 months and I take it upon myself to do something about it….I have to email this guy called Mikael in our Radish office, and see if he still needs his FTP site setting up, now we’ve finally managed to get the new server up and running.
15:00: The message is sent, time to get a coffee ,do the tapes, get another coffee, surf the net, get a coffee……..
16:00: hmmm I could be in luck…auto response (not that auto if you ask me it’s only taken 1 ½ hours to send a response), from this guy Mikael or rather the email server on his behalf…..apparently he’s left the company…well you can’t say I didn’t try…I close the call…..tomorrows another day…I might go for a personal record tomorrow and answer more than one call…well you have to give people some hope to cling to, now don’t you……
Tuesday 29th November 2005
10:00: He’s working away on something, I daren’t ask….So far so good, the hiccups have all worked wonderfully this week and there aren’t any jobs still running, so all I have to do now is document the fact…Basraman is in but his sidekick is off fighting crime somewhere on his own (QuietRob-in)
10:30: Brenty’s looking confused he keeps disappearing off in to the data centre then coming out looking more and more confused….I know there’s going to be a reason for this…”I don’t seem to be able to get the two MacroShaft servers to talk to each other…” he bleats at me…I look at him blankly it normally does the trick, but then guilt catches up with me and I agree to look at the Firewall…….shit! yeah mmmm…a quick re-enable of the rule that stops those two servers talking to each other …no one will notice, quick slope under the rock you came out of….
11:30: Jady Browntan, (Sod Off Desk Manager (1st haven’t got a bloody clue line)) pops her head over my partition (she’s not very tall)…”Just picked up a call about the Macroshaft servers…”, she queries…”Errr…yes that’s all sorted now I think….”, I may have just about got away with my little miscalculation….”ok shall I phone Dubry sprocket (I can’t remember his name), and make sure”..she presses, “good idea”, I’m bloody good at this aren’t I….
12:00: Jady is walking over again…but not to talk to me oh no, Nunob is her target..and in her best “please mr teacher, spank me ‘till I beg you to stop” voice…she informs him that the reason for the outage on the very important Macroshaft servers, was according to the call log, because “someone had changed the firewall” !!!!!! The caller then asks why it is we aren’t using change control…Oh joy….
12:15: “Cre8, has anything been changed on the firewall ???”, comes the inevitable question from Nunob…I think for a couple of seconds but there’s no escape, so I offer up my sword, position myself over it and get prepared to splice my heart in two…or put another way “Yes, that was me, I was housekeeping the rules and I disabled the wrong rule…”, “ahhhhh ok…” he sighs…with a this isn’t going to get any easier sigh…then curiously nothing..I suspect it’ll be stored up for another one of his fantabulous meetings.. I can’t wait…so rather under a cloud of guilt and annoyance at being dropped in it by a so called bleeding mate…you wait ‘till I see him….lunch is beckoning.
12:30: Lunch
13:30: Back from lunch…nothing to report….
14:00: Brenty asks me if I want to go for another non smoke break…I agree…Once we’re out, I query why it was HE BLOODY DROPPED ME IN IT…”what else was I supposed to put in the call ?” he asks innocently, “well anything like the cable fell out of it again or someone had knocked the power cable or anything but “someone changed the firewall”” I mean Christ !!!...I can’t stay annoyed for long…since he claims it was an innocent mistake and he didn’t really mean to drop me in it…still, I’ll make him pay…..one day…..;-))
Wednesday 30th November 2005
09:00: Well I’m here…but only just….I haven’t even had a chance to put my eyes in yet….
10:00: Eyes are truly in, apart from the one that insisted not sticking either to my eyeball or my finger when I wanted them to, and when I didn’t want them to they did…if you see my meaning…I managed to somehow unfold it on to my eyeball eventually though and now everything is in focus….
10:30: The hiccups have been surprisingly well behaved for a change today….only the usual one’s have failed i.e. the one’s that we shouldn’t be doing anymore since the servers don’t actually exist !..I’ll get to cancelling those jobs one day I just know it…
11:30: Preparations for tomorrows OhNo visit are truly underway..I comment that MFI must have had a particularly difficult decision to make…should they put their hosting centre in Baghdad or the centre of London…tricky one but they went for London, even though it’s actually marginally harder to get to than Baghdad…even Nunob laughs…that’s got to be a first….
12:00: The servers are boxed, I’ve even managed to put labels on them and hopefully they’ll get to their destination on time…I should really do some calls but I’m really not in the mood for helping people today…
12:30: Lunch
13:30: Basraman and Quiet Rob-in are in Posthumous again today..”checking out the new site”…mmm code for having a skive if you ask me….so it’s just me and Brenty…all very quiet…
The rest of the day drifts by, nothing much left to report…
Thursday 31st November 2005
08:30: I’ve driven the Mondeo in today..since it’s a bit leaner on the old juice, so I can make a bit more on the expenses claim…(it has to be done)
09:00: Basra is on the phone (as always) explaining the complexities of something to do with the networks to someone who’s also explaining back to him the complexities of something else…this could take a while…so I go an get a coffee…
09:30: Finally I’ve managed to drag him away from the phone and we’re on our way down the motorway into the hell hole that is London…
10:30: An hour in and it’s all going far to well…”I think”, he says, “ we should turn left here”, just past the lights is a turning on the left..but it doesn’t look like the left turn he’s talking about so I drive past it…”ok perhaps not then”, all too late I realise my mistake, and offer to turn around but Basra is confident he can navigate us to the right destination….
12:30: Ok we’re really crawling along now…the last two hours have been spent behind a queue of traffic, all queued up because a bus has broken down in the middle of the road….3 bloody hours…
12:45: Finally we’ve made it…The unofficial “keep it under yer hat” parking spaces have all been taken so damn it we have to pay to park £3.50 !!! That gives us just about 2 hours to get the three servers racked, configured and access tested…doddle no probs….
14:45: Back in the car now with 10 minutes to spare…that was lucky…Basra is disintegrating since he hasn’t had his statutory 27 sandwiches and 300 packets of crisps that he normally has…out of pity I decide to stop at a garage so he can stock up…I buy a sausage roll and a packet of Sweet chilli crisps (maxi pack obviously)…
15:15: He’s not bad at this holding the crisp packet business and I think we’re both now refuelled…
15:30: We’re bombing it down the motorway…Basra nudges me and I wake up..lucky really since I was driving !!!!
16:00: We’ve made it back to work…that’s a bit of a pain really, as now for 1 hour I have to find something else to do…I check the hiccups…nope they’re all fine…storage, yup we’re bound to be running out of that…nope all fine…there’s a stack of calls I could start going through…but no…well I wouldn’t want to give anyone any false hope now would I ?......
Friday 1st December 2005
Well it’ Friday, there has to be lots of good stuff happening…but there isn’t….
Saturday tomorrow and I’ve got an 8 year olds disco to do, should be good fun…not least fitting both Ryan and Jack in the car along with 4 speakers 2 amps and all my lights…not to mention my light board (newly made especially)….
# posted by cre8 @ 4:20 PM 
