Grumpy Techs

Here’s a story from the trenches we’re sure y’all will appreciate:

Why is it that in the last 30 minutes of the day I get tasked with 90% of my work load? For example, all day today I have pretty much been doing nothing so I have to find things to fill my time. Our office manager went home at 3pm which should guarantee that no no work comes in. There is three very low priority items in my queue so it should be smooth sailing to the weekend. Sure enough, at 4:30pm today I will get 10 new items in my queue from random people asking me to do projects due early Monday morning. Why in the hell are they sitting on these things until the absolute worst time to push them along to me?

In any case, they will all wait until I am good and ready to get at them. To quote Father Mulcahey from M*A*SH “If you hang onto a task long enough, eventually it will become someone else’s problem”

Ahh, yes, Grasshopper, I, and I’m sure, many a dear reader, can all relate with the dreaded “oh, by the way…” that always seems to bear its ugly head at 4:59pm when you’re due to clock out at 5pm.  Most of us think “awesome, something to look forward to” when we have a few low priority agenda items in our “to-do” queue, much like you mentioned, until we’re tasked with the “YOU-GOTTA-GET-THIS-DONE-NOW-OR-IT’S-ARMAGEDDON!!!”-type of request.  Of course, those usually happen on a Friday afternoon.

I can totally relate and appreciate your outlook.  Father Mulcahey’s got it going on and is absolutely correct!

Today should have started out as a good day.  I actually came in to work early because it’s the all-ever-so-popular JEANS DAY which prompted me to wear a very special t-shirt so I could do some…umm…”stress testing” on the network.  I feel like Superman wearing a Kryptonic plaque on his chest as this thing is glowing.  I also made it over to the ever-so-popular (phrase of the day, apparently, dear readers) dining hall for an early breakfast, even though I was a bit afraid of this, I just didn’t care.  After all, I’m wearing my “super shirt”!

I’m sitting there minding my own business when the Curmudgeon joins me.  “Waaay too early for this,” I’m thinking as I’m stuffing myself with sausage links and homefries slathered in ketchup.  Of course, he starts berading me with questions about the Microsloth Server 2003 to 2008 upgrade and “have I been documenting” and “have you come up with a rollback plan” and “have you backed everything up” and “is the hardware adequate” etc. etc.  Of course, I’m thinking “duh?” but the smartass in me decides to give him a blank look and inquisitively ask “Ummm…what do you mean?  Rollback plan?”  Curmudgeon looks at me with this look of horror that obviously portrays “oh shit, we’re screwed” all over his face.  That being said, I pack up my dishes with a continued puzzled look on my face and said “I *think* we’ll be okay as I’ve unplugged the domain controller to let it cool off and give it a break before I wipe it clean and install 2008.  I’m not going to worry about running adprep or dcpromo or whatever that thing is you do.  No big deal.  See you later!” before I walked off, whistling, mind you.

What’s that screaming I’m hearing?

We had another fire drill today.  Actually, this one wasn’t such a big deal because it was pretty nice outside.  I just love Springtime when the birds start chirping and the air smells so fresh and… :::SCREEEEEECHHH!!!!!::: (Please don’t let me get all sickly bubbly like that again.)  Actually, it sucked going through that because I had a lot of work to do and it put me behind.

That being said, we made it outside and we’re standing around, waiting for the “all clear” signal when one of “the men” comes up and tells us to tell everyone to shut-up.  Maybe she (that’s right, I said “she”) felt like we looked like we’d be people our coworkers would respect and listen to.  Oh yeah, I should mention that I’m 5′6″ and weigh about 250 pounds (and them pounds ain’t from muscles).  So, thinking “why should I….oh wait….this could be fun,” I start walking around screaming “SHUT UP….SHUUUUUUUT UUUUUUUP!!!!!”  Of course, this prompted very nasty looks from “the man” who immediately started walking toward me.  Right then and there, she got the “all clear” so I moved into the lull of the crowd and managed to escape deep into the bowels of the server room where I managed to keep myself for the rest of the day.

I didn’t realize we had over 1,000 network ports in our switch core.  Wait, did I miscount?  DAMMMNIT!!!!

Every so often I make the mistake of eating at the complex’s cafeteria at dinner time.  Sometimes this is because I’m staying late and am having a killer Quake tournament going on and I’m “stress testing” our ‘Net connection to ensure all’s good.  Oh, but I make sure I give myself maximum bandwidth and allow emails to trickle through every so often.  Can’t have this place shut down completely, of course.  But anyway…

I was enjoying some time to myself in the cafeteria with a few pounds of rare roast beef when an enduser sits down from me and tells me her laptop won’t power on.  I look at the clock (showed 6:30pm), looked at her then looked at the clock again.  Of course, I get the “well-whadda-ya-gonna-do-about-it” stare in return.  “Two can play at that game,” I thought.  So I return the same stare.  Now, I’m really good at this game even though my eyeballs turned into two cotton balls after about three minutes but SHE BLINKED FIRST, DAMNIT!!!  WOO HOOO!!!!  *clearing throat*  I finally tell her that I’m not technically working right now and really just wish to enjoy my dinner.

Enduser:  “Well, what are you doing *here* then??”

Me: *staring down at the plate of cooling roast beef* “I was kinda, sorta thinking about eating this drippy bloody side of a dead cow.  Hey, is that an artery???” (did I mention this woman’s a vegetarian?)

Enduser: *making gagging noises* “I…ummmm….I think I’ll just come back…” *tears out of the cafeteria towards the rest rooms* (Too bad those particular restrooms are locked after 6pm.  I wonder if she found another place to spew.)

Needless to say, I did really well playing Quake.  Maybe I should eat dead drippy cow more often.

Certainly not in the way any pervys might be thinking, mmm’kay?

Based on the last two posts, I’ve been at work for pretty much 48 hours straight with the exception of about five hours of sleep as you might have read here and here. Right about the end of my second day, one of the “wolves” decides to spend a bunch of time talking with the curmudgeon about our department. The curmudgeon goes on to glorify how great *he* is and how much *he’s* done. Typical for him, yes. I just sat on the other side of the cube wall (yes, he’s *also* in a cube), listening and hoping he wouldn’t say anything too exaggerated or enough to mess the rest of us up. The kicker, however, is when he introduced the wolf to me and asks him “have you ever met Grumpy Tech before?” to wit the wolf replied that he did, of course, yesterday. (Now, Curmudgeon, have you forgotten that you were here for about 30 minutes yesterday and bailed right before the big meetings started because you had to attend a personal gathering which, in your words is “much more important than being here”? Hell, it’s your paycheck, Dude.)

The kicker: the wolf asks *me* for a local printer for him and the rest of the wolves. I just smiled kindly and told him I’d be leaving in a few minutes as I have class to attend but that the curmudgeon would be *more* than happy to assist.

Why is the back of my head getting warm?