Archive for the 'Work' Category
So..it is just past lunch on my first day at work in the new year, and I am already glad that I don’t have much hair. It would most definitely be torn out already.
Seriously, how hard is it to remember a single frickin’ password for just over a week? Also, if you do forget it…try not to shout at my team when they tell you that you have to visit our office for a reset. This is not new, you have done it at least 5 times in the last few months (ticket history is great).
I won’t apologise for my level of sarcasm when I respond to your claims of “Never had to come to the office before”…when 3 of the last 5 tickets were created and solved by myself….and I don’t do over the phone.
If you phone up to chew me out because your account extension didn’t go through don’t expect sympathy when, after I manage to get an emergency 24 hour extension, you call back to give me the number of a request that was created an hour AFTER your phonecall. No, no need to apologise…I am here to take your abuse…no problemo (account/change pass/confirm). See you soon 
We have taken over 250 calls since 08:30 this morning, and honestly, over 90% of these were from people that couldn’t remember their passwords from a week ago…..The others were from people who seem to have forgotten that the email reminders of their pending password expiry need to be acted on…or how to change their password…or their frickin’ username (here’s a hint…it starts with your LAST FUCKING NAME)
Umm…better stop before I really go on a rant…
How’s your day been so far?
Now I know that the current financial crisis is causing problems in the industry. I know that banks and their employees are in a semi-permanent alternating state of catatonia and panic. I didn’t, however, realise that it had gotten so bad where I am working. I went to the smoking area today and there is a meeting room next door, it is one of the posh meeting rooms where they have signs outside announcing the meeting going on in that room.
Today, this particular meeting room had the following sign:
SOILING TEST MEETING
Now, as the title says, at least they are being honest. I appreciate that the Germans have a reputation for being methodical and organised about everything, but if people are shitting themselves all day at the moment…surely they don’t need a test? Of course, it is worse if you consider that they might not be shitting themselves currently, but have planned a session in the near future and want to ensure that all of the staff have their emergency nappies and moist towellettes within easy reach. Perhaps they are demonstrating the quickest ways to remove various clothing items. It seems like they are a caring company…most would focus on soiling avoidance, but these guys are with you every step of the way. “Shit away, we don’t blame you..but do it properly and it doesn’t have to be too bad”
I fully expect to see more meetings like this advertised over the coming weeks. Maybe a course in hurling ones self from the top of the building, with the focus on minimising trauma to any witnesses and of course taking into account that the landing site is easily accessible by the authorities so that half of Frankfurt doesn’t need to shut down for the Spatula brigade to scrape you up.
You could have hari-kari 101, cyanide application training…vehicle exhaust re-routing seminars. Of course, in this industry you will of course have people that aren’t quite ready to “cash out” so to speak. For these people there will be “Scapegoat Cultivation and how to apportion blame without guilt” and of course the very popular “Embezzlement, it’s not just a funny word…it’s a lifestyle choice”.
The irony of Embezzlement of course…..where do you put your ill gotten gains….you wouldn’t seriously want to put it in a bank would you?
So recently I have been interviewing people for a job in my team. I regularly get asked to perform technical interviews for a number of teams, not just my own it has to be said…it goes without saying that some of the people you end up interviewing would struggle to get out of bed in the morning, let alone get a job in IT.
SP and I invariably carry them out together, and spend most of our time sending little messages to each other over Google Chat..normally about if an answer was good etc…it works well doing this as SP knows immediately if we should proceed to the next stage with the candidate and the candidate doesn’t have to wait around for a decision.
It does however, allow for us to have a little fun when we are dealing with a particularly bad candidate…
In no particular order, I give you my top 3 favourite candidates of recent times…
Candidate 1:
After being told at length that the team is very technical and experienced…comparable to most companies next level of support, this guy continuously asked for reassurances that he wouldn’t be a secretary. After the fourth time of asking, I actually had to say “for the fourth time, this job is nothing like that”. This guy also seemed to be the subject of a man-hunt as it sounded like he was running alongside a motorway with various Police sirens going off around him. When SP was going through his post-interview speech about giving feedback to the agency…my statement was “Feedback will contain the phrase, Candidate should just end it all and jump off the motorway bridge he is so clearly standing on”
Candidate 2:
2 weeks ago I interviewed a guy so bad at computers, I was almost disgusted that the blatant lies on his CV had fooled us. Bearing in mind that the job is general support, having someone tell me that he is a database specialist halfway through the interview…and then have him fail a basic database question…kind of concerned me a little. He was so bad, SP had to hide the phone as he was genuinely concerned he was going to laugh. He did once, but managed to cover it up with a cough. Suffice to say that my conversation on chat with SP was cut short as he started to do his post-interview statements…he said he couldn’t risk seeing what I was going to say whilst he was trying to talk.
Candidate 3:
I loved this guy, for no other reason than he had balls. I asked him a question, which was by no means a requirement to have the answer as it is something we train everyone on anyway. Anyway, the answer was “I don’t really know anything about that”. I said not to worry, but does he know anything at all about it. Then nothing, silence on the phone…I could hear a faint click-clacking in the background…after literally 2 minutes I had to ask if he was still there….at which point he reeled off the answer in it’s entirety..completely telling me everything about what I had asked…to a level that I couldn’t do from the top of my head and I hold certification in this topic. Google for the win I suppose.
If you are going to be having an interview, here are a couple of top tips:
Know your own CV - I know that sometimes agencies don’t give all the information about a particular role, so knowing the job you are applying for might be hard…but you should really know what is on your CV..and therefore be able to answer questions on topics relating to it.
Remember who you are talking to - Again, telephone interviews can be quite full of information, but try and remember who introduces themselves. Calling me John does not give a good impression.
If you don’t know…don’t lie - This should be fairly straightforward, but apparently not. I am by no means an auditor, and I deliberately don’t make the questions unnecessarily technical, but I will know when you have a genuine idea of a subject and when you are making things up. I will call you on it, you will look foolish….you won’t get the job. Simple really.
Try not to panic - Especially if I end the interview relatively quickly. Ending the interview quickly does not mean that you have failed (it can…but not always). I just need to get information enough to make a decision, with some people that takes 5 minutes, with others…an hour. The key thing to remember, if you are being interviewed…you have already been accepted as being capable of doing the job on the strength of your CV…you just have to confirm what I already think.
I will be honest though and say that there are definitely two sides to me during an interview, and they are normally set pretty early on. SP calls them Teddy Bear and Evil. If someone pisses me off real quick into the interview, or fails on pretty much any of my top tips points….Evil Dave turns up and won’t give you a break…normally though, Teddy Bear Dave is there and will be all cuddly and nice…I may even help you out on questions and reassure you. Just be careful which one you force to arrive…..
Interviews going badly are not always the fault of the candidate though. I had to hang up 5 minutes into an interview last year as Zak had fallen and badly hurt his head in the park. Trying to explain that rapidly on the phone to a candidate to whom English was not their first language was fun the say the least. I also got caught out by AV..basically, I had a lot of fairly technical questions prepared and I swear it was like he had the sheet in front of him. I couldn’t trip him up at all (and that never happens)…essentially I started floundering around and making questions up on the fly..which never goes well. Actually, I would take that as a good sign of a successful interview, but what he must have been thinking is beyond me. The least he must of thought is “holy crap, how technical is this job”…the most would have been “who is this stuttering idiot!”
Anyone need a job?
All interviewers are bastards.
So over the last couple of weeks I have just been completely unable to get anything done at work. Either I have spent entire days in meetings, or when I am actually at my desk, operational things get the better of me and I don’t manage to get anywhere with my tasks.
I suppose these are the trials and tribulations of my job really, but the other day I managed to get approval to work a couple of hours from home. Surprisingly enough, in 2 hours I had achieved what had taken me weeks to get less than a quarter of the way through.
I am one of those people that benefits from being able to have a smoke, drink coffee and avoid the phones. I stick my music on and get into a groove of writing…unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work for writing the blog :-( Maybe I am just picking the wrong music for that…the Benny Hill theme tune is probably more appropriate.
If I am going to work from home though, I can’t get into my usual routine of getting out of my work clothes and sticking a pair of shorts on. I have to stay in my work clothes or I actually start to relax and nothing gets done. Which is not normally a problem, unless I am on a mad deadline…like the other day I suppose.
It is dangerously easy to get distracted though. Despite getting everything done in 2 hours, it is fair to say that the 2 hours were not entirely contiguous….
Things I definitely did not do (in case my boss is watching):
Watch the latest Prison Break
Go to the shops to buy stuff
Check things out on Ebay
Watch the latest Heroes
Watch Dylan Moran
Surf and find new and interesting diet methods… and then ingest my bodyweight in snack foods
Exercise
Things I definitely did do:
Work solidly the whole time I was at home until the work was complete.
See…aren’t I good 
I think the mistake was becoming half-relaxed. I knew that if I got out of my work clothes, nothing would get done…so I kept my trousers on, but took everything else off. Lending itself to this state of half work/half relaxed.
I also couldn’t help thinking of the Simpsons episode where Homer gets to work from home. Ok, so I wasn’t wearing one of those “big guy” dresses, and my failure to concentrate wouldn’t cause a potential nuclear meltdown and cause me to become a human plug to save everyone…but still…
I suppose on reflection, my innate British fear of being caught doing anything wrong, led my working from home experience to be somewhat dull…
What would you have gotten up to?
Is it bad when your boss starts sending emails that end with things like “Ask them to change it, but try and be nice”?
Sure, I can argue and I can do it pretty well. At work I can get quite aggressive, which is in direct contrast to what a soft cuddly teddy bear I am outside of work…no honestly.
But my boss has recently started adding lines much like that one to emails…and more recently in direct conversation. I wouldn’t mind, but he regularly drags me into meetings I have neither the desire nor inclination to attend, specifically so that he can utilise me as some form of verbal weapon in the war against more work heading to our section.
Initially I thought it was as a result of my general knowledge and skills, however, I now realise it is simply because I am an opinionated and obstinate bastard. Not that I am complaining, it is nice to have members of senior management in fear of me.
My rants are fairly well known in the office and I think that most people just humour me until I inevitably fall back from the ceiling.
The thing is, generally I am not argumentative outside of work. I can have debates or disagreements, but rarely do I get as vein bulgingly irate as I do at work. I am not sure why this is, maybe the fear of personal injury is somewhat enhanced outside of work.
I have a philosophy, based entirely on my opinion of myself as reasonably intelligent (read: Not stupid), which centers around the fact that I am right…until you prove me wrong. I am willing to be proven wrong (sometimes) and in fact openly tell people that if they want to beat me in an argument they just have to be able to backup their facts. I will then admit defeat and add the knowledge to the future argument munitions dump.
I like winning arguments. I win a lot of arguments. I especially like winning unwinnable arguments. Back in my college days, we had a class entitled “Communications”. Quite a vague name for a class, but I enjoyed it. Basically, I discovered really early on that I could start an argument amongst the class, sit back and wait for the lesson to end. It was here that I found my joy at going for unwinnable arguments. I am not sure how or why, but some of the guys in the class were talking about cars, one of the guys mentioned how getting anything and driving it above 60mph was pointless due to fuel consumption. I argued that you may use more fuel, but you get there quicker, so it all evens out.
To qualify the statement, I entered into the ridiculous. I posited that if a car (for arguments sake) travels 100 miles at 50mph arrives in 2 hours and uses half a tank of fuel, the same car travelling at 100mph will use twice the fuel but arrive in half the time, therefore still only using half a tank of fuel.
It is quite possibly my most favourite argument as it is utter, utter bollocks.
I won, and had 25 other classmates convinced that it was true.
In the same class I argued that the British Armed Forces should pay Poll Tax (The old Council Tax) when away on Aircraft Carriers. My statement was centered around the fact that another country stepping foot on a British Aircraft Carrier without permission could constitute an act of war. Therefore, a British Aircraft Carrier is considered to be British soil. The same argument works for British Embassy buildings and their grounds. The best part about that argument (which I won btw) is that I disagree with my own argument entirely.
I do this a lot, I argued recently with a Linux fan, from a stance where I really know very little about Linux. I got the guy so flustered that he couldn’t argue his point.
I could be a politician, but I enjoy telling the truth too much….to tell the truth
In true form, I have no idea where this is heading so let me try and drag it to a succinct and informative close
I am an obstinate bastard
Nuff said
So I thought I would explain about the whole “Uncle Fester” thing..Although it could quite easily be about a shaved panda.
Many moons ago I was the main guy responsible for support of an up and coming software company. When we started having some serious issues. To cut a long story short, I ended up averaging 21 hours a day, 7 days a week for 9 weeks.
After I collapsed from exhaustion, I have ended up with huge black bags under my eyes whenever I get even slightly tired. When I get really tired….I look like Uncle Fester.
I just wish I had the clothing style though - I just can’t carry off the goth look unfortunately.
I was a workaholic for a long time and often put work ahead of personal life. When I was doing this, I managed to convince myself that I was doing it to enable a great personal life. Bollocks, I was doing it for the praise and success.
For a guy who is skint all the time, its weird that I place more stock in praise rewards rather than financial. Once again…damn you mind of mine.
More recently I realised that I could work harder during the normal working day and achieve just as much. Unfortunately this has now managed to kick me in the arse too. I guess I can’t always win.
Still, a company came a’knocking from Zurich the other day. You never know, I could end up there in the next couple of months. If it happens I will be in the land of skiing….meaning I can find new and interesting ways to fuck up my ankle.
Speaking of Switzerland (nice link eh?)…I have been watching the Euro 2008 Championship and am following Spain with particular interest (as are most Liverpool fans I think). I read somewhere the other day that an English football chant has been converted for just this purpose by a load of Liverpool fans.
Normally we take the “H A P P Y, I’m H A P P Y, I know I am, I’m sure I am, I’m H A P P Y” song and convert it to “England till I die, I’m England till I die…etc”
The latest conversion seems to be “Spain until July, I’m Spain until July…etc”
Sounds good to me
Viva espagna….or something
No…I will not call it Xmas just to satisfy the PC brigade…
Anyhoo, this is a story about the inimitable SP from many moons ago, it was the 2006 works Christmas party, and, not knowing any better we all tagged along.
Free food, free beer and something resembling free entertainment (Genius really, 90% English speaking contingent….entertainment all in German). On a boat, travelling up and down the Main. We were trapped and forced to consume all that was put before us….and some that was put next to us, behind us and occasionally hidden behind the bar.
The beer had been flowing rather well and a good time was being had by all. When I decided, as a joke, to mix my full glass of red wine into my half pint of lager. One taste revealed just how bad of an idea it was, but still - it was worth a try. The old saying is true, you really shouldn’t mix the grain and the grape.
Further along the table, a somewhat inebriated SP was entrenched in conversation with people and had turned away from his pint. As the evening wore on, he didn’t spot that his beer never seemed to require being replaced, he had obviously found that holiest of holy grails…..a never ending beer glass.
Not noticing the perpetually full nature of his glass was actually the least of his troubles, every time he drank some of his beer PH would top the level back up with white wine. This went on for a looong time, so long that I think he must have drank at least 3 pints of nothing but wine. Every time someone asked what he thought of the beer, they were met with the response that it was pretty good.
This was also the night where we met the lunatic edge that is KT on the dancefloor. More energy than the Energiser Bunny and less control than an incontinent alzheimers patient with a leaking bag and broken zimmer frame. Still, it was fun watching him practically pogo and mosh his way to various strains of Take That and New Kids On The Block, dancing around various corporate types.
Christmas parties are definitely the place to learn about the people you work with…that much is certain.
Had a great one yesterday at work. As I have said before, I run a Service Desk and this means that we are responsible for logging all user issues into a ticketing system.
Sometimes we fix them straight away, other times we have to pass them on to other teams. Yesterday, we transferred a ticket to the 3rd level team as there was a serious issue with a users account.
Following investigation, the ticket arrived back in our queue with this comment:
“There was a huge mistake in the creation of this account. Find out who created it and have them fix it!”
Genius…”Ooh, that looks bad, I ain’t doing it”. I wasn’t aware that was an option when you are assigned the task of fixing something. That is of course ignoring the fact that the account was created months ago…
It goes without saying that I gave the ticket back with the message “I don’t care who caused it, just get it fixed…please”, but it strikes me as interesting that this particular support member decided that he wouldn’t work on complicated things today….
I love my job sometimes.
This will probably be my last post for a while, I move apartments tomorrow and will lose my net connection for a couple of weeks. I am also taking the furniture back to Sarah (and a friend) in the UK next week*, so won’t be posting from work.
Ok, now you have stopped cheering about my inability to tarnish the name of blogging for a while….see you in a couple of weeks
* Frankfurt to Calais - 7 hours, Calais to Folkestone - 40 mins, Folkestone to Chichester - 2 hours (unload some stuff), Chichester to Bournemouth - 1 hour. Spend the night in Bournemouth. Bournemouth to Nottingham - 4 hours (unload the rest). Just call me “White Van Man”
I don’t recall the source, but someone is quoted as saying :
There are only two industries that call their customers users…think about that.
It’s a good point, and one that leads me to think that our users are, in fact, on drugs of some description..
Now, I run a Service Desk. It’s a relatively small team, including me there are six of us. We deal with around 200 phonecalls a day, 250 emails per day and 50 requests that need to be scanned. On top of that we look after walk-ins to our area for password resets and “Urgent” requests. As I run the thing, I am rarely taking calls, unless we are swamped. Generally my guys can handle it without issue… Other times the immortal words “I can pass you to the Team Leader if you want” are spoken, and my ears perk up, ready for the inevitable fight
A fairly standard conversation is thus:
Me: Dave speaking, I am the Service Desk Team Leader, what can I help you with?
User: Hi, yes, I called in a while ago and nobody has been down to fix my printer yet.
Me: Ok, let me check the ticket, do you have the number?
U: Wait, I have it here somewhere….Hang on, I may have deleted the email*
2-5 minutes pass
U: Ok, here it is….(provides number)
Me: Yes, I see, you have logged this approximately 10 minutes ago, is that correct?
U: Yes, well, I did say it was urgent
Me: I can see that, you were advised that if it was urgent, to print to another printer…Checking the system I see that there is one across the other side of the room.
U: But that’s inconvenient, and I am printing confidential documents
Me: Documents so confidential that your colleague, in the same team/department and office as you, would have a chance to read and memorise in the 10 seconds it would take you to walk to the printer?
U: Well, no, but they are for <INSERT IMPORTANT PERSON HERE> and it is vital that they are done in the next 10 minutes, and my colleague is using the printer already.
Me: Ok, let me take a look. Right, I see here that the President of the Company has a scheduled fix for 5 minutes from now. The engineer is on his way, but I can probably stop him. Just let me call you back in a minute.
U: What? Umm… the President of the Company?
Me: Yep, he has been waiting since yesterday, so I guess it is ok for him to wait a little longer, especially as this is so urgent for you.
U: Well, no, I mean, I can wait a little bit if necessary.
Me: No no no, it will just take a quick call to the engineer and then to the President of the Company to let them know about the delay as something more important has come up. I am sure he will understand.
U: No, can’t you schedule me in for just after the President?
Me: Hmm, possibly, but I couldn’t guarantee a time.
U: Well, as soon as the engineer finishes with the President will be fine. What time should that be?
Me: Let me check what other appointments there are… It means bumping some others.
U: Other appointments? No, just put me in after the President.
Me: Ok, only…well, we have other important people too with appointments. I tell you what, we have already established that you are not as important as the President of the Company. Let me get thefull list of users, and we can go through them one by one. Obviously I need to understand who else you are less important than for my planning.
U: …..
Me: Or, you could just wait for the engineer to show up a little later?
U: I’ll do that *click*
Me: You are welcome…
Sometimes…I love my job.
* Seriously…you are phoning about an issue you already logged, how hard is it to realise we will need the ticket number people….come on!
…happy - There is no other word for it right now.
Lets look at the contributing factors:
- Liverpool won last night, which means we* are in the Quarter Finals of the Champions League
- I managed to replace my fire damaged cooker extractor fan unit for €25
- I have the blog bug**
- I have confirmed that I have an apartment to go into when I leave the one I am in
- Said apartment will save me shitloads of cash a month
- And will have Sky TV fed in by the landlord
- I have had 2 random phone call approaches about jobs in the last 2 weeks (ego massage anyone?)
- I stunned my boss into speechlessness (is that a word) with an improvement plan he never saw coming
- I sent my kids 2 giant Kinder Surprise easter eggs
- I am really enjoying my conversations with Sarah
Not bad really, especially the Sarah thing. As you probably gathered from my first post, I still care deeply for her. So I am very happy that I can still make her laugh, and she is still doing the same for me.
What does that mean? No idea, probably nothing. But it is nice and it contributes to me being happy right now. Of course, I have to head to work in a few minutes, so that could all change very shortly…
Just to talk about number 2 for a second (hahhah I said number 2), a few months ago I was cooking one of my favourite German junk foods, Fleischkase. For those of you with German language skills, this literally translates to “Meat Cheese”. If that sounds disgusting to you, you are probably a normal and well adjusted individual. However, it tastes….well…..genius, if I am honest.
Anyway, the best way to cook “Meat Cheese” is in a frying pan with a little oil and serve with loads of pimmel (sic) and then the junk condiment of your choice. I prefer what is referred to here as Rot/Weiss (Ketchup/Mayo). So there I am, heating up the pan with a little oil and the phone rings. I answer the phone (as most of you would have done..don’t judge me), but then do I
- Go back into the kitchen and either turn down or at the very least monitor the hot oil in pan situation. Or
- Go and sit on the sofa and have a 30 minute conversation
Tick tick tick - We are going to have to hurry you……
For those of you that picked #1, you clearly don’t know me very well. I opted for a well thought out sofa chat, whilst leaving an open frying pan with hot oil to catch fire.
I didn’t notice this fire until after the conversation, by which point the kitchen was entirely black.
Suffice to say, I am quite lucky to still be here and more lucky that the apartment is.
Meat Cheese flambe anyone?
* Yes I, like all men, feel the need to describe my favourite football team as if I am one of the players…or more accurately, owners
** Possibly contagious, but as yet unproven to be terminal (time and upcoming posts will tell though)
So it would appear that, despite all evidence to the contrary, I am in fact Gods Gift.
Also, a vision. I am not sure if I would have preferred “A visionary gods gift” or “Gods gift to visionarys”, but you gotta admit, it’s pretty damned good.
Unfortunately, this does not mean that I have dropped the Fester look and about 15 kilos 
but I will take it and use it in personal advertisements - It is already on my CV….
What did I have to do to earn this amazing new reference to myself? Help someone, that’s it ladies and gentlemen, help someone. Quite simple really when you think about it. Get off your arse and help someone when you don’t actually stand to directly benefit yourselves.
Anyway, enough of my innate amazingness….
It is also official that there is a new method to getting things your own way, at the speed you want them, and it no longer requires you to “Speak to your manager about this”.
It is simply the phrase “I insist”
How does this work? Let me give you an example.
Picture the scene, you are a user of computer systems where you work (easy enough, that’s where you probably are now). An IT project, that may or may not allow you to work from home, is scheduled to go live…lets say a month ago.
This was the plan, and plans are prone to change. You apply for access to said project and tell your management that you will be able to work from home from some date the following month.
You take the decision to arrange this with your management with absolutely no feedback from the IT Department.
So far, so normal.
The friendly IT Department send you a mail to explain that, due to factors beyond their control, they are unable to provide the service and that the project is delayed by an, as yet, undeterminable amount of time.
At this point do you :
- Contact your management and explain the situation, and lay the blame (rightly) at the door of the IT Department
- Write the following email to the IT Department (More specifically the poor Help Desk who are simply passing on the information)
“Dear Help Desk
I sent a request for access to the new project to work from home a number of weeks ago, and I still do not have the equipment and access that I need. I have made a commitment to my management team to begin working from home by the beginning of next month. I insist that you send me the equipment by close of business Friday”
If you selected option 1, you are not fit to work where I do.
If you selected option 2, you are a winner, the helpful guys on the Help Desk will instantly overturn the decision of the project and provide you will all of the tools necessary for this project to work.
Unfortunately, the kindly (and dare I say it, over-worked) souls on the Help Desk, escalate the situation to their Team Leader (namely me), as they are unable to help. Now, I contact you to remind you that we are unable to process the request, and that we don’t know when that will be. I also suggest that it may be prudent to inform your management that this will not happen soon.
I have heard nothing else, and the “deadline” has passed.
I love people at work….no really.
