You Just Can't Fix Stupid

I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up

2005-07-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

I have gotten considerable “feedback” regarding my last post that it was more whiney than previous posts. There is a reason for that; I’m broken.

When I first arrived at Wonderland, my manager would ask me every day if I was broken. “Did we break you yet”, she would ask. I never really understood what she meant by that. I get it now.

When you first arrive here, you are filled with ambition and optimism. You want to show everyone that you were the best choice for the position. You jump in and start swinging for the fences. You have enough experience to know what the best practices are for you line of work. Your first course of action is to attempt to change the way things are done as to utilize those practices. Sure, you will get some resistance, but they will see it is well worth it.

As the days pass, you start to realize that the “resistance” isn’t them changing to your methods, it is actually you trying not to be sucked into the daily grind. Oh sure, try as you must, but eventually you will snap. That grind is actually a grinding wheel on your head, buffing away the shinny optimism, revealing the cynicism hidden beneath. Sure, it’s painful at first. However, after the drugs kick in, you actually start enjoying the hum of the grinding tool.

Congratulations, you are now broken.

If you want to identify how far someone has been ground down and broken, look to see how big the bottle of pain reliever they have in their desk.
No bottle? Then they just started.
50 count? A couple of months.
Some people have been here so long they have the industrial size 50-gallon drum which needs refilling once a month.
You also have those who mooch off their neighbor. They are measured by the number of trips they take to steal some from a coworkers supply. I once saw a Dilbert cartoon where they attached pellet dispensers to the cubes that contain Prozac. These should be required by law.

The funny part is this doesn’t apply to consultants and contractors. These groups of people seem to have superhuman powers. Don’t believe me? Then riddle me this Batman; why is it you can say something for over a year about what needs to get done and upper managers won’t do a thing about it? A consultant walks in and says the same thing for $125 an hour and upper managers are jumping up and down wanting immediate action? This has happened in every place I have worked. I have actually seen it where employees have quit only to return a few months later as contractors. They are paid more money and their opinion is now valued.

Can I acquire these powers? Is there some school I can attend that will teach me the fine art mental telepathy? Can these skills be obtained before the grinder removes the last drop of my humanity and all I can utter is “By your command”?

Ow. I think it’s time for another Prozac.

You Want The Truth? You Can’t Handle The Truth!

2005-07-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

Let’s face it; I never claimed to be savvy in the area of office politics. I do my job as best as I can and hope that my work speaks for itself. Of course, if you read any of my previous postings, it becomes apparent that I have a tenancy to speak my mind. The problem with that is usually the recipient(s) don’t usually enjoy this type of honesty. The people I work with seem to prefer the touchy feely passive aggressive method.

Case in point is a recent conversation I had with Dudley. Since our manager left, he has been more “engaged” (read: attended a few meetings) with our team. He provided “feedback” (read: criticism) that my style is too aggressive. Now I admit, saying my style is aggressive is a little like saying Mussolini had a little bit of an ego problem. But, being direct shouldn't be a negative, it should be the norm.

This is the example he used.

First, this is what I actually said:
“In order to insure production stability, you must develop in the DEV environment and fully test it there. Then, put in a change control notification and install it into production.”

What he feels I should have said was:
“Does everyone agree that we should utilize the DEV environment?”
Now, wait for responses from everyone, in which he feels everyone must agree. Then respond:
“Good, so we are in agreement that starting on (insert arbitrary date here) we will all use the DEV environment”.

From my perspective, the issue with this method is the message becomes clouded in the feel-good speak and you are never really sure if they are getting the true message. I always felt that the direct approach removes any ambiguity. It also takes a 20-minute conversation and compresses it to 5 min. (This presents other issues regarding actually doing your job, but I'll save that for another rant.)

I originally thought that this was a Midwestern thing and my east coast attitude didn’t blend well. However, I am starting to realize that it is a little more universal than that. It has to be a manager thing.

Enter Slick. Slick has been with the company for about six months and has recently been promoted to manager. He always wears a tie and is always on his cell phone. I have yet to attend a meeting with him where he hasn’t gotten a phone call (we know this because his ringer volume is set to max) and had to leave, jabbering away as he walked out of the room. I can only assume this is to let all of us peons know that he and his call are way more important than anything we could be talking about in this meeting. In a small meeting of four people, he actually started to check his voice mail in the middle of a conversation. If that doesn't scream "You are boring me and this can in no way advance my career", I don't know what does.

Slick also has the manager speak down to a science. He has yet to attend a meeting where he hasn’t began to ramble about something incoherent and very loosely associated to the topic. His speeches always have the same elements:

Perspective: He explains how each topic we are discussing impacts each perspective. We know this because he tells us “From this perspective…” This is to give the illusion (not to us lower life forms, but the upper managers in the meeting) that he has carefully considered all aspects. The funny part is he wasn’t in the meeting because he stepped out for most of it to take a phone call.

Hand Gestures: These seem to be in direct correlation to the amount of people in the room. The more people, the bigger the gestures. Mostly circles and waves. I am convinced that if I wore my headset and mp3 player to a team meeting and it would actually look like he was conducting the Boston Philharmonic. Hmm, I think he is wearing a headset…

I came to the conclusion a long time ago that I would rather be myself than to pretend to be something I am not for a promotion. I realize that this will keep me back in the rank and file. However, I need to look in the mirror every morning and I just couldn’t do that by sticking my head up someone’s butt. I’ll just have to settle for actually performing WORK and getting things accomplished.

Keep in mind I don’t begrudge people getting promoted. I just wish the criteria were based more upon work ethic and accomplishments. Instead, it seems to be based upon smooth talk and how proficient you are at PowerPoint.

I wonder if there is a company in the Caribbean that needs a DBA. At least I can get umbrella drinks by the pool at lunch.

See! Now Do You Believe me?

2005-07-11T05:00:00.000-07:00

I have found that the problem with ranting over and over about the same crap is that people have a tendency to start ignoring you. “Oh, it’s just him going off again.” They stop listening as soon as my lips start moving. Unfortunately, a large number of my proclamations of doom come true and I end up feeling like the hypochondriac who eventually dies and has “I told you I was sick” carved on his tombstone.

One of those situations occurred this weekend…

I need to preface this ditty with two things.
First, this post will make a lot more sense if you read the post just prior.

Next, I need to explain a little about how our alerting process works here. Some Einstein designed the load process to page when things are working. That’s right, when the load process works correctly, I get paged at least 6 times through out the weekend. The theory is that if I do not get a page at the correct time, something is wrong and I have to go run and log on to try and figure out what it is.

Let me put that into perspective, picture yourself driving down the road for a weekend get away. You have your significant other beside you, the tunes are cranked up and all is right with the world. Now continue to imagine this while every 15 minutes, red lights are coming on and bells are emitting from the dashboard declaring, “Everything is good, the engine is still running. Just keep driving”. Get the picture?

So, it is 7am on Saturday morning and I am lying in bed. This is really my only day to sleep in and I am enjoying it. Suddenly, the calm morning is interrupted by the screeching of the on call pager.

My first reaction is to ignore it. After all, it is probably just the load process telling me it finished a step. However, you know that the one time you ignore it, it is really an alert telling me the process stopped. As I waver whether I should do something about it, the rest of my family wakes from their slumber from the sound of this electronic leash.

I roll out of bed, grab the pager and read the message: “Load stopped with return code 12”. Here is another tip from your friendly DBA; give your error messages cryptic codes that have little meaning. And while your are at it, use the same error code sporadically through out your code for different reasons. After all, why would you want to give the person any idea what has happened. Oh, and make sure there is no documentations to any of this. After all, nothing says "Job Security" like everyone needing to call you about this crap.

As I jump on the system, I discover that the process is trying to process a file that has already been processed. Hmm, this smells like the work of Peabody. I call him and ask him if he is on the system. He says he isn’t, but when I explain what the log says, he remembers that he was working on that an may have inadvertently left a file in the processing directory.

I check and sure enough, he did. I delete the old files and restart the process. It dies again. As I look further, it is a command in one of the scripts that is failing. There seems to be a syntax error in the script. Gee, how do you think that got there?

I tell Peabody this and he suddenly remembers that he was working on that script last week. I make the comment that it obviously wasn’t tested, because there is no way it could have ran like this. He agrees and says that I am correct that it should have been done in the dev environment first. Not that this incident will stop him from doing this in production again.

I fix the syntax and fire it off. It works to completion. I know this because it paged me when it was done telling me that it worked.

I have decided I am going to modify a pager so it gives off electrical shocks. Then every time Peabody does this, he will receive 12 volts to the base of his skull. It won’t help, but it should be quite amusing watching each Monday morning as he twitches.

Hello! Hello! Think McFly, Think!

2005-07-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

When it comes to IT, the best thing you can do when developing a new process or application is to keep in mind how it will need to be supported when it has been deployed. This can save you (or more to the point, me), a lot of time and frustration. It really doesn’t matter if you app has fancy bells and whistles and wipes your butt after you go to the bathroom, if it is consistently down and not usable, or worse, needs to be baby sat 24/7, then you might as well just keep it to yourself.

That does not seem to be the policy around here. It appears that we operate on the philosophy of “get it in on time and we will fix it later”. This is followed up with the policy of “spend all night putting a hack in to fix it” and adding the finishing touch; “drinking heavily”.

Regardless of the fact that there are a bazillion studies out there that prove building it right the first time save time and money. Hitting the project deadline is more important. After all, that is where things are judged at bonus time. This causes needless sleepless nights for administrators trying to keep these systems up and running with a promise from the designers and developers that they will go back and stabilize it in the next release. Yeah, and there is a bridge in N.Y. I would like to sell you.

As Admins, all we ask is this; “TEST THE DAMN THING”. It is a novel concept to be sure. You develop in the dev environment, you test the thing, and then you deploy it. It really isn’t brain surgery. We are not asking for your first born. We just want something that WORKS and doesn’t require resuscitation every night at 2am.

I will say this, we are getting better. As a matter of process, there is a group of us that review all the changes before they go into production. It certainly has helped. Of course, that doesn’t stop people from trying to get one past us.

As an example, let us take our old friend, Mr. Peabody. The Pea came to the group with a change to a major load process we run every week. The basis for the change is valid. The problem was he hasn’t developed it and wants to change the code directly on the production server before the next load.

“It is one four lines of code” he states. Uh huh, and it only takes one command to completely delete everything on the server. He proceeds to argue that the dev environment doesn’t match production anymore and he can’t accomplish his work there. This digs his hole deeper. It doesn’t match because he has made changes in production directly. It doesn’t seem to matter what I say at this point, he insists that the changes should go in. His voice is now starting to resonate in my inner ear to the point where I feel like someone just shoved a Ginsu in my forehead. Please, just make it stop!!!

Normally at this point I struggle to resist the urge to throw something heavy at him. The nice thing is that I now have a room full of people agreeing with me. I get to sit back at watch others get annoyed. The people running the meeting state the verdict: The change is denied.

Maybe now I can get through a weekend without getting paged or called. Nahh, that's just crazy talk.

What is it you say you do here?

2005-06-27T11:53:00.000-07:00

I have to wonder sometimes what the true purpose is of my co-workers employment.

Mr. Peabody assessed our main database today. He found that some of the objects (tables, indexes and such) were consuming over 1000 extents. Let me put that in non-geek terms. Let’s say you have $100. Would it be easier for you to keep track of five $20 bills, or 100,000 pennies? It was a good catch on his part and it does need to be fixed.

However…

Here is how Peabody handled it. Keeping in mind that he has been doing this for at least 20 years:

Peabody: I found that there are numerous objects that have over 1000 extents.
Me: OK
Peabody: How should we handle this?
Me: The tables need to be moved to the correct place and the indexes need to be rebuilt.
Peabody: But we didn’t create them.
Me: OK, then the owners need to be contacted and told that they are creating things in the wrong tablespace. We still have to move them. They shouldn’t care, because moving them is in the background.
Peabody: So I will send you the list…
Me: Why? You are a DBA, right?
Peabody: OK, so I should contact the users and have them move the tables.

Hello. Hello. Think McFly, Think.

Me: No, you move the objects.
Peabody: OK, I move the objects. Where should I move them?

It is at this point, where I feel like I am talking to Sigourney Weaver’s character in Galaxy Quest. The only function this person seems to have is to repeat everything I say back to me, only slightly different. He is actually wanting me to tell min exactly what to do. This conversation would be a lot less painful if I just took a pair of vise grips and ripped my molars out.

I proceed to give him detailed instructions.

Sloth sent this comment and it fully sums up how I feel:

“Some people are like a Slinky. They have no real purpose in life, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.”

Stupid is as Stupid does

2005-06-17T10:03:00.000-07:00

I know it has been a while since this was updated, but quite a bit has occurred here in wonderland. I’ll break up the news into several posts over the next few days.

Let us start here:

My manager left the company. While I can’t really blame her based upon what was going on here, I will say this; She forgot the golden rule. What is that rule? It is all about ME and MY needs. How can she leave me with this collection of psychosis patients? These people would make Freud say, “I give up”. Now I have no one to whine to that truly understands. The worst part is that she was the buffer between the DBA’s and the business groups requesting resources. Since she left, everyone and their Grandmother seems to think they can waltz up and demand that their work be performed now.

As if the previous postings weren’t enough, let me give you an example…

Another character to this comedy/tragedy is Sloth. He received this title from a co-worker in another group who has pointed out the similarities between him and the two-toed sloth. Both seem to be very slow moving and have the same expression permanently tattooed on their faces. We will get back to him in a minute.

We have our weekly DBA meeting where we discuss our priorities. Our Director, let us call him Dudley, rattling off a list of projects that are deemed our priority. “If someone comes to you and asks you to work on something that is not on this list, then push back and send them to me.” Everyone nods in agreement. The room looks like a truck full of bobble head dolls on a dirt road.

The very next day, Sloth meanders up to my cube, asking for my advice. It is really more like “I’m going to spew my thoughts and I just want you to agree with them”. He proceeds to tell me that he had a meeting with a business group that wants him to “enhance” an Access database. If you have read my previous posts, you know I am now going into epileptic seizures. He explains that they requested that an application they use be enhanced and that they were told by the app group that wrote it, that it would take 18 months to perform that work, due to other priorities and commitments.

No to be discouraged, the business group decided to “write their own application in Access”. Never the less, they are now complaining that it has bad data. And they are surprised by this? Look “Access” has “Ass” in it and we all know what that produces; crap.

I proceed to explain to Sloth the following:
1) This is not on the priority list. If they have issues with that, they need to send this to Dudley and have him explain it.
2) We are DBA’s not application developers. If they want something enhanced (read: fix their crap), then they need to sent it to the application development team.

Sloth then proceeds to ask me to attend a meeting in 15 minutes so I can explain that to them. Why, do I speak a different language? Do I have psychic abilities to overwhelm them with? I shake my head and go with him. He takes me to a cube where we meet a very nice woman who seems pretty bright. I explain the two points to her and she is in full agreement. She asks what her next steps should be and I tell her.

Sloth then utters words which makes my head almost implode:
“I’m going to stick around and take a look at this application.” You have got to be frickin’ kidding me. If I would have known we were playing “good DBA, bad DBA”, I would have requested that the bad DBA be allowed to smack the good DBA.

The chaos that is my career continues…

Homer Was Right

2005-05-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

“If you don’t like your job, you don’t strike. You just go in everyday and do it really half-assed. That’s the American way.”

These words spoke by Homer Simpson must be the secret corporate mission statement around here. I mentioned in a previous post (see “What part of "Day Off" don't you get?”) that I suspected the systems around here were put together with paper clips and scotch tape. It appears that was not too far from the truth. I am astounded by the number of temporary hacks that this company implements for one reason or another. I would like to review the various reasons people have for using their solutions, and I use the word “solutions” loosely.

“It is only temporary. We will go back and fix it later.”
Yeah, right. Like Hitler only wanted to temporarily occupy Poland. Look, if you don’t have a plan to fix it all the way, you need one. If the process requires someone to touch it everyday (namely me), then it is still broken. All you did was move the monkey from your back to mine. Just fix it right and we will all be happy.

“The project team needed it done quickly and this is all we could do in that timeframe.”
This is a classic. The Project Manager puts together a plan, but doesn’t understand the level of effort involved. Why? Because these masters of communication don’t go and talk to the people that actually do the work. Let’s face it, why would you want a PM that can actually communicate with people when they can pull guesses out of their ass and force others to meet them? The scary part is that PMs are more likely to become a group manager than the people in the groups they end up being managers over.

“We would prefer a solution that doesn’t require outside resources.”
I love this one. What they are really saying is that they have pissed off the other development groups that have the expertise they need. Instead, they will slam together a solution that requires three times the level of effort and resources. This one also applies to those trying to sneak some development under the radar. They knew they couldn’t get official approval, so they quietly do it on the side. If it works, they look like a hero. If it fails, then it was because they couldn’t get the right resources. Either way, they look like a “go getter”.

There seems to be a unifying theme in all of these “solutions”. For some bizarre reason they all involve Microsoft Access. Now I’m not into conspiracy theories, but I have to believe Bill Gates is using some type of mind control on our business users. This company has over 3,000 Access database they consider “critical” to the business. Are you on CRACK? Access is about as stable as an epileptic carrying a tray of china across a tightrope. It’s possible, but do you really want to chance it? Yet everyday, someone in this company creates a new one and pats them self on the back for it. Then when it has issues, they run to the DBA’s for help. We then get the classic response: “What do you mean you don’t support it? It is a database, isn’t it? You guys support databases.”

Grasp a concept; Access is not a database. It is Excel on steroids. I don’t care if you link the tables to SQL Server or Oracle, it is still just a fancy spreadsheet with macros. We don’t support that. Though your misery does provide us with some valuable material to mock and ridicule you. For that, we thank you.

“I Was Thinking…”

2005-04-28T09:33:00.000-07:00

Through out my career I have had Directors and VP’s stroll into my cube, uttering these words. These are the worst three words you can possibly hear from upper management. What this has come to mean to me is this person has read a IT trade rag article’s first two paragraphs, and now he/she thinks they are an expert in the field. You know the type of rag. You get a free subscription as long as you fill out a twenty page questionnaire specifically design to generate as much spam and junk mail as they possibly can. I’m not sure if their goal is to sell you products and services you don’t really need or completely deforest the pacific northwest. I won’t even go into the number of solicitation phone calls I get from them. I now supply them with a phone number of the other sales representatives I receive calls from. I find that to be fitting revenge.

Let us get back to these upper managers (UM’s for short) and their "ideas". They get the idea that if it is in print, it must be the future. That also means we need to do it before our competition does it. Look, I’m all into learning new things, but they really need to talk to each other first. The fact that they don’t is a prime reason why we have ten different applications that all do the same thing except each group wants their own. Which in itself would be find, however while they all want to use them, nobody wants to own the administration of them. Then when there is an issue, I end up feeling like a pinball, bouncing around, trying to find someone with a clue as to how it works.

It is my goal to help you avoid this situation. In most cases, the UM will simple forget about it if you do. But sometimes, they persist. Therefore, here is a list of terms and phrases to assist you. When you hear these, the best this to do is run. Run fast and run far. Because if you don’t, you will be stuck spending weekends installing and configuring something for the next six months.
But if you can't, try these:

“My colleague at another company is doing this …”
This is system envy. This UM wants to answer back to the colleague with something cool. Spew some tech talk about how cool your systems are and show them a server with flashing lights. When they are distracted by the lights, make your get away. Eventually, they will forget about it and find something else to make your life hell.

“It shouldn’t take that long to do this.”
Be afraid. Be very afraid. This means the UM has already committed your time to a project that involves this new technology and that is going to be due six weeks before it is actually possible to complete the work. Be evasive. Ask if the requirements document has been completed and has the necessary sign offs by the business owners. You know they don’t because the business owners never know what they want, let alone will they actually sign a document attesting to it.

“Well, we will just put more resources on it.”
This is my personal favorite. The concept is if it takes one person three months, it will take three people one month. Look, there is such a thing as precedents. Nine women cannot have a baby in one month. The issue is no amount of explaining is going to get the UM to realize this. The key is to put it in terms they can handle. Reply, “I can see that, but whose budget are the extra resources coming from, ours?” This puts them back on their heals. They don’t want to be the one whose budget is over. They will go back to the groups involved in the project and negotiate with them for the dollars. Now here is the key part of this strategy: While the UM is talking to the other groups about the budget, put in for vacation time during the period this is suppose to be deployed. This way, you won’t be considered a “Subject Matter Expert” and won’t be expected to support it in the future.

These are just a few of the nuggets I collected over the years. If you have any to add, please do so. We non-coms can use all the help we can get.

It does beg the question, “Do all UM’s attend some procedure to have the logic sucked out of their heads?” Inquiring minds want to know.

Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp

2005-04-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

I have to wonder sometimes if it would be cheaper and more effective to hire actual monkeys. They certainly would get more work accomplished than some of the people here and would be less aggravating to work with. They would not cost much, but there is the whole smell thing to workout. But still...

Let me explain…

Sparky seems to work in two speeds, stop and reverse. This person moves so slow I wonder if his movements are not actually rigor mortis setting in. I have to resist the urge to put a mirror to his face to see if he is still breathing. Actually, I am not sure what he works on. No work-request tickets ever seem to be closed by him. When you inquire about why specific project tasks are taking so long, you get incoherent ramblings about “making sure it is correct”.

OK, look, you actually have to produce WORK, before you can determine if it is correct or not. I am all for efficiency, but it makes no sense to take two weeks to tweak a query so it will run 12 milliseconds faster. Monkeys can type Shakespeare faster than that.

One time there was a new database that we needed Sparky to create. I gave him the scripts that I wrote and used to create another database and said just to modify them and use them. He used them without modification. He basically tried to create a database that already existed. He then spent the whole day talking to Oracle support, trying to figure out what happened. When I looked at it and told him the issue, he blamed my scripts, saying, “I assumed that they were ready to go.” I guess I need to stop making up words like “modify”.

I suspect that Sparky is working under the premises that if you do not deploy anything, you cannot be blamed for any thing. This concept is very efficient. To start, you do not have to have any knowledge about anything. You just have to memorize a few key phrases and spew them back at the correct time and the other times blame others for the delay.

Let us look at a couple of typical interactions, shall we?

Me: We need to have the new database for your project deployed by next week. Where are you with that?
Sparky: I am waiting for others on my project to complete their work.
TRANSLATION: I have no idea where the project is. I am going to wait until someone screams, then I will act insulted, like it was their fault to begin with.

Me: But isn’t the project in the testing phase? That usually means the coding is done and in the final form. At the very least, the database design is done.
Sparky: I will be working with Mr. Peabody to deploy the database.
TRANSLATION: I have not a clue how to do this and require another DBA to perform the actual work while I watch and take credit. If it goes wrong, I can blame him.

Me: But the database is built in development. Why do we need two DBA’s to deploy. Why don’t you just build a new database, generate a script of the schema of the one in dev and run it on the new production database.
Sparky: I know that.
TRANSLATION: I have no idea what you just said, but as soon as I enter it in Google and get an answer, I will respond.

Me: So you are going to get that done this week?
Sparky: I will come in late and watch it load through out the night, just to be sure it works right.
TRANSLATION: This one is tricky. I could mean “It should really only take 20 min, but since I am clueless and need to look up how to do everything, it will take me all night.” Or "Not even I trust my code so I need to watch it so I can cover my ass.", or it means “I will have it done in 20 min, but if I say I worked through out the night, I can take tomorrow off without using my PTO.”

What have we learned from this? First, be evasive. Avoid any direct answers that might cause you to have to do anything. Second, find someone to blame if everything goes wrong. Nothing spells success like having a patsy take the fall for your incompetence. And trust me, it will go wrong, terribly wrong.

Therefore, you see, if there was a monkey placed in his cube, we could get the same amount of work accomplished. To me, that is a bonus in and of it self. I bet we can get them real cheap after the circus season is over.

I wonder where I can buy bananas in bulk…

The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!

2005-03-29T07:29:00.000-08:00

We had a major situation occur last Friday around 4:00PM. I am not sure why these things happen just before I plan to leave for the weekend, but alas, they do. If I ever meet Murphy, I am going to slam a meat cleaver in his forehead. However, I digress…

Someone in their infinite wisdom deleted all the executable files for a major program on a production server. Yes, that was a stupid move and I can rant on about how I warned that it would happen. And of course no one will admit it doing it. However, today’s rant is not about that. Instead, today’s rant is brought to you by the letter “P”, as in “PANIC”. Actually, it started as panic, then it seem to migrate to apathy. Could be ignorance or apathy. They don't know and they don't care.

It started when I had a Mr. Peabody standing in my cube because he could not figure out why his program was not working. I asked him what changed and his response was “nothing major”. I then recommended putting the old version back and trying it again. He proceeded to tell be that he did not save the old version. My next suggestion was to put the development version in production again. Here is where I made the big assumption mistake. He was just modifying production directly. He did not test this in dev. I proceed to lecture him about making production changes without first testing.

I can see him develop that same look on his face that I get when I catch my kids doing something they know they shouldn't be doing. I just says, “I know I’m wrong, but I’m not listening and I will more than likey do it again”. When it is your kids, you sigh and hope that some day experience will teach them better. However, what do you do when you are talking to a co-worker who is in his in his late 50’s and who should know better? Personally, I find sarcasm an excellent tool to relieve the instinctive reaction of wanting to slam his head against the monitor. Not that he gets any of it. So I ignore him and move on.

I start looking into the matter and discover the missing files. Yeah, that would do it. Nothing crashes a server like removing executables. My lustrous co-workers freaked out as if a meteor was about to slam into the earth ending life as we know it. Oh, that’s helpful. Maybe we should all just jump out the window and put an end to it all. Well, if they did that it would be helpful to me. On second thought, let me escort you to the roof.

I have said it before and I will say it again. I am not that smart. I am just painfully aware of the blatantly obvious. I proceed to log on to the server and start restoring the backup from last night. This takes about 45min and is a lot less painful than having to listen to Mr. Peabody’s whines about what went wrong and that it wasn't his fault and who is really at fault and blah blah blah blah blah. At this point he started to sould like the adults in the Peanuts cartoons.

While I am evaluating the situation and planning what I will need to do after the recovery completes, Sparky wanders into my cube. Sparky is a grade level above me in pay. He has a ton of book smarts, but couldn't reason his way out of closet. After trying and failing all day to recover a development database, Sparky asks for my help. You need to keep in mind that the task he is trying to accomplish is DBA101 stuff. In the middle of a production down situation, he needs my assistance. What was I thinking working on a production issue when he needs help with a dev database? I think this guy needs a smack of reality. Preferably on made out of pine with the dimensions of 2x4x6. I look at his issue just to get him to go away and in 2 minutes, it is resolved. I find the process goes much more quickly if you actually type the name of the file you are recovering from correctly.

Yep, this is why they do not allow weapons in the building…

I can't hear you.. LALALALALA

2005-03-25T06:58:00.000-08:00

This is really in response to a friend’s blog. He comments on the use of email in the work place. This sparked a rant of my own.

Here is a classic situation. Someone sends you an email. However, right after they click send, they run over to your desk and ask, "Did you get my email?" and proceed to repeat exactly what they wrote in the email. What are these people thinking?

First of all Sparky, I’m not psychic. Give me an opportunity to actually open the damn thing and read it. Second, if you were just going to come over here and spew the information out to me, why did you bother to send it to me in an email?

Look, I am quite sure this matter is of greatest concern to you and the world is going to end unless I look at your amazing proclamation that you decided to use Times New Roman font instead of the standard Arial because it lines up better in notepad. Nevertheless, what you have to understand is that I just spent the last 3 hours in a meeting and the last thing I need is another voice droning on in my ear about a topic in which I could care less. More than likely, I shut out everything you said after “Did you get my email?” and started thinking about how many hotdogs I think I can shove in your mouth before I stop hearing your whiny voice.

If you do not trust the technology, maybe you should not work in IT. I am sure you have plenty of skills you can apply in another line of work. How about something in janitorial services?

Hmm, I think I just realized another wonderful use for duct tape…

Dress for Success

2005-03-14T06:40:00.000-08:00

The company has decided to start enforcing the dress code. The dress code is basically “business casual”. Based upon the official company policy (which is really like office rules of engagement), “Business casual” seems to mean “Don’t dress like a slob, but not too fancy so we know when you really have an interview.”

There always seems to be those few that dress in suits thinking that is there way of butt smooching up the ladder. On the flip side, there are those who still think its O.K to wear those t-shirts that look like a tux. Now I don’t mean to sound like a clothes Nazi, but you got to think about what you are going to wear, at least a little bit.

Here are a few tips to get you through the policy:

1) I don’t care if you paid $150 for them and they are made by Armani, black sneakers are not shoes.

2) While we are on the subject, keep your shoes on your feet. Mr. Peabody walks around in socks like he is in his living room. It is very annoying and odoriferous. If you are not comfortable in your shoes, BUY SOME THAT FIT.

3) Blend in as much as possible. A co-worker of mine refers to it as “corporate camo”. He buys clothes that blend in with the cubical color. I am assuming this helps when his boss or an annoying user comes walking up. He stays very still, hoping he blends in enough so he can’t be seen. Ingenious, I think.

4) If you are going to wear a sweater, tuck in the shirt that is underneath. Nothing says “homeless” more than wearing 3 layers of clothes and each layer is longer than one the above it. When I see that, I start to look for your shopping cart or wait for you to board the short bus.

5) I don’t care what you read in GQ, corduroy is not an acceptable material for men’s business pants. The sound of it rubbing together as Sparky walks down the isle is enough to make me want to shoot some lighter fluid on them and see if the friction sets his pants on fire.

Those are just a few of the many. If you have any you would like to add, please leave a comment and I will adjust this posting. Of course I reserve the right to think your suggestion is an idiotic waste and to completely ignore it.

I can’t wait to see what they wear on “Casual Friday”…

Seriously, STFU!

2005-02-24T20:05:00.000-08:00

I decided to try and take a day off last Monday. Now if you have read my previous posts, you know that is as likely as me winning the lottery. But, I’m in denial, so I try.

I get a call from Mr. Peabody indicating he can’t get into one of the new systems I built because he doesn’t have the administrator password. He proceeds to tell me that if I am not going to be there, I should make sure that someone has it and it should be documented somewhere. If I am not going to do that, then I should expect to receive these calls on my day off.

I then proceed to tell Peabody that I sent the whole DBA team an email last week with a link to a document that contains the information he is looking for. He says “Alright, Thank You” in a very demeaning tone and hangs up.

Tuesday, Mr. Peabody sends me an email asking me when the new system that I am building is going to be up. The same system he called me about. I resend him the previously mentioned email, reminding him that all the information he needs is in the document.

This afternoon, he again sends me an email asking me questions about the new system that clearly indicate that he still hasn’t read the document.

This is either the worst case of CRAFT (Can’t Remember A F**king Thing) that I have ever seen or his goal in life is to drive me to stick a meat thermometer in my ear and bang on it with a ball pein hammer. If I have to keep listening to his condescending tone, my head will implode. Please, Please, Please, shut the f**k up.

I’m starting to thing the phrase “Would you like paper or plastic?” would be a better career choice for my blood pressure.

Hello, Is anybody in there?

2005-02-20T16:30:00.000-08:00

So here I am, trying to watch the Daytona 500 when I get a call from Mr. Peabody. I guess I should first explain who the Peabody is.

The Pea is another DBA who has been working in IT forever. Based upon the way he talks, it must have been around when they invented the abacus. He is very absent minded and is sloppy in not only the way he looks (his cube has papers dating back to the Roosevelt administration, and I mean Teddy) but also they way he dresses. The other day he came in wearing a new sweater that looked like it had been in his car trunk for a year. The reason I know it was new was because the tag was still on it and sticking out from the back of his neck. How can you not feel that?

He also sounds and looks a lot like Mr. Peabody. I’m probably dating my self, but Mr. Peabody was from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. Remember Sherman and the “Way Back machine”? Yeah, didn’t think so.

So I get this call and he is all frantic because he couldn’t connect to a system using this software. I jump on my laptop and I’m in right away. He then starts to explain, step for step, how he is trying to connect. It is then I realize that he is trying to look at production systems by connecting to a development server. Yep, that would be an issue. He then proceeds to get all crazy wondering how that could have change and he didn’t do it. No, I did it. I slipped into his house in the middle of the night, turned on his laptop and changed all the settings.

I get calls like this all the time. If I’m going to get these phone calls on the weekends, I’m really going to need to drink more. On the flip side, people like that bring the curve back down.

I think someone owes me an hour of my life back.

Let’s Strive to be Average, Shall We?

2005-02-18T16:16:00.000-08:00

It is review time here in Wonderland. Why do I call this place Wonderland? Because I am always asking myself, “I wonder why the f**k are they doing that?”. But I digress…

My manager walks me into one of our work rooms. It is basically a small closet with a table, four chairs, a whiteboard and no escape. She prefaces our conversation by telling me I am doing a great job. I have taken on all the UNIX administration, SAN administration as well as the DBA work I was hired for. I problem solve very well and I work well with ambiguity. I have exceeded what my co-workers have accomplished by 10 fold.

HOWEVER…

The CIO has decided that he wants set the bar higher and his way of doing that is to put over achievers like me in the middle of the scale. So if I understand this correctly, I am being graded on a curve. What am I, in 5th grade? I got a “meets expectations” across the board. Next I’ll be told I handed in my assignment late. Wait a minute, it does say that. “Fails to complete time sheet for project tracking on schedule.” Damn those TPS reports.

So what incentive is this? I have just enough incentive to get my job done, because if I or any of my co-workers goes the extra mile, we will screw it up for everyone else. The only way for me to get a significant rating is to work hard enough to get promoted. Then I get to be the one trying to explain this wonderful policy. I don’t think I can do that with a straight face. At the very least, I would need quite a few gin and tonics.

Ahh, now you see why it is the Wonderland…

What part of "Day Off" don't you get?

2005-02-17T19:23:00.000-08:00

Every time I have attempted to take a day off, I get called to fix something. Either our systems are basically held together with paperclips and scotch tape, or most of these users are from the land of morons. I haven't seen so much PEBCAK (Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard) since I tried to teach my Mom how to instant message.

The really sucky part is that I keep being told to take time off because I will stop accruing PTO. So they are really saying, "Use it or lose it, but we will still call you to work half the day because we are idiots."

Ah, I love my job...

Can’t we all just get along? NO! Now shut up!

2005-02-14T13:43:00.000-08:00

For some bizarre reason, most companies I have worked for have some need to force us to have “team building” events. These are events where we all go out together, usually to a happy hour and converse with our co-workers outside of work.

Now I’m all for free drinks and appetizers, is this really such a good idea? Let’s look at this a little more closely, shall we?

First, you are putting together a bunch of people that spend more time with each other than they do with their families. They are generally frustrated that they can’t get their jobs done in an efficient manor without having to attend twenty meetings. Then, you add significant amounts of alcohol into the mix.

Generally, this situation creates a drunk and aggravated group of people that start venting at each other. Now, cut them off, stick them in their cars and send them home, nice and aggravated, to their families. Yeah, Einstein, there’s a brain storm. No wonder people go postal.

You really want to help these people unwind? Give them the $20 you would have spent on them so they can hire a sitter for the kids. Then they can get away from each other and go out with their significant others. Now that will relive stress.

Ahh, corporate america.

Welcome to my working Hell...

2005-02-01T08:55:00.000-08:00

OK, so I'm having a hard time imagining who is actually going to read my rants. It's not like I have any deep thoughts. I wake up, I go to work, I teach a couple of days a week, I lead scouts a couple of days, I talk to my family, I go to bed. Pretty basic.

However there are times I need to stand on my soapbox and rant, so I guess I'll put those here.

Let's start with this...

So, your avg day here in corporate America. I'm an Oracle DBA and I'm doing my DBA crap when one of our query monkeys freaks out because I killed his query that has been running for 26 hours. I looked at it and it is running full table scans on 3 tables that contain 70 million rows each. Now this might mean nothing to anyone who isn't a geek, but think about it like reading an encyclopedia from beginning to end, page by page looking for one sentence. Of course, it can't be the code. It has to be the database. I introduced him to Mr. Index...

Common sense is not common at all.