Help Desk Strategery

For over two weeks now, a mystery man has been occupying the Site Manager's office. He hasn't been introduced. No one knows what his purpose is or his name. He doesn't interact with the Help Desk except for the occasional "Good morning".

So, I finally got the chance to talk to the Site Manager:

Geis: "So, who's the guy who's annexed your office?"

He laughed, but not in a good way.

Site Mgr: "He's the Strategist."

Geis: "And what exactly does he do?"

Site Mgr: "Strategy?"

Geis: "You don't really know, do you?"

Site Mgr: "No."

Geis: "I feel for you, man. We are so doomed."

No one has seen their way clear to give the employees any clue as to what this guy's doing here. He has been here for weeks doing. . . something. Even the Site Manager doesn't really know. And when I say this Company has a chronic issue with being unable to communicate, I can now point to our Strategist to prove my point.

Turnabout

It has been suggested that I take my inability to find justice against Codename P to the press.

To what end?

This issue is about justice. And having not found justice, should I then seek revenge, for that's what going to the press would be. I would be harassing him just as he harassed me.

The courts have seen fit to take pity on a bitter, foolish old man. And while my overdeveloped sense of justice is unsatisfied by this outcome, I will be the better, more mature man by leaving it at that.

Irrelevancy

"This letter is to notify you, that for purposes of November and December 2006, commissions/bonuses will be based on a defined payment pool. As a result, your commissions/bonuses could be lower that in previous months."

How can my bonus be less than the $0 that it's been for the past four years?

It seems that The Corporation still doesn't have the revenues to support the bonuses that it actually has been paying out. They will pool up what money they do have and doll out what they think they can afford. It doesn't meant anything to me personally because I haven't gotten squat for years but it is yet another indication of how things are going for The Corporation.

Oh, and the top of the letter said "Sent Via Certified Mail" hen, in fact, it was in a regular envelope with a 39 cent First Class postage stamp.

I guess they can only afford to SAY that it's certified mail.

The scales tip.

Justitia, the goddess of justice, is the personification of the moral force that lies behind our legal system. In her right hand, She holds a double-edged sword that divides with the power of Reason in either direction simultaneously. In her left, she holds scales with which She measures the strengths of the case for and against. Her eyes are blindfolded, for justice does not see race, class, status or power.

It is a lie.

Today was the day that Codename P appeared in court to stand against the charge of harassment for vandalizing my car numerous times over the past year and a half. In that, I learned his "justification," as it were. The lot where I park was once his property. The city condemned it and then turned around and developed it as a parking lot for users of the Eliza Furnace Trail. Codename P apparently still owns the entryway and although there is a de facto easement, he believes that everyone who uses the lot is trespassing.

The evidence presented was pretty clear. The photo I took was undeniable and his lawyer offered no defense or denial except to say that he wouldn't do it again.

And with that, the charges were dropped. I must have had something of a disbelieving look on my face because the judge said to me:

"If he was a young man, I would have found him guilty and fined him."

But because he was 70 years old, she let him off with the promise that he not do it again. And, in saying what she said, the judge let me know that if it were me doing the exact same thing to his car, I would have been punished to the fullest extent of the law. I would have thought the scales would tip in the opposite direction. A 70 year old man should be wise and experienced enough to know that his actions have consequences and a young man might be forgiven for his youthful ignorance.

In this case, the Judge explicitly told me that justice is not blind, nor is it applied equally.

And so, I suppose it is over. The case is technically still open for 90 days should he break his promise but, after that, it will simply go away. As if it never happened.

The scales hang unbalanced.

Post Traumatic Stress

After running around in the woods playing paintball yesterday, the fronts of my thighs really hurt. Up and down stairs is particularly unpleasant.

It was worth it, though.

Birthday Warfare

To celebrate my nephew's birthday, we went to Riverside Renegades to play paintball. For myself, I used to play all the time but the group I played with sot of broke up and I haven't been out in years. It was fun to be back.

The Renegade's field is one of my favorites. It's a large field that allows you to run around in the woods without encountering the enemy all the time, even with large groups. It is less developed than some, with lots of narrow trails through thick brush. These features combine to allow the players to use strategy instead of just tactics.

A few of the highlights: There were 7 of us in the birthday party but a swarm of 40 from CMU was supposed to show up. They were late so the first game was just the 7 of us. Unfortunately it was then that I realized that the small 45-round hopper I had purchased for my Spyder Compact was defective and wouldn't allow the balls to drop into the gun. I set it aside to draw my backup, a classic Sheridan PGP. I was behind a fence barrier looking through a knothole in a fence barrier when one of the 'enemy' came running up to capture the seemingly undefended flag. I stood up full but could not see over the 6 foot fence so I just raised my gun over the top and took a blind shot. I quickly pumped the gun for when he would come around the fence to gun me down with his semi-auto but I had gotten him in the arm with my first shot. I'm pretty good with the pistol when I take the snap shots. Or maybe I'm just lucky.(Some of the next descriptions will reference specific bunkers of the trail. See them on the map)

When the college students finally showed up, it was pretty clear that they had no experience. I've been playing on and off for twenty years so I became the general. In one of the games, our team started up at the bottom of the hill at GI Joe's bunker and the enemy was way up at the top at Fort Apache. When the game started, most went straight up the middle so I decided to swing to the left, across the Covered Bridge and up the valley. Across from Tiani's Trench is Fort Suzuki (a insurance fraud vehicle dump that has become a permanent part of the field) and when I go there I realized it wasn't a very good spot. Three or four of my teammates had followed me and had bunched up behind a pile of branches. Above Fort Suzuki was a string of such branch/log bunkers that formed a broad front so I ran across open ground, taking fire the whole way to get there. As expected, my teemmates followed me one at a time. But instead of spreading out along this broad front, they all clustered around me. I didn't like taking all that fire and so began the push. To one of my teammates I pointed out where the enemy was hiding and told him that I was going to move forward and that he was to cover me. He seemed to do a good job and I got in without being hit. Except that three guys then followed me. So, it was the same thing. I pointed out that there was one person in Tiani's Trench, another above the bunker and probably another on the right. I ran across the bridge right up to the bunker and fired right through the "window" as the person there attempted to abandon the bunker. I drove the guy above the bunker out of hiding and eventually got him as well. Then my teammates came forward. Up the hill to Bush Garden's (which was empty) and then across towards DJ's DMZ. There were at least two in that bunker and they were throwing out heavy fire. The bunker was a three-wall structure that was a little off the ground so, if I could get up on it, I could shoot their legs. One of my teammates had run out of paint so I called on the other for covering fire and rushed the fort. I didn't see any feet so I slid like I was going into home plate and could fire up into the fort. The two were standing on the 2x4s at the corners so that their feet were up off the ground. Clever. I fired a number of shots up into the bunker and was pretty sure I got at least one of them but got myself shot in the hand. I was out but the person I had shot stayed in the bunker. I noticed a few instances of that during the day where there people would get shot but not call themselves out or would wander away with their hands up and then just go back into the game.

The next game we switched side, this time we started up at Fort Apache and attacked downhill. I sort of hung back while I waited for the battle to develop and then slowly moved down. There is a road that goes from the pond to the staging area that allow you to look down along the line of bunkers I had occupied in the previous game without being seen. A bit like Sargent York, I stayed up at the top and took out several of the enemy as they moved up this line of bunkers, paying more attention to the fire they were taking from the left. Once I saw that out team was moving steadily forward, I moved down the middle Towards the Dragon Scales bunker. It's a large 4-walled structure with windows coved by plastic pop bottle cases. This allows you to see into and out of the bunker but the grating keeps paintballs from getting through. There was at least one guy in there but he was able to hold off a number of my team. Whith them drawing his attention, I was able to flank him and get right up on the bunker, sticking my barrel through an opening and firing 1 shot from 10 feet away. Advancing on the bunker with the flag I took out one in the bunker. I moved up and got another on the left. I was able to take out one of a pair just to the right of the bunker. Now with a lot of backup I went to the flag. I was taking fire from the right of the bunker and from someone else near the Covered Bridge on the way back. I intended to throw the flag to someone else when I got hit in the back. I reach back and didn't come up with any paint so I assumed the ball hadn't broken so I picked up the flag and passed it off, turning to keep the enemy pinned down. Eventually I cot shot in the head but my job was done. That was the one game that ended in the flag being captured. I had take out at least 5 opponents.

By the time the last game of the day rolled around, I was out of paint. Actually, I had enough for my PGP so I went out on the field with that, intending to stay back at the flag. After watching the battle progress in stalemate I decided to just walk down the path with my gun at my side. I hoped that I would look like I was out and be ignored so that I could walk right through the enemy lines. It worked. I walked past a number of players without anyone shooting at me. Unfortunately, there wasn't anyone I could just turn and shoot in the back. I picked the last person in line and took a shot but my gun misfired and I missed. (The gun had been charged and ready to go in my holster for much of the game and had leaked by this point.) I took cover and was involved in a short firefight but was eventually taken out by his superior firepower.

Everyone had a good time and I was glad to be back. The CMU players had quite a number of paintballs left over and left behind so Buddy, the guy who runs Riverside, gave them to my nephew along with a box to carry them in as a birthday present.

I hope it's not years before I get out again.

Overly polite.

Kerry screwed up in allowing his speech writers to write a line that was too obtuse. I'm sure you've all hear what the press says that he said:

"Education, if you make the most of it, and you study hard and do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

But what he REALLY said was:

"Anyway, yesterday I was in the state of Texas. As you all know, President Bush used to live there. Now he lives in a state of denial. A state of deception.

I'm glad to be here with you. I really am. Thank you for the privilege of coming here. We're here to talk about education, but I want to say something before that – you know, education, if you make the most of it, and you study hard and do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

I don't know about you, but when I heard this I knew he was talking about Dubbya because I heard the sentences before the one that gets all the airplay. And when the spinsters started working and released the text that Kerry was SUPPOSED to say, it was even more clear.

"Yesterday I was in President Bush’s home state of Texas. He no longer lives there. Now he lives in the state of denial.

It’s great to be here with college students. I can’t overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don’t study, if you aren’t smart, if you’re intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."

But, as I said, it was too obtuse. Too clever for his own good. The speech writers were being too generous to the President and trying to make it a joke. And Kerry, trying to speak like himself instead of like his speechwriters and not being an actor, paraphrased and flubbed it. That was unfortunate to feed such easily-twisted fuel to the wingnuts. He should have kept it simple and to the point. He SHOULD have said:

"President Bush is a moron."

Thrown to the wolves

A new Helpdesk analyst has been put in the cubicle across from mine. I could hear him through the "wall" and in the time it took him to resolve a single password issue, I had taken four calls. Not surprising when you consider that he only started YESTERDAY and has had absolutely no formal training. They simply sat him with another analyst for four hours yesterday and expected him to absorb enough to start working today.

Is it any wonder that they have been hiring and hiring since the beginning of the year yet still have the same number of empty seats out on the floor. With this sort of "training", employees can't be left with a favorable impression of what's in store for them and flee at the earliest possible opportunity.

52 Week Countdown

One year from this week, November 5th 2007, is the projected completion date for the Hot Metal Bridge project. Today, they moved the fence to direct people on the Eliza Furnace trail around the heavy construction equipment. They've just started drilling holes to sink supports for the ramps on the north side of the bridge. On the other side of Second Avenue there has been quite a bit of excavation and placement or rebar. I haven't noticed enough concrete to geet a good sense of how it's all going to look.

With the end of Daylight Savings Time, it's going to be tough to get pictures of the progress as it's dark when I ride in the morning and getting darker as I'm riding back.

Martial Law

Why are these men smiling? It's because Dubbya is signing the Military Commissions Act of 2006 wherein the writ of habeas corpus is suspended for those he deems "enemy combatants". They're smiling because these prisoners, defined by the president, can be detained indefinitely. They're smiling because these prisoners can be interrogated up to a point just short of torture but since the President also gets to define what constitutes torture, well, think creatively. They're smiling because they are thumbing their noses at the international community by ignoring the Geneva Convention.

But, they are also smiling because Dubbya is signing the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. Take a look at Sec. 1076 where the President is given broad authority to declare martial law under a whole cornucopia of situations. The Insurrection Act had been put in place to prevent the President from deploying troops except under the most dire of circumstances and here is is signing that balance away.

Section 334 of such title is amended by inserting "or those obstructing the enforcement of the laws" after "insurgents".

Do you see where anyone who is "obstructing the law" is included in this? This means that if there is a mass demonstration on the mall in Washington DC and they block traffic, Dubbya could call out the military to disperse and/or arrest them.

Are you smiling, too? Do you feel safer knowing that the definition of the words "terrorist" or "insurgent" could include you at the whim of the President? No, you say, it could never happen to me. This is only to fight the War of Terror (tm). If you think so, then you are a fool. History has shown that all laws are acted upon to their limits. If there is no checks or balances in the law then there will be no checks or balances in their application in government and someone will eventually take them to their extreme. Dubbya could be doing it right now and you'd never know about it because those who are being arrested and imprisoned do not have the right to representation, visitation or to challenge their confinement. They are disappeared.

Revisionist Ticket History

The Bank has been rolling out a migration from local workstation passwords to a domain signon all week. This has lead to plenty of password issue calls. Expected. But I received one call from a user that had gone through the procedure, changed his password, been told by the system that all his passwords had been changed but then not had that new password work. The old password worked.

The system was lying about having changed his password.

It may have been just a glitch so we went through trying to change his password again and was able to confirm that it did, in fact, change. Later, I received another call for the same issue but in this case the user could not change the password even after several attempts and even though the system was saying that it was successfully changing the password each time.

So, I opened a ticket.

Later, I checked on this ticket to see if support had figured out what had been going on and saw that J** at the Function Desk had called the user back and gotten the password to change and close the ticket. She never escalated it to second level support to find out why users were being lied to by the system about their password change. What was worse, J** had DELETED the three lines of the ticket where I pointed out that multiple users had reported this issue and thus it was systemic.

She deleted the reason why I opened the ticket so that she wouldn't have to send it to second level. Why would she do that? To avoid the inconvenience of calling second level support and telling them what was going on? To make our Help Desk issue resolution numbers look better by one fifteenth of one percent?

Perhaps she doesn't realize that all changes within the ticket are
documented so there is a record of what I originally wrote and that she deleted it. Perhaps she thought no one would notice.

Of course, given the state of affairs around here, I have no expectation that more will come of it than a stern finger-shaking.

I got a call from a Government Contractor about a support position, so we'll see how that new job opportunity position pans out.

Tis the season.

The Christmas music CDs and greeting cards on on the racks in the Rite Aid. The lights are going up at Melon Park along Smithfield Street. Construction has begun on the larger-than-life-sized nativity scene at USX Plaza. I haven't even passed out Halloween candy yet and already it's the Christmas season.

How much of this is faith and how much is capitalism? It's not that
difficult to figure that out. No other holiday, Christian or otherwise, has a two month lead-in. No other holiday generates over $400 Billion in retail sales, most of which being toys, games and other gifts that have nothing to do with the celebration of Jesus's birthday.

Christmas is no longer a Christian holiday. It's a consumerist holiday. And the hypocracy of it all annoys the shit out of me.

Actually, what annoys me the most about the two month long holiday season is the music. The incessant Christmas music. Thankfully, I know own an iPod. I have already started using it as a way of isolating myself from the world around me. I typically spend my entire lunch with the headphones on so I don't have to hear the Muzak that plays in restaurants and businesses in town. Also, the distraction allows me to not go over the unpleasantness of work during lunch.

That gets saved for the ride home.

On my honor, I will do my best

I always been proud of my accomplishments as a Boys Scout but I have grown increasingly embarrassed of the Boy Scouts of America, Inc. Decades ago when I was a scout, I took issue with their religious imperative.

Even though I was still being nominally raised as a Lutheran (which means occasionally being taken to church and working through the Catechism classes) I had pretty much already stopped believing in any sort of god. When the reciting of the Scout Law required me to state that "a Scout is Reverent towards God," I simply mumbled. The Scout Oath where I promised "to do my duty to God and my country" received similar attention. The troop that I was in focused on other things so the issue never came up and no one noticed.

After earning my Eagle Award and going off to college, I began to learn just what the Boy Scouts was really about. Sure, it was about good citizenship, but I never knew that their official policy was that "the recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the universe and the grateful acknowledgment of His favors and blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship."

In the oath, I promised "to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight." But I learned that when they said "straight" they meant "not gay" as if homosexuals are incapable of being morally upright. They tried to wrap their policies in legalistic speech and even wond their case in the Supreme Court but, in the end, they wer advocating ignorance and hatred.

Now, I've learned that the Boy Scouts have a new program wherein scouts can earn an activity patch for learning about the evils of downloading pirated movies and music. This program was developed in association with the Motion Picture Association of America. Scouts will be instructed in the basics of copyright law and learn how to identify five types of copyrighted works and three ways copyrighted materials may be stolen. Scouts also must choose one activity from a list that includes visiting a movie studio to see how many people can be harmed by film piracy. They also can create public service announcements urging others not to steal movies or music.

The Boy Scouts of America have prostituted themselves to a major industry. Sure, good citizenship includes obeying the laws and, in truth, distributing movies on the web is a violation of copyright law, but this interpretation has been bought and paid for by the MPAA. What is next, having environmental awards sponsored by the Oil Marketers Association? Awards for citizenship with a curriculum developed by the Republican National Committee?

The Boy Scouts of America is selling off their soul piecemeal to the highest bidder. So much for a scout being trustworthy.

SLA

D****, Team Lead and arch-nemesis, came around to my cubicle today. He stood behind me while I ignored him for several minutes until I was done with the call I was on. It seems that the Help Desk is looking for people to work 10 hour days on Mondays and Tuesdays so that they can address some shortfalls in their Service Level Agreements.

I immediately said that I was not interested in working 10 hour shifts at this time. I wondered if working 10 hour shifts earlier in the week would allow me to take half a day off each Friday or if they would pay me overtime through the end of the month. Of course, the Help Desk has been hiring people regularly since December but each time I look out on the floor I see the same number of empty seats. The new hires quickly learn that they are going to get little training, have no hope for a raise and all the other fun that goes on. At $10.50 an hour, as soon as anything else comes up, they're gone.

So, on reflection, I still have no interest in working longer days to make up for their lack of forethought. Sure, Mondays and Tuesdays will have longer queues because we're short staffed but we've been suffering though that all year. Merely more of the same.

Credit where it isn't due.

Yesterday was a heavy call volume day. Several software updates, some servers down, the normal sort of stuff on a Monday. We had a fairly high number of people waiting in the queue. Late in the morning, things started to clear out and Team Lead D**** sent out a message:

I'm trying to clear it (the queue) out for you but I may need your help.

Finally, when the queue was cleared:

Great job everyone!!!!
...........With your assistance, I was able to clear the queue!

That is such complete bullshit. He doesn't do squat to clear out the queue. The ticket system shows that he took two calls. Two is nothing. I had 40 by that time. Why does he persist in taking credit for this when the most he does is badger us? And what's more, why does management continue to allow him to treat us like this because, really, this is very insulting when we do all the work and he is blatantly taking the credit.

Today, was even worse. We had a queue continuously, all day long. So after spending all morning off the floor in meetings, and once the other two Team Leads have gone home for the day, D**** does it again:

I'm trying to clear the queue but i can't do it alone..... I need
everyone's assistance

The system shows that he took no calls for the day. Not a single ticket. Now, unless he's operating under the radar and helping callers in some magic way that he is not entering the ticket system, he is doing absolutely nothing to clear the queue. He clearly has no idea how insulting he is being to the rest of us. I took over 80 calls for the day and did more to clear the queue than anyone at the Help Desk and here he is, doing nothing, but taking full credit.

I think he believes himself to be clever. Previously, one of his favorite "clear the queue" phrases to use was "You're killing me", as if the queue were a life-or-death situation. I haven't heard him using that for a while so now he's got the "I cleared the queue for you" crap.

Time to amend my "reasons morale sucks at the Help Desk" document for the Site Manager.

Flat

My bike got a flat tire on the way in, having hit a glass bottle in the morning darkness. The joy of this actually goes back to early in the year. I had a trunk bag that was OK for going to work but it had soft sides. When the bag was not packed with my work clothes it had a tendency to flop over. So, I bought another trunk bag with more rigid sides. Except that this other bag was a little smaller and barely has room for my work clothes. If I wanted to add a fleece or sweatshirt for the cooler weather (or rather, wear it in for the morning ride but pack it out for the way home because the afternoon is warmer) there wasn't enough room. So, I've taken to riding to work with one trunk bag and doing my recreational riding with the other bag.

The flaw in this is that this morning when I had the "work" trunk bag, my extra tube, tube repair kit and tools were still in the other trunk bag at home. I couldn't change or repair my tire so I had to walk a half mile back to my car, lock my bike to the rack on the back of the car and walk the three miles into work.

It's not that I had a particular problem walking three miles but it was an unexpected complication to my day.

Mugged by Turkeys

As I reached the end of the Eliza Furnace Trail and was going to begin my climb out of Panther Hollow, I came across several turkeys. Thinking I would get some pictures before they ran off, I stopped the bike and grabbed my camera. Instead of running off, they rushed me. They seemed particularly interested in my legs and I would put the camera in their faces and turn my bike wheel to ward them off. Eventually, I put the camera away to ride off and they chased me at for a block and a half. Thanksgiving is coming up and they are setting up something of a protection racket, harassing passers-by to encourage them to go out for Chineese.

Fresh Blacktop

Workers layed down bedding on top of the bedding along the Parkway East retaining wall on the Eliza Furnace. Five weeks into the Hot Metal Bridge project, they are set to actually narrow the trail so that they can begin real work on the bridge that will take the trail across Second Avenue. The fence will shift so that people will have to squeeze against the retaining wall, which is actually great. They won't be shutting down the trail through construction.On the other side of Second, there is a pile of timbers which look set to be set as the new decking on the Hot Metal Bridge itself.

Evil Mastermind Kim Jong-il

Kim Jong-il is fucking ingenious! By this time they have nothing to loose by going nuclear and everything to gain. The US has been whining about how North Korea won't negotiate when, in point of fact, they have always been willing to negotiate but only with the United States. The US has been ignoring them, building them up with all the "Axis of Evil" rhetoric, floating embargo and isolation talk and letting it be known that "all options are on the table" (which means bombing the shit out of them if they can afford to re-task some resources from Iraq).

So, if I were North Korea, I'd want nuclear weapons as the only thing left that will get the world to treat me with respect.

But nuclear weapons are difficult and expensive to build. So, make a big show, dig a big hole and pack it full of 500 tons of plain, old TNT. Boom! Make the announcement that it was a nuclear explosion and suddenly North Korea is part of the nuclear club.

That declaration and the "proof" of the seismic event gives you all the breathing room you need to actually build a nuclear arsenal. Or not. Hell, that's what nuclear deterrence is all about.

It's genius! I wish I'd thought of it.

Better late than never

The Operations Manager received an email from Corporate Payroll on Friday at 3:47pm saying that the failure of direct deposit was their bank's fault and that the transactions had been submitted at noon. Of course, my account didn't show anything of this until midnight last night and the Operations Manager didn't forward this message until 8:30 this morning.

Firstly, if the Operations Manager received this at 3:47pm Friday, she should have forwarded it to the rest of us at 3:48pm instead of waiting two and a half days. My guess is that she had already ducked out for the day at that point and didn't follow up all weekend. Secondly, I am unconvinced by the "It's our bank's fault", and then the "If it's not fixed by the end of today then it's YOUR bank's fault." excuses.

It was an interesting coincidence that this fiasco happened on a bank holiday weekend when, even if it was "resolved" by The Company on Friday, we still would not be sure to get our money until the following Tuesday. Another coincidence perhaps that The Company posted a healthy 9% jump in stock price during afternoon trading. Was there something about screwing the employees out of their pay that the shareholders liked?

I am, perhaps, overthinking the situation. Never ascribe to malice that which can easily be explained by stupidity.

Employee value

The Help Desk didn't get paid today.

We were told that there was some sort of foul-up between Corporate Paroll and the company's bank (which also happens to be a technical services client) leading to direct deposits not actually being deposited company wide. We waited all day for word about when we would be receiving our paychecks with no update. As the end of the day neared, I went to the Operations Manager's cubicle to ask her where my money was but she had already ducked out for the day. Checking my account now that I am home, I still haven't been paid.

True story

Geis: ". . . and could I have your systems computername?"

User: "IBM?"

Geis: "No. I need your computername. There is a tag on the PC that says 'computername' on it."

User: "E74?"

Geis: "No. That's your monitor. I need you to be looking at the computer."

User: "Netvista?"

Geis: "That's the computer but I need the computername. On the tag taped to the machine."

User: "Intel Inside?"

Geis: "No. There is a white tag. The size of a business card. Taped to the machine."

User: "Pentium 4?"

Geis: "No. That's the same label you just read to me. I need the Bank tag. Taped to the machine. The size of a business card. It has the word 'computername' on it."

User: "This machine is leased by. . . "

Geis: "No. The computername. It's on a white tag. It's the size of a business card. It has the word 'computername' on the first line. There is hand-written information on it. It's the one thing left on that PC that you HAVEN'T read to me.

User: "Here where it says 'computername'?"

Geis: "Yes. . . . Thank you . . . "

The tragedy of this is that this is not an isolated conversation. Exactly this exchange is a common occurrence. Remember: these are the people who handle your money.

Failure to communicate

My Team Lead sent out an Instant Message telling us to read the e-mail he just sent out concerning a procedure. Opening the email he sent, there was a link to an item in the Team Database. Going to the Team Database message there was a link to the Help Desk Reference Manual. Going to the Reference Manual we finally found out what it was he was talking about.

Is it any wonder people don't know what the hell is going on around here.

Prescription

I few weeks ago, I rode my bike on the 19-mile Hockhocking Adena Bikeway near Athens, Ohio. I took a bunch of pictures to log my visit but when I got back home, there were all blurry. I had thought something was odd on the LCD display when I was taking them but it was foggy and I thought the small screen was just making it seem worse but no, when I got home and tested it I learned that it was blurry.

The camera was dead, so I bought a new one. A better camera. A Nikon Coolpix L4.

Looking at the pictures I had taken then, today I thought, "That looks about as blurry as it would be if I weren't wearing my glasses. My camera needs prescription lenses."

And, just to prove this, I went outsode and took two pictures. The one on the left is the pictures the camera is taking normally. On the right is what it looks like when I hold my glasses up to the lens.As you can see, not only does my camera need prescription lenses, it needs MY prescription.

My camera needs a monocle.

Rejected Timesheet

Last week, The Corporation announced some changes to the website that we use to fill out our time cards. "All changes are very MINOR and should not cause any difficulties when creating and submitting timesheets." I was not overwhelmed with confidence, having had paychecks screwed up before when there were so-called minor changes. The Operations Manager also included this little gem in her e-mail about the change:

"Over the past two weeks, you may have received a Recruitmax Timesheet Training Session Invite. If you did not receive this or you received this invite but was unable to attend, PLEASE DO NOT WORRY. I have attended the Training Session for you and have summarized some of the changes below."

Let's hear that again: "I have attended the Training Session for you." So, is that how training at the Help Desk is being handled now? Management takes the training and the rest of us are to learn by osmosis?

It was, therefore, no surprise, when Friday came along and noone was able to fill out their timesheets properly. My Thursday and Friday slots were blocked out so that I could not enter any times, as if these days were holidays that the offices were closed. The returned message was "Placement ended due to inactivity."

The Operations Manager had coincidentally called off so there was a scramble with HR to figure out what was going on. Team Lead D**** sent out the message:

"Please do not be alarmed by this.... it will be corrected and paychecks will not be affected."

First off, I have no reason not to be alarmed when every time there is a change, things get screwed up. It's not being paranoid if it's true. Secondly, as a Team Lead he had absolutely no authority to make the statement that paychecks would not be affected. He doesn't know shit about what's going on and it's inappropriate for him to make it out like he does.

Well, Monday rolled around and I was able to get back into the system an correct my time card so it looks like they fixed this foul-up. Even so, I have no reason to be confident in that their minor changes failed yet again.

Continuance

The lawyer for Codename P has asked for a continuance so the court date that was set for October 19th has been pushed back three weeks to November 6th. I can only guess that he's hoping that the delay will cause me to tire and abandon the case because I can't imagine what additional preparations he might need to make. It's not like it's a complicated case.

The most interesting thing is that the name of the lawyer making the request is clearly a relative of Codename P. Doing some websearching I'm guessing that he is Codename P's brother or cousin. Why don't I find it surprising that a weasel property owner who feels somehow empowered to vandalize cars would employ his brother the lawyer to defend him when he got caught.

Maybe it's a "family" thing.

Falling into the Equinox

It would seem that fall has officially arrived. My morning ride of 53 degrees was chilly only because my body is still adapted to the hot summer we've been having. Give me a few weeks and I'll be fully acclimated to wearing shorts down into the high 30s. To help that along, I'm going to ride the Pine Creek Trail this weekend. Mid-state above Rt 80 means a 10 degree drop in temperature. I'm not concerned about the cooler temperatures except that the forecast is for thundershowers and being wet can pull the heat right out of your body. My jacket is water resistant but I don't have anything that is water-proof. Normally, at the end of my daily commute I have a warm, dry place to be and a change of clothes. On the trail, I'm just going to have dry clothes and a tent (which may or may not be dry depending on how heavily it's raining when I try to pitch it).

Well, the adventure makes for good story telling. Hopefully, hypothermia isn't a part of the tale.

In other cycling news. . . Two weeks after the signs went up for the Hot Metal Bridge construction, it looks like they are actually doing some work. They have laid some drainage pipe along the front of the Parkway East retaining wall to redirect the water coming off the highway to make a solid bed for the trail around the ramps to be built at the end of the bridge. There is also a crane out by the bridge itself. It looks like they've built the bridge deck out to a retaining wall about 20 feet.

Things that bring down morale

I produced my extensive document on morale at the Help Desk and sent it up. Actually, it was two documents; one for "general" consumption sent to both D**** and the Site Manager and the other ABOUT D**** sent only to the Site Manager.

In the first document I mentioned no raises, no bonuses and the disappearance of the incentive program. I mentioned the regular confusion about holiday staffing. I covered no one being willing to admit to making the decision that I would not longer be the trainer. I went over illegal activities such as requesting that we not evacuate during fire drills and not paying taxes. I enlightened them about the big raise the CEO got last year when the Corporation had big losses. And finally, I brought up the lack of any results having said all this before when The Corporation sent an auditor to ask about morale.

"The evidence has lead me to believe that the management here at the Help Desk lacks the power to make the necessary changes."

After I came back from lunch, the Site Manager stopped by my cubicle and agreed with everything I had said. He confided in me that previous morale surveys had also listed the local Management's lack of power as one of the issues. Corporate's response was to ask him why that is.

"Because you're not lying well enough to deflect blame away from them," I explained. He shook his head in agreement. He is sitting in that hotseat where he knows he has no authority to make real decisions and his managers apparently want to know why he's not taking the blame.

The second document was sent just to the Site Manager and, in some ways, had the same answer.

"If I were asked what was the one thing that could be done here at the Help Desk to improve morale on a daily basis I would say “Fire D****.” Every interaction I have with him is riddled with nothing but stress. Other analysts regularly comment to me about his bullying tactics and micromanagement. “Petty dictator” is one of the kinder descriptors I’ve heard. Expletives make up a good percentage of other comments."

The Site Manager said that he had attempted to address that issue but that he was "deterred" from taking action. It all starts to fall into place and I see how it all happened:

Last year about this time, a trainee reported to Management that I had been bad-mouthing D****. T***, the Site Manager at the time, being the screw-up that he was, didn't exercise any authority but merely reported it up the chain. It would surprise me if D**** didn't have a part to play in this. Perhaps the trainee went to him directly. In any case, Corporate sent word back down that I was no longer to be the trainer. As has been typical with communications here at the Help Desk, no one wanted any sort of confrontation or really wanted to take responsibility (which, by rights, wasn't theirs anyway) so I was cut out of the loop. I was told nothing as if I wouldn't notice. When I did notice, everyone I asked could honestly say that they didn't make the decision.Unfortunately, they also lacked the guts to honestly tell me what had really gone on.

The Site Manager again registered his disappointment that my transfer over to The Pharm had fallen through. He thought the reasoning was "bullshit" and this time gave me the impression that, if he had it his way, I would be a Team Lead instead of D****.

Fascinating.

"On 8 February 2006, a Corporate auditor came to the Help Desk asking what we needed to succeed. In my meeting with him I detailed many of the things I have stated in this document. Given that seven months later I am going over all this again says to me that little or nothing was actually done with what was said in that meeting. I feel I wasted my time then and am likely wasting my time now as I honestly expect nothing to be done."

Later in the day, D**** responded to the document I sent him:

"I just read your email...... and I'm speechless...... It's unfortunate that I never asked you for this in the past...... you bring up extremely valid issues."

Speechless. He would have an aneurism if he saw the OTHER document I created and sent to the Site Manager.

Northern Crown/7th Sea game session #2

[Read the blog about session #1 here.]

After beating up the guys with yellow tabards and looting the bodies, the rest of the party followed Kurt, who had set of after the one that had escaped. Having lost the guy, Kurt was returning. There wasn't much to go on so they wandered back to "our" tavern to see if we could figure something out. From the bodies they had recovered a knife which was believed to be that of the person they were looking for (since the GM had mentioned his knife several times) and a note with an address.

"Hy've got an idea. Ve go dere, kick in de door und kill everyone ve find."

"I don't think that's a good plan."

"Hy never saeed it vas a goot plan."

With a little more investigative work (I bought a local drunkard, a surprisingly good source of information, a few beers) we learned that the guys in the yellow tabards were Spanish mercenaries. We also learned that the address was for a seedy tavern. Samm had gotten himself drunk (the player didn't show last night) so, the remaining three of us went to the tavern, paying the barmaids at this tavern some extra money to look after our drunken comrade. Once there, Máire overheard a piece of conversation and set off after a boy who made a run for it after having been noticed. When I caught up with them, Máire had caught the boy and was trying to get information out of him but had only learned that "The Master" had told him to meet the mercenaries.

"Here, lemmee try."

Being a big orc with tusks and sharp, nasty teeth, I was easily able to terrify the boy into taking us to where his master was.

"It's a trap, uf kourse. Oddervise de mercenaries vould not hef de knife. Ve vere supposed to beat dem up, find de knife und address und follow de breadcrumbs back to de villain's's lair vere dey hope to put an end to us. Now vat do hyu tink uf my plan uf kickink in de door und killink everyone ve find?"

"Good plan."

I kicked in the door to find no one inside. He intimidated the boy into directing us to a hidden stairway to the basement. Finding no one there I intimidated the boy until he revealed the hidden door behind the big wine casks.

"Hyu first."

The boy made a run for it but fell to his death in a pit trap. Too bad. At the next "decision point" I was going to throw him a copper to buy himself some clean underpants and send him on his way. The first door we come to in the underground complex opened up into some sort of ritual room.

"Kultists. Hy hete kultists."

Second door was a library. Third door was a treasure room guarded by a trio of emaciated walking corpse things.

"Hoops. Vrong door."

I closed the door and was prepared to just move on to deal with the undead later but they began chopping at the door to get out. Once they had chopped a big enough hole in the door, I just shoved a grenade through the opening and blew the room to shit. One undead thing survived enough to stagger out of the room but an axe blow to the head finished it off. I wanted to storm ahead but a bunch of snake guys with spears showed up.

There were two one either side of us in the hallway. I was engaged with two when Máire tried throwing a dagger past me.

"Don' kill across me, voman. It's very rude."

She went back to fight with the other two snake guys and left these two to me. The one took a few hits to go down with an axe blow. The second missed spectacularly so that I was able to step into it, grab the spear under my arm and lift, crushing his skull against the ceiling.

The Rake had finished off the other two and wanted to loot the treasure room. I didn't want to waste time, this being a trap and all, and wanted to move ahead as quickly as possible before the forces of evil could rally. I rushed down the hall to some big double doors and kicked in the door to reveal another ritual chamber with pillers, an altar, more snake guys and "The Big Boss"

I half expected him to be the guy we were searching for. It turned out to be the head of the the temple. Ohhh, big surprise. He started to gloat:

"You are the first outsiders to . . . *erk!*"

I shot him in the head. It wasn't a good enough shot to put him down, however. Just a glancing blow. Whereupon he transformed himself into a snake-thing, too. (They're called Naga, right?) The snakey minions open fire. One pistol shot misses. The other fires a mortar that catches Máire in the gut, knocking her down. It bounces off and detonates a moment later, shrapnel rattling against my breastplate. My comrades want to run but I choose to rush them. The blast knocked off my hat.

I rush into the room and engage one of the minions with my axe but don't do too well. I can hit him but simply can't do enough damage to put him down. His comrade chucks a grenade and I take most of the blast in the back. Meanwhile, the Big Boss is trying to cast spells but I am easily resisting those effects. I finally put the snake guy down but the Big Boss casts another spell, raising him from the dead, or some such. Máire puts the other minion down and tries to stab the Big Boss, taking a lot of damage from a necromatic touch.

"Hy hef hed enough uf dese modderfuckink schnakes in dis modderfuckink game."

I throw down my axe and strike the minion with my fists. He goes down instantly. I rush over the the Big Boss, grab ahold of his head, and nearly twist it off. *Kerruntch*

After that, it was discover the guy we had been looking for all this time tied up behind the altar, hear his sob story (possession. called that one), collect up the loot, collect up our comrade left at the tavern and call it a day.

Summary

An axe does 1d8 of damage but Kurt's fists do 1d3+4. The maximum damage isn't as good as with an axe but I'm guaranteed of at least 4 points of damage whereas with an axe I have even odds of doing 4 or fewer points. So, now the axe is just for chopping wood

Chekhov is attributed with saying, "if you show a gun in act one, you have to use it by act three." In our own act one, the guy who had hired us to find the missing guy mentioned the knife. I knew it was going to show up again and immediately recognized it for what it was.

Kurt didn't interact much with the head of the temple much when the party visited looking for information so I, as a player, chose not to pay much attention. If I had, I would have seen the behavior of the head of the temple as a sure sign that he was involved and not just a jerk.

The mess with the Orcish pirates wasn't a ruse. We had heard that they were putting to see the next morning. Had we not figured things out, our quarry would have been on that ship and we would have to chase them down. Had we not killed the Big Boss, he would have been on that ship making his escape.

Summons

Back in June when Codename P and his lawyer went to the Pgh Police to accept a harassment citation for the repeated vandalism of my car, I thought it was pretty much over. The officer told me he said that he wouldn't do it again (which sounds like an admission of guilt).

Well, it seems that he has changed his mind and pled "not guilty" to the charges. That means that on October 19th at 8am, Codename P will appear in District Court to face the charges against him.

I'm not sure what part I have yet to play in this drama. The document I received was a copy of what was sent to him and not a call for me to appear as a witness. That document may be forthcoming. If not, I intend to at the very least be in the gallery to hear just how he justifies his actions or tries to deny that it's him in the picture.

The wheels of justice continue to turn.

The Helpdesk Manifesto

D****, team lead and arch nemesis, came to my cubicle to ask something of me. I thought he looked a little put off by my wearing of sunglasses against the glare of the newly re-installed fluorescent lights. Apparently he was looking for me to produce a list of things that were hurting morale at the Help Desk.

I laughed out loud. I could go on for hours detailing the things that destroy morale at the help desk: not getting raises in 4 years, not getting bonuses, the abandonment of the incentive program, etc, etc. But, if there is one thing that depresses morale on a daily basis, it is D**** himself.

So, I will go through my notes and produce two comprehensive and exhaustive documents. One document will be all the things I mentioned above and more. The other, sent only to the site manager, will be why D**** destroys morale. I may except some choice paragraphs once I'm done with it but, if you've been reading my blog, you already know what to expect.

Let there be light.

Looking over the wall of my cubicle last week I noticed that the floor was quite dark. Apparently many of the other analysts have discovered, as I did long ago, that working in a darker environment was more comfortable. They had gotten up on their desks and disconnected most of the florescent lights.

I've been doing that for years. Occasionally building maintenance will come around fixing lights and I would just say "leave it like it is." They would.

But today when the maintenance guy came around, he said he had been told to turn them all on. I went to the Site Manager to ask why. Some Corporate Bigwig is coming to visit and, on seeing all the lights out he is likely to say, "why don't you call maintenance to get the lights fixed?" Being a Bigwig, the answer of "we like it that way" will not be acceptable. Just do what he says. Don't question him. Be the mindless drones you are paid to be. In fact, don't even wait for him to make the comment, just do what you assume a Corporate Bigwig would say in such a situation so that there isn't even the remotest chance for displeasure on his part.

The only good thing is that immediately following the Bigwig visit, people will be back on top of their desks disconnecting the lights again. In the meantime, I'll bring in my sunglasses. Already, the glare is giving me a headache.

Certificate of Underappreciation.

I was in a coworker's cubicle asking a hardware question and noticed a Certificate of Appreciation pinned up on the wall. The Corporation's CEO was thanking her for her years of service and offering her corporate prizes in recognition for her valued work. Fascinating because I have put in more years of service and have never received much of anything other than a paycheck from Corporate.

Just one more thing to ask about when my seventh year performance review comes up next month.

Trail Narrows

On the way back from work along the Eliza Furnace Trail, there were several construction signs warning "Trail Work Ahead" and "Trail Narrows". That means that construction on the Hot Metal Bridge has begun.

For a while there it looked like it was going to put off for another year. The contracting bids had all come in $2 Million over the target $7 Million but they looked at what those overbids were actually for (increased materials costs, gas prices) and decided that it was the best they were going to get. PenDOT moved some money around, delayed some other projects and came up with the funds for the project to go ahead.

Hopefully they are able to manage the construction without closing the trail completely. They were able to do that with some Parkway East retaining wall reinforcement work they did a few years back so prospects look good.

Construction was supposed to begin in July with the potential to be completed by the end of next year. The two month delay will probably push it to Spring of 2008.

Mandatory overtime, day two

Seven years ago when I was interviewing for this job at the Help Desk, I had some questions about holidays. The Bank had twice as many holidays as the Help Desk, how was that going to be dealt with? Would we be working when The Bank was closed? Would we get paid for bank holidays even though they weren't official Help Desk holidays? The Operations Manager didn't have the answers to those questions so, apparently fearing I wouldn't accept the position without those answers, she boosted my salary offer.

In all that time, they still haven't figured out how to deal with holidays. They have tried bringing in all the full-time staff while giving part-time staff the day off. They have tried asking for volunteers. Sometimes we've gotten holiday pay for non-Help Desk holidays. Sometimes we've been paid time-and-a-half. Sometimes it's just been regular pay and nothing if we don't work. This year they made an announcement that we would alternate, working one bank holiday and then having the next one off. They changed their minds and the next holiday that I was supposed to have off they made me come in.

The day after a holiday is always a challenge. This, my second day of "come in an hour earlier" was a complete wash. In that extra hour I took no calls at all. And even in the next hour, what would be my regularly scheduled time, I took only 4 calls.

Help Desk management has seven years of holiday and after holiday statistics to set proper staffing levels. The holidays come on a regular schedule that could be calculated centuries in advance. Why is management always surprised?

Mandatory overtime

Users have a hard time remembering their passwords over the weekend. And another day for a holiday and it's even worse. And, since we are still sorely understaffed even though management seems to be hiring new analysts on a b-weekly basis, they needed to come up with a way to take care of the increased workload. Thus, the brilliant idea of having everyone come in an hour earlier.

In the end, I don't think it made much of a difference. I took 70-some calls, a rate I would call typical for a Tuesday after a holiday weekend with no other drastic surprises. The extra hour I spent on the phone in the morning fielded 5 additional calls which really didn't affect the overall numbers. We had queues at the times we typically have queues. The wait times were pretty much what they've been recently.

Hey, I've got an idea. Instead of overworking your already overworked and underpaid employees, how about paying the people you've got and the new hires what they're worth and give them proper training. That way, they'll stick around for more than a few weeks and you'll be able to get the Help Desk up to the proper staffing levels.

Or, you can continue to cut corners. Cut costs. And produce a crappy product so that when the contract comes up for renewal, The Bank decides they aren't getting what they were promised and dump your sorry asses. Oh wait. That's not going to happen for another three years.

Northern Crown/7th Sea game session #1

"You all meet in a tavern. . . "

We'll this game didn't quite start out that way, but it was close. First, party introductions: There is, of course, myself as Leutnant Kurt von Sturmblähung, an Orcish grenadier from the Bavarian Alps. Máire, a red-haired Celtic raider with a short temper. Samm Spaccioula, an Italian rogue. And a rakish adventurer who has yet to reveal his true name. There is a certain irony in that among all of them, I am the respectable one.

We had signed aboard a merchant ship with an eye towards sharing in the profits but when the cargo spoiled, we were left on the docks at Freeport (Port Royal) with nothing. Nothing except a press gang. We were met by a gang of pirates who gave us the choice of joining their crew voluntarily or being beaten into service with clubs and belaying pins.

"Hy tink not."

I drew my pistol and shot the leader in the head. It wasn't a good shot, landing only a glancing blow, but the fight was joined. One of the pirates grabbed at my pistol to wrestle it away from me. I was half again as strong as he was and simply pulled him towards my fist and he went down. I pistol whipped another, my comrades stabbed a few and the rest fled.

We were immediately greeted by a studious looking monk who had witnessed the fight and, believing us to be adventurous types, offered us payment for help in finding another of his order who had gone missing.

Thus, to the tavern.

To sum up the tale, this missing person had been normal. Became unbalanced. Was thrown out. Disappeared for several years. When he returned he had no memory of what had happened. Eventually worked his way back into the order's trust. Recently began showing disturbing tendencies and has gone missing again.

A doppelgänger, hy tink. Perheps an evil tvin. Or zumone else in his head, ya?

This led to a search of his home, questioning the locals and a lot of wandering around without much to show for it except the name of an Orcish pirate.

Being an Orc, I went to the ship to see if I could have a conversation with this captain but was ridiculed by the Orcs at the gangplank. I was civilized in a red coat, pants and shoes and they taunted me mercilessly. I attempted to engage them intelligently but I realized they simply didn't understand. So, I punched one of them in the head. The other drew a sword and took a swipe at me.

"Hey. Dat's not very neighborly at hall."

I punched him as well and he went down. That's when the sniper in the crows nest shot me through the lung. My comrades hauled me back to the temple and got me healed up. While they futzed around trying to interrogate the monks and getting nowhere, I returned to the inn and reloaded my pistol with the ball they dug out of my chest. I had plans of returning it.

Later, we went out in search of the Orcish captain and were waylaid by a squad of armored soldier-types in yellow tabards. We were outnumbered 2:1 so we thought to run. Well, I wasn't running far. My plan was to duck into the alley, wait for them to follow and then toss a grenade into their compacted midst. That didn't work out as the rest of the group got caught fighting out in the open. I drew my axe and ran into the fray.

The first went down with his head cleaved crown to jaw. The next, who happened to be the leader, was nearly cut in half and went down. I killed a third on my own and finished off a fourth that had already been wounded. The other three of the party had taken out one each, leaving one to make a run for it when he realized that he was the last one standing.

"Ve hunt!"

Well, he got away in the twisty alleys.

Game Commentary

The fights remind me why I never liked D&D and its successor, the D20 system. Hit points. And a critical means double the hit points of damage. I played Rolemaster for a number of years and enjoyed the graphic critical hits. "Shot through both ears. Hearing impaired. Dies instantly. Awesome shot." It adds to the mind's eye image of what's going on instead of just saying, "you take 4 points of damage."

Even though this is supposed to be 1688 or so and we are armed with matchlocks, the nature of using those weapons was completely forgotten. We might as well all have flintlocks. There were flintlocks in that time period but I blame the D20 system.

I've also never been able to reconcile the gold-standard inflation of the D&D universe. A night at the tavern cost 2 pieces of gold.

The GM is having a tough time playing to period. The guys in the yellow tabards who attacked us were not well described and, while I imagined them much like the Cardinal's men in "The Three Musketeers", they were described much more like your typical medieval fantasy town guards.

Finally, Kurt is much better suited to being the heavy than in all this Sherlock Holmes investigative crap. He's a grenadier, a storm trooper. Not a detective.

Customer Disservice

"Effective right now, in an effort to cut talk times, cut a ticket rather than engage in lengthy troubleshooting.

You are providing better customer service by answering and documenting the call than by not answering the call"

It's not that we are not answering calls, it's that the users are waiting in the queue for so long that they hang up and call back later. Of course, the number of people that do that is actually very low. By contract, we need to keep it below 7% but typically it's closer to 4 or 5%. The theory is that by giving them slipshod service, opening a ticket and then making them wait for a few hours until second level support decides to take care of them is better than having them wait a little bit longer in the queue, having their issue addressed properly and maybe resolved right away.

I don't buy it. I never have. This is not about providing good customer service, it's about tweaking the helpdesk numbers when we have a high call volume. Recently that high call volume has been caused by the help desk's inability to hire and keep qualified people. Being short-staffed, the wait times are going to go up. Sure, a few user's are going to get fed up with the wait and hang up but is it good customer service to shortchange the other 95% of the callers out of proper troubleshooting, making them wait hours for second level support to contact them about something we could have taken care of in a few extra minutes? I don't think so. Management does. Are there any actual numbers to show what is really going on? From what I know of the metrics and the way statistics are gathered, those numbers don't exit.

In the meantime, I'm simply going to keep doing things the way I always have, taking the time I need to troubleshoot an issue I feel I can resolve.

Performance enhancement

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Orcish Grenadier

Many years ago, I was involved in a Rolemaster RPG and had one of my favorite characters killed when I couldn't attend a gaming session. Borg the Sledgehammer, a big, dumb hammer-swinging brute made interesting by the fact that he resisted magic at three times his level, was suspicious of magic and magic users and was in a party made almost entirely of spell casters. Everyone went to great lengths to conceal their magic use and be friends with Borg. Once Borg was killed, I wanted to come up with an equally interesting and unique character and I hit upon the idea of an Orc Grenadier. Unfortunately, the Gamemaster wouldn't allow it for practical reasons. Simply put, the society of the world would not tolerate an orc walking into town.

Well, now it looks like I have a chance to revive the character concept. A friend of mine is starting up a game set in a fantasy 17th Century. Originally, he was going to run using the 7th Sea game, a fantasy pseudo-Europe. But he wanted Native Americans for some reason, so he's added Northern Crown, a fantasy Colonial America using the D20 system. He also threw in Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition to have fantasy races like elves and dwarves.

So, now I have an opportunity to have an Orc Grenadier. And the concept I am working with is based on the Jagermonsters of the Girl Genius comic series by Phil and Kaja Foglio. Girl Genius is a gaslamp fantasy 19th Century with mad scientists and the Jagermonsters are some sort of hybridized soldiers that are very strong, very tough and typically used for comedy relief. Read the webcomic and you'll get the idea.

Once I had the character concept, I need to flesh it out a little bit. Germany at the time was still fractured after the Thirty Years War so my character would be an unemployed German mercenary looking for adventure. In a fantasy Europe with Orcs, I would imagine them being from the mountains and that, of course, must be Bavaria. That lead to a skill bonus in brewing.

He needed a name. I tried a few first names and settled on Kurt. For a last name, I was looking at several combinations with Sturm because it sounds cool. The GM had made a joke about the skill bonus also applying to baking bread and thus making pumpernickel bread, noted for its flatulence producing properties. With a little help from BabelFish, that leads me to consider the family name Sturmblähung.

I rolled very well on the social standing table, and thus earned myself gentry rank. If he were English, he could put an esquire after his name. The German Junker (young lord or country squire) have the right to put a von or zu in their names. Kurt von Sturmblähung.

I am searching for illustrations of German military uniforms of the mid- to late-17th Century so I can get Kurt's look just right. Perhaps I'll make it part of his character to be in search of the perfect hat.

CryPod

I'd been thinking of getting myself an iPod and a friend of mine sold me hers on Saturday.

Problem #1: Going to Apple's website, the iTunes software was only available for Win2000 and XP and I'm still running Win98 on my home PC. So, a search of the internet found an application called XPlay that will work on Win98.

Problem #2: Xplay software has a one week trial download but if you want the full version it'll cost you $30. A search of Bittorrent found a pirated version with the crack.

Problem #3: Installing it on my PC seemed to work but then I realized that I had forgotten to turn on my external USB drive. When I turned that on I received the Blue Screen of Death (tm) and crashed my system. This external drive had caused me problems when I bought it but I had been able to work through them. But now turning on the drive with the iPod plugged in threw fatal exception errors. Plugging in the iPod after the drive was turned on threw fatal exception errors. I uninstalled drivers, reinstalled drivers but could not resolve the problem after several hours and a score of reboots. The alternative was to install the iPod on my laptop and then pull the music into it through the household network. Not an ideal solution as it would be extremely slow but I don't have so much music and I'm not adding to the collection fast enough for it to be a regular hindrance.

Problem #4: My laptop couldn't find the drivers. On my desktop, it found them just fine but for some unknown reason, the laptop couldn't get them off of the same Win98 CD.

Problem #5: Apple doesn't have drivers available for Win98. Another search of the Internet found a site that had them be wouldn't let you download them unless you paid a "donation" of $5. Somehow I think that if you must pay then it's no longer a donation. Continued searching found another location that had the drivers for free. They installed and now the iPod appears as a drive in the My Computer folder.

Problem #6: The XPlay software said that the version of software wasn't compatible with the iPod. OK. I had an update in the folder I downloaded but after installing that I still had the same issue. Windows Explorer could see the iPod folders and files but I couldn't navigate to the Music folder. Ahhhh. The problem was that my iPod was configured for Mac. So it was back to Apple to download iPod Updater to re-format the iPod for PC.

Problem #7: iPod Updater didn't recognize that there was an iPod connected to the system even though it shows as a navigable drive in the My Computer folder. On top of that, making the attempt with Updater was freezing my machine. To run Updater, I installed it on my daughter's WinXP machine. That installation went OK and the Updater restored the iPod.

Problem #8: After the update, the system screen said to plug in using a wall outlet so the iPod could reflash the memory. Except that I didn't have an AC adapter for the iPod. But, I knew a coworker was sure to have one. It'd be an easy matter to ask him to borrow his for a few minutes.

Problem #9: He didn't have the AC adapter with him on Monday so he agreed to bring it on Tuesday. No big deal. But he called off of work on Tuesday so I had to wait until Wednesday. Sure enough, it took only a minute for the iPod memory to flash and it looked like I was back in business.

Problem #10: I plugged the iPod into the laptop once I got home and Xplay recognized it. I started up the external drive on the desktop machine, shared the drive and started downloading. Except that after a few minutes the drive wasn't responding and the download crashed. I've noticed before that the external drive will hesitate, sometimes for minutes at a time, when I am copying large volumes of files. For the desktop, it's just a pause but for Xplay the pause is too long and the connection fails. I was forced to copy things in smaller increments. One folder at a time.

Whew! Finally, after four days I have it working.

Burn Rate

Heading back to my cubicle after filling my 52oz mug full of ice water, I ran into a coworker in the hall.

"Let me ask you something," I said. "I'm in my cube all the time so I don't see much of what's going out on the floor. I look out there and see a lot of empty seats. What happened to that troop of people they hired mid-July?"

He told me half of them had quit because they finally learned that there was no chance of promotions, salary increases or benefits. Most of those that had been hired in the group before that had also left. This is, of course, just the thing I had warned management about over a year ago when they were talking about changing the training regimen. "Hire people on the cheap and don't properly train them and they will jump ship at the first opportunity." They dropped me as trainer, went ahead with their scheme and got exactly what they paid for. So, they've hired yet another batch of people that I see training out on the floor. I wonder how long it is before they realize they've been duped and punch out.


There was an application update that went bad for the financial services group so our morning was filled with people calling. We spent half an hour opening tickets for groups of people before there was a master ticket chosen. We then spent another hour telling callers that it was a known issue that support working on before support came back saying they had resolved the issue and users need to re-login.

About an hour after that we received an email from the team rolling out the update saying that they were going to be rolling out said update and there could be some calls. This was several hours after the update had already rolled out and failed.

Come on, people, do you think you could tell us this BEFORE it happens?


And finally, the official directive is that for the Tuesday and Wednesday after Labor Day everyone is to start an hour earlier, meaning I will need to start at 6:30. And I'll have to work until my normal time so I'll be getting two hours of overtime that week (in addition to Holiday pay). Now, we always have an increased call volume the day after holiday weekends because people can't seem to remember their passwords after three days off but the calls never start to pick up until about 8:00. Why the hell do they want me in at 6:30? Well, it's because they are short staffed because the new hires are quitting. That, or they are desperate to come up with a solution other than actually hiring the appropriate number of people, training them properly and scheduling them at the times they would be needed.

Read banned comics.

The Web Fascists at The Bank have been busy this weekend, adding nearly two score of the webcomics that I read regularly to their banned list.

Narbonic
Wapsi Square
Ubersoft
Candi
Sore Thumbs
Zortic
Carzorthade
God Mode
Mystic Revolution
Todd and Penguin
Earthsong
TwoKinds
Abby's Agency
The B-Movie Comic
Comedity
Spare Parts
Suburban Jungle
No Room for Magic
Courting Disaster
Seraphic
Yuusha Hime Kalibourne

They've also blocked the NANACA†CRASH!! flash game

I still cannot understand the process that leads them to delete these websites while allowing forty others on my regular read list to remain.

Impersonal greetings.

Geis: Help Desk, this is Geis. Can I have your login ID, please?
User: *******
Geis. Is this ********.
User: Yes, How are you doing today?
Geis. I've been sick.
User. Good. Here's my problem . . . .

This user wasn't being uncaring on purpose. She was responding to the Pavlovian conditioned call/response of empty greetings. People have become so used to hearing someone respond "OK" or "Fine" to the question of how they are doing that they don't even pay attention to what the answer actually is. In some cases, I've heard people greet each other in the hall or on the elevator, each asking how the other is doing and neither actually giving a answer. "How're you doing" has replaced "Hi" and "Hello" and carries so little meaning that it's no longer actually a question. But, that's OK because the person doesn't care about your answer anyway.

Of course, I'm still running behind the impersonal curve by actually answering people when they ask how I'm doing. And, on top of that, actually answering honestly.

Workin' on the chain, gang.

For years, whenever I had problems with my chain, whether it started
slipping or became corroded, I would take it to a bike shop only to be told that I should change the freewheel as well. They said that both the chain and freewheel would wear out and if I just changed the chain then it wouldn't work right on the now worn freewheel.

I didn't fully believe that. Back when I was going to school, I owned a Schwinn Sierra that I would commute with from Forest Hills to Oakland every day. Seven miles each way. 3,000 miles a year. I would overhaul the bike each spring, repacking the bearings, changing cables as necessary and changing the chain. In the 13 years I rode that bike, I don't recall changing the freewheel more than once or twice. Putting on a new chain would slip for a day or two but then settle in and provide thousands of miles of solid performance.

So, once I got a new bike I started running into more problems. If the chain got rusty or started to slip I would take it to the shop and have the techs again say to change both the chain and the freewheel. I would change the chain only and it would work fine for one change. After that, changing the chain wouldn't be good enough, the chain would slip and I'd be going back to get the freewheel changed. I was going through 3 or 4 chains a year and a two freewheels.

So I asked, "How often should I change the chain?"

"300 miles."

What? An inexpensive chain costs $8. A freewheel will cost $30. That's as much as a full tank of gas and I'll get 300 miles out of that. You mean to tell me that I have to regularly spend as much on hardware for my bike as I do getting gas for my car? Madness.

Well, the last time I had my bike repaired, it was at Iron City Bikes in Oakland. The tech there explained chain wear to me, unlike the other guys at the more high-end shops who just told me I needed to change both chain and freewheel. The chain wears, of course, and that will wear the freewheel but not at the same rate. If you go too long without changing the chain, the freewheel will wear more to the point where the worn freewheel will wear the chain faster than normal. If you change the chain properly, the freewheel won't show significant wear and won't need to be changed with the chain.

"OK. So, again, how often should I change the chain?"

He didn't know. Too many variables, I suppose. But he had a chain tool that would measure how much wear was on the chain. When it reached a certain point, that was when to change the chain.

Now, one would think, what with the chain being the part of the bike that requires the most maintenance and needs replacing most often, that the bike catalogs would have the appropriate chain tool on their front page. But you'd be wrong. I regularly receive Performance Bicycle and Nashbar catalogs in the mail and neither one had either the simple Park Tool CC-3 Chain Wear Indicator or the more elaborate Park Tool CC-2 Chain Checker. One could find the wear indicator in tool sets but never individually. Nor could I find any on the shelves at any of the upscale bike shops in the area.It's like there is a grand conspiracy to keep these simple and most likely to be used tools away from your average consumer. This forces them to go to bike shops and over-pay for maintenance and fund the shop owner's $5000 composite frame bikes.

It's been 18 weeks since I had the chain replaced and a new freewheel installed with about 1200 miles in the meantime. My new chain tool ordered online indicates that my chain wear was at just about the 1% wear mark; the point recommended for the changing of the chain. It's so simple. Walk in, buy a new chain and I'm good to go for another 1,200 miles.

Unwanted resident.

I've been noticing this past week that my mouse has developed a skip and jump. Now, I have worked at tech support long enough to know that the vast majority of the time when someone calls and says they need a new mouse, they just need to clean it properly. Turn the disk. Remove the ball and look inside at the three rollers; one that looks like a wheel the other two like little rods. Flakes of skin and dirt have been picked up by the ball to deposit a ring of waxy gunk around the rollers. Reach in with a fingernail and scrape that crud off and, nine times out of ten the problem will be solved.

Except that I have an optical mouse.

So, after a week of noticing this and just discounting it because that kind of thing doesn't happen to an optical mouse, I finally picked it up and looked.

In the depression housing the LED, a tiny spider had taken up residence and its gossamer web had been disrupting mouse performance.

My basement is like "Kingdom of the Spiders". They are everywhere. Not that it's a bad thing because there are seldom other kinds of insects to be found. I just didn't expect one to take up residence inside my mouse.

Sorry, pal. This is your eviction notice.

Be unafraid. Be very unafraid.

The recent issue of National Geographic had a one-page display of the odd of dying of various causes:

1 in 5 Heart disease
1 in 7 Cancer
1 in 24 Stroke
1 in 84 Motor Vehicle Accident
1 in 119 Suicide
1 in 218 Falling
1 in 314 Firearm assault
1 in 626 Pedestrian accident
1 in 1,008 Drowning
1 in 1,020 Motorcycle accident
1 in 1,113 Fire or smoke inhalation
1 in 4,919 Bicycling accident
1 in 5,051 Air/space accident
1 in 5,134 Accidental firearm discharge
1 in 9,968 Accidental electrocution
1 in 10,048 Alcohol poisoning
1 in 13,729 Hot weather
1 in 56,789 Hornet, wasp or bee sting
1 in 62,468 Legal execution
1 in 79,746 Lightning
1 in 117,127 Earthquake
1 in 144,156 Flood
1 in 340,733 Fireworks discharge

(these are numbers for US residents)

With all the hoopla over terrorism that's been going on, I was curious how concerned I should actually be about bombings, poison gas, snipers and the like. I found a Cato Institute article in Regulation Magazine that, while it didn't give the actual odds, stated the risk this way:

"Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (when the State Department began counting) is about the same as the number of people killed by lightning, accident-causing deer or severe allergic reactions to peanuts."

Look at the numbers. Americans are more likely to be executed by their own government than they are to be killed by some foreign extremist. So, who are the terrorists here? And when our leaders stand at the podium and ask us to give up our constitutional rights, who should we be afraid of?

The answer is that we should fear our own government because they seem to be utilizing our un-substantiated fears to erode our rights and secure more power for themselves.

Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was telling a television audience that if terrorists were able to engineer a catastrophic event that killed 10,000 people, they would successfully "do away with our way of life."

The National Institute of Health says that 280,000 people a year die of complication caused by obesity. That doesn't seem to be doing away with our way of life.

Crossing a petroleum threshold

Today was the first time that I had to purchase gasoline for over the dreaded $3 a gallon. Three-quarters of a tank cost me $30.

Now, I'd like to gloat that by riding my bike I'm saving a couple of bucks a week. At least, that's what The Gas Saving Calculator suggests. But I still do a significant amount of other driving and until my daughter owns a car of my own she still drives it from time to time. It doesn't take long for that to absorb any financial savings I might accrue from biking. But I get much more benefit than just the money. The exercise helps to counter the detrimental effects of my sedentary workplace and metatarian diet. When I don't ride, I notice it physically.

I'd like to ride further for my commute but doing that would require riding more on the roads and, in Pittsburgh, that isn't much fun. If the trail groups could come to an agreement with Sandcastle, using the South Side Trail into Homestead could safely add 50% to my daily commute.

Is it weird to think favorably about making one's commute LONGER? Not if your riding a bicycle.

Last night, I slept upside-down in the bed so that my head and torso would be in the direct path of the breeze created by the window fan. When I started out in the morning it was a foggy 74 degrees. Then, at the end of the workday I stepped out of the climate-controlled office building into the downtown 94 degree inferno for a 7 mile bike ride on city streets and blacktop. Add the humidity and it feels over 100. Home again, I tried to avoid going upstairs because I knew it would be hot but I wanted to change out of my bike shorts. My bedroom temperature was 89 degrees. I've taken to turning the computer off to keep it from overheating because even the basement is hot. It's the kind of long-term, oppressive heat that makes me wish for snow. Of course, I say that remembering not that many months ago when it was bitterly cold and I was wishing for global warming. Oh, the irony.

More of the same tomorrow but forecasters predict temperatures will
moderate later in the week.