it’s unix, not eunuchs

I RMAed my mini-ipod this Saturday. I get an email on Monday that was a bit confusing. It explained that the RMA had been approved and that I didn’t owe them any shipping. That’s in direct contrast to the $30 in shipping that the web page demanded when I entered the RMA. Plus it didn’t explain if they were shipping a box to me or if I had to package it myself. I decided to just sit back and wait.

Tuesday morning I head out for breakfast(I think.) Anyhow, I was heading out and notice a package on my porch. No one had rung the doorbell and instead of sticking the small package inside the screen door it was instead at the lip of the porch. I’m given the impression that DHL didn’t even ring the doorbell. This is my first experience with DHL so I won’t become jaded but it was a bit odd. So I open up the box and package the mini-ipod. But the instructions aren’t clear and the packing material they included was really poorly thought out. Not wanting to void the RMA I used it and dropped it off at the DHL location. Hopefully I’ll get a functioning device soon.

I’m on-call again. Hard to believe it’s already been 4 months. The laptop is acting a little shady so I hope I don’t have issues that make me work from the office all week. Chilli asked me over to his mom’s for Thanksgiving. I’ll be there, with laptop packed in the car in case I get a call.

Other than that not much going on around here. I’m catching up on the Tivo and drinking lots of tea. Would you believe Netflix sent me two Rocky DVDs and they were both cracked? What are the odds?

A Picture Share!
Originally uploaded by russkiypenguin.

Tools of the trade for the on-call

I spent a lot of Friday training up my replacement. He’s off today, so I’m excused that task. It does look to be a busy week. I’m on-call for the old team for one last time. And it’s a busy week with lots of late nights. I don’t mind as I’ll just sleep in and go into the office whenever I actually wake up.

did a little more analysis on the messed up system. I did install new hardware recently, so I disconnected it and it’s not solved the problem. I also installed some new drivers recently, but I backed them out and the reliability is still not high. I think I’m going to roll my system restore points all the way back to last Sunday and see what that gets me.

I’m also looking at the firmware level on the motherboard and it’s pretty old. They have a new revision available, but I’d like to back out my system restore points and see what I get. Then I guess I could attack the firmware upgrade and then possibly install the new hardware again.

Works kind of annoying at the moment. I’m on a 3 person team now. I don’t really like being on small teams. The on-call is pretty tight and if you’re the technical guy you’re basically on-call all of the time. Then this holiday my boss decides to head to South Dakota and my other co-worker takes off for the whole weekend too. I’m on-call, so I shouldn’t gripe so much, but seriously we’re in the middle of a horrendous migration and we have several outstanding production issues. There’s a time to step up to the plate and no one did.

I mean, basically at this point my days go kind of like this.

1. Wake up. This can happen at any time. It happened at 3AM today.
2. Figure out what broke while I was asleep. This may take a while. I try and eat if I can while I’m figuring it out.
3. Triage. Fix things that are horribly wrong.
4. Work-out. This usually means go for a run. This seems to be upsetting my co-workers but seriously I’m working a ton of hours. If I don’t get in the early morning run it just won’t happen. Only problem is that some nights I’m up to 3AM working on problems and then I sleep in(if I can.) but I still go running after my triage.
5. Official work begins. Most days this is where I make it into the office. If the boss is in then I’ll review with him what I’ve recently found and am concerned about. I get my priorities from him and then go work them.
6. Eating. It occurs at my desk as the day progresses. If I don’t pack a bunch of food it’s guaranteed that I’ll be stuck at work and grumpy. Menu plans are really helping me with this.
7. Second Workout. This doesn’t happen too often, but if things seem in hand and I’m feeling good I’ll jaunt out on the bike or swim or something.
8. Work some more. At this point I’m trying to shut the day down. By now we need to know what work we have to do tonight, who’s going to do it, do we have procedures, and figure out who’s going to be in the next day.
9. Drive home. Before this happens I usually have something to kick off. Some job that’s not done yet. So I start it running and head home.
10. Work more. I get home, login and see how things are going. I may be able to grab food at this point, just sort of depends on how the task is going.
11. Chores. Yeah right. Some nights I get stuff done. Most I don’t. The house stinks of cat, dog, and me and I don’t even notice anymore. Friends don’t come over too often.
12. Work more. I’m running about 70% of the events at this point. So if there’s night work to be done, I’ll be up doing it. I don’t sleep well early in the evening so it’s rare for me to nap before the work gets done.
13. Send out my final emails for the night. They detail what happened and let everyone know that YES I’m still up and working. I don’t even state that I’ll be in late the next day anymore. If they can’t figure that out I’ll rip their heads off.
14. Sleep. Fitfully and usually on the couch.
15. (REPEAT AS NECESSARY)

Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to be gainfully employed, but I wish my co-workers would pick up a bit of the slack too. I think one thing that really pissed me off last weekend is my co-worker Chris asked if I could cover his on-call on Sunday because they’re celebrating Thanksgiving. And yet I’m stuck being on-call and can’t visit with my parents during the official on-call rotation. I mean my parents piss me off and all, but I’d like to see them occasionally. It helps them to not nag me for a few months. They can verify that I’m alive and not dead in the bottom of a barrel. Somehow the telephone can’t fix that fear with them.

But back to Chris. I figure, hey, if you’re doing Thanksgiving a week early, why don’t we just trade the whole week. You’d not have on-call during your family celebration and likewise for me. Oh no, that’s no good because he really NEEDS his vacation. Also, he wasn’t asking to just swap one day of on-call with me, he was flat out asking that I work one of his days with no retribution.

At that point I pretty much just said, NOPE, sorry I’m going hunting on Sunday I can’t help you. And despite all that I still got called on Sunday to work a problem. And it’s a problem that I had already worked once and wrote a document on how to fix it. I published the document to the group. This is what I mean about small teams and being the technical guy.

And seriously the guys don’t really understand that this isn’t going to work in the long-run. I’m running a good bit now. But wait until it warms up and I’m riding 5 hours each weekend. But hey, that’s a management problem I suppose. Well, I’ve ranted enough. It’s time for me to go check and see if any of my processes need attention. Maybe I’ll have some breakfast. A little protein shake or something.

I’m on-call this week. And on-call on the new team is a bit serious.

since I’m on-call and bored.  I went to the late show of The Terminal.

It was alright. A bit cute…a bit sad… didn’t really slay me. It had moments but I was hoping for more.

What was really funny was that when I bought the ticket the girl had to call the manager to tell them that someone was seeing the movie, so they’d have to send the projectionist down to that theater. And I was the only one there the whole time. It was kind of funny.