March 20, 2005
Happy Anniversaries to me!
Guess what? I have two anniversaries today: 5 years at my job and 1 year with my motorcycle! Today I'll do some work on the bike. finally replace that clutch perch that was busted either by my first fall or prior to my purchase. Maybe I'll lube a few cables too. It's raining so it's a good time to work in the garage. It keeps my hand and mind busy. :-)
Posted by pykeman at 10:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 18, 2005
THE NEW GUY IS COMING! THE NEW GUY IS COMMING!
Yeah for me! Just got word today that one of the candidates for the vacant support position accepted the job offer. We're just waiting for the drug test results. If all goes well he'll be working on Monday. Good, now I can train him and myself at the same time on what we use and how.
I asked Marlys when I could take a vacation. “Next year,” she answered with a good natured smile. We both laughed. I responded, “And my last day will be…” We both had a good laugh at that one.
Good night all. It's nice to be able to sleep warmly w/o turning the heat on. We were well into the 60's today. Some parts of the state almost hit 70º.
Posted by pykeman at 11:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 06, 2005
I'm neck deep and I'm too short.
Well a week ago today was Jean's last day. Boy how did I do this job by myself before he came on board three years ago? I swear this is a 2.5 person job and I'm doing it all. Everyone is asking what they can to help, unfortunately a lot of it is tech work and there isn't that much they can do. So… I've been trying to play catch up from the back log that existed before Jean left. Since last Thursday I've been staying till 6 or 7 PM working on systems.
We have 10 laptops that need to be configured for users, 8 of them swaps with current desktops. There are 15 desktop computers that are swaps for older machines in warehouses. This on top of other support things are covered by our department. Did I mention one warehouse that an employee attempted to correct a froze up computer themselves? The computer arrived this week.
After failing to connect with either Jean or myself via pager or phone (he left NO voicemail) he used the System CD as the “manual” instructed. After he was done it wouldn't boot. Gee I wonder why? Could it be the absolutely blank hard drive? I mean really, it was formated with the disk utility. No wonder the repair utility completed its tests in under 2 minutes… average is 8+.
Oh and add some more fun… One computer used by one of our equipment (coffee) tech support decided to have major issues with it's hard drive? Spent an entire day getting it back, thought it was ok, but now they tell me their email is all toast. Hopefully I can get it back from a backup, if the drive was working back then.
Then there is two of the 14 computers that are being swapped in the warehouse. The one from Colorado was supposed to be back early LAST week. The district manager was on vacation all last week, returning to find that the transport driver didn't pick it up. it came in on Wednesday, I was done with it last night. The other from SoCal was supposed to be in my hands Monday/Tuesday. It was a no show. The district manager was getting concerned. Shipping found that it had been offloaded from the transport at a distribution warehouse due to space. It was overnighted yesterday, arriving this morn. Completed it today.
The final nail in the coffin was the salesman that flew into Portland a couple weeks ago for a meeting. He placed his laptop in his checked luggage. Upon arriving in Portland the luggage was delayed. The luggage arrived at the hotel at midnight and wasn't checked for belongings until the next morning. Guess what? The laptop was missing! We ordered a replacement as soon as we could. It arrived last week. Well he was one of the first out the door. He was also asking, begging, pleading for anything to speed it up. I am a single person with a co-worker who had short timer disease last week. It'll get done when I get it done…. which was tonight. Since I'm a nice guy and he'll be out of the office all next week I'm sending it Saturday Delivery. This guy even asked if there was any way to recover any of the data.. HA! We don't even consider backing up remote users… to cost prohibitive over slow dial up lines, it is up to the user. Congratulations, you're back at square one.
That is all the equipment and user woes as it stands as of 7 PM tonight. I'm also moving to the other desk (Jean's). I can't believe how much equipment is piled up around his desk. Lots of defective/unknown equipment. Some of it is defective, some of it old and needs to be tossed out/recycled/ebay'd. It's starting to make sense, I think. I'm trying to do as much as possible to make as many people happy as possible. Yes my support quality is going in the toilet because I'm trying to make my support calls as quick as possible so I can work on the computers. It's not that I'm not fixing their issues, but I'm just doing it in as quick as possible. Way to often some one is on hold as I'm trying to help the current caller. Then there are the people that pop into my office because I'm not answering the phone. Gee I wonder why? Take a number.
Oh one more thing… Starting last week our handheld computer program decided to start erasing all of our route pre orders. Pre orders help the sales men know what a customer will most likely order the next week, day, etc. This allows them to order the correct product and then load the correct amount for a given day on their delivery vans. So from 8 AM - 4:30 PM every day from last week to today I'd get calls from salesmen who didn't have their preorders. This would cause me to have to take the dial in system for them down for 5 minutes PER ROUTE while I restored the preorders. And I have to sit and watch it so it can be brought back up and the other 120 routes can then communicate… boy it gets ugly when you forget to bring it up :-) The good news is that the issue has been discovered and “corrected” today by the programer (a company from the east coast). We wait to see what the new issue is going to be. This is what we get for customizing an “off the shelf” route sales system to our needs… an avalanche of issues that we have to pay to correct and change… arrrg.
Ok, I may be able to sleep better now that all that is off my chest. I hope so the last few nights haven't been to good. Maybe it was the Safeway Chinese food or Albertsons fried chicken. ;-) I don't care, Saturday is my recoup day and my next DVDs are coming tomorrow from Netflix: Spiderman 2 and Godfather II. I also get to go do some target practice with a group form AR15.com on Sunday. A nice way to make up for this week.
All of this would cause my wife to divorce me. Oh wait! We've already done that. :-P G'night.
Posted by pykeman at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)
July 02, 2004
I'm the B. M. I. I. T. Today
That is Big Man In I. T. Marlys, Lane, and Jean are all off today. I'm the only one left to troubleshoot and do tech support. Check with me in 7 hours and see if I'm curled up in a fetal position under the desk. :-)
Posted by pykeman at 08:29 AM | Comments (0)