Better late than never. My morning began with coming into the office to a post it saying the system crashed at 4:30 yesterday. Great. I called my tech, who thank god is a personal friend of mine. He talked me through a couple things but nothing worked. It was not until he asked me "shegirl, are all of the lights on modem, adapter and such on?" "Umm...noooo." It is important to note here that I had already unplugged all three of them from the back not once but twice. That's when I realized one of them had come unplugged from the surge protector. Yup. This is why I refer to myself as a technoboob. The mystery is how it came unplugged because I really had to push to plug it back in. Anyway, just a glimpse into what it is to be me I guess. Perk, it's almost cocktail time! FOCUS: What is the biggest techno blunder you've seen or done...or fixed I guess?
Focus: I used to work consumer tech support for one of the big computer manufacturers. I had a customer call in with a computer that wouldn't power up. It ended up being a situation like this:
I worked tech support when I was a student. Not student support though, I went around campus and fixed faculty computers. One of the departments we supported was the campus PD. We were in the middle of doing a campus-wide refresh and migrating the network from Novell to Active Directory and I was overworked. So I went out to the PD and was to do a reimaging of a spare computer in a closet. Apparently I brainfarted and formatted the wrong one. One that apparently contained evidence. That caused a shitstorm but thankfully I wasn't fired.
I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I have a baby face and am in the unfortunate sweet spot of tattoos that I could fit in with the geek squad. "Hey he looks like a nerd! Let's ask him!" Thus, everyone in the office asks me to fix shit on their computers even though I have no fucking clue. I can tell you how to build anything from any material or cook or do basically anything with your hands. Soon as I get behind a computer, I'm a fucking idiot. Doesn't stop people from asking, because "he looks like he's good with computers." As a result of perpetually being asked over the years, I've had to learn my way around computers quite a bit (you can't help but pick up shit after a while). But no way in hell I'm sharing that with anyone at work. Personal use skill only. I'll stick with my standard line of "I know I look like I'm good with computers but I'm really not. Ask someone else and quit looking at porn on an unprotected browser so you won't pick up that shit next time."
I worked IT for years and thankfully I've forgotten most of the stupidity I encountered. Not just from users, but also the idiots that worked under me. For the most part they were newly minted computer science majors with all their certifications. They knew how to pass a test, but they had no idea how to actually apply those answers in the real world. I once had one of my guys ask me how to format a hard drive out of the blue. I looked at him incredulous and explained the procedure to him. Two days later I walked by him and heard him on the phone telling someone to format their hard drive. I grabbed the phone out of his hand and took over before something horrible happened. It was a simple error that was native to our software and this idiot was about to wipe someone's hard drive because it made him sound smart. Christ those kids used to throw out technical mumbo jumbo that made absolutely no sense in the hopes of confusing people into thinking they knew what they're doing. I hope IT has gotten better since then.
Following along to the Mariners/Rangers game on espn.com with play by play text updates: "Fielder pooped out to third." Damn I wish I could've seen that. Or maybe not.
Hahahaha. 19 years ago folks would've payed $300 for this card. Travis Lee was the next big thing, getting a refractor card of him was like winning the lottery. Then someone invested $10 to have this card graded and encased in a hermetically sealed plastic sarcophagus, because they thought it was an investment. I just paid $4.50 for it because it's funny that it wasn't. I'm not sure, but that may make me the final dummy, because it's never going to go up in value.
Speaking as a smoker I don't understand why vaping is allowed. There have been no studies to show its safer or better than smoking yet everyone is taking to it like an E-Cig contains the fountain of youth while also adding 4 inches to your cock. Personally if I have a dive bar, restaurant, any business it should be my choice to allow smoking or ban it. If you don't like cigarettes I am perfectly ok with you taking your business elsewhere. A bar/pool hall just isn't the same unless there is a large cloud of smoke dangling in the neon like a cancerous tornado!
Enh, everything can be carcinogenic. One of the most carcinogenic things out there is the sun. Hell aspirin, if taking in heroic doses can causes stomach cancers because of inflammation. I've heard those e-cig vials contain some really nasty things in them, but if they add 4 inches to my cock I'm in. I've always wanted a 16in dick.
Nothing soothes a hangover like coffee and a purring kitty on your lap. The only thing that would improve this is Whataburger...
Stuff like this always happens to me. I'm at work one day and someone thinks I'm drunk, or smells alcohol on me, and reports me, saying I need to be tested. So I go do the test and it shows up positive. Fortunately, they have to confirm all positive results so they take me down to the clinic to do a breathalyzer, and I blow 0.0. So, I'm in the clear, right? Nope, there was also a non-negative (they don't want to accuse you of anything) that resulted from a medication I take. The way the urine test works is it identifies ranges of drugs, so they have to send it to a lab to confirm the results, but they have to suspend me until the lab clears my story. No biggie. I send the company the information with the prescription, and relax while I wait to hear back. The days turn into weeks and I start calling around trying to find out what the hell is going on. Turns out they lost my phone number. The results are finalized 3 days later I return to work. Except, I don't. Turns out while I was gone the determination was made in lieu of suspicion and a positive test result for alcohol, I must have been drunk and then sobered up (I took the breathalyzer about one hour later). I can't return to work until I have a one on one meeting with a counselor and begin my rehabilitation process. It gets better. Because of the medication I take, they have to indefinitely suspend me every time I take a drug test (periodically required by the rehabilitation program) and wait until the lab results come back. Last time it took over 2 weeks, but I have been informed that in the future it should be quicker. In any case, I get full pay during all suspensions. When the group that does the counseling first contacted me, the lady thought she had been sent the wrong information regarding my file. Nope sweetheart, it's all there. This is the stupidest goddamn thing I've ever seen. I have no idea what to make of it.
I had to retake a drug screen once because the vehicle in which it was being transported had crashed. The reason, nothing as glorious as my pee and the pee of others being spread all over the inside of the car and its driver, chain of custody was broken.
Well.... I'll spoiler this because it's long and it's really just rant. Spoiler It's actually a great place to work. Best job I've ever had until I ran into this cluster fuck of insanity. The pay is as good as it gets for my position and job level. The advancement opportunities are better than anywhere I've ever worked. Not only is it expected that you will be promoted within 2-3 years, you can pretty much move into any field you want. I can easily make a lateral move to any number of things that have fuck all to do with my current work, granted I'm realistic about the time frame. It's a very sophisticated operation, and pretty much every other company in the industry is chasing the one I'm currently at. Plus, while I haven't been here that long, the people here kick ass and I genuinely like almost everybody. But, and it fucking sucks, I think this situation is just untenable in the long run. I'm supposed to run a department(s) and randomly disappearing without any notice so that I can make the appropriate preparations is going to send everything into a tailspin. I mean, it's not going to just completely fall apart with me gone, but it's going to be a mess, and some of the problems that crop up either take too long for someone else to do, or no one else just knows how because you have to have a detailed awareness of what was going on in the preceding weeks. Plus, any time I leave it means a couple other people in a similar position to me can't. It's not their area exactly, but the company needs at least 1-2 managers to stay around. So, if they made plans or had vacation, or just a regular day off they're pretty much fucked. This is also going to impact the promotional opportunities that initially looked so good, although I can't say to what degree. It pretty well messes up my social life, at least with my coworkers, because while I don't think it's technically against the rules they're going to be strongly discouraged to invite me out to any bars/parties, or any time people are drinking. And drinking is admittedly a big part of my social life. And these fuckers can drink. The problem is the nurse is a complete idiot, as well as an irresponsible, insufferable bitch. No one here has any authority over her so it's completely up to her discretion on how to determine corporate policy in these situations, as well as interpret anything medical. She doesn't seem to know jack shit about how science works, and she's too fucking lazy to hear people out or research anything. When I was suspended and trying to get answers I left her like 8 voice mails over the course of ten days and she never returned a single phone call. She responded to e-mails, eventually, lecturing me on things she was clearly quite confused about and sending me conflicting information. Not to mention bitching because I was bothering her with her fucking job. She'll have a boss somewhere that she has to report to, and I'm tempted to find out who that is and go over her head, but given my suspension and alleged abuse violation that could really blow up in my face. So yeah, I'll have to leave sooner or later, but I don't feel obligated to rush it. I can do interviews during my suspensions. Or I'll just start to feel bad when this retardation starts fucking over people I like. Or I'll get another false positive and just be fired on the spot. Fucking Christ.
Hipster morons are invading my apartment complex. I saw a guy wearing a winter beanie smoking a blunt in the parking garage. Fuck me. I get its Colorado, I get Denver has a scene now, but really smoking a blunt in the garage? The guy is like 30 and of course has a full beard with a mustache that had wax in it.
So out-hipster him to fuck with him. Set up a manual typewriter and have him riff while smoking his next blunt... get him to sign a release, as it's going in the movie you're currently writing.
There has been live music going on outside my apartment since noon. I would not have an issue with this, but the music is so loud I can't hear my TV or computer. Also, the various bands are all doing shitty covers. I went outside to get some dinner, and there were people aggressively dancing to a song I assume is a cover, but I have no idea what the song was. Another band played their own version of "Never Gonna Give You Up". I know they didn't stick to the original because they played the song from start to finish two times and pretended it was one song. I really wanted to go grocery shopping today, but there are barriers blocking me into the parking garage.