What do you Burn?

Sounds like a personal question but I am actually referring to a burning media, rather than any other substances (legal or illegal). Today I received my order from SVP of 150 blank CD-Rs and 50 blank DVD-R discs. Although I am going to focus solely on compact disc media for this post. For as long as I can remember, I have always purchased TDK discs as my preferred choice. Although in recent months I have perhaps deviated from the righteous path. Taking blank Sony discs home from work to build discs for clients, perish the thought. However, it was always a case of making do with what was available. Let me take you back some ten years when I first built a computer with CD writing capability. At first, like most people I experimented with discs from Staples, which were an inferior brand. However my Dad bought me a pack of both CD-R and CD-RW discs. I ended up having theses and using them for a while, even up to the start of University in 2000. However, it was when I bought my Mesh and got more regular Internet access, that I decided on trying a box of ten CDs (with cases in those days) from Dabs. It changed my buying habits forever and I have never looked back.

In July 2002, (the same time I started blogging over at T3G:2 ) I purchased a TDK Cyclone CD Writer drive, a match made in heaven. My friends thought I was crazy to spend up to 50p for a disc when most of them bought unbranded (or cheaper label) discs for a quarter of the price. This was not a major issue for me. The main issue was reliability and the ability for my audio CDs to last forever. I have never had a disc turn into a coaster in the three years I have been using the combination of disc and writer, more so in my new machine. So a few weeks ago, for the first time in perhaps as much as eighteen months, I had to order some fresh plastic. For too long I had been waited to find the odd blank CD lying around somewhere. It was time to order some more and to my surprise, the discs were relatively cheap. Well much cheaper than in my peak burning period, when I would write at least two, if not three CDs every week. However there was a problem. SVP were out of stock, but I filled out a form to be notified by e-mail when they had some back in stock. This was on a Sunday morning a few weeks ago, (10th I believe). Late on Friday afternoon last week (15th) I received the e-mail I had been waiting for, placing my order on that same evening and received my order in full this afternoon in the office. Not bad, considering it is the final week before Christmas. What to burn first? Well there is so many possibilities. Firstly that all important update to the Christmas album, and then let us not forget archiving all my mp3s albums onto DVD, then all my video clips and music videos. The list of "My Stuff" is endless, as you can imagine. At least I have somewhere organised to place all theses discs now, if they end up in the car or in my room.

Telephone Meltdown

In my two years on the help desk, the phones have never been as busy as they were this afternoon. Crazy is not the word. The true measure of when we hit a peak period, is the fact that other members of staff (within the office) have to start taking down messages for us. Fifteen voice mails is the most I have ever had to go back and listen to. A staggering figure when you consider on an good night we get two or three messages maximum. Why was it so busy? I do not really know. The end of month has always meant an influx of additional calls. You could perhaps get away with sloppy admin for three weeks but at the last day of the month, you figures had to be perfect. Sometimes I am glad my job on the help desk is relative free of some the laborious red tape that is a necessity out in the field.

Confession time. I like it when it is busy, perhaps even more so the extreme of today. Why? I love the buzz? I love the idea that we are in demand. I love the notion that we have the answers. Correction, people think we have the answers to all their problems. When the reality is, we can only guide them in the right direction. When the phones are constantly busy, your focus has to be precise and your ability to think on the spot (rather than on your feet) highly attuned. You never know what the next phone call or voice mail you pick up will throw at you. The couple of hours cruise by and soon enough it is 6pm, time to go home and forget about it all. (Well at least until 9.30am, the next day).

I am sure there are people out there who will read this post and just laugh. "Busy? Stressed out? You do not know you have been born, son!" some of the responses back would be. I agree, relatively speaking, I work on a small help desk, servicing perhaps a maximum of 900 individuals. However that is not the issue at stake, as I do not dispute the statistics. There are help desks that fill room after room in high raised office blocks, in thousands of cities across the globe. The mean, lean and ever so keen corporate machine, with all the benefits that come with an infinite IT budget and all the bureaucracy that keeps every little soldier in check. Having seen the best (and worst) of both worlds, which do I prefer? Perhaps that deserves a well thought out answer and an entry all to itself. I have gone off on a tangent, as I usually do and should really get back to the programme.

I am sure my manager's mantra would be something along the lines of "Busy is good!". We on the help desk, would all of course disagree but he does have a point. The working day does fly by when your having fun on the telephone line. Then again, how often do you see him answering the phone? Not since the good old days of late Spring last year, when there was just me on the telephone from 4.30pm until the close of play. A great way of turning this company on it's head would be to consider a major change of roles at all levels and as one of the other managers mentioned months ago, everyone be re-interviewed for their job. That is, make a case on why their position should remain open. While neither option is ever going to become a reality, they are interesting thoughts, when you consider how people would cope with a complete change of scenery. Some would take to it like a fish to water, the rest would just drown like Miss Spears in that bathtub.

OOH

The subject, for the uninitiated is the abbreviation for Out Of Hours. A phrase that goes hand in hand with any support position. In all of my previous employment, I have worked into the night or over weekends (in some cases both) to get the job done. Yet again, last week I found myself in the same predicament. All three of us on the help desk decided to stay late and get some work done. We had two major roll outs to complete and knew that the help desk call queue would suffer if we did not put in the extra hours. It was a productive evening, although the only highlight the Perfect Pizza on the expense account. Make that five pizzas on the expense account. Working outside of normal office hours does have many benefits. We could relax, switch on WMP and blast a variety of tunes, ranging from Lilly Allen to rock legends Queen. I use 'blast' in the very small sense of the word, the small speaker built into the Dell Optiplex SX280 is hardly designed for late night parties. Perhaps we need to invest in a Boynq Cubite USB Speaker Hub. In black of course!

If I am honest, my bread and butter work, answering the phone has really been low par in recent weeks. Not just because of all the project work that has been heading in our direction but the other distractions. Just other pressing demands that are made upon me to deliver goods ranging from reports, extracts and a laptop for testing. If I am honest work has been bit of a blur recently and at times I have felt I have just been going through the motions, doing at times the bare minimum and getting out the door promptly at 6pm. Suppose my job has become a job, rather than the career of a professional. Well then again, it never really was the most glamorous occupation in the world.

There is a quick and easy (but not cheap) way to win friends and influence people. There is no need to attend a Dale Carnegie lecture or buy his famous book. My advice is simple and only two letters in length. K.K. The amazing doughnuts from the one and only Krispy Kreme. In what has now become an annually tradition, I bought it several boxes for my birthday on Thursday last week, at the astonishment of my work colleagues. Perhaps the biggest surprise was I surpassed my 24th birthday by buying twice as many doughnuts this year, 144 to be exact. By the time I got into the office in the morning, it was fast approaching 10am and I was half an hour late. Then came the logistical nightmare of taking all these boxes into the offices and then distributing them. I was surprised by one of my colleagues, as she had promised me that she would would put the date in her diary last year. Obviously she had forgotten but she was not the only one.

Some casual observers would say I had made myself the most popular person in the office. I would beg to differ. I could easily say I always have been the most popular person in my office, it was just that nobody knew it until today.

The Bad Samaritan

You have to be sympathetic. It comes with the territory, the job, the whole notion of being the voice on the end of a helpline. However there is a clearly marked boundary, which many of our customers have been ignoring. We are a technical helpdesk and we try and resolve problems with our software. No where in my job description does it state that I must offer a shoulder to cry on for the distressed individual whom has just had to say goodbye to a life long family pet. I appreciate it can be frustrating trying to get the software to work, particularly when you are new and completely unfamiliar with the system. Yet in the grand scheme of things, if I was in their shoes, the laptop would be out of the window. There are times when there are more important things than monthly territory plans and closing your weeks down. (I suppose that does not sound very heartening coming from me!)

I suppose what I am trying to say that at times my job borders into the relms of the Samaritians, rather than the clearly defined pitfuls of a bespoke CRM solution, VPNs, and SQL replication time outs. I found it difficult to be a sensitive human being at the best of times, so find myself completely lost for words, hanging on and trying to bring the subject back to their laptop computer. I mean what can you say? Apart from apologise and pass on your condolensces, you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. The person on the end of the phone still wants to have their issue resolved with the wave of the non existant magic wand.

Is this some joke? Some sick joke? Let us see how we can wind up the boys on the desk today? At times it feels it is a setup and you wait for someone to jump out of the cupboard and shout, "Got YOU!". Unfortunately that never happens. These calls are for real. The people on the end of the line exist. I suppose I have covered various aspects of my job but not put the spotlight on the most important part of the jigsaw. The people. The people I speak to everyday. There are some characters out there, just like in any walk of life. Perhaps food for thought for another less emotionally charged posting. So I leave you with the fine words of wisdom from one of our regulars.

Looks like your ‘Tweaking’ upset the Applecart?

Remote Laptop Idiot

I love living dangerously. The clues are in my previous entry from just over a year ago. However 'nearly' running out of fuel is hardly work related, so this entry should hit the nail on the head. I left the office with a laptop, a Dell Lattitude D600. This gave me VPN access into the office, although our IT temp keeps referring to it in full, Virtual Private Network connection, which is a mouthful during the course of several support calls every day. I left my desktop machine on (completely out of character, as I ensure my machine is shut down every evening a few minutes after 6pm like clockwork.) As an office based employee, I have no need for remote access. It is impossible for me to work from home, although if many big companies can move their entire call centre operation to the sub-continent why cannot a helpdesk person work from home? It is a strange dilemma, but I feel on a matter of principle the situation should be thus. In the office I work, when I am at home, it is my time. I completely switch off. Well this evening I digressed from this point purely to get some urgent work done.

Here I was, in my living room, watching Monday's edition of Hollyoaks on E4, while connected to my wireless network, logged into my desktop and effectively sitting at my desk in the office. I smiled at the beauty of everything working, but knew I was apprehensive about the final part of the process. My colleague had been stuck in an all day meeting, so had only been able to briefly give me basic instructions over MSN during his lunchbreak. I understood what needed to be done and had access to the scripts I would need to run. It was now or never.

While I was at University I considered SQL to be predominately a command line based programming language. What did you expect? I had to a SQL trainer on Oracle. You can imagine I was rather surprised by the number of tools and utilities provided by that little known company from Redmond, Washington. While I do not doubt that all developers require fully armed GUI, it was a shock that so little time spent was spent swimming in lines of code. The heart of the system is Enterprise Manager, a console I was introduced to within the first month of joining the company and instantly took me into the realm of 2nd Line Support. Although it is very difficult to manage your SQL Server 2000 instances blind, it is possible to go without. This is the program which could be considered a double edged sword in our fight against the Evil Sresu. With the knowledge and training it can help you fix a numerous amount of problems with a SQL instance, from replication to suspect databases. In the wrong hands, well it could be a disaster.

Here I was, on a Friday evening, with an objective to save myself a bucketload of grief on Monday morning. Or I could cause myself a whole lot of grief by carrying out such an operation outside of office hours. I took the plunge. This was a risk worth taking, for it was only on a QC instance. What is the worse that could happen? Having spent over an hour and a half downloading a backup database from a client server, I had the simple task of disabling replication, which is in my opinion far too simple. Tools --> Disable Publishing. The next job was easy, a simple restore over the existing database. Something I have become accustomed to, since learning the trade some eight months ago. This was the easy part, believe me. For a moment I thought should I stop or should I go ahead and restore replication onto the instance. What was the worse damage I could do? I had the scripts and knew what to expect? Afterall I had seen several developers restore replication in the office. This was different. I was on my own, surfing dangerous waters to coin a phrase.

Well it kind of worked. Replication restored but I could not run any of the snapshot agents. Why? Well I soon discovered the answer, I had not changed one line in the script for a server. So it was trying to write files to a network share that did not exist. Oh no. Although I was concerned about the live server instances, a quick check proved they were all running with no problems. I could resolve this, with some work. Yet I decided against it. The demo database could wait until Monday morning, I was quite positive that one of the developers would easily be able to fix the problem within a few minutes, rather than me wasting hours trying to find fix the issue on a trial and error period. Knowing all too well that an error would mean going right back to the beginning, dropping replication and starting again. I could have done that, but just felt in my hands, I could potentially do more harm than good. The lyrics to a Green Day song come to mind.

Jobs minus Holidays

I would have an entry in the Carlsberg Book of Pointless World Records (if such a publication existed) considering. I have 23 holidays remaining with no thought to use them before the deadline of 12pm Friday 22nd December, only 91 days and counting. In fact, I have taken 2.5 days holiday since I started with the company in December 2004. Quite a formidable, untouchable record, don't you agree? I recall mentioning this to a friend on MSN and her reply being that my employers must love me. Quite the contrary I am afraid. They think I am insane.

Across the water, my stance would be the same as the majority. (Although perhaps most would at least triple the amount I've taken) Having had the opportunity to speak to Americans living and working in the United Kingdom, you get to understand the reality behind the many myths. Firstly so few actually hold passports because there is so much to do in their own country. Secondly they only receive two weeks holiday each year and those that actually take this time off spend it with their family. Then if we consider my friend Nav, working in India six days a week with no holiday whatsoever. I feel I can deem myself extremely lucky.

Talking of Nav, I was the inspiration for one of his first blog entries on his now neglected blog. The thought of the entry came back when I discovered a link on the Guardian Newsblog, hidden in the corner sidebar in tiny point 8 text. 100 Jobs does exactly what it says on the tin, I mean webpage. The blogger, disillussion with his lack of success applying for jobs he was suited for has started a comic tale of applying for 100 jobs where is the most inappropriate candidate. There are some absolute jems in there. By the way, did I mention my second favourite Madonna song of all time? Of course, it could only be Holiday.

Cardboard Personality

A personality must be a prerequisite for a job on a helpdesk, when ninety percent of your role is customer facing (on the telephone, I give you but nevertheless customer facing). Apparently I slipped through the cracks of our stringent interview process, which included an online SHL assessment. In the past people would say that I lacked an overt personality. I was shy, quiet or reserved. However, no one would be bold enough to say I had a cardboard personality. Now, I will be the first to admit that I could never light up a room with a smile and warm glow. I just never have been the life and soul, but I like it that way. People skills have never been high on my list of talents, yet let me for the record say they are something I am constantly trying to improve. In my previous job I was extremely nervous, but you could understand as it was literally customer facing, in an office of some five hundred with no telephone to hide behind.

My colleague deserves an entry all to himself, but I do not think I have the time (or the energy) to catalogue his comical moments. Most would be highly unsuitable for a family friendly blog, such as this. Let me put him into the broad category of office joker and leave it at that. He is the first person to actually say I lack a personality. While I will agree that my lack of vocal greetings at the beginning and end of the day, has left much to be desired but I have been making a effort. To be fair to him, his generation and my generation are a world apart, but while that does not excuse my rudeness it does shed a little light the differences between our world. Perhaps the best way to describe him, is one of those people that will say out loud what the majority of people are thinking. While this is not generally a bad thing, too much honesty can get you into trouble.

I take the comments on board, positive criticism is always worth hearing, although perhaps never this direct and harsh. Sure I have a monotonous tone on the telephone and can sound extremely despondent, although genuinely do not mean to do so. I come across as I hate being on the end of the helpline but I actually enjoy my job. Compared to some of the jobs I have had, this is the least stressful and the most rewarding.

Unfortunately a personality transplant is not currently available on the NHS and would bankrupt my company BUPA scheme. What are the alternatives? To try harder? To talk more? The strange thing is none of my work colleagues will know the Andrew that started college some eight years ago. If I have a cardboard personality now, I must have had the personality of a goldfish back then. There has been a major improvement, believe me. My fear would be on our company website, my manager writing some interesting biographies for the world to read. Perish such a thought!

Moonlighting

Working in IT gives you the opportunity to moonlight. Thankfully moonlighting does not have the same negative connotations as it would in other professions. I have undertaken and successfully completed several jobs on the side (so to speak) although perhaps only a handful in recent times. There is always be a need for a so called 'IT Expert' with more and more people having sophisticated equipment at home. Just look at my friend's younger brother who is on a completely different planet. At age 10 I did not know what a computer was. He has a 19" TFT screen, 4mb always on broadband wireless keyboard and mouse, all under his bunk bed. While my friend is struggling with wired keyboard and mouse. Kids do not know they are born these days. Though I digress from my main point. My favourite task is being the Doctor, bringing computers back to life. I have done this only once before for a colleague at work, whereby I was well (if rather stereotypically) back in March 18th to be exact. This time around it was more than a simple Windows XP reinstall and reconfiguration. There was actually a job to be done, a mission if you will. I am not to sidestep a true challenge.

The patient, an old 450 PII Gateway PC about six years ago. The kiddies computer for a colleague who was subsequently leaving which meant it was against the clock, to a certain extent. The diagnosis? Originally my colleague and I believed the problem to be the powersupply, but rather then ordering a replacement powersupply, which was expensive and unnecessary, we advised the following. To purchase a new case and we could transfer the motherboard and components across to the new case. This would be a simple transplant process, nothing too fiddly. I was so convinced this would be an easy job I carried it out at work. Or rather started. The timing perhaps on my part was atrocious . My colleague left yesterday afternoon, but in a piece of comic genius the goods arrived on the same day from eBuyer (even though there were not expected until Friday). This coincided with my first Champions League fixture at Emirates, so I had to leave the office early. Nevertheless, I left the office determined to get the computer working no matter what it took.

Today I transferred the components but did not power up the machine. There were many reasons for this. Firstly was only a two man band manning the helpdesk for the day (and the entire week, as the record will show) so jumping to answer the phone did not help with my progress. Around 4pm I made the executive decision to take the machine home and work on it in the evening. I expected to get the machine up and running within an hour. How wrong was I to be!

I spent over two hours trying to get the machine working but removing components, I realised what the problem was. One of the memory slots was burnt out. Perhaps this had been the course of the problem in the first place. Back to the drawing board. Returning to my room and computer, I was despondent, annoyed with myself and looking for a way out, a solution. I jumped on eBay for an old motherboard but it was just not worth hunting down. It would take a few days to get here and then at least a weekend to get it all working, plus it would mean calling my ex-colleague and asking for more money. That was the last resort and I had one final ditch option, the last chance saloon if you will. I text my friend Dave, who had recently bought a brand new Dell desktop. Did he still have his old machine? He replied to my text instantly (which was rare for him) and explained he did! Result. I would pick the machine up on the way home on Friday, work on the machine over the weekend and take it from there. Another minor miracle worked, or so I hope.

Contradiction In Terms

Last year, we started our own work Super League via the Telegraph website. This was my first foray into the world of fantasy football competitions and it showed. It was predominately for our division, although we did have a few takers from the sister company come on board. There is an option to create a computer generated 'auto-select' team which is what I chose. The reasons behind this fatal mistake was lack of time to the deadline and laziness in reviewing changes to ensure they meet the budgetry limit of £50 million sterling. My team on paper looked quite good but they did not total me enough points over the course of the season, even when I made drastic changes towards the 'business end' of the campaign. By April, I was so far from the rest of the pack I gave up and even forgot my pin code and never accessed the website during office hours. My motivation had completely gone. My final standing? Second from bottom, above someone who was purely taking part to be part of game and not taking a slight interest in the leaderboard. Over 500 points away from the eventual winner. So even with another league (on my own), it would have taken be a miracle to catch up.

All across this, my professional site you will find a phrase, my mantra if you will. Just a shame it is a complete contradiction to my performance in this fun but nevertheless highly charged duel with my colleagues. The nail in the coffin was that two boys whose total age just about reaches mine beat me (and it has to be added many other colleagues) further up the league. This year around, word has got around the office and we have 21 players. Bring it on.

This time around I opted to pick my own team with a good mixture of Chelsea and Liverpool players. Although I have opted not to disclosure my team publicly as it will give my adversaries an unfair advantage. I prefer to play my cards close to my chest, this year. The big kick off is tomorrow although I was tempted to tink further before the deadline of Saturday morning I have decided against it. Stick with your first answer was a common phrase at school, it still applies today. The managing director's team is called 'Bring Me The Winner'. Never has a name been so true. Just a shame I have gone from 2005/6 season, "Andy's Dream Team" to the masterful "Tegala's Terriers", which was actually recommended by a colleague as "Tegala's Tigers" but in the time I drove home and added my team online later that evening the wavelength we had been on, was slightly lost. As if there was not already a blog for everything, there is even a blog for the Telegraph Fantasy Football, imagintive title lads but keep up the great work.

Artificial Conversations

Do I really speak to people? In the course of my job on the helpdesk, talking to numerous clients every single day, do I really actually take part in a civil conversation? Deep down the question I am truly asking is, are my conversations 'real'? Real in the sense of a sincere two way communication between two persons, rather than going through a predetermined agenda in a robotic like fashion. While it is perhaps harsh to single out particular people from particular organisations that you enjoy talking to. It is quite easy, looking back to distinguish between the proactive and passive discussions that take place. At this point I should perhaps interject with some amazing fact on the number of seconds I have spent answering the phone but there is no need. The reality is I spend a great deal of time on the telephone. Strange when you consider just a few years ago, you would be lucky for me to speak on the phone for more than five minutes. Amazing when you consider the transformation of the phone from foe to friend. Particularly now when at times I will rather pick up the phone to speak to a friend, rather than send them an e-mail.

How has work been recently? After the highs of Madrid, I landed back to England with a bump. While it has not been very busy in terms of call volume, the number of calls on the log has shot up, with us at times hitting the three figure mark. At times my motivation has dipped way below the normal expected level. I would be the first to admit morale has been suffering. Although somehow the team get through it. Well I say 'somehow' but I can actually give you exactly the reasons why. On one side we have the twenty-two year old in body, 1st line guy, trapped in his own little bubble from when he was around seventeen. Listening to Chris Moyles (either on the BBC podcast or radio player. Then we have my dearest colleague and beloved team member on 2nd line, who only has the need for some wakeup juice and hearty meal from the local friendly sandwich shop. What about Andrew? Just as Superman harnesses his energy from the sun, Andrew is powered by a 250ml, 30g sugar carton of the purple stuff.

The main problem with work at the moment is the lack of sense of achievement. You would spend a day on the phone, building laptops and fixing various problems, but the fact that the call queue is so slow to reduce in number, you feel at times you are facing an uphill struggle. Driving home and reflecting on my day, I do not feel that buzz of having got things done. Sometimes I wish I was a clog in a monster machine, just processing paperwork, rather than working on a helpdesk. Every morning I would see my work physically work from the in tray to the out tray. Then again, what would be the fun in that? For the first time in eighty four weeks I am actually considering my next step. The stepping stones between starting on the service desk and finding the next big break, will be a big challenge. I must be sure not to underestimate what the future holds but the clock is well and truly ticking.

I Will Dispense This Advice Now

It is much harder to post an entry about work and technology. I thought, over time it would become easier as I would be able to reflect on the daily musings on the helpdesk and life generally in the field of computers, mp3s and gadgets. However I find myself struggling to find topics to cover and then at times feel forced to put something up, just to keep my sister site looking current and fresh. So today I decided to opt for a safe point of discussion. Advice.

In my twenty odd years I have already been offered a bucket load of advice from a number of people. Some related to personal issues, some related to work, sport, university, the future, even finance. Of all the discussions, perhaps there is only one phrase, on anecdote that remains with me so vividly to this day. Rather than repeat the English, the equivalent in Latin is 'Non Illegitimi Carborundum'. I will let Google do the rest, although a special clue is that it is also the title of a song by Kris Kristofferson whom you might remember from a recent vampire trilogy.

Perhaps the person you would least likely take advise from, is David Brent, star of BBC documentary The Office which focused on the employees of Wernham Hogg. Along with Stephen Merchant, he did some in-house videos for Microsoft, which have found themselves onto Google Video. They are absolutely hilarious, particularly the second clip when he offers advice on getting a new job and what methods you should use. I was a massive fan of the comedy series on BBC2 and have all episodes (including the Christmas Special) on DVD. It was just genius and as I had started working in an office for the first time, as the second series aired, it was truly refreshing to watch.

Respect goes hand in hand with advice. You only take advice from those that you respect. Yet in this modern, connected world, we can get advice from a number of sources and even personalised advice on message boards and forums related to our specific career or industry. It appears that anyone and everyone is willing to offer you their twenty pence. Just a case of if you are willing to be patient and take it all on board. I am just waiting for the advice that will finally motivate me to act.

Boom Boom Belgium

Don't let the title, fool you, I was in Madrid with work on Wednesday and Thursday last week. A fantastic experience, when you consider I just answer the phones on a helpdesk, day to day. Someone must be doing well, I hear you cry. Let me firstly make it clear I was not first choice for this trip and rightly so. There were far more important people who could not make it, so I was asked, as a 'favour' to attend this client conference. While we saw nothing of the city and actual social time was quite limited, it was still a quality time away from the office. There was also perhaps an opportunity to get to know colleagues whom I only really speak to when dealing with the ongoing "open calls" on the service desk.

Why, was I sent some 800 miles to the capital of Spain? Why couldn't I have gone closer to home? It was with a team to specifically demonstrate some software. The software itself has been around since the conception of the company I work for, but until a few weeks ago, I only knew it by name. Simulation software is a unique area of computing. Just look at the results you get from Google. There is perhaps no field where you cannot use software to mimick real life. Perhaps most useful in a training environment. While I know little of how the simulation actual works, it was more the functionality and how to questions that I was in attendance for. Up close and personal technical support if you will. Although I had to be careful to only assist and not step over the line of advice. The language barrier was less of an issue, as most of the delegates had a good handle of English. The only problems occurred when we had to explain UK specific aspects of the model, but even so, the application to a certain extent is the same, even if the information infront of you is slightly different.

The group were divided into teams of three or four, representing their country, giving the event an international, World Cup flavour. (The locals were fuming at losing to neighbours France the previous evening.) There were many points that I could mention in this post, but perhaps the most memorable was the three man team from Belgium. They were so keen to begin anaylsing their results for the next round and left their machine with us, while they went to get some refreshments. On their return into the room, they went up to my colleague, pointing at the laptop, "Belgium Boom Boom?" He replied in his best English schoolboy accent, "Yes gentlemen, we have ended your third cycle, collated the results, loaded them onto the master machine and switched you over to cycle four." I wanted to burst out laughing, but the faces of our European friends perhaps summed up the difference between us on those living on the continent. Some things are just lost in translation. One thing the Spanish have got right, is the afternoon siesta. Something tells me, I would have great difficulty convincing my manager to add a sleep period to the team schedule. Though, if I get another opportunity to jump on a plane around Europe and beyond, I won't be turning it down. Just need to make sure I always have a valid passport ready.

Operation Telly

Today (as if you didn't know already) was the day of England's second group B game in the World Cup, over in Germany. I could not get the time off and the option to perhaps swap shifts with a colleague never really occurred to me. To my surprise most of the football fans on my floor had opted to work late into the afternoon for various reasons. So in the morning, our Financial Controller asked how we would get to watch the game. Of the variety of plans hatched, the acting IT Team Leader, perhaps had the best. He was going to bring in his television from home. Great. However, when he arrived at 9.30am, with a small bag, we realised this would not be ideal viewing for a football match. Then our PA explained she could get an aerial from home and we could hook it up to a plasma screen in the conference room downstairs, only to discover there was no tuner device. Next plan? My colleague on the helpdesk explained he had a USB TV adapter and antenna at home we could use. He went home at lunchtime to get it. Hauppauge produce some fantastic kit, but their software is what lets them down, often not being as initiative as the hardware. Grabbing a spare support laptop from the cupboard, I booted it up, only to discover it was our test Vista machine, so had to grab an another laptop from somewhere. In doing so I logged onto the web, downloaded and installed the drivers. Plug and play, worked. Well kind of. Windows detected the device and installed the drivers. I then installed the viewing software, WinTV2000, just as I have at home. However, no image was being displayed. Actually no signal whatsoever. Adjusting the aerial did little to help, not a single channel was picked up. The Finance guy, kept asking me for updates and I kept responding with bad news. Then the IT guy walked through the door exclaiming, 'Plan B!' In his hand he had a 14" television video combi. We tried to use this but without the remote control, it was fairly useless, no functionality to tune in the channels. One of the developers hunted down a forum, where someone else had already asked the question. Can I tune in this television without the remote? There was no response. It was well and truly back to the drawing board.

Our accountant is perhaps the most outspoken person, no correction character I have ever met. He brings our office alive, with his candid moments often just by saying the most outrageous one line. He was frustrated now. Frustrated by the fact he could be missing a crucial game and there was no where to go, as his house was out of bounds until at least 7pm. He called one of the big boys in off the bench. His job title is 'Technical Architect' but it was Development Team Leader a few months back. He detests football, but was willing to help get the TV tuner working. Positioning the aerial outside of the window, another search to hunt down a signal failed. He gave up. We were heading for injury time and there were no more substitutes left. Or were there?

My colleague realised that he had a old PCI WinTV card and magically produced it, not from a black hat but a plastic supermarket bag. Right, we needed a PC. Off went my manager downstairs and within a few minutes bought back an ancient Compaq machine, which had been used by the development team a few years ago (before they were all issued with laptops) Ripping open the case, I dropped in the card and then dumped the machine on a spare desk, out of the way. Within minutes there was a scramble as a member of the development team, firstly downloaded the drivers onto a USB key and rushed his new 17" flat screen onto the desk with the computer. There were cheers of encouragement all around. Powering everything up, we logged in (eventually) installed the drivers and software. I slowly realised I had spent far too much time on this and returned to my desk to do some work, while the developer fiddled. I was merely a spare part now and you know the saying about too many cooks spoiling the broth. Meanwhile our IT guy and got another television from somewhere and began trying to tune it in. We were down to Plan D. He was able to tune in BBC2 and Channel 4 (which was showing Countdown) but no ITV1. Back to the drawing board again? Meanwhile, a member of management had found a site, which screened the games live for a mere sum of £3.85 and after careful consideration paid for his account. The final two options available were going to watch the game in the car of a colleague. Unfortunately one had left early and the other didn't have his BMW. While we had been trying to get the television up and running our developer had got the PC working and just needed to move the antenna to get a better reception. With perfect timing he tuned into ITV1, as the opening sequence was being shown. Shutting down and logging off we moved our kit over to the meeting room and hooked everything up to the projector. Not bad quality reception being displayed on a 48" screen. There was only one last thing to do, so we could enjoy the game. Release the blinds so from my seat I could look into the room and directly at the screen. Perfect.

It took us over three hours to get ourselves sorted. As my manager commented at the end of our successful mission, it would have been easier going down to Argos ad buying a television. How strange is it, that in 2006, working for a technology solutions based company it took us this long to come together with a master plan to watch a World Cup game. I am sure some other IT departments out there were far more inventive. Or alternatively you just pulled a sickie, but what would have been the fun in that?

Crisis In Confidence

My colleagues on the helpdesk are great at winding me up. What was all the fuss? There was nothing wrong with a bit of patriotism in the work place. This could be regarded as yet another first (lost count of the number in 2006). My first official international tournament to take place while working in a professional environment. Sure there was Euro 2004, two years ago but that was different. I started working for the firm in London on the day England played Croatia in a must win final group game. There is an interesting story about catching the second half of that match on my personal blog. This is my first World Cup in the real world. Last time around, four years ago, I was in that strange limbo period having finished my second year (at University) and waiting or rather I should say preparing for my sandwich placement (it was scheduled to begin on Monday 1st July 2002). Feels like it was only yesterday, but here we are, days away from Germany 2006. It was perhaps a blessing that England were dumped out of the cup by the time I started my placement, as the office makeup was generally female and quite anti-football, although everyone knew which London team I followed. Football is well supported with my current office and my floor in particular (Chelsea, Liverpool, Everton, Spurs and now a Reading fan, make up the Premiership contingent, along with my self supporting the mighty Gunners). So I felt it my duty to buy a flag over the weekend when I was in Clinton Cards. It was more of an impulse buy, I was in the queue about to pay and saw the flag on display behind the cashier and just asked if they were for sale and then just bought one. As I walked out the store, I knew I would hang it somewhere around my desk in the office. The best time was yesterday as England were playing Hungary in a friendly. Even though the PA did comment that it was too early? Too early? There are, only nine days to go, love! But that is not outrageous comment regarding the tournament I have heard in my office. Another female colleague said, "Is there something happening over the summer?". Did I mention my Dad got me an England bear from his work place?

Right back to work. Yes, I actually do work in between counting down to the biggest sporting event in the world. (There is actually a iMac-shaped clocked that handles that taxing task for me). How is work going? It has been extremely busy and my colleague on 1st line has been taking the strain. There have been several rollouts taken place with extremely tight deadlines (turning over forty devices in a week and eleven devices in two days). Considering all installations have to be gone through a rigorous QC check, getting everything done and out the door on time is not easy. Particularly with the phone ringing constantly. I have to be honest and admit over the past few weeks, but especially the past few days I have really been below par in the quality of my customer service delivery. Sure, the numbers may look good on the Crystal Report but there are facts behind the statistics. I really want to get back to the bread and butter of my job. Answering calls, giving a great service and most importantly action things. Too often, I feel in helpdesk jobs, we find out what the easy tasks are and get those done and then avoid the difficult, more complicated issues for later. Hoping that either someone else will come up to the 'plate' or they will sort themselves out in time. In reality neither ever happens. You just get under pressure from all sides to look into the problem and get it resolved. Ultimately, the next few weeks will be a struggle for several reasons. The first one I have already mentioned, but the other is the holiday of the 1st line guy. While I know I can handle answering the phone, I feel I will be stretched. We shall see what happens. Expect the next update soon, then the subsequent posting sometime after 19th June, when normal service will be resumed. Why is there so little out there on the web for International IT workers day tomorrow. Are we just not as important as tobacco?

Final Destination

Took me nearly twenty five years but yesterday I completed my tour of all capital cities in the British Isles. Many people will not see this as a major accomplishment, even a milestone worthy of discussion. I beg to differ. To truly be a citizen of the United Kingdom, should you not visit each location which considers itself to be a worthy member of what we call the unique makeup of our beloved country. I was even going to be clever and state that I have been to two cities in each country, but in the case of Ireland I have been to Belfast and Dublin but of course they are in across a border but technically the same land mass. I would have preferred to have spent more time in Scotland, but it was very much a whistle stop tour. Just like it was some ten years ago, when I drove up with my Dad to Glasgow. The scenery was amazing on our drive down to the client site and I had my Sony CyberShotU at hand to capture a few moments. I hope to be back again soon, to enjoy the breathtaking, tranquil countryside views away from the urban landscape I'm used to!

On my return to the office on Wednesday morning, I was handed my business cards by our wonderful (and always smiling) PA. Result! With six days to go until my seventh month with the company, I had finally landed. I had arrived. There is more, my manager handed me a mobile phone. Sure, it is only a Nokia 6100 but it was moving up from 1st Line helpdesk support. While of course I did ask our Financial Controller for an upgrade to the Nokia 6030, which is the standard device for the majority of users within our division. My request was declined. Then for my manager to also underline this rejection by informing the Finance department that Andrew is not to be upgraded under circumstances without prior permission from himself, in writing and including his signature on any request. Great. I felt more content, when I discovered that the development team have all been issued with 3100 and would have no option to upgrade unless you were high up the food chain, whereby you could request at your leisure, a Motorola V3 RAZR. Suppose it helps to be holding a position of some authority, you can usually get what you want. Or at least have the rules bent in your favour.

Silly Little Mistakes

We are all human, even me and we all make mistakes, particularly at work. It may not be the biggest mistake in the history of computing but it was a mistake nevertheless. My colleagues were quick to point out that, "Worse things happen at sea". I was beating myself up about it for a while. It was stupid and foolhardy. There was nothing I could do about it now, the data was gone but I should have checked it. Then double checked. Not sure why I did not carry out the most simple of checks. There was nothing I could do to make it up to the user. Even sorry was not enough. For a few hours at least I wanted a hole to open under my desk and swallow me up in one big gulp! You must know that sinking feeling inside when you know that something bad, really bad is about to happen.

Worse Things Happen at Sea

Later that evening, as I drove home from work, I thought about it. I thought about the significance of all this data we carry around with us, on computers, PDAs, mobile phones. All this personal data? What is it truly worth? Afterall, you can't take it with you. It is afterall just pieces of plastic and metal. Sometimes I wonder why I spend so much time on my computer, building up a big library of meaningless stuff. Hold on, that is the point, it only becomes meaningless the moment you, the author is gone.

Apart from this minor indiscretion, work is going well. We are busy and have had some frantic afternoons recently, with deadlines looming to get laptops out of the door. While there is a minor calm at the moment, perhaps before the storm. I really need to decide on what I want to get out of this job and where I want it to take me. The thing is, for such a control freak individual, I have no idea where this road is going and at which stop I want to get off. Strange I know but rather keep all options open, time (for once) is on my side.

Out Of Office

Spending the week, or be it four days away from the office was a strange experience. Slowly but surely I got used to not answering the phone. Although my colleagues on the helpdesk would say I rarely pick up any calls these days. Why it may be fantastic to be away from head office, there is still work to do and not an extended holiday as many would have you believe. Oddly enough, there is a greater pressure while being on a client's site. You have to deliver the goods and cannot hide behind the masquerade of the telephone. "I'll speak to one of my colleagues and get back to you." No such option. The job just has to get done. Your under close scrutiny, with almost every move watched and it is important to put yourself across in the most professional manner possible. The days do get rather tedious, building laptop after laptop then in the afternoon packing them ready for dispatch. Though I should not be complaining, many others from the helpdesk would easily have swapped placing with me and the ring of the phone was a distant prospect sixty odd miles away.

Premier Travel Inn was comfortable but hardly the lap of luxury. It met my needs for three nights considering I only really spent Monday evening in the hotel. Tuesday and Wednesday were spent enjoying the bright lights of the City and West End. Having Beckton DLR station right next door was great. You suddenly realise that no where across this wonderful capital is too far and with the monorail running until midnight, there will always be time to catch the last train back. Further details of my evenings are posted on my personal blog with a selection of photographs in a FlickR set.

The most satisfying element of the week was going in on Thursday to complete the job and the thank you from the client, just before I left to head home. A job well done and the last time I would be loading laptops for this team following the upgrade to our latest software release. (Which does not have a version number but instead two letters. Although technical it is 4!) It allows for live updates, so the software can be upgraded down the wire, rather all one hundred and twenty machines having to be sent to the office to be reloaded. While this may sound great in theory, I'm not sure what the reality will be in practice. The software looks great and is vast improvement on the predecessor but the true test comes out in the field.

Back in the office, I returned to reality with a bump on Tuesday. I suppose with little to look forward to, the motivation is at an all time low. Having spent a week out of the office and then a long weekend away, the prospect of returning to 49 open calls to resolve was what American's would call a major 'downer'. However, we pull ourselves together (without the aid or tea, coffee or my colleague's strange wake up juice!) Just getting on with the job, getting the work done, coming home and forgetting about it, until the following day. The fact my role has changed with a responsibility for internal hardware means I get a varied work day, not just taking support calls but also building laptops and creating images with Norton Ghost. A fantastic program, which I only discovered four years ago, when looking to find an ideal backup tool during my placement year. Only after accidently screwing up a restore did I eventually start pushing the program to maximum potential. If I hunt, I'm sure I can even find one of the Ghost images I created knocking around somewhere. Oh the memories.

The Arrival

When have you truly arrived in a workplace? When you get your own office? When you get an award? When you get a pay rise? A promotion? Nope, it is none of the forementioned, it is when you get your own personal business card. It happened to me back when I was on placement. A client was in showing the managing partners a new add on to our office management software and exchanged business cards. He asked if I had a business card and of course being only an IP student, I did not. The partner replied in an approving tone that I would get some cards printed. Sure enough a few weeks later a three boxes of cards arrived on my desk and I was over the moon.

History has a strange way of repeating itself and on this occasion, following the client visit in Dublin, Ireland I handed over a complimentary business card to the MD, so he could scribble down a mobile number. The question was then asked if I had my own personal business card, which of course I did not. The urgency in his reply that if I was visiting clients I needed a business card with my name on, made me smile. The cards were ordered when I got back to the office and I expect to receive them in the next few weeks. I will of course upload an image as soon as they are in my hand.

Looking ahead, I have my first week away from the office, in the glorious Docklands and staying at the luxurious Premier Travel Inn Hotel in Beckton. My biggest fear was not how the software upgrade would go but actually not having internet access in the evenings. I have become so accustomed to my broadband that being without the internet cable will be like live without oxygen. I will have to fill my evening with something other than MSN, mp3 downloads and web surfing. This will be a real test of my willpower. People often say that my obsession with the internet is a psychological menace, purely developed in my head. I beg to differ, being without the internet, I feel disabled, cut off from the outside world, isolated, lonely and alone. When something becomes so much part of the routine, you no longer have to think about it, it becomes instinctive, second nature. When it is taken away from you, you feel like a part of your body has been cut off. Perhaps I am taking it too far and need to seek some medical help, urgently.

You know blogging is becoming mainstream (in a strange sense) when they are mentioned in the 10 o' clock news bulletin on Monday 3rd April. An equlivant prize to Booker but for internet blogs, which was won by a cook book or should that be blog? I personally think, a product or idea has only officially arrives when my Mum is aware of it. A few years to wait then.

Jet Set Help Desk

If I had not taken this job, I would not enjoy the exclusive trips to the Royal Albert Docks and now Dublin, Ireland. Okay, I hear what you are thinking, not the most breathtaking destinations on the planet, but it is clocking up some miles on business. Even if somewhat modestly on Ryan Air and not quite British Airways Business Class. It is very important to go meet and great your clients, particular in my role, where I spend the majority of the time a faceless name on the end of the telephone. Also, carrying out some 'work' before the eyes of your customers is rewarding. When most of the time you are working remotely, in conjunction with IT departments all over the place.

I like getting out of the office, the change in scenery does me good. However, last week I was in the zone and closing calls for fun (almost) and really wanted to keep my finger on the pulse. The problem with these clients visits, most are unplanned or extremely last minute and there is often an urgency to provide a remedy for things you did not anticipate. You plan to fix five machines and soon discover, a table stacked with seven, with several other members of the office also experiencing difficulties with the software.

If I am honest, as I parked my car around 5am on Thursday morning, in London Luton airport car park, I hoped or rather prayed I would be able to resolve all the outstanding issues. There was always the feeling, a nerve at the back of my mind, that I would get stumped by various issues and have to call head office for help. Yet when we arrived at the offices, sometime after 9.30am, everything appeared to be going well. All machines we had been notified about where there, charging and I could start fixing them. My colleague would be the QC department and I scribbled down on the back of piece of paper all the issues as I came across them. It was going well. Too well in fact. After lunch, we had to clear up some configuration and confirm all the work carried out the previous week, was not a complete waste. Importing the data from the Access database into Excel met a side by side comparison could be made of what should and what is there. Thankfully everything checked out and it was down to the final checks of the administration machine to reload sales data. Then the machines were communicated once last time and the sales download confirmed. Then came to the final task of the day. Most companies have a head office person, a national manager if you will. In our case he had just come out of his meeting and was about to check the software on his laptop. All fine, I had checked it over and it was working now. No it was not. Attempting to run sales analysis report bought up a error. My colleague gave me a glaring look. I sat down at the desk and did not take my eyes of the screen. For a few minutes both my colleague and the client were overlooking my shoulder as I tried furiously to fix the problem. Repairing the software did nothing, registering various DLLs proved useless. What was the problem? I logged off and on with the local administration account and low and beyond it worked. Thank God. Now, how do I get this to work under the user profile which connects to a domain? My Windows NT knowledge is patchy to say the least. I was sweating, I was under pressure. The company PA popped her head around the door, to inform us our taxi was waiting outside. Great. I was under pressure and I had to get this done. Looking back, I live for moments like this. The adrenaline rush, that only another person with a great interest in technology would understand. You act on instinct and suddenly with every problem there are four or five possible remedies and you try a combination of them all to get the job done. Meanwhile I felt more concerned with my colleague, as the account manager trying to appease the client, prove this was a minor glitch and would be resolved before we left the building and country. We got there in the end, although it was touch and go for a few split seconds. As we got into the taxi, my colleague ripped off his tie and took a deep breathe as we took our seats on the black leather seats. The heart attacks are part of working life, particularly with bespoke software solutions, but I feel I earned my money yesterday. Was it worth going out and leaving the helpdesk to fend for themselves for a ten hours? It was, if only to put faith back into our ability to quickly respond to a potential disaster. Management will tell you that no business survives purely firefighting, I believe attending the odd fire does you the world of good. Everyone comes out alive, perhaps only me with my fingers burnt.

The Appreciation Society

Employers should never underestimate the power of two simple words. I may not have a long work history but what I have learnt in a very short space of time is how different organisations treat their employees. Let us take as an example my placement year with a medium sized solicitors. Although my manager did make an effort to thank me from time to time, generally it came across as disgenious and lacking conviction. After a heavy week in the office their remedy would be buy everyone two bottles of wine, which although might appease the (how do I put this?) more mature members of the company, did nothing but leave a bitter taste in my mouth. It was the poor management skills and lack of leadership in a crisis that proved to the be biggest bug to bare. In any case, (as I was told at the time) company culture is a big monster and very difficult to change (if at all) from the bottom up. Being a year placed in industry, this was an ideal time to come to grips with the office politics of a modern work place. Experience comes from both good and bad.

With time you know how you like to be valued by your employer and your view can differ slightly from the colleague that sits next you. I am all for incentives, put within a frame work for achieving both short term and long term objectives, but there is something far simpler. I have been writing this entry over the course of a few weeks. Adding a few lines each time, removing several paragraphs and then coming back a few days later to amend. Coincidently we have had situations arise at work which call for a big commitment from all members of the team and perhaps I can use this as a prime example.

What is the best way to get attention? You escalate your grievances to the highest possible level of the hierarchy. By doing so, you feel you will get your issue resolved with the utmost priority. Personally I think it takes slightly longer as so many people at the top of the chain have to know about the problem, what happened, what went wrong, who did what, who was responsible. In any case eventually on the helpdesk we are told to explain the issue and why it remains unresolved. Many people wonder why I work on a helpdesk, speaking to people all day and dealing with the negative aspect of our products. This does not work, these issues are incorrect, this report does not show the right information, why has this still not been mended? To this day it remains the joy in hearing over the phone, the smile of a satisfied customer. Sure enough, not everyone puts the phone down happy but more than most do. Frustrations I sympathize with, but customers need to understand that we are here to help and not a final crash barrier for their bad day. Ultimately if I am frank, my job is so superficial it goes against my own personal constitution. Why should I assist a representative in gaining their £2000 bonus for selling twenty units of X, Y, Z. I am all for rewarding hard work, but sales is a field I could never personally agree with. While I agree with the capitalist economy, I disagree with commission (in it's many forms). Perhaps my views would be different if I was spending all day trying to see a particular potential lucrative customer. Right, now to cut a long story short and keep the content as cryptic as possible. The MD this afternoon thanked me for my time working on the calls of said client. He appreciated that it was a difficult set of circumstances and working an extra hour into my evening was duly noted. When you are valued from the top, you feel pleased that your work, (clog in the big machinery if you will) is more than a number on the business payroll.

The pressure does not look to be off over the coming few months. If anything else the next period until September will be the busiest for us on the helpdesk. Perhaps because the bar has been raised to such a level that we are now expected to work miracles. I might not quite be able to walk on water, but expect to pull my socks up, get my head down and close some calls.

Backup & Restore

The title to this entry, sums up my life in the work place at the moment. I make a backup of a database, I restore a backup of a database, my colleagues work on it, carry out testing and then the circle starts again. Suppose it is to be expected as part of the landscape as I slowly take over more 2nd line responsibilities. Although I find myself stuck between a rock and hard place. While I am keen to spend less time answering the phone, dealing with simple 'first time fix' issues, there is a fear of the complex and critical problems which have system wide ramifications. The honeymoon is over, from here on in it will be a long hard struggle to the top of the mountain and I may not like some of the experiences along the way. Gone are the days of closing calls for fun and getting crazy statistics. Although I must admit I have an able (and sometimes willing) teacher who will do his best to bestow all his worldly knowledge onto his apprentice. Yet I find my confidence lacking, when my cursor is hovering over an execute icon, while connected live to a client server. Is it just me, but could this one click turn me from hero to villain in the time it takes for the DTS package to run!

Our Exchange server was upgraded last weekend, so we arrived in the office on Monday morning to discover e-mail still down due to numerous teething problems. For the next few hours, something strange happened. It was as if the clocks were running slow. E-mail has become the life blood of any modern business. Life grinds to a halt, with your outbox full of messages to be sent and you can only partly action support messages that have come in over the course of the weekend. Just imagine if I worked in academia and had to deal with a constant influx of pointless messages from students that missed a lecture. What we need is a strategy for dealing with e-mail, a company policy if you will. Some say that if an e-mail is important, the sender will either call you if you don't reply or send the original e-mail again, with some words such as, 'Has this been actioned?'. Personally I think my e-mail etiquette is quite good, I have only a few subfolders and tend to action as much as I can and delete all the joke, spam and unnecessary FYI e-mails. One of my constant irritations is someone who uses the subject heading for their whole message, believing that the recipients (usually the whole company) will not go as far as to read the full message by opening the e-mail. Although I think I could improve my use of e-mail in the workplace. As in life generally I tend to hoard messages and although use an archive pst. I have been warned by IT for not keeping the size of my mailbox down. Although archiving mail does come with several problems, particularly when you want to get to a specific e-mail from a specific date. I have three CD-Roms full with PST files from my last two work places and tend to keep copies of all my e-mails, just for my records. Why? I don't really know. Maybe years in the future, I can come back and laugh at that silly joke e-mail that went around the office in April 2003. Perhaps someone knows the best strategy for dealing with e-mail, it will be greatly appreciated. I will however, not expect the answer of deleting everything once it been actioned. There must be a a better option than that simple methodical approach.

That Time of the Month?

The morning had hardly began, when my manager looked over at me with a thumbs up and said, 'Well done?'. Not knowing what he was referring to, I did not have time to check my mail as he had asked. I was busy, trying to manually uninstall an old version of Cisco VPN from a colleagues Dell laptop. Then install the latest edition of our own home cooked brew VPN. It was clearly evident that what this laptop needed was a re-image, or better still sent to that small place way up above. Nevertheless I battled on against, the Symantec firewall, broken network port and crazy software installation, to get it eventually up and running. I had tried to quickly sneak a peek at my Outlook Inbox but couldn't see anything new. My desktop machine was playing up and as stubborn as I am, have refused to rebuild it. Even with three of my colleagues commanding me, pleading with me to do so. Then I saw the message from the Marketing Assistant. Perhaps this was the perfect way to end some thirteen months with the company. (I make it sound like I'm leaving next week, which of course, is not the case) For me personally, this is a great accolade as appreciation for my achievements and contribution, not only to the team but the company as a whole. Yet, I felt it unnecessary to make a big song and dance about it. The announcement would not be made public knowledge until perhaps early next week, so I had some time to reflect and choose my prize.

It may be an American import, but I think more and more companies are taking the time to recognise and reward their people. Long gone are the days when it was only the prepubescent teenager (yet to start shaving) working at a well known fast food establishment, with his cheesy grin in a photograph on the wall. Although looking at the funny side, you need to consider some of the dreadful employee evaluations (they are all true, honest!) and of course a fantastic collection of cartoons. Although I very much doubt I will be raised (physically) onto a pedestal, with the a member of management, coming around and throwing posies at me. Later this afternoon, I received congratulatory follow up e-mails from the Operations Director and then the Managing Director. Sure enough, as a Spurs fan, he couldn't resist dropping some Sol Campbell note as a post script. Tottenham fans, just don't know when to give it a rest. Taking stock of the day, as I left the building to go home, I realised that I am happy here. Unlike in my previous job in the city, when I was running to lifts to escape jail as quickly as possible. Sure enough, working in London was a great buzz, and a fantastic experience, but it was never going to be easy ride with an almost two hour commute (each way). Here I have made friends, learnt a few things (inbetween answering the phone), the luxury of a seven mile, fifteen minute journey and perhaps most importantly developed as a person. What does the future hold? I seriously do not know. Perhaps difficult for me to comprehend, for a person known to be such a control freak! Consider the picture from a year ago, when I was seriously looking for the exit. Just as my manager and colleague before me had done. How things change. No, let me re-evaluate that comment. How people change things for the better. Perhaps finally with this entry I have qualified the quote over on the top right.

And finally, in more important news, the call queue has hit the new record breaking barrier of 41 (as of 6pm tonight) and a few more closures will mean the treat of Subway for the whole support team. Even I never thought I would see the call queue so small, when it was at the dizzy heights of 450, in the middle of last year. Perhaps tomorrow a double celebration. Although of course, we are fully focused to not to let the impossible dream, become a grim reality.

Impossible Dream

From time to time, my role changes from dealing with support issues on the helpdesk. I am currently involved in the release of a brand new product to a client. I use the word 'involved' very loosely for I am not hands on occupied with the technicalities, but more a backseat support / training role from the end user perceptive. Nevertheless, an exciting time in the office (as must be any new product launch). Even new product is not a precise definition. The software release is actually just the complimentary handheld version of our V3 Windows edition. Based on the SQL CE engine, the release is a breakthrough from our original handheld solution based on the now legacy Pocket Access. By removing the laptop connection completely from the equation, you have a completely independent device and all the power in the palm of your hand. The latest PDA devices with a range of wireless connections will be able to communicate directly to the SQL server, which alone is quite revolutionary. The user interface has also been vastly tweaked to make searching and recording calls a breeze. This is a leap forward not only our product but our company. Expect an exciting few months ahead as we roll out this product and begin offering the option to our existing (and every expanding) client base.

Quite certain I have mentioned this before, but in any case, let me once again cover the topic of the impossible dream. A dream of a member of the management team, that he has been put on this planet to create the perfect piece of software. Well, it would be unfair to give him all the credit, I think he believes that his development team have the task of making us, support guys unemployable (or at the very least redundant). My belief is that this will never happen. Even if the software was without any holes, bugs, faults, crashes and runtime errors, an end user would still want to speak to someone on the end of the phone. Love it or hate it, you need technical support in some shape or form. What I find astonishing is to find companies out there called Perfect Software? I mean, talk about shooting yourself in the foot! Did they not learn anything from the Master? Perhaps the closes example we have of software that does the job which is bug free and life critical is the space shuttle. Something tells me that our development budget is modest in comparison to NASA. Perhaps what is required is a change in attitude rather than company procedures. Yet, even if you crack the code to produce the holy grail of CRM software, you will always come up against a brick wall. Those beautiful, wonderful always unique end users!

While I may be well settled in my current there is never a bad to update the CV. Sure enough it has been offline from this website since August and I really need to get my act together to put it back live. Perhaps I seriously need to look at some of the key words used and replace them with something that will not hurt my career prospects. Considering the above, if I do suddenly find myself with a product that can support itself I will need to find another position quickly. It might even mean venturing back into the City. How I have enjoyed the bliss of fourteen mile round trip commute.

Jump Ship

People will always have their reasons for leaving a company. Sometimes, you could not care less and are quite happy to push them out door and wave goodbye, sarcastically from the car park. Yet, with certain special individuals, it is a major loss to see them depart for waters or in this case continents new. Of course, in any work place, you must keep some level of equilibrium and not have favourite employees / colleagues. Can I push my neck out and state, that they were one of the more approachable members of the development team? I've said it now. If it is politically incorrect, tough.

Something he said in his leaving speech, made me think. The first few months where a nightmare. I can agree with that, but like me, he had taken the decision to stay and it was worthwhile, in the end. Three years is perhaps an admirably length of service, particularly considering the constant changes in the bespoke software industry. Nothing ever stands still for long, particularly in the technology sector. Everyone must have a self-determined shelf life before they decide they need a new challenge, a change of scenery or just deal with something different instead of the same old issues, with the same old people. My personal opinion is always leave knowing that you made a noticeable difference of great benefit across the company and they are duly noted and appreciated. Was the work by my colleague seen in this light? Of course, not only this, but he got a big group of girls from the other side of the site to come over and wish him goodbye. Indeed, I would describe him nothing more than friendly, courteous, consistently helpful and always wearing a broad smile. He will be missed in our office, if not just for his work input but his entertaining and at times charming nature.

Booked my appraisal with my Manager for 15th February. This is the first official appraisal of my professional life. I will not include the appraisal I had in March 2003, back when I was on industrial placement, I am sure that was a walk in the park compared to some of the questions I will face next month. Preparation is the key to success, so expect me to providing as much documentary evidence to substantiate my case. Then again, should not my work on the helpdesk speak for itself along with the statistics and surveys? Personally I am looking forward to the opportunity to formally reflect on the last fourteen months and look toward the future.

Sick and Tired

A new year begins, a fresh start, a new chapter, a blank canvas. So how shall 2006 begin? In need of some inspiration, I looked back at my entry from January 2005. Strange how, twelve months on, the words on the screen paint so well the picture of a young man wanting to impress in his new role. Little did I know some of the challenges that lay ahead, a few months after I wrote those words. So, how do I feel, knowing what I know now? I am glad I took the decision to hang on in there and see the light at the end of the tunnel. My original manager, whom I should be thankful for actually recruiting me, would often comment, that things will get better. While they may not have stuck around to see the change, I kept the faith. The belief that things would improve and that this job would become much more important than answering the phone. To date, this blog has focused on where I was heading, now a year on, I can change direction (if only a gentle step, rather than leap). Concentrating on the here and now will mean I get a clear picture of what potential opportunities lay ahead.

January is a month we put off to the back of our minds. Letting the festivities of Christmas drown any conscious knowledge of the work that waits for us, silently in the office on our return. No wonder, 1970s Scottish pop band, Pilot dedicated a number one hit single to the first month of the year. The return to work, as expected as been, how do I put this, uncomfortable. (Even for a model employee like myself). Although I suppose having something to fill in the space between weekends is useful. In all honesty it has not been busy these past few days, I expect the phones to melt from Monday onwards. Shame, I just roped myself into a two day client visit in Central London, is it not?

Talking of the future, did you see Newsnight last night? They have a feature for the next few days, so the title is slightly misleading. Geek Week, celebrating twenty five years since the ZX81 the reports look at the future and how technology will indeed, continue to transform our lives. The inspiration was that on the other side of the pond, people have the determination to chase a dream alone, knowing all to well the bridge between success and failure. Particularly in the IT sector when a slight error can make all the difference. Think this not Revenge Of The Nerds but the invasion of the geeks. Yes, take note, the girls are coming to a work place near you.

A special note to Carmen. No, not that Carmen, or that Carmen. But this up and coming Carmen. Please come to me to have your website designed, the current effort just does not do you or your music justice. Note to webmaster, never use DM templates for your professional work!