Author name: Brian

Windows Technical Department

Tech / / 2 Comments

The phone rang this evening. It was a man with a thick Indian accent. Hello, I am calling you from Windows Technical Department. I am calling regarding your computer.

I suddenly had an idea. “Good evening. How may I help you?”

Sir, we are calling due to numerous error messages we are seeing from your computer.

“I see. I can help you. Would you please tell me what version of Windows you are running?”

I – uh – Windows 7.

“Which version? Home, Professional, or Enterprise?”

Uh. Sir, I am calling about your computer, not mine.

“But you say that you’re calling me because you’re seeing numerous error messages. I can help you with that. What version of Windows, please?”

Sir … sir … This is Windows Technical Department –

“And you’ve reached the Technical Support Department. My department supports your department.”

– I can show you the error messages –

“Which office are you calling from?”

… Delaware.

“Delaware?”

Canada.

“I see. Would you please read me the exact wording of the error messages you’re seeing?”

Sir, there are many errors regarding the registry and –

“The exact wording, please. Along with any error numbers you see.”

… Sir, please allow me to reconnect you. The line went quiet for a moment, then another Indian voice came on, slower and deeper than the first. Sir. We are calling from Windows Technical Department because we are seeing numerous error messages from your computer.

“I understand. Please read me the exact wording of the error messages, along with any error numbers you see, so that I can look them up for you.”

He started to say something, hesitated, then spoke again. Sir. This is not a problem on OUR computer. This is a problem on YOUR computer.

“I need to know exactly what you see so that I can help you resolve the error messages. Please read to me the exact wording and error numbers of the errors you are seeing.”

There was silence for a few seconds, and then he hung up.

 

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Need

Tech / / Leave a Comment

I’m driven by two basic needs:

  1. I need to be needed. I find my self-worth in what I’ve done for people lately. I have an ability to figure out how things work, and I have reams of tedious technical trivia stored in my head; so when I can put them together to help someone solve a problem and save them some frustration, that’s what makes me feel fulfilled.
  2. I hate to be needed. I don’t want to be the person who’s only called on when there’s a problem. I want to surround myself with peers and friends, not clients. I want to be respected for more than what I can do for people.

…

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Turnover

Tech, Writing / / 1 Comment

This is a eulogy for Larry, eight years too late.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I was an innocent young Ivy League graduate with an engineering degree and no idea what to do with it. I took the first job offer I got: with Oracle, the database company in California. They had no idea what to do with me. They threw me into a three-week crash course in databases, then let me pick what group I wanted to join. I chose Tech Support.

Tech Support had no idea what to do with me either. I was assigned to the desktop team. They gave me a PC running Windows 3.1 (a very long time ago, remember!), and told me I had to resolve a certain number of customer tickets each week.

The transition from college life to the Real World had been a difficult one. No longer were there letter grades to tell me well I was (or wasn’t) doing! I had no objective way to compare myself with other people and objectively see if I was screwing up! But suddenly this closed ticket count took that place in my life and became the measure thereof, and I worked hard to get that number high and keep it at the top of the weekly department report. There were no company incentives for this, of course; as long as the quotas were met, upper management didn’t care about individual performance. I cared, but nobody else did.

Especially Larry. Larry didn’t care at all.

…

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October

Disney, Family / / Leave a Comment

candy

I feel like I’m always doing something, always trying to keep up with my schedule. I read a book once that described a character running around “like someone always late to a meeting,” and that sums it up. Jill says that it’s because we tend to have a lot going on as the holiday season gets closer.

So I decided to keep a log of what we did in our free time on each day of October.

  1. Tidy up from a busy September.
  2. Visit Mom & Dad in their condo, upgrade their MacBook / iPhone / iPad.
  3. Play Guild Wars 2 and Minecraft with Eve.
  4. Theater for a special screening of Iron Giant. That evening, play Lego Dimensions (PS3).
  5. Tired. Go to bed early.
  6. Minecraft with Eve.
  7. Epcot Food & Wine with Katie.
  8. Columbia restaurant with Katie and her friend.
  9. Food Truck Friday with Mom & Dad.
  10. Upgrade my Hackintosh, while Jill is at a sewing machine class then goes to the Studios to see the last Mulch, Sweat, & Shears performance.
  11. Jill has a sick tummy. She braves it and we go to the Pixar concert.
  12. I play the Star Wars Battlefront demo while Jill goes to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party.
  13. TV: Agents of Shield, Muppets. Then we play Disney Infinity Speedway.
  14. I’m on a live site call for work all day and late into the evening.
  15. I run the Celebration Computer Users Group meeting.
  16. Amita’s 50th birthday party.
  17. Working on the weekend. Dinner with Mom and Dad.
  18. Working on the weekend, all day.
  19. Minecraft with Jill and Eve in the evening,
  20. Some more Lego Dimensions, and watch Agents of Shield.
  21. Back to the Future day! Watch BttF 2, order out for calzones, then play the BttF levels in Lego Dimensions.
  22. Go see Patrick in the theater group’s performance of The Taming of the Shrew.
  23. 6AM launch call for work. Take it easy that evening.
  24. Get up at 4:45am to bring Jill to the airport for a trip to DC (to support friends in the Marine marathon). Play GW2 (the long-awaited Heart of Thorns expansion) with Eve. Dinner at Noodles & Company with Mom & Dad.
  25. More GW2 with Eve. Phonecall with Tracey to catch up with her.
  26. Work from home. Mom makes ham and mac&cheese for dinner. Pick up Jill from the airport.
  27. Jill edits photos from her trip. We play some GW2 with Eve.
  28. Catch up on TV: Muppets, Agents of Shield, Supergirl (bleah), Star Wars Rebels.
  29. More GW2 with Eve. It’s a new release with all kinds of new stuff, okay?
  30. The office is holding an offsite party to celebrate all our hard work, but we’re working too hard to go.
  31. Jill had a 10K scheduled but skips it because she’s got a bad cough. We celebrate Halloween with eleven people and two dogs on the porch, and 525 trick-or-treaters.

 

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Indiana

Travel / / Leave a Comment

us

It’s nice to go offline for a while – but not too long a while.

Video games these days give me a lot to do. Jill and Eve and I play Guild Wars 2 together several times a week; it’s got daily challenges (harvest 4 plants in Kryta, finish a level 10 fractal dungeon, find a scenic vista in the Shiverpeaks, &c.) and there are bonus rewards for completing these challenges, and then that requires some housekeeping with our game inventories to find enough space to store all of the rewards. And I also play some Minecraft, which is all about exploring deep caves, but to get into the caves I need some torches and pickaxes, and to craft these items requires that I harvest some wood and some iron and some coal and build an oven to smelt the iron into ingots … it’s a lot to keep up with, really!

I feel like I’ve been approaching life in the same task-based way lately. At work I’ve got my queue of tickets to work on, and if I can catch up with the number that were opened then I can move on to regression-testing our features or upgrading our build tools or organizing our brown-bag knowledge-sharing lunches. And then when I get home there’s a dog to walk and cats to feed and dishes and clothes to wash and bills to pay, and once those are taken care of then there are emails from people who need help with their computers. Every day a fresh set of challenges to complete, and I go a little crazy trying to catch up with everything when there’s so much to do; so I’m kind of in a constant state of slight craziness, and I’m always left feeling like there’s something I’m not doing.

A little time away helps to break the routine. Jill and Eve were going to run the “Amish Country” half-marathon (Adams County, Ohio) this weekend, so I decided to come with Jill so we could visit with Eve for a while. Jill hurt her heel at another half-marathon a few weeks ago so they decided not to run the race – this means that we got a nice long weekend at Eve’s home in Bloomington.

And, of course, my body decided that this would be the perfect time to get sick.

…

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Getaway

Disney / / Leave a Comment

prosper

Kristy was down here for a few days, so of course she made the most of it with a side trip to Disney World with friends, and of course I came with!

Friday evening she, Kate, Tina, and I went to Kona Cafe at the Polynesian for dinner, then we went to the Magic Kingdom just long enough to get Dole Whips and ride a ride. Pirates was closed so we went on Jungle Cruise. “Does anyone know what kind of snake this is? … starts with a P …?” Someone yelled PLASTIC! “No! That’s wrong! This is a python! You want to see plastic animals, go ride Kilimanjaro Safaris at Animal Kingdom, those are the most fake animals I’ve ever seen!”

…

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