August 7th, 2006 by 
gowest
I am working for a company with offices in 4 different time zones (considering India not as part of this spiel). The majority of the offices and employees is located in a stated further west from where I live. The most annoying with those people is their ignorance. It seems like they seem to think they are all alone in this universe. First of all as part of my job I am on call 24/7 - a really annoying part of my job. In the very beginning I was trying to monitor emails until like 9 or 10 at night, but I got flooded with useless emails that could have easily waited until the next morning. Then the so called monitoring. Do you believe that a large company with thousand of employees is not able to put sufficient server monitoring in place? Our monitoring and reacting is pretty much based on users reporting a problem. As if that would not be enough, there are still things that easily go beyond of what I already wrote about.
With people located in different time zones it takes a little more effort to schedule meetings for times convenient for everyone. I consider that common courtesy. Those goofys out west don’t care. I get meeting requests for very late afternoon or by default scheduled into the lunch hour. But hey, that is not all. Even if I already have a meeting scheduled for a certain time, I still get meeting requests for the same time. I know the meeting requestor did not even bother to check availability. All it counts is the convenient time for the requestor.
I consider it sad with how much respect ( = none) co-workers treat each other. But it is a symptomatic for many things I see day by day. The scary part is that nobody seems to care. This week one team member who became a team member of mine through the merger of teams, freaked out and sent out an email questioning the loyalty of everyone. What had happened? Well, he got a request from management to do something and it just overwhelmed him. I mean - the guy is sending emails 24/7. I think he lacks on time management and thinks that every request management gives him needs to be done ASAP. Poor guy and also bad management. Employees are just squeezed out until they snap.
What shall I say? I am trying not to be part of the whole thing and work with an attitude. Surprisingly I am still way ahead of when it comes to deliver significant results - even with ignoring emails after I go home.
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July 26th, 2006 by gowest
Last September I bought a Treo 650 PDA/Smartphone and was very happy with it. Over time one thing bothered me though. I was paying for unlimited data transfer on Verizon Wireless network, but was limited by the Treo’s slow speeds (hardware limitation). Usually when I come home from work I let Logan play with my 2 cell phones. Yes, I do have 2 cell phones. 1) A personal phone for me and my own business and 2) one (Blackberry) from my dragging full-time job as a Windows System Administrator. Logan loves cell phones a lot. We even gave him an old one we were no longer using and he loves to answer all those “incoming calls”.
Anyway - a drooling baby mouth sucking and chewing on a cell phone is probably not the best treatment for a Treo 650 cell phone. I wonder when they finally make baby-proof cell phones for adults? Don’t they know that stressed parents enjoy moments of silence while baby is quietly playing with the toys provided?! ;) duh ….
The phone itself is still working, but the microphone quit working. So, I can make one-way phone calls - meaning you can talk to me, but no matter how much I yell at you, you cannot hear me. Fun, isn’t it? Well, I decided to bite the bullet and get me a new cell phone in the middle of my contract. I knew that I had to pay retail price and would not get any discounts, but getting a new high-speed Internet enabled phone was very tempting. So, after some quick research in the morning I decided to get a brand new Motorola Q (Moto Q) from Verizon Wireless.
During lunch I went to the closest store and did spend about $500 in phone and accessories. Crazy. I am just glad that my business is going good lately and that I am able to afford these kind of expenses when needed. So, here is my new toy 
The Moto Q - a really cool phone for me.
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July 24th, 2006 by gowest
As an IT professional I am subscribed to a ton of free magazines. Infoworld. Information Week, eWeek, Network Computing, Redmond Magazine, SQL Server Magazine, and many more. I barely find the time to read them all and pick the ones that interest me most. Info World is one of the better magazines I receive and I really enjoy reading it. Well, this week’s issue I will definitely not read. No, no - it’s not that I am mad at them or so. I’d love to read it. It’s just …. well, there is not much to read in the issue I received. Look for yourself.
Apparently my magazine became damaged while in the hands of the United States Postal Service. Damaged might be the wrong word. The entire content was ripped out and only the cover was left when they were done. But the followed procedures and delivered whatever was left: a magazine cover without the magazine inside.
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July 16th, 2006 by gowest
It was time for round 4 or 5. I actually stopped counting how many overall layoffs there have been now. Fact is I am still employed and I am not sure if it would have been better to lay me off 2 months ago. The last time the severance packages carried a minimum of 60 days salary + Health Insurance. This time it seems like that the severance package was reduced to 30 days and Health Insurance will run out at the end of the month (roughly 2 weeks from now). This could mean that the going gets really tough now and that money is getting tight. Maybe the next time there is not enough money left to pay severance at all? Who knows? Overall - the fun is missing and we have not been busy lately at all. The people who were busy were actually doing the same things 2 or 3 times because it wasn’t done right the first time. That seems to be a common problem here. The slap a solution into production just to go back a couple of times and fix it because it was not done right and it was done with no planning at all.
Anyway - I think the taxman is still proud of me - I am still paying a shitload of taxes every month to keep the government going. 
By the way - if you know about a job opening for a Senior Windows Systems Engineer in the southern Denver Metro area (or via remote / work from home), let me know.
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