September 26, 2001
Dear Everyone:
There’s a whole lot of “hurry up and wait” going on right now.
In the case of my Records Management software team, the Database Administrators (DBA’s) can still identify which fields from one system will go into which fields in the other system; but they’re not allowed to show each other what data is actually in those fields. Not until after Day One. Day One is identified as the date that The Merger (with That Other Company) is officially approved by both the FTC and the shareholders of both companies.
Day One has, until recently, been quite a moving target, skittering away every time we got too close to it. It was predicted that it would be the end of June. June came and went, and no Day One. Then it was going to be July 31st. Except that it wasn’t. I understand that one person actually has a calendar marked with each of the fallen Day Ones (Day One #1, Day One #2, etc.) Maybe they’re color-coded.
We now know when Day One will be, but I’m not sure we’re allowed to tell anyone, so you’ll just have to wait a couple more weeks (hint).
As for the Move/Add/Change (MAC) project. They’re not waiting for Day One. They’re already set to start loading at least This Company’s data, even if they have to wait to load That Other Company’s data. Unfortunately, the server that will hold said data has not yet been shipped by the server-making company. Seems a nasty virus a couple of weeks ago affected their production and shipping schedules.
So while one team is champing at the bit, and the other is revving its motors, I’m in kind of a holding pattern. However, every time the IT group sends out a new virus-protection file (several per week, lately), I go around the office and log onto each “unassigned” PC and run the file. This kills about an hour.
An “unassigned” PC is one that is sitting in a cubicle, or guest office, where there is no warm body associated with that location. Sometimes a contract worker will be hired for a few weeks, and they are assigned one of these cubicles. Now that PC is “assigned” until the contractor leaves. There are 24 cubicles, but only about a dozen of us still working in “Livermore”.
Sometimes someone is in “Livermore” for a day, or just a few hours. They generally want to log onto a PC to get their email and such (much as I did when I was trapped in “Hobby” that week). If there is a long list of these virus protection files waiting to run (and they become mandatory in a short time), the person has to wait until all the files run before they can use the machine. To avoid this hassle, I run the files as soon as I can after one shows up on my own PC.
Other than that, I don’t have much to do except wander around the Internet and play games. Like Dilbert said: “I wonder how people pretended to work before they had computers?”
In other news…
“Jeannie’s” cell phone (the one I got for her on my account) stopped working a few weeks ago. At first I thought the problem was with the battery, that she hadn’t recharged it enough and it wore down. I took the battery from my phone and put it into hers and it worked just fine. So I tried replacing the battery. When that didn’t work, I took a closer look and realized that there is a defect in the phone itself: No battery display.
This is a bad thing. I am currently trying to get through to the cell phone company to report that they sent us a defective phone and we want a new one. I could just press *2 on my (working) cell phone. But I’m afraid they would keep me on hold for 20-30 minutes. And those are my 20-30 minutes.
And finally, my back doesn’t hurt anymore. The cold is drying up, although it may be segueing into the Autumn Allergy. The divot in my forehead is all but completely healed. Life goes on.
Love, as always,
Pete
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