August 20, 2010
Dear Everyone:
For anyone who noticed...
Yes, there is a reason why this week's Letter is a
tad bit late...
A few weeks ago, the support people for the
electronic
document management system, the same one I've been working on
the Computer Based Training (CBT) for, asked me if I could help them out
with testing for the new Release of the software.
(Old joke: It wasn't
released; it escaped!)
Naturally, I said, "Sure!"
I (sort of) knew at the time that some of this
testing takes place after the usual office hours.
For instance, they can't start testing the “Hobby” location until
after 6:00 PM, “Hobby” time.
That's 4:00 PM our time (California.)
So when "Jeff" sent me an Instant Message (IM) Wednesday,
pointing out that a lot of his people were going home early because they
expect to be working Thursday until around 3:00 AM, my response was:
"WHAT???!!!" ("Jeff" is the guy in charge of keeping track of who
is testing what, where and when.)
Not to worry.
I didn't stay out that late.
In times past, we would come into the office to
find all the waste baskets filled with take-out containers.
Our first clue that they had been working on a Release.
(Actually, our first clue would be when they told us they would
be working on a Release; but you don't always put two-and-two together
until you see the result.)
Now that I'm "helping", I can see that a certain
"carnival atmosphere" comes into place.
After all, you may be working into the wee, small hours, but you
get to order whatever kind of sandwich you want (from the online menu of
a nearby restaurant that surely looks forward to these occasions.)
But I've already seen one of the downsides:
The air conditioning shuts off at 6:00 PM.
By 6:30, it was approaching 78 degrees in my
office. Lucky I have a small
electric fan under my desk.
And a smaller, battery-powered one in my file cabinet.
Apparently, "Jeff" submitted a request Wednesday to
the building maintenance people to keep the air on last night.
He has proof that they got the request and "responded', meaning
they said they would do it.
I remember when we worked in the warehouse down in “Livermore” (about 10
miles south of here.) Every
Monday morning, in the winter, it would be freezing because the heat
shut off automatically and didn't turn back on because that "required"
an "engineer" to come down and flip a switch.
In other words:
Situation Normal.
(For you "youngsters", this is a reference to "SNAFU", a term supposedly
originated by someone in the Navy in 1941, as in during World War II.
It stands for "Situation Normal, All Fouled Up".
(That's the polite term; feel free to substitute your own
favorite word beginning with the letter "F".)
So I went down the hall to visit the support people
and discovered that they had figured out, quite some time ago, how to
open the windows in our building.
For the record, these windows are "sealed" for our "safety" and
can't be opened. Unless you
are a clever support person who happens to have the right kind of
"wrench" to open the screws that keep the windows "safely" shut.
Then the windows slide open and, as long as it is cooler outside
than inside, problem solved. As
it happens, we've been having a deceptively "cool" summer this year.
Good news for me as I have not yet made
arrangements to have the windows in my new-to-me condo replaced.
Apparently, you have to get written agreement from all of your
immediate neighbors to make any "improvements" to your place.
I have the form, just haven't found the time to pester all of my
neighbors yet.
Back to the Release...
We "broke" for "dinner" around 8:00.
By the time we finished eating, the main “Pleasanton” server was
ready for testing. But then
there was the "DMZ" docbase, which was there, but I couldn't "see" the
necessary folder to do the testing.
(It's always something!)
(Again, for the "youngsters", "DMZ" originally stood for
"De-Militarized Zone", a term that came into being during a conflict
between what is now called "North Korea" and "South Korea".)
In computer terms, it means a computer location that can be
reached by people outside the "firewall", the electronic safety net that
keeps bad people away from Company data.
The server itself is here in “Pleasanton”, but it has to be
approached from "outside" the network.
Bottom line:
I finished all my tests and left the office around 10:30 last
night. Too late to start on
a Letter. (But much earlier
than the rest of the team. I
understand they left a little after 1:00 AM this morning.)
There was a bit of testing today, mostly having to
do with Australia. But
they’re technically not in production yet, so I guess that was OK.
At any rate, my tests were finished early this afternoon.
Which left me some time to work on a completely different CBT.
Which I’ll talk about another time.
Love, as always,
Pete
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