Misreply.org

“Hey, Hey…where’d you get that green shirt?” yelled a tall, crazed Septa rider as he admired the green Phillies “luck o’the Irish” shirt that I wore to the parade today, “I couldn’t find one of those anywhere.”
I turned to him and grumbled a response, something along the lines of “luck, I guess”.

In reality, it’s simply a mass produced shirt that I bought at the stadium one day, but who am I to diminish the Phillies Spirit in the guy.

I hate Septa. Riders of the lowest common denominator, the left half of the intelligence bell curve occupied the El I had ridden just a few minutes earlier, and it seemed that the 100 trolley would not be any better.

The Phillies parade was today, so people were traveling on Septa en masse, similarly to how the Japanese ride their subways at rush hour. For the first time ever, there was not even a place to breathe, no matter if you were sitting or standing. Surprisingly, the ride into work was quite normal, eerily normal actually, I guess it was a bit too early in the morning for even the most die hard of fans. The parade was not starting for another five hours, leaving plenty of time for the crowds to gather in every orifice of the city.

We left for an early lunch to catch the parade. In reality, we simply skipped the lunch part and made our way along Walnut Street to where it intersected with Broad Street: The parade route. “Hi, remember that today is a regular work day, and no concessions of time off will be made to those wanting to attend the parade”, said an email earlier in the day. Pfft….yea, ok, get right on that chief. We managed to get a pretty decent spot to stand, only about ten feet or so from Broad, about six or seven lines of people back; not bad for having left an hour before the parade was to start.

Coming from work, we were dressed business casual; no Phillies attire whatsoever, and Hasan had his Halloween costume with him….or…on him: The Wendy’s girl wig. We were heathens, getting perplexed looks. No Phillies gear at the parade…we must be mad! Are we not citizens of Philadelphia, are we not patriotic to the Phillies? At some points, I thought we were going to be clubbed like a baby seal.

The ride home was oh so very different from the ride in. That mass of people was also traveling back, much to my discontent. The 100 trolley was packed nuts to butts, with the crazy guy among us. He was loud…everyone was loud, some cheering the Phillies, others telling this particular rider to shut the fuck up.

Finally…Gulph Mills; head pounding, deaf in the ears, glad to be off.

As I threw out my October Transpass, and searched for my mustang keys…
“I would rather have stayed at work”.

Personal

I added another log to the fire. Fuck, my intricate pyramid of half burned logs, embers, and fresh wood collapsed under the weight of one of the legs. Sitting there alone, I didn’t feel any dire need to immediately rearrange the logs. It’s past midnight and everyone had already gone to sleep… Pussies. “This fire will burn till morning”, I said to myself as I took another sip of Sprite Zero. Why not, right…we had all this extra wood that we bought, and it was our last night camping.

“What the hell are you going to be doing out there?”, I was asked on many an occasion. It’s not something that can easily be explained: the attraction of sleeping in a tent on uneven ground in the middle of nowhere. But why explain myself, or try to rationalize to others the appeal, as I looked down the road and saw an entire line of tents.

It was time away from home, away from the office. I’d say away from the family, but they were right here with me. I took two days off from work and as a spur of the moment decision, made a reservation for a campground spot just days before I left.

What does one do…beside eat, drink, go to the beach, play volleyball, and sit around a campfire….sometimes most of the above at once? This is the life…away from everything and everyone that pisses you off on a daily basis, away from the business of day-in and day-out monotony; Away from the mundane repertoire that is repeated every day for no real rhyme or reason other than maintaining the status quo of the appearance of normality. Out here, I don’t need to think, I don’t need to care, I don’t need to worry or stress. I will have plenty of time for that when I return, so I might as well enjoy a few days away from it all.

I haven’t taken a real vacation in a while. Most vacations that one takes, require another week of rest after returning because one does not ever “relax” on vacations. No, typical vacations involve going somewhere and doing stuff. Last year, I went on a cruise to Canada. A cruise, one might expect, to be full of laziness and booze, but in reality, I was busy for every minute aboard the ship, and even moreso off it. With shows and swimming, between boat rides, walks, shops, and other typical touristy shit, I came back more exhausted than when I left. At least I didn’t have to be at work….but fuck it if they STILL didn’t find a way to get in touch with me because of some mess that they made that nobody else could fix.

I need a vacation…

Personal

A letter to United Airways:

Customer satisfaction: I used to think that it meant something in the airline industry. I was always under the assumption that being in the business of getting someone from point A to point B actually involved getting that person from point A to point B. As it is, satisfaction is the word furthest from the list of terms I would use to describe my experience with your airline.

At this point, allow me to expand on my experience so that you may better understand my urgent need to write to you. I was to go to Springfield, IL on a business trip. I was to leave Philadelphia on Wednesday, and return on Thursday. I should have known right away that I was in for an adventure from the moment I arrived to catch my 6am flight out of Philadelphia to Chicago. I started with the self-check in, only to find that my flightplan had been changed. I was no longer leaving at 6am to go to Chicago, but instead was to take a 3pm flight to Washington Dulles. Due to the brevity of my trip, I did not find this acceptable and asked an agent for clarification. I was told that the flight from Chicago to Springfield had been canceled, but was offered no reason for it. I inquired about other flights, and was finally booked on a noon flight from Chicago to Springfield. It seemed that I would at least arrive in Springfield at a decent time.

The return trip is where I am sad to say, the service I received suffered. To be more precise; it plummeted…from mediocrity to levels so low that I do not even have words to describe them. I wish that I could at least say that I was the only one affected, but that was not the case either.

My flight from Springfield to Dulles was to leave at 6:05pm. I arrived early since it was beginning to snow, and I wanted to ensure that I had enough time to return the rental car and check in. I overestimated the time I needed to check in due to the small size of the airport and the fact that the Springfield to Dulles flight was the ONLY flight of the day. I sat and waited at the gate as more fliers arrived. Since we all saw a plane parked at the end of the gate, we had assumed that we would leave on time. No announcements were made to make us think any differently until 6pm came and went, and nobody offered to board us on the plane. It turns out, that the plane (a United plane, no less) was not for us…it was just sitting there idle. It was finally announced that the United plane that we were to board was ten minutes away, and they were going to move the current plane from the gate. Those ten minutes came and went, and no plane. Someone finally got up to ask about the status, and was told that the plane was indeed on its way, and that there were Air Traffic Control issues. I could understand ATC issues at a busy airport, but not in Springfield, and not when there was only a single flight for the entire day.

We were finally able to board at 9pm. We still had to wait for the crew to de-ice the plane before we finally took off at 9:30. Mind you, I had a connecting flight from Dulles to Philadelphia that was to leave at 10pm…so obviously I was not going to make it. The majority of the people flying to Dulles had connecting flights, and as we landed, the horde of us went to the customer service desk to try to get this situation resolved.

While standing in line and during my conversation with the CSR, I found your airline to be unwilling to offer ANY kind of help to anybody. People had missed their flights, people were sick, people had surgeries….people needed to get home, but United did not seem to care. They cited that ATC issues were not their problem, and the best thing they could do was to get us on other flights the next day. When we inquired as to what to do overnight, the CSRs rudely said “get yourself a hotel”. I would possibly have paid more attention to names and ID numbers, but after hearing this be told to the fifteen people in front of and including me, I was much too infuriated to care. I was told to get a hotel at my own expense, and was given the option of being standby for a morning flight or to be confirmed for a 1pm flight the next day. I chose both options, since I was fairly certain I would not get the standby due to the queue of others that accepted the same terms.

Upon arriving at the hotel after a rainy twenty minute shuttle drive, I was offered a room at a “discount” rate that still seemed very much like an average room rate. At any rate (haha, see what I did there?), I went to my room and finally took a much needed shower. I went to bed at about 1:00am, and asked for a wake-up call at 5am since the shuttle from the hotel left at 6:00am.

I arrived at Dulles at about 6:30am and anxiously found the United terminal where my standby flight was supposed to leave from. At this point, I did not think that United’s customer relations could get any worse; I was wrong.

The Philadelphia flight was called once, and then again in about ten minutes. The gate that the flight was leaving from was servicing two flights, and one attendant was handling both “sides” of the gate. The final call for the Philadelphia flight was called, and there was still about 40 people in the line. Two minutes later, the gate attendant announced that the Philadelphia flight had boarded and the gate was closed….AS THERE WERE PEOPLE STILL IN LINE. A younger couple, with child, cut out of line to speak to the attendant. They said that they were booked on the Philadelphia flight, and asked to be boarded. Now, mind you, they were IN LINE for the gate boarding. The attendant snuffed them off and told them they should have come up sooner, and that she would not help them. Granted, perhaps the attendant has supernatural mind reading powers and expected this couple to magically know that even though there is a line, the gate would be closed. This is, in one word: unacceptable.

I waited at the airport for the next few hours for my 1:00pm flight in furious agony at what I had just witnessed. I tried to make myself feel better, saying “at least I’m not the only one”, but somehow that thought made me more angry. At the very least, my flight was showing as “on-time”.

As 1pm came and went, the flight did not board, and the screen updated to say that my flight was to leave at 2pm. Since I was already here, the extra hour was not that big of a deal. At 2pm, the screen updated again: “Flight to Philadelphia – 3:00pm”. As it can be deduced from this entire experience…3pm came and the flight still did not board. The screen updated one last final and fatal time: Canceled. No reason was provided, other than “Operations”. I was horrified as I took my place in the customer service line once again.

During the half hour or so that I stood in line, a gentleman took the initiative to find out why the flight had been canceled. He had found out that United did not have a pilot for the flight. He also mentioned that the entire day had been similarly disastrous. A flight with a pilot, but no crew. Another flight had a pilot and crew, but no plane. Then my flight had a plane and crew but no pilot. Operations problems…..I think the problems lie much deeper than an operations error.

Upon finally reaching a representative, we discussed various options for getting me home. There were flights the next day, and there were flights from another airport, but I would not make them because it was coming up to rush hour. At this point, I had experienced enough of United, and asked for a refund on my ticket. The representative then asked for my baggage tag so that they could arrange for my baggage to be waiting for me at the baggage claim office on the first floor of the terminal. I immediately asked if the baggage could just be delivered to me in Philadelphia, and she said that “no we don’t do that”, when I know for a fact that every airline does so…I have had it done before. She was insistant that they would simply not do it, so I agreed to pick it up downstairs. She checked my baggage status, assured me that it would be waiting for me, and then dropped another bombshell: she could not give me a refund…I would have to go to the OTHER United customer service desk. I obliged from lack of options, and made my way to the other customer service desk to receive my refund. With that finally settled, I was free to catch a train or rent a car to finally get home.

I went downstairs to the baggage claim office to pick up my bag. The representative there checked my tag number in the computer and told me that it had not arrived yet. She told me to give my tag to one of the workers in the orange jackets at the baggage claim gate. The gentleman there told me that they had not unloaded that particular plane yet, and that it would be about an hour before I was reunited with my baggage. An hour later, at 4:30pm, I inquired again about my bag. I was told by the same gentleman that they were understaffed and the large amount of canceled flights meant that I had to wait a bit longer. I checked the Amtrak schedules (there was a train leaving at 6:30 that I had the possibility of making), and reluctantly agreed to wait. An hour later, I inquired again about the baggage, and was told that they had just unloaded the plane and my baggage should be on the conveyor belt shortly. I waited again as people got their bags and left, but still no sign of my baggage. I inquired again, and asked him to look up the status of my baggage, and he said that my baggage was scanned and should be out. It was not, so I made my way to the office to see a supervisor. She informed me that the bag had indeed been checked and should be on the belt. I assured her it was not, and this was verified by the baggage handlers. She looked up the status again, and said that the baggage was indeed scanned….in Philadelphia…at 10:00am this morning, a fact that everyone seemed to miss, even though it was right in front of them on the computer screen. I had wasted an additional four and a half hours waiting for a bag that I was never going to receive. I had missed the train at this point, and my only option was to rent a car and drive home.

Finally, I was home. I missed a concert that I had tickets for; tickets that were not cheap in the least. I was two days late, tired, angry, and STILL had another day’s work ahead of me. I still had to return the rental car (which, by the way, ended up costing me double what my ticket refund was), and pick up my baggage from the Philadelphia airport.

So, I just wish to say: Thank you, United…you have managed to completely destroy my faith in airlines and in the very notion of customer service.

Regards,
Luke

———
And to close it out…here are some cool links:

Think Guitar Hero is for geeks? Try this one out.
Apple vs Hackers…. hackers winning: http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/08/out-of-the-box-1-1-3-iphones-now-software-unlockable/

General Stupidity, Personal, gaming

At age 25 (well…almost), I can call myself middle-aged.

Not exactly what you expected after reading the title to this post, eh?

Well basically, what spawned this post was my dad’s first heart attack (yes, he’s fine) at age 50. My grandpa, his father, died of a heart attack at 55.

So as you can see…this entire side of the family does not have a tendency to live very long; so I am now at my half-life. Fun!

Personal

“Why the fuck would you want to take a cruise to Canada…what the hell is there in Canada?” – Ryan

Friday night rolled around as I sat in my house waiting for Tim to drop by. I was going to spend the night at his place, since we had to wake up early, pack our stuff onto the bus, and depart for New York. I sure as hell didn’t feel like waking up at 5am, so I’d rather have just gotten there the night before…and sleep till about 8:00. I woke up the next day to an already busy household. People were running around, others were arriving and food was being prepared as I slowly made my way from the bed into the kitchen. Breakfast…I need to fricken eat something. Instead of filling myself with pretzels and tastycakes, I found some eggs in Tim’s fridge, sliced up some tomatoes and made something substantial.

About a year ago, UT (short for Uncle Tom…one of Tim’s uncles from his Dad’s side) sent out an email for a possible family cruise. Their family had done a cruise two years back to some tropical destination (I think it was Bermuda), so this cruise was to the other end of the spectrum: Canada. I responded with interest; I needed a vacation, and up until then I had no plans to speak of. For a while, I almost forgot about the cruise until UT sent out another email that reservations are being made. I needed to find my passport, check in with Carnival, and get some cash together.

As of three months ago, I was ready…anticipating the day of the cruise to come around so I can finally leave this god-forsaken city for a week. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t particularly hate Philly, but when you’re here for so long, a change of scenery is nice every once in a while. Philly…the air is polluted and humid; Canada…the air is clean and fresh. Philly…the streets are dirty; Canada…well I’m gonna be on a fucking ship. Those things aside, you’d have to be a peon to not realize the differences here.

to be continued…

Personal

It’s safe to say that I am now officially addicted to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu . It’s almost counter-intuitive: I attend class pretty much to get owned. Yes, I realize that I will continue to get owned for quite a long time, since I am the newest student at the gym. The thing is…I know I am getting something out of it. Every time I attend, I know I am getting better. My positioning is improving, I am noticing a lot more options, and remembering what NOT to do. I still need a lot of work before I can even consider myself a novice at BJJ, but it’s a good start so far.

My first BJJ class was June 9th…almost 20 days ago. I went in knowing a bit of what to expect, since I had watched a class a few days before, but still not REALLY knowing what it would be like. Seeing something done is completely different than doing it. Even now, when the instructors show a technique…it looks easy, and it looks like I will be able to do it without a problem…but when you are actually doing it, it’s very different. You see something done while you are standing up, and the instructors are in position, but the point of view is much different standing up, than it is when you have a 220 pound dude laying across your chest so that you can barely breathe…much less think.

On the bright side, EVERYONE that attends class is very helpful. The blue and purple belts attend the beginner classes as well, and they are more than happy to work with you until you get it right. As Cosmo (one of the blue belts) told me once: “We’re here for you…to help you out…to help you improve”. They already know most of these moves, but they show up anyway; both to improve their own technique, but also to teach it to the newbies. I don’t think I have ever felt more welcome as a newbie as I have at Gracie Phila.

After 20 days, I had expected the others’ patience toward me would have worn thin, but I was pleasantly surprised that it was not the case. They are just as happy to help you out now as they were in the beginning, even though I have at least some kind of fundamental grasp of the concept. They do not abandon you just because you know a bit…I am not thrown to the wolves.

As I said, it seems almost counter-intuitive why I attend. When the senior members are practicing the technique on me, it is pretty much the equivalent of potential power of gun to compared to a spoon. I’m not light, but I get thrown around like a ragdoll. The next day (hell, sometimes the same damned day), you walk around feeling like you got hit by a dump truck. What in hell would possess someone to keep coming back? I honestly have no idea…hence the term “addiction”. There’s something about it that makes you want to keep coming back. Perhaps it is my own stubbornness that I can’t be happy being poor at something once I start it, or maybe it’s something else that I haven’t yet figured out. Just last week, we did a takedown drill that involved me getting slammed into the ground repeatedly from 4 or 5 feet in the air. That shit STILL hurts, but yet I keep coming back.

I’m definitely addicted; I’m even buying mats for the house so I can practice anytime.

Personal

Saturday I went to my first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class (which I will just refer to as BJJ for brevity). I had attended a class the previous Tuesday just to watch and see how the class is run, and get a general idea for the art. I wasn’t thoroughly convinced that I wanted to spend a few more hours of the little time I had during the week to attend classes. I was still undecided on Saturday morning whether I was going to sign up that day or not, but I finally decided to man up, go to Wawa (and use the ATM), and drive to Gracie Phila.

I arrived right as the class was starting and talked to Joe, the instructor. I signed the release waiver, gave him $200, and asked for my Gi. The warmups were already starting, so I quickly threw on the Gi. It was very loose, but Joe assured me that it would shrink. All I can say is: It better, because…damn, it’s looser than a $1 K&A hooker (If you live in Philly, this makes sense).

I came out of the all-in-one office/locker room/cat photo repository just as warmups were ending. Apparently, according to Ryan…I missed the part that everyone hates. I had a slight sly smile at the thought.

It was hot. No, I’m not trying to be like Paris Hilton….I am being literal: it was fucking hot in there. There really is no airflow, and the only relief is brought by a single slowly spinning ceiling fan. I guess Joe wants to toughen us up, or sweat us to death…who knows. It was a sauna in there, but at least it makes for a good workout.

For the practices, I was paired up with a blue belt (whom I had remembered from the Tuesday class) named Frank. Frank was about my height, but about 40 pounds lighter. He had a shaved head, wore glasses, and was an overall cool dude. He had the displeasure of working with the resident n00b, but he was cool with it. Everyone has to start somewhere, he said.

We started out with headlock escapes. The first one involved stepping across your attacker, and then sitting down; taking your attacker to the ground, and then rolling on top of him. At this point he still had you in the headlock, but the technique was to put yourself in frame, and torque your body out of it. This maneuver also had the additional advantage that it set up an arm bar, but I had no idea what I was doing yet, so I concentrated on the headlock escape. Frank was impressed with my fluid mobility in the takedown, but I still needed some work in setting up the actual escape. Eventually I started getting it though…right as Joe started demonstrating another headlock escape. This one was similar, except it compensated for your attacker’s counter to the step-around of the first technique. In this one, if you stepped around, and he stepped with you, the idea was to put your one leg through his from behind, and then sit down…effectively having him roll backwards with you. From there…the rest was pretty much the same.

From that we moved to the collar choke. This, I am told is not as easy to accomplish in an actual match, but it was more to practice the technique. Essentially, you grab the Gi of your attacker at the top of their neck with both hands, and pull your elbows down. This puts your forearm at their arteries and cuts off blood flow to the head, resulting in them either tapping or passing out. The premise seems easy….how hard can it be to put your arms across someone’s neck and pull down? Well, let me tell you: it’s harder than it sounds. In order to get the proper choke, you have to get your arms right next to their neck to prevent any slack in the Gi and to get them as far up their neck as you can…or else it doesn’t work very well. Getting the first arm in is easy…but sliding the second arm up high enough is the hard part.

After that, we did a defense against passing the guard, which involved throwing your leg around their neck, rolling your other leg around, and getting them in an arm bar. Yey! I finally was able to arm bar somebody. I need some work in this technique too, since I had a tendency push my opponent away with my legs instead of bringing them closer. Having had no previous experience with BJJ, this is natural reaction; you want to get your attacker off you…but the idea here is to bring them closer so they can’t escape.

Ryan stayed for open mat, but I have no business there quite yet, so I went back to the all-in-one to get changed. I took off my Gi, and the t-shirt I had on underneath. I think I could have filled the Philly water reservoir with all the seat that was in the Gi and my shirt. I don’t think I sweat that much at hockey practice, tennis, or running.

(yes, I will get to my neck hurting in a minute)

Around 6:00pm, Ry and I left to go to Atlantic City and attend the Tool concert at Boardwalk Hall.

Getting to Atlantic City when there is a concert going on makes me want to kill myself. Ryan chose to drive, so at least I didn’t have to go through the leg workout that was brake-gas-brake-gas-brake-gas-brake-oh shit crack dealer crossing-gas-brake. It was hard to find parking at Trump (which bordered Boardwalk Hall), but we managed to find parking at Caesar’s, which was the next casino over. We managed to walk to the venue without getting run over or shot, which is a good thing obviously.

Tool fans are fucking idiots. There…I said it. But seriously, I don’t think I have ever seen that many stupid people in one place at one time. I’m not even going to go into the details, but it ranged from standing in the middle of a fucking doorway as people are trying to enter….to taking pictures with their camera phones inside a barely lit venue….to headbanging (even though they had no hair) and dancing in their chairs even though they had absolutely no reason to do so.

The opening band was Melt Banana. The band name has potential…it’s actually pretty cool. The band themselves, unfortunately….made my ears bleed. No…they made my brain bleed.

Imagine this: Random dude on guitar…turn on distortion….play really really fast. Random dude on bass….turn on distortion…play really really fast. Random dude on drums….and just start hitting them really really fast. Now…add in a lead singer and have her cluck like a chicken. Now make them Japanese. This was Melt Banana. I feel lucky that it took us so long to find parking and we only had to listen to about 5 minutes of them. Trust me when I say that I would like those 5 minutes of my sanity back.

About 30 minutes after MB was done…the lights dimmed and Tool came on stage. Right from the opening riff I noticed something: Boardwalk Hall has terrible acoustics. So…to make up for those really bad acoustics, the sound techs just turned the volume up for the band. This was a mistake….the first song actually sounded distorted. This made my brain hurt. They turned it down a little bit after the first song, but it was still abnormally loud…and I’ve been to a lot of concerts in my day…this was abnormally loud, trust me.

The Tool show was pretty cool…they played all the songs I wanted to hear, save for Parabol and Parabola. There was some moments near the end of the show that were kind of mundane; the band just looped a riff over and over again, before breaking into the next song. The encore…I’m not really sure was an encore. They stopped playing and had a little bit of a light show for about 10 minutes, which might have been the downtime before the encore…or it might have just been an intermission…who knows, who cares. They ended with Vicarious, but nobody was quite sure if they were done or not. The house lights didn’t come on for a minute or two…so everyone was just kind of in their seats, unsure of what to do. We left, and I think Ryan pissed off 34 people as we were leaving. I started keeping count of how many people he cut out, almost hit, or was just generally an asshole to. He tried to break 50, but we only managed to piss off 34.

For the entire ride…our ears were ringing. We attempted conversation, but it usually ended in ‘huh..wha?’.

As we neared the house, we stopped at Wawa to get some iced tea and some food, since it was about 1am, and I haven’t eaten anything since about 3pm that afternoon.

When we got back to the house, I began to realize something: my neck fucking hurts. Goddamn you BJJ….Frank and his triangle locks and arm bars and collar chokes. Yes this is normal, but I didn’t feel it for the entire day….until then. And my ears were still ringing.

I woke up this morning and guess what: ears still ringing. And guess what else: neck still hurts.

Next round of BJJ on Monday, probably.

Personal

Last Thursday night, I came into work after-hours and started moving all my shit into an office.

Since I started here at __, I worked in a simple cubicle; fairly typical of one’s first “real” job. I didn’t mind it all that much at the time, as they were paying me to sit next to modo and pretend to work. Don’t get me wrong, I did do actual work there, but it wasn’t exactly on par with the busyness of the New York Stock Exchange. I accepted the position while I was still attending Drexel (actually, I still am). My employer and I had agreed upon a decent salary that took into account the fact that I was able to leave for an hour a day to attend class, so that I can finish my degree. This agreement worked well for a while until recently.

A couple of months ago, modo quit. He had taken a job at ___, doing network administration. Titles for IT personnel are so deceiving…they never describe any actual job function.

“What do you do at ___?”
Well, I’m a network engineer.
“So, you basically work with switches and routers to create and optimize networks?”
Yea….about that: I do that, then I take care of users, I administer servers, I write procedures, I am responsible for the backup systems and offsite storage of said backups, as well as the administrator of the Nortel PBX, Blackberry….. (I could go on and on here).

Truthfully, the larger and more organized the company, the more your title begins to make sense. In a company of ___’s size, my title of network engineer fits that deceiving label. At modo’s new company, the job functions are more specialized. If you are a network engineer, you deal with the network….and let the call center take care of troublesome users that forget their network passwords. At my previous job at [a national ISP, cable and voice provider], I worked as a system administrator for the Microsoft group. There, I did not have to worry about the *nix systems, nor did I have to look at a router terminal screen. I worked with the Microsoft servers and applications. Then again, that company had 64,000 employees at the time, so there was more than enough people to take care of other specialized functions.

When modo quit, I was about 4 months away from receiving my degree. This would mean: no more taking time out from work to attend classes, and hopefully a modification to my salary. At the same time, I was also going to be semi-transferred to another department at the company (I say semi-transferred because I would basically be working both departments. I would be responsible for the corporate network/servers as well as the customer side of things). I had hoped that with modo’s quitting and the fact that my responsibilities tripled, I had some bargaining room…especially since I was about to have a college degree. I was wrong.

I thought about all that as I moved into my new office. The fact is, however, that I was never GIVEN an office. Instead…I just kind of took it. I had hinted to my direct boss and the VP that I was just going to move into one of the empty offices down the hall, but neither of them took it seriously; they just shrugged it off and said “sure”. To me, it seemed as if I did my due diligence. I expressed my intentions, so I was not springing a random surprise on them. Fuck em…they didn’t want to give me a worthwhile raise, I was going to make myself happy.

I now have a sweet setup. I have my laptop screen out of the view of passers by, and I have my desktop in a dual monitor configuration that allows me to actually get work done more efficiently. I no longer have to put up with my boss yelling over my cube “Yo Luke, can you come here” over some trivial thing that could have just as easily been done over Sametime or AIM. I have chairs so people can actually come talk to me and not have to stand and look over my shoulder. My boss comes to me now when he needs something…it’s a completely different world.

I compare it to the relationship changes one notices when he moves out of his parents’ house for the first time. While he is living there, he has to put up with over protective and smothering parents. A day in day out fight for independence; a struggle to not go insane from their constant barrage of questioning. “What time are you coming home, who are you going with, where are you going to be?” Who gives a fuck, I’m 24 years old and I’m leaving the fucking house to go have a good time…stop treating me like I’m 13 years old. Being an only child only intensifies this since they don’t have anyone else to worry about. Moving out changes that entire situation. Your parents are no longer just parents…they are your friends. The conversations you have are completely different. It is no longer them talking down to you…but as an equal. You are now on your own and able to take care of yourself, feed yourself, etc. Trivial things…but as parents they are used to you being their little one….the one they were used to taking care of. Proving (however easily it is) that you can survive on your own changes their entire perspective. It’s a magical feeling almost, and necessary for their own good.

Taking an office is for their own good too, they just don’t see it yet. I can now get shit done without having 30 people walk by my cube, looking over my shoulder, listening to who I’m talking to, and overall being a detrimental nuisance.

I’m still under appreciated, but at least I can take my mind off it.

Personal

Whenever you get called into your VPs office almost as soon as you come in, you just have a feeling that it can’t be for a good reason.

“Luke…modo….can you come into my office for a bit?”
“Umm sure”, we both respond.
“If you have an iced tea or soda, bring that with you, we might be there a while”, says Andy.

No warning given, no topic thrown out…just a simple “come into my office” sounds almost dangerous. I almost wish I DID have an iced tea with me, so I could gulp down whatever was acting as the metaphorical blockage in my throat.

Was it something we had done? At work, I stick to my guns, and that causes somewhat of a rift between Corporate IT (me) and the customer network admins. They are Andy’s boys, hired personally, and preferred in the company. Often times, they think that they can have their say in terms of what happens on the corporate side. I disagree…while the network may be unified, I will not let anyone tell me how to run my network, my servers and how to treat my users. Sounds childish, I realize this, but having an element of control not only is self-satisfying, but also job security. What they do not understand is that people at Corporate are not customers, and should not be treated as such. At Corporate, you have the CEO, COO, and every VP and Director in the company. They do not want to feel restricted, and they want personal attention; attention that Modo and I are able to provide.

Just recently, we had a discussion about our switches. They want to replace our current switches with the latest and greatest. While I’m all for having cool new stuff to play with, I somehow do not think I would be allowed to. This would seem rather strange, to deny the network admin on site access to the local switches, but I felt that was what we were moving towards. They had already requested access to our network equipment, and I was forced to grant it at the request of the VP. No matter who you are, you don’t say no to the VP, no matter how much you disagree. I failed to see the point…why do they need telnet and enable access to our stuff? Simple answer is: They don’t. The switches here were configured correctly, vlaned properly, and connected in such a way that no single link was disastrous. We could lose a switch and traffic would still be routed around it. Well, so I gave them the passwords…I caved. However, that was only temporary, in my eyes. A week or so later, I telnetted into the switches and was going to change them again. I managed to change the enable password on all of the switches, and was able to change the telnet on all but one. That was odd…the old telnet password does not work? “sh users”. Figures…..one of them is on, and apparently doing exactly what I’m doing…changing passwords. They are already trying to deny me access to my own equipment. Are they really that worried about their jobs that they want to take over part of mine? I don’t fuck with their shit…they shouldn’t be fucking with mine. A few minutes later, I get an email from them, with the VP as a cc asking if I had changed the passwords. I told them “Well, I tried to change passwords, but my old one doesn’t work anymore.” Silence. Usually they respond instantly, but they had been caught in the act, and had nothing to say. Magically…an hour later, my old password works again. Hah….yea…nice try guys.

“Why do we need new switches?”, I asked. “These are old, they don’t support ifaliasing…[etc]“, responds x’douche #1. Ok…why is that even an issue, I thought to myself. You can still lookup port names, just not over SNMP. “But they aren’t broken, and we dont poll port names via SNMP”, I respond. “Oh, but that’s the thing… they ARE broken”. At this point we started going back and forth about how these switches have worked for years, they have a plethora of gigabit ports, and they support everything I need them to support. Apparently that was not good enough, even though it would make no financial sense at all to get new switches to replaces ones that are still under warranty.

I thought this meeting could have had something to do with coordination between CorpIT and them. Who knows…who cares?

Both of us, who make up the entire department basically, walked over. It could be something completely different, perhaps we were being reprimanded or worse? The walk around the corner does not leave you with much time to think, and perhaps that is for the better. Less time to worry, less time to overload your own brain with what is about to happen.

We sat down, and glanced at Andy’s face, which was contorted in a manner which revealed nothing. It could have been a scowl, it could have been the famous “I know something you don’t know” look, or it could have been worry.

“So, what’s up?”. asked either Dennis or I (who exactly said it are the kinds of details I don’t consider important enough to remember).
“Well…I don’t know how to say this…but the company is doing a pretty massive downsizing”
Oh shit….
Well that just sucks. I knew I should have been more responsible with money…I knew I shouldn’t have bought that motor for the Mustang…I knew I shouldn’t have fucked around with the X’douches.
“Oh, but don’t worry, you guys are safe”, he quickly added.
Whew…damn. Not sure if I should be relieved or horror struck by what he could possibly say next.
“…but Bob (not his real name) isn’t”.

“Bob” is our direct boss. He is the Director of both IT and IS for the company. Modo and I reported directly to him, and were unfortunate enough to have his desk overlooking ours. He was a cool dude, hailing from India, and having previous experiences all over the world in corporations such as IBM. He was a smart dude, and made what I assumed to be very decent money. He had just bought a new Acura MDX, he had bought a $350,000 home in King of Prussia, and just had a baby.

I understood the decision though, as remorseful as I felt about it. Bob was not a necessity to the company, and was bringing in a director level salary. Lately, with his baby’s health, and his wife starting a new job…he had been slacking a bit in attendance. He showed up late some days, took other days off (technically, they call it “working from home”, but I know better that that really means), and left early at times.

He was currently in the middle of a three week vacation. The man got canned and he isn’t even here to find out about it. How much does THAT suck…being let go while on vacation.

“But don’t tell him if you talk to him, or email him. I think I should be the one to tell him….that and I don’t want to ruin his vacation”, he added. Makes sense to me, I would not want to be the recipient of a phone call while I am sipping margaritas on the beach (as that would be MY vacation) telling me that I don’t need to hurry back. In Bob’s case, I’m sure it would involve something with curry and belly dancers, but who knows.

Among those let go were our graphic designer and some of our legacy employees left over from the satellite days. That was just corporate… there were a few people laid off from Texas as well: installers, tower crews, sales managers. But I was safe, and that is what mattered to me.

We sat there for another hour or so shooting the shit about the various changes that were going to go on in the company.

The next day Modo tells me that Apple Vacations had called him back. He was being offered a position as a Network Engineer in their PA office, with a nice pay increase. It made sense…he had been here for about eight years, which is a long time in today’s job market. It was time to advance his career, time to shake things up, and to leave for a company that has a stable future. Having just narrowly escaped with his job, it was not a feeling he wanted to experience again.

Now, nobody knows what the hell is going on. I neither have a boss nor a co-worker, so there is no corporate IT beyond me. Does this mean I am not going to change departments, or does it mean that new people will be brought in? I posed the question, and received no answer. Nobody here knows what the hell is going on.

At least I still have a job…

Personal

“How many computers do you have in your room”

“Well, I have the two desktops and my laptop”

“How many are on?”

“The small desktop is always on, it’s the file server, my main desktop I sometimes turn on when I’m here”

“Ok, because I just got the electric bill and it is $150…which is the highest it has ever been. I’m not saying it’s you…”

WRONG! By coming in and asking me that very question, then proceeding to note the electric bill, that is exactly what you are doing. Sure, you quickly turned around and mentioned the fact that you keep the dehumidifier on all the time, and that could have been the cause of the higher bill.

You then say “just make sure you turn the lights out if you are not in the room, or leaving somewhere”, when ironically, you just left five minutes ago and kept the TV, the receiver, AND the lights on.

It’s funny in a way, don’t you think?

Personal