Author: sean

It’s something with which I am not terribly familiar, thankfully, when it comes to someone’s health.  When it comes to technology, on the other hand….

As I said before, in the event that I’m still around in my current position by the end of the year, I’m expected to buy some more letters to go after my name.  They’ll signify that I can pick out keywords, and click through a multiple choice test.

Awesome

How can anyone argue with those credentials?

Unfortunately for me, I do pay attention to the material, and understand that there’s an assumption that using any of these latest and greatest methods assumes your organization has complete latitude in the decision-making process.

In reality, in many circumstances, outside the private sector, you do not have full latitude.  The decisions are made at higher levels, and your struggle is trying to accommodate those decisions made elsewhere.

(I think it’d be slick to have a cluestick certification.  Joe Engineer, BWTFCS…)

How do you play the hand you’re dealt?  You might be an expert at how you’d deal with an ideal situation, but I think how you deal with adversity speaks more to your talent.

But, then, I’m naive, and don’t have unlimited time or resources to buy extra letters after my name.

And, I’m also half-blind, which makes me hate those perfect Skillsoft courses all the more.

Follow-up to this.

Since I’ve basically been told I need to buy the letters, “ITIL” to go after my name to keep my job, one of the concepts there is doing analysis to determine whether it makes sense to keep a service in-house versus outsourcing it.

But what happens when you’re compelled to outsource something, even something that wouldn’t pass the analysis?  Do you need to still do the analysis?

tic-toc tic-toc tic-toc…..

Wouldn’t the time spent on figuring out whether you should outsource, and sketching out a potential in-house replacement be better spent figuring out the transition plan?

I shouldn’t ask these sorts of questions;  I’m not a team player.

Background music.  Please refrain from vomiting.

I will try to do the same, myself.

I’ve been working through, since late last week, something rather significant that’ll forever change the way people do IS design.

Enterprise-grade services don’t have to be hosted locally, anymore.

Linus Torvalds once said something along the lines of everything-is-a-stream-of-bytes.  What’s the compelling reason those streams of bytes have to go to ::1 (or 127.0.0.1, for those of you stuck in the 1970s with your networks), or shmem?  Someone please give me four compelling reasons why that stream of bytes can’t have its datastore somewhere else.

Or, maybe, the datastore is in “the cloud,” and there’s periodic replication….?

My blog, which sucks (as does yours, if you have one), uses a rather ubiquitous database as its backend.  What’s to stop me from using something somewhere else?

The same could be said for lots of things.

And it’d all probably be more reliable than my ham-handed  sekurity measures.

Yes, I’d be completely unaccustomed to operating that way.  But it wasn’t too long ago that I was completely unaccustomed to operating the way I have been for the past decade or so.

Big deal.  Technology changes.  Get over it.

I understand this is easier said than done for the graying middle managers who’ve artfully crafted the business argument that places the utmost emphasis on schedule adherence.  You may be doing the wrong thing, but, goddamnit, you met the schedule.

I want to deliver quality products.  If that makes me a bad person, so be it.

I really don’t like rehashing the stuff I’ve written before.  (Some people revel in it;  I’m not one of those people.)

That said, the last few weeks really reinforce what I wrote in #2 here.

Whether or not your behavior is ethical (since morality doesn’t matter to people in modern business….) doesn’t matter much if ultimately what you’re delivering is shoddy work.

What the stick-to-the-schedule people need to understand is that sometimes things do need significant rework to approach adequacy.

There is no shame in starting from scratch when what you’ve put together really sucks.  Yes, it takes time.  Yes, this might blow a schedule written by someone with no familiarly with what the tasks actually entail.

If that makes me a problem, so be it.  I value my time too much to spend it producing nothing but bad, wrong, work.

…the sun goes down in the west.

I didn’t write this morning as I have the past few weeks.  Why?  I was busy.

Doing things important to me.  Things I hadn’t had a chance to do.  It’s also the reason I’m off Monday.  (And we’ll forget, for a moment, the fact that I have to visit two sets of white coats….)

So, what’s up?

A lot, actually.  But I’m not going to write about it, because it’s mostly disappointing.

I did get my car back up on CL, which is one important thing. And, it’ll start to make up for the difference in salary I’ve suffered the last few months So there’s that.

Background music for this entry…

So much of what I see lately that passes as awesome work actually isn’t, for a variety of reasons.  I could enumerate them, but why?  Nobody is going to read the reasons, anyway.

I think I started articulating this after reading Dana’s post, and understanding her sentiments about wanting to write all the things.  Ultimately, though, it comes down to the fact that people are utterly unwilling these days to take the time to even attempt to read all the things;  the effort you spent in writing them — is it wasted?

At the same time, words do have meaning.  Language is the primary way we communicate with others.  People who are satisfied with doing the barest of minimums really don’t deserve my limited energy.  The spoons wouldn’t be wasted if the reward matched the effort.  Right now, in many aspects of my life, the efforts far exceed the rewards.

So move on.

That might disappoint some people, but not the ones I care about, and certainly not me.  To paraphrase Popeye, I am what I am, and that’s all that I am.  Using the language to the best of my ability is part of that.  I’m not going to relearn something I know to be incorrect.  Sorry.

Sarah and I had a good time last weekend in DC.  While there were some hiccups (and there always are when somebody like me takes to the road), but, overall, the trip went incredibly well.  I needed that, and it recharged me for a few days.

How long will that charge last?  Three days is the answer.  I’m feeling completely spent when it comes to many things right now.  And taking the time to do the math, and assess things only makes the picture look more bleak.

Of course, I’ll continue to do what I do to the best of my ability, but things have to change.  I’m no longer the spry twenty-something who can delay gratification.  If you’d told me five years ago I’d be where I am, I’d have thought you insane.

As I said in the last, you know how to get in touch with me if you want details.

Random find on the Intertubes this morning.  This.  Bigotry-driven self-segregation?  Bubuhbut, it’s for the children!!1!  Facepalm.

I’m sure the people living in Virginia Beach will completely agree.

“Well, don’t want to sound like a dick or nothin’, but, ah… it says on your chart that you’re fucked up. Ah, you talk like a fag, and your shit’s all retarded. What I’d do, is just like… like… you know, like, you know what I mean, like…” — Dr. Lexus

“Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.” — Abraham Lincoln (as credited on the Intertubes, so it must be true.)

I worked in broadcast for years.  There’s a difference between revising something so it’s understandable for your audience, and completely changing the meaning of it.

If you view your audience as idiotic, you might not understand that difference.  You might also find yourself worried more about graphics, and whether your document is littered with enough catch phrases.

You might also spend a lot of time in soliloquy, interrupted only by rhetorical queries to the audience about your correctness.

“Right?”

“No, I’m not sure that’s right.  Directly cite something.”

Last fall, I was working on a paper for Shmoocon.  I’d gotten about four pages in, and started rebutting some of the arguments I knew I’d get.  I didn’t have an answer for one, not even a glib one, so I gave up.  (And now my scarred-up brain is thinking of the derogatory political term, “Glibertarian.”)

Too much of what I’ve sen lately in IT is building bigger in the name of sekurity.  “Well, you have to do x.  Y says you have to, right?”

But when you query on where y says whatever it is it’s supposed to say, “Well, you know.”  No, I don’t.  I couldn’t find it.  If I could have, I wouldn’t have asked the question.

Am I dissatisfied with my current work situation?  Yes.  Is there anything I can do about it?  Not right now, at least.