Stationary Scrotum

Yes - a man who can't spell (see title) seems it think this was the place to keep his lewd video clip (from youTube no doubt) about a cleaner for male mechanics called Scrotum Scrub. Hilarious. Next!!!1

Sold down the river without a paddle

I joined a union called Amicus recently to have some back-up in my fight for justice. They send me little snippets because they are good at communicating, unlike Toxic.

"Members will know that Amicus has, for some time now, been engaging with Toxic at all levels on this subject. Only last Monday, 27 November, 2006, Amicus and the PCS unions met Toxic senior leaders ...it was doubly disappointing that the company failed even to inform Amicus that it was about to off-shore large sections of its UK HR administration..."

Poor HR. Sniff. They do soooo much for us.


NOT.

Lord of the Flies - by Alfred McAnus

Following my scenic trip around Toxania, the first thing I see upon entering the edifices of the front door is a new notice.

"The smoke treatment for the Cluster Flies will be taking place on Friday 1st December. Can all members of staff please ensure they have left the premises by 6pm....Please ensure that no food products are left out."

I was immediately tickled pink. Do the Cluster Flies know they are getting a treat? Do we need to form a team too? If so, I suggest the Huddled Hornets.

NB: I have also realised that these flies clearly know shit/evil when they see it. If there are in your office, get out whilst you can.

Lost

No, not the TV series. This is a little tale about getting to work. I travel about 30 miles to work, but the last bit there is one long straight road to the village where the office is. The council re-surfaced it not that long ago, but it seems they were not happy with that so have decided to go it all over again but this time to close the whole road. Fine, so you go around the corner. Err, nope. On Tuesday I tried following the diversion signs and it took me 30 mins to do what normally takes me 5 mins.

So, today I was prepared. I had already looked at my map and decided I would take a sharp right up a lane and come out a lot closer.

I drove up the lane, crossed under the railway - all good so far. I then saw a sign for Toxicania (where Toxic is) and thought great! I followed it took me through several small roundabouts and over the railway again...and brought me back out to the place where the road is closed!!!
I had gone in a circle.

I had no choice now but to try again but gathered I needed to turn off somewhere. I must have missed a turning. I got halfway and after passing under the railway found a place to stop and check the map. Right I was looking for Dog Lane. It should be 3rd on the left before the roundabout. I started off, 1....2...no 3 but a roundabout instead. I went around and double-back and then double-back again to park in the same lay-by. It MUST be there. It says here in black and white! It must be set back or I blinked. I will drive extra slow this time.

So I drive on. First left, 2nd no 3rd but a roundabout instead. I keep going and then I see it. Dog Lane!!! Hurrah. Thank goodness for that.

The rest of the journey was fine and I get to the office without problem in about 5 mins. I check the map again knowing now that there was an extra roundabout that is not marked on the map.
It turns out it is also missing 2 more roundabouts I found later on. Curious I thumb to the inside cover...printed 1990. Bugger. Maybe it's time I bought a new one then :S.

A picture paints a thousand words...

Overtime claim

Today I went to a Microsoft meeting in the morning about Vista. It was pretty good and sparked my fire for technology in way. It's stuff I want to be doing.

I got back and logged onto to Toxic to check my mail to see if Flakey had replied to me asking "am I going to get paid for the overtime I did". Last time he refused despite the guy who asked me assuring me it would be fine. So this time, it was against the grain, but I did it.

There was still no response from Flakey. I sent a "blood-hound" email to him to try and track him down - i.e. something on a different subject with a read receipt, so I could tell if you has even reading my emails. I had to resort to these lengths as he does not use his Outlook calendar, so no-one knows where the hell he is, unless he chooses to tell them. I'm only his minion - who do I need to know if he is on holiday, sick or out of the office...

Strangely, I suddenly get an out of office note from my second email. That's not possible as far as I know. It replies to just the first email from each person who happens to write in. So, I can only guess he turned it on AFTER getting my first email. I send a reminder attaching the original email asking to him. It's not subtle but I am running out of options.

I am feeling increasingly vexed now, so am sat debating the best way to proceed when I see a note pass by from him to accounts - please approve payment. Yooo-bloody-reeka!!!


He has finally done the decent thing. Why

Don't use AOL, ever!

It always amazes me why people ever use AOL. Let me explain why

1. First, they are expensive when you look at what you get,
2. Their software is buggy
3. Their software "contains you" in their "AOL capsule" so they can track every little thing you do.
4. Their service is populated by weirdos (mostly from the US)
5. Their customer service is really, really bad

Now don't just take my word for it. I can prove it to you quite easily. Here goes:

Cost

I am going to ignore their slowest connection for a moment and show you their tricks.
Here's the cost comparison for 8MB services for a year.

AOL Platinum 8Mb (FREE Wireless Router) £329.89 @£29.99 monthly, unlimited
Toucan 8Mb Unlimited Broadband & Free Weekend Calls £179.88 @ £14.99 monthly, unlimited
Virgin Bundle Plan Two £179.88, £14.99, unlimited
Virgin Plan Two £215.88, 1 month,£17.99, 6GB limit
BT Total Broadband - Option 1, £200.88, £17.99, 2GB limit
Tiscali Broadband 8Mb + Free Weekend Talk, £215.88, £17.99,unlimited

So, ummm, that's like about 30 companies offering the same thing for half price AOL charge, or put another way, it's in the top 10 of the most expensive suppliers/services you can get.
i.e. you can save up to £150 just by shopping around.

Their "bargain" 2MB service for 14.99 is a loss leader - they offer it as a lure that loses them a tiny amount of money because once you're in their grip they can rip you off later.

Think of it as a big fat worm - if you go for it, they want to reel you in and "upgrade you" to Platinum. Naturally, you will be tempted because you are already their customer. It's a dirty rotten trick.


Buggy

Oh yes!! Their software was the single-most common cause for "executive laptop crashes" during my two years as a laptop engineer. It's horrible. Uninstall it now, for the love of God.


Captive audience

In August 2006 they released a huge log file of their customer's activity for researchers. Unfortunately they ignored a recent law by the US to "remove customer identity from all records" for privacy. The log is floating around the internet and is just a big, big text file with names replaced by a number. However, taking a wild guess in my usual "cutting the crap" style, I imagine it reads something like this:

24534666 10:01 "ebay ceramic vases"
0010000 02:03 "cars for sale
24534666 11:21 "bomb making for idiots"
0010000 02:06 "sindy dolls, cheap"
0010000 02:07 "music for nuns"
24534666 11:23 "gay child porn"
24534666 11:26 "snuff videos and sex with dead people"

source: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/06/aol-proudly-releases-massive-amounts-of-user-search-data/


Customer service

This is sadly a reflection of typical "customer service": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIVZ9b0RgmY

I can relate to this personally. I asked for a rebate from Orange this year owing to the fact that my mum was physically unable to use her mobile at all for over year, meaning she had paid £15 a month for nothing. My request for £50 as a gesture of good-will fell on the same deaf ears. No-one wanted to know.

Ironic, for a company that makes it's money out of people listening.

Why job agencies suck

In my email:


"Skills: A leading company, in the process of a Windows XP roll out, is looking to recruit three Hungarian speaking Rollout Engineers to be responsible for rolling out XP to the users. Applicants for this role must have very good technical knowledge of deploying Windows XP and providing support to users. Knowledge of Dell or HP/Compaq equipment would be ideal. Applicants should be fluent in English and Hungarian.
Location: Budapest
Start: 30/11/2006
Duration: 4 weeks
Rate: £100 per day
Agency: Jenrick CPI"


That's an annual salary equiv. £30K but for 1 month. i.e. complete rubbish.

21st Nov - Irony

Employee Recognition - as demonstrated in a Toxic training course on CD, consists of making people smile like they are on a toothpaste ad and clap like sea-lions.

Sadly, they fail to practise this trick and reward staff with, errr, more work...

Mo-tiv-ay-shun. Say it after me...motivation.

Yes, that's right boys and girls. If I want you to do something for me, perhaps something you would really, really rather not do, I need to offer you something in return. Like a sweety perhaps.

Toxic likes to give their staff something special. They give them the opportunity to "wear their own clothes" one day a week.

Let's all "Woooop" like a retard!!!!

Tues, 21st Nov Speaky de Eengleesh

You would think that an employee who is intelligent enough to be given a job working with complicated computer technology in business they would be able to tell the difference between "an unfair delibarate act" and a class of farm animal livestock, but apparently this is not the case. I found this snippet from a call logged in a spreadsheet (because Toxic LOVES spreadsheets).

"At this point IE (the group)were engaged for advice and it was decided as a test, to deploy early an imminent Java client update (v1.5) via radia to see if this allowed the application to open within IE (the browser)

We then fell fowl of the Radia client 843 issue and had to wait for that to be fixed."

You will also note the deft double-whammy use of both ambiguous acronyms (the bits in green) and the unfortunate malapropism.

Marvellous!

Tues, 21st Nov Now listen here!

I have no more work to do, so thought I would wade through the training CDs I have. The first one is "Improving your Listening Skills". How do you think they deliver the material?

a) text
b) audio voice-over
c) video with audio
d) the medium of mime
c) video with subtitles

Think hard now.



Yes, it was (a) - text only. For a listening skills course. How very super!!

Next week we will have a powerpoint slideshow on "Visual content for the very short-sighted"

Fri, 17th Nov - Emergency!!!

At Toxic they have a special ability of waiting until the last minute before deciding something is a problem. Worse still, they wait until no-one who knows about the piece of work is present and that it is soooo vital that people have to come in at the weekend to finish it. When Monday comes, it is then still urgent but takes several weeks or even months to arrive at the client.

Today is a prime example. Two people did some work on a security upgrade - let's call it Panther! Now they know all about it and know it inside out 'cos they are good at what they do. Before Panther has started to be tested Toxic decides to move the first person to a new project "Guns and Ammo" 10 miles away. Work starts getting ready to test Panther but the guy, TomTom, left working on it is a contractor (meaning he gets paid lots per hour, especially at weekends). He waits until Friday when the other man guy who worked on Panther and who wrote a special script is now in. He also waits until nearly lunchtime to mention his problem - some servers are not getting the info they need from the script. So TomTom asks me to have a look, but I need to eat first so go to lunch. (I'm odd like that - I have this strange need to eat...)

After lunch he realises that he needs to give me a copy of the script. It does help. So he then mentions that it works fine in the "virtual work-place" but not in the "very nearly the same but not quite work-place". So I realise that the script is fine and it's some difference between the two environments. I am however obliged to help, to make sure the script is not mis-behaving. I spend 3 hrs checking it, testing things and by 7pm (on a Friday) decide to tell the project manager my findings: it is only affecting two or three machines so you can start testing everything whilst we get to the bottom of the mystery. He accepts that but still requires me to come in at the weekend to solve the problem because Panther is really, really urgent and this is an emergency.

Later that evening after a pint of ale, my grey cells twinkle and I realise the error. There is nothing wrong with the script. It is something called DNS that is missing in the pre-testing environment which means that TomTom has not put a magic word somewhere making the script fail. A kind of lazy sabotage, the result of which meaning that TomTom has to work on the weekend and claim extra pay...

It also means Toxic have to pay me extra too which may be a lot easier said than done. Watch this space for the result!

Thurs, 16th Nov - Surprise!!!!

I get an email from an admin girl up in Derby asking me to tell her when my laptop arrives. What laptop??? I read the thread. Apparently my boss has chosen not to mention it to me and just asked her if she a anything in stock. Sadly, the only thing available was a brand spanking new model, of exactly the spec that I asked for here:

"Flakey,

I am struggling badly with the temporary laptop I acquired after my original laptop and its HD died as I previously mentioned to you. I therefore formally request a new machine of sufficient technical spec for a developer. The current D620 laptop range is unfit for use - a point highlighted my the instantaneous failure of my machine, after only 2 years use. We tend to push the limits of hardware as it is. The failure of my machine has meant the loss of Barclays archived work and my email history for the last 2 years owing to the lack of any backup policy. It is only my foresight in backing up the previous ProjectXrelease that this was not catastrophic in losing everything.


Requirements

Looking at what is available, one of the following machines is essential to do my job:

developer workstation - P690/01
or
high-end notebook - D820

ref: http://www.infocentre.emea.eds.com/nlapps/docs/default.asp?fid=1010

Business justification - work on ProjectX requires testing builds on multiple hardware platforms. This requires using VMWare images for each model, and is extremely hardware intensive. 2GB RAM and fast processor are a basic requirement. A DVD RW is also mandatory to burn the master images for distribution.

Risks: not having the hardware means delivery of work will slow significantly, deadlines will fail and work productivity will suffer severely."

Yes, a brand new laptop with a BAG!!! Wowwww. It has only taken Toxic 9 years to give me a new machine, rather than a hand-me-down. The Ambassador is really spoiling us...

Fri, 17th Nov - SuperJargon

I got an email today. Not exactly earth-shattering news is it. This was special though, as it was an "InfoBlast". This is a new thing for Toxic. It's an email with links to an article on their intranet. I followed the first link, although the audience was not me.

This is what it said:

Update

Lean Six Sigma (LSS) Standards related to previous releases have now been updated and can be found either by navigating through the Toxic webiste or by going directly to the "webpage".

On the LSS Standards page, the user will find a downloadable Excel spreadsheet attachment at the bottom. This Excel spreadsheet contains not only standards published in prior Releases 1 and 2, but also those updated in Release 3. These updates will contain a "3" in the Release Update # column, with detail on what was updated, as well as the reason, in the "Reason for Update" column.



Resources in charge of LSS standards at the hubs and BPO EMEA can contact the Lean Six Sigma Capability SPOCs for BPO Standards, Mickey or Donald, if you have any questions. "

It was at this very point that the de-bullshitting translator machine broke. Steam spewed out of the vents and the air was filled with the acrid smell of burnt sem-conductor.

The problem that followed is that the email to the link went to the web page above which had more links to page with another fews links that opened a spreadsheet that had some MORE links on. Are you getting the idea yet??

I would hate to be the child of one of these people. Imagine their birthday present. They get given a little bag and inside the bag is note telling them to go the cupboard. They open the cupboard and they see a note on a drawer - so they open the drawer to find an envelope. They open the envelope to find a note that tells them to go to another cupboard. They get there and open it to find a sign telling them to open a door. Inside the door is a box, and in the box is a matchbox. Inside is a coin with another little note. The note says "ring this number". They go to a payphone and ring the number..."Your call is important to us, you are in a queue. The current waiting time is 364 days, 23 hrs. Press 1 to speak to your father, 2 to speak to your mother or 9 to hear the options again..."

Is it me?

Thurs - Fri, 10th Nov On a Mission

• Integrity
• Decency
• Commitment
• Professionalism

Those are the mission statements of a company that invited me to interview. The job itself sounded ideal and was local. The trouble was, the wanted to interview me 200 miles North in a place called Wetherby, Leeds, Yorkshire. I was not going to bother going until I read their mission statement and that they were on the Times 100 "Best Companies" list.

So, I decided to make the effort...

Wed, Nov 8th -

Milk

In follow up to yesterday's discovery of the catering milk, I did some forensic investigation into the substance formely known as "milk". It appears on the box to be "semi-skimmed milk with fat from non-milk sources". This is just surreal now, without even bothering to know what is in it. So what they are saying is, they take some full fat milk, get the fat out of it and then add fat back in as long as it does not come from cow's milk???

My forensics revealed it is a cocktail of: semi-skimmed milk, emulsifiers, fat, salts and carrot-based colouring. Oh and the nastiest fat you can ingest, transfat (aka homogenised), so that you can keep it for up to 14 months and not use it till an emergency.

Good to know eh...

TUPE, TUPE Tooooo

You will be pleased to know that my efforts to discover what my job is going to be next year and with whom, continues. Today I mailed the "exit manager" asking him where their newsletter that was due Oct 16th is. His reply was:

"Mike,

I have not received the latest Bulletin, X has written it and is awaiting Jane Doe and John Doe's approval prior to release. As always, I will forward to all staff based in Toxic Town once I have been given any information.

However, I don't believe this will effect you personally, as you are not ProjectX engaged. But I will continue the information flow as it comes to me.

Regards"

Which is ironic owing to the fact that he has chosen to stay mute when the "Bulletin" did not arrive on time, rather than tell everyone "it's late, sorry". I call that a communication failure.

What I find highly amusing though is the last sentence. Passed through the anti-bullshit translator it says: "you're not working on the project, sod off - I'll tell you when I know anything."

Sadly for him I am very much working on ProjectX and have been for 2.5 years. But then he is not to know that. He is only the bloke in charge of organising the handover of staff knowledge, contracts and materials related to ProjectX. I should correct before he makes a fool of himself....oh shit, too late...

Tues, Nov 7th - the plot thickens

Urgent, urgent

You know that urgent priority 1 piece of work that I got dragged into yesterday (where priority 1 means that the whole system is down and no-one can do any work whatsoever)?? Well, it's been going since June (or maybe even Jan). Oh, and the document that I updated which was in the "final" folder was an old version. It wasn't final. No, no. The correct version (1.1a) was elsewhere in another team's folder. I knew who had it because Toxic staff have a "3rd eye" fitted as part of initiation contract.

Is it me?



Privacy



Jargon

Okay, now you will already know and accept that IT takes the biscuit when it comes to jargon and acronyms. Well, Toxic takes things to a whole new low. Here's a little snippet for you:

"As an endeavour to quell the duplication of effort and raise awareness of re-useable works, both the Common Wheeled Barrow* (CWB) and the Potato Mashing Licker* (PML) for Thingyummy has been added to the Thingummy Support Site. [ed: note capitals]

Each month, both the CWB and PML registers will be updated to show what is available within the latest release. When a published module is updated, it will automatically be reassigned to the latest release.

In addition, a planning section has been added to the Module Release Register to allow users of the site to request new modules. This further enables the CWB Governance board (CGB) to assess what is required, when and who is available or working on a given module.

This new feature, re-enforces the essence of collaborative working."

Hard to read? About as meaningful as a bag of nails in a bakery? Yep, me too and I work here. Now, I don't care about what it means. I merely want to draw your attention to the supreme use of acronyms - the CGB. Can you spot their genius. Yes folks, they have made a new acronym from another one...unless it is a deliberate mistake? Is it CWBGB or CGB? You tell me, 'cos I've given up.


That's not milk!!!

I like tea. I like it so much I drink it every day about 4 or 5 times. At Toxic they provide coffee and tea making facilities. For tea you can either get it from the machine or make your own. Now as the former tastes like muddy rainwater, I prefer the manual method.

I have been bemused for some time at the tiny little pots of catering "milk" they provide. I have mused to myself that it is lactated from a farm of employees (male and female) and squirted into these little pots, rather akin to the ways ants milk aphids.

This morning, in a pique of curiousity I looked at the list of ingredients. I am not happy, not happy at all. The product, made by "Country Dale" is marked "use in place of milk" which says it all really. The ingredients are:

skimmed milk
water
hydrogenated oil
glucose syrup
caseinate
E471
E481
E435
E340
E331
E160a

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Mon, Nov 6th - We're still quality

Here's a little email that management sent to everyone about quality, with the bullshit translator switched to Max

Background

In Q2 2006 Toxic UK changed ISO 9001:2000 certification bodies to come in line with Engineering communities within Toxic. The new auditing company Toxic deals with is ABC. ABC have already conducted one audit on staff working on the X account. New Certificates are being put together over the next week or so and will be sent out once they have been received by the Management Team.
[someone finally realised that Toxic had a quality "standard" for every department. The previous auditor gave up, so there's a new one now]


Scope
All UK resources [that's people or staff to you readers out there], regardless of the capability they work for, will be classified as 'In Scope' of this audit round. The plan for this audit round is as follows:

bla de bla

A list of names has already been submitted to the auditor, however the auditor is able to change that list as he sees fit, although he will try to stick with the schedule as best he can. The auditor may also wish to speak to members of staff on other sites and decide to conduct a teleconference and net meeting / webby. All staff will be kept informed of the progress of the audit activities and if you require further information please contact your manager or the Quality Management Team using the group mailbox address below.
[Everyone is available so this auditor bloke is given a list of people to speak to, but he can chuck that away and pick anyone he likes really, so, err, we dunno why we bothered, but anyway if you have any questions ask us.]

Useful Links
bla de bla bla

All staff working on the above sites should keep a clean desk policy and remain professional throughout the day that the auditor is on site. Remember you are all ambassadors for Toxic. If the auditor asks you a question, all we ask is that you answer it truthfully. If you do not know the answer then point him to someone who can assist (e.g. Team leader).
[everyone should hide all their paperwork. Your are all ambassadors, bribe the auditor with Ferroro Roche - if you haven't got any, balance some small bits of cat poo on a paper cup-cake]

All staff members who have been identified for the audit will receive an additional email regarding times of the audits and extra assistance before the audit.
[anyone on our will be told what to say and trained so it looks like everyone knows what they are doing]

Mon, Nov 6th - Emergency

Monday morning I wake with a headache after a somewhat restless night. I decide to work from and get a piece of work out of the way, so I can relax. I start early with the obligatory cup of tea, and soon have 8 parallel copies updating the "server" (PC in the corner), whilst downloading a huge file from the internet. Since this laptop is under-specced, it is running at almost full capacity. I seem to have a knack of pushing machines to their limit.

I don't really want to disturb everything so am sat wondering what I can use the time for whilst it is busy (probably taking 2 hours), when my team pops up on MSN. I have a brief chat and then an email comes in. They want someone to pick up a bit of work to clarify some documentation. Sounds fine, so I casually ask how urgent is this, given my machine is tied up. The reply is:


I really need someone to look at this as soon as possible as X need the rework actioned before they can progress with their testing. Also the guys worked all weekend on this as there is a live issue with Antivirus v1.0 so they want us to get Antivirus v3.0 out urgently to address the live issue.

Currently this is our no 1 priority.

Okkkaaayyyy. So it's about 11am and you're coming to tell our team now that there's an issue and people have "worked all weekend on", and you didn't mention this last week or ask if the bloke who DID the work on this was free next week....

There is no-one else to look at it except me, so I have a look. Of course, I am coming at this green so have to dig around first to figure out the solution. I finally update the documentation and tell them I've done it. Then they tell me there's another document to update too. Arrggggg!!

I reply and kindly ask next time for a piece of work that ISN'T priority 1.

Oct 2nd, I'm taking the ITIL course here boss

A little tITIL-ation

Now many of you out there (ok, that's both of you) reading this may think I am being overly harsh. How do I know the ITIL course is pointless. ITIL is, after all, a significant and valued standard within business. (Please don't ask what the acronym means - I don't know). It really does help businesses get their act together and work more efficiently.

However, I know Toxic having worked there 9 years (yes, it's 5 years too long but that's another story altogether). They have mastered the skill of replacing "full" with "less" - useful becomes useless. It's time to SHOW you what I mean.

The email without the instructions on how to find or take the course had a clue. I went on the intranet and looked around the menu system for something that said training. I could not find it, so I resorted to the search feature. Well, that worked. I click on the link and go to something called "myworklifeToxic.com". On here is a summary of what courses you have enrolled in, and a catalogue of courses that you can look through and choose. Sounds good doesn't it. They even have a menu option for career analysis. This is what you get when you click on it:




coming soon to a job near you...







Booking the ITIL course

So, on to the ITIL thing. I look for the course title and I can't find it. I resort to searching for "ITIL" and get a page of results. OK. Just one problem now. The two numbers I need are 10001 and 10007 and the list shows 10002 to 10013 with 07 conscipuous by it's absence. Bloody typical.

I go back and then notice the results of the search has 5 pages to it. I click through and eventually find the two offending courses hiding like cowering lambs on the 3rd page. Great.

It has taken me about an hour of faffing about to find the 2 courses.

I register for them both and then click on "take course". This takes me to a new page with a list of courses I can launch. The ITIL courses are not there!!! I go back and repeat. Nothing. I click help and check that I am doing it right and I am.

Sooooo, I've found the courses, registered for them but now can't find any way to launch them. I go to lunch instead.

I'm in - the tITIL-ation continues

The logical choices don't work. This is getting beyond silly now. In desparation I email the woman who had emailed Toxic telling him his staff were not complying in taking this ITIL course. Unbelievable as it may seem, since she is asking people to take these course, she can't tell me and gives me the address of the training helpdesk webpage. I go there. It's got a phone number, great!! I dial and get a bad tone. I redial slower and careful this time. Same thing. It's a dead number. Double-bugger. I resort to logging a call to the helpdesk asking "where are 01 and 07". I get a mercifuly quick response (within 40 mins) with a link to the site where I can launch the damn courses. I get the OLD training website, that has the same catalogue and list of enrolled courses but it all works, unlike the fancy looking but flawed "myworklife" site. I finally launch the ITIL course, after a day of struggling.


I am presented with this as the first screen (the real company name replaced here) and it looks suitable corporate if slightly bemusing; why IS that man holding a duck?

I soon find out.....





Page 2 has a full 2 minute animation of more ducks dancing around the floor to form a conga, before twirling round some 3D glossy letters. Wow...I'm really learning the core of ITIL here. Unfortunately it's home time by now, so I resolve to continue at home.

Once at home, I continue clicking through the slides. I am really learning a lot here. I learn that you need lego bricks...and some ducks with hard-hats.

This is ground-breaking stuff. At this point you might be thinking "oooh, he's a harsh man that Dr". Well to test my knowledge of the subject the course finishes with a quiz. Are you ready?

Hmmm, now which one can it be? What IS an IT asset??

and then by further explanation we're told what is NOT an asset, complete with a picture for those who might not have seen a desk before.

This is the final slide which is a fill in the blanks question. Can you spot my deliberate mistakes??

Thurs, Nov 2nd - Reaction to my complaint

Flakey responds to my questions with 2 orders by email:

• "there's a machine running SQL that has a weak password - fix it - love the security audit man"
• "do this pointless ITIL course or else"

a brief enquiry reveals that a machine one of my staff is using (oooh I sound important now) is using SQL and it has no password set. So that's fixed in a trice.

The other task reveals rather a lot about my boss Flakey. He sends me a mail telling me and 2 others to do a certain ITIL course. The mail contains the course names and an attachment from from the person telling him to tell us that has the following:

employee name, userid, country, manager, email and region.

Yes, that's pretty much everything someone needs to steal 2500 people's identity - including the women if you can speak in a high-pitched voice like I can. Worse, given the Toxic forces people to use a maximum of 8 characters in their passwords, it's childs-play to crack their account. I do not condone such actions at all. I merely pointing out the possibility, given such a gift.

Thurs, Nov 2nd - And now for a work meeting....

Last week I had an invite to a meeting from Flakey using the web as a "meeting place". There was no agenda given and no subject other than "subproject update". In short I had no idea what on earth it was about. It was at 09:30 today.

I rushed in, got to my desk with but 2 minutes to spare and opened the web-page to join the meeting. It wanted a password. I checked the email. I re-checked the email. I read it through 3 times. There was no password mentioned. There was a phone number though. Right, I'll try that.

I dialled entered the meeting ID and got asked for a password....

I put the phone handseet down with a sharp crack. Bloody typical. I was about to give up and get a cup of tea instead when a new email pops up 6 minutes after the start. The password is "1234".

I go back to webpage expecting to see a remote slideshow or some new fan-dangled online thing. Here it is:

Yes folks, that's it. Absolutely nothing was there except the names and phone numbers (blacked out to protect identity) and nowt else.

So I rang the number again and put the password in and listen.

It is a meeting about work that everyone else is doing. The stuff I am working on is not on their list (as I later find it on another webpage). Unfortunately they only booked 30 mins and quickly run out of time and are about half-way through.
Flakey decides to call it a day and extend the meeting next time. Oh, and he mentions that he will have to learn how to work the meeting place too.

So there you have it. A typical toxic meeting. It's arranged, they forget to include the password, start late, run out of time and then admit they don't know how to use the meeting tool that they chose to use. Marvellous.

A new spat

It seems that Flakey is being a little awkward with me. Following several emails that he has left unanswered he finally replies to one that involves Toxic making money from my hours.

Note: bits in italics have been added to protect the identity and systems that Toxic uses.


me: "the time-keeping thingy" is refusing to accept absence codes for either sickness (0200) or medical appointments (0230). I was off, as I have already noted with you, on Thurs 19th and Fri 20th Oct.

I also had to attend a medical appointment yesterday at 3pm for 1 hour.

received the reply

Flakey: Thurs and Friday details were already logged in SAP. And I have entered your medical appointment for yesterday with ease.

Finding this both curt and sarcastic (implying I am either stupid or a liar), I sent this:


Part 1
I was expecting to see the codes 200 and 230 in the "silly codes" section hence my question, so I tried to enter them whilst trying to book the medical from yesterday. In each case "the time-keeping software" responded with "your manager needs to do this for you" - so I told you.

As for your second sentence, I don't expect to come to work and leave feeling abused and hurt by what I can only describe as sarcastic comments (with ease). You seem to be angry with me, but I have absolutely no idea why. I am not aware of doing anything wrong. I really would like to know what I have or haven't done that makes you behave in the way you are.


Part 2
With regards my recent email to staff, I was only taking personal initiative to gauge the feelings of the people I work with. It was certainly not meant as inflammatory or intended to cause offence. The first paragraph was simply meant to lighten the mood of a serious topic. If anyone did take offence, it suggests to me a certain feeling of guilt on their part. I feel that someone resorting to indirect anger by calling me 'shop-steward' through you is immature behaviour.

What I want is clear concise communication with regards to the future of the staff at "work's" employment on "lost projectx". I feel there has been a failure of communication and I am seeking to put it right, ensuring staff are as happy as they can be given the circumstances.

regards,

Me