Training in 2007

As Vista is brand new out (for a whole 28 days) I thought I would ask the person "hierarchically above me" about getting some training. I got directed to the intranet for details of this year's training plans. More on that story later...

What I did find, after looking at every single folder, was this:

"This dedicated online bookshop will enable you to purchase books at a reduced rate, even compared to others such as Amazon. Books can be purchased using either your own credit card or the Toxic company P'card. Additional discounts will be available for bulk purchases and negotiated based on volumes and books required.
There is no set limit, so you can buy as many books as you wish.

The bookshop covers a whole raft of titles, technical and non technical, and includes books to support the new reskilling programme, Reskilling courses, e.g. Microsoft, Cisco, Sun, VM Ware...
On the 3rd July 2006 the doors of the Toxic Bookshop will be open and the first 50 customers will receive a complementary book with their first purchase. So take a moment to browse this new facility and we look forward to welcoming you.

The Book Shop can be found at http://www.toxic-bookshop.com/ "

Sounds impressive eh!!!

Here's the site:

I won't mention the analogy of asking surgeons who want training being told to go the an NHS bookshop...

Midge

I thought Midge was OK. I have had to start working with now and I will let you judge:

Friday - I was given a piece of work that I knew was hideously over-complicated and badly written. It was mega-urgent as I had to somehow understand, fix and deliver my bit in 2 days so the rest of the team could do their bit in 3 and deliver by Friday.

Monday came and I arrived early. The work had not arrived so I waited and waited. I went to lunch. Ate lunch. Waited some more.
14:27 I got an email with the work. Except it was the wrong thing. I replied and waited.
14:28 I got an email from Midge saying "you can start now"
About 3pm "V" arrived and told me he was extracting the files I needed to start from the bit that was sent.
so I went for a cuppa tea and waited
16:00 Midge pops by to ask if I have started. Here's the conversation

me: before I answer, why did you feel it necessary to tell me when I could start work?
M: no I didn't
me: yes you did
M: well, that's what I always do when assigning work
me: Midge, I'm 38 years old. I don't need you to tell me when and when not to do my job
M: Well no-one else has a problem with the way I assign work except you
me: well you will have to make an exception for me then
M: OK, well that's fine but I was just telling you to start.
me: Well I found it to be micromanaging.
M: No it wasn't. I don't do that. So as you ARE a 38-year old I will expect you to do the work and give me an update tomorrow.
me: yes, I will
M: I will trust you to get on with things then
me: exactly


Tues - I finally started to get under the hood and figure out how it worked and what I needed to do, but the more I look the more I got confused (and my mind was still distracted but the sarcasm).
11:30 "V" came by and helped bring me into focus
13:30 I had not got much further and V returned but started to take over (at which point the confusion turned to chaos)
16:30 we had a meeting with Midge to update progress. He has another little "dig" when he asks
"Mike, can you give X an update on what it was you told me you need an update on"
exasperated at the stupidity of the question I pause and he asks V to answer instead.
18:00 we are no further on and go home

Now it's my turn for some work

Last Friday another 4 people left Toxic. This is a continuation of a stream of people leaving because Toxic lost the last project and the customer is in shut-down mode. Most people voted with their feet as they didn't want to hang around waiting for Toxic to decide where to employ them. Even many of the contractors left early because Toxic is, well toxic.

So that has left me with a team of 0 people and all their work. Ironically the last of my team to leave used to grab all the work for himself and kept himself busy. Unfortunately that gave the project managers the impression that he knew everything to the exclusion of me. Which is why they chose him to stay until the contract is handed over. Pity for them he had other ideas because various things had pissed him off over time. Like their incompetence for example.

Anyway, I am left holding several babies. I was given the first one to work on this week but it is so badly put together it makes my head hurt. It was "cobbled together" by some fool of a contractor who could not code a video never mind a script. His solution goes like this:

start autlogon as admin
calls script2
script2 calls script3
script3 calls a .BAT file
.BAT calls script4
script4 does some magic hardware detection and the gobbles 3 registry files, but, hold on, if it's a certain model it creates a new registry file from the other one it had
.BAT continues....
....and calls some Black Magic that does things without touching the mouse
and deletes the files
and then reboots

Very elegant.

Now for the cherry on top. No-one thought to document the actual design. And the fool who put that ill-fitting jigsaw solution together has been replaced by a lovely chap. The trouble is he has an almost patholigical habit of giving people the wrong files. Bearing in mind there are 5 models of machine, each needing 3 files, and about half a dozen other files, each a possible different version and you begin to want to weep.

So it came to pass that today after finally getting the source files from the customer (as that way I know they are the real ones) I start putting the jigsaw together ready to bolt on this extra bit.
The guy, who I will call V (for version) came by and helped me a bit and then tried to take over. That's when it all went wrong because he brought HIS USB stick with him with HIS copies of the files, that were just a little different.

We tried working together and he kept wanting to run the whole solution only to see it fail as there were files all over the place and references with wrong names etc.

We finally were almost there apart from the mysterious habit of the scripts keep installing the wrong drivers. I narrowed it down to the Black Magic program. Unfortunately it was sealed in an EXE, but undeterred V was adamant that he could edit it. He tried. He failed.

At that point it was too late in the day (about 4:30 and we had to report to Midge (project mangler no 3)).

Midge asked what the score was and I was too exasperated to explain, but mis-reading this as ignorance he appeared to assume I was too stupid to understand his question and hence answer and asked V instead. V duly explained and repeated himself about 6 or 7 times. Maybe 8 because I lost count.

It was decided we go home and come in tomorrow fresh.

I came home, watched Life on Mars and found the problem about near the end, so it took maybe 30 mins. V had somehow got a version of the Black Magic I had never seen before. Even the icon was wrong....

I go to work tomorrow with a large Samurai sword.

An update

Well, it has been a short while but I had some holiday to take. Bizarrely, in a twist of fate I can't take any more from now until April. It's a brand new year but I only had 5 days for Jan to April because, in their infinite wisdom Toxic have introduced Flexible Benefits.

This means they bend staff over a barrel, empty our pockets of more salary because you now pay for any benefits (!) and you walk away thankful for it.

The heady benefits are in 3 groups financial, health and "lifestyle"

Unfortunately the financial benefits are:

Critical illness insurance = money if too ill to work
Income protection = money if, errr, too ill to work
life assurance = money if you die and are too dead to work
accident insurance = money if you are too disabled to work
accident insurance for kids

oh and a Pension.

The health bit is normal and strangely more than some other medical insurance schemes.

The "lifestyle" choices are the best:

You can buy more holiday days(!!!)
Get travel insurance (woooooooo)
A mobile phone (double-woooo)
Vouchers
or wine by the case

I think you can guess that none of these are cheap but that's another story for another time perhaps.