Support asked for a list of log entries that indicates that the system unusable and require immediate action. So we provided them a list of fatal exceptions. The next question was stupefying: How many times should the exception occur before immediate action is taken? First, those are fatal exceptions. Fatal. Get it? The system is dead. How many time does it have die? Second, it’s immediate action. Immediate. Do it right away.
Early Bird
Today was the scheduled go live date of a project at work. Since it’s an onshore project, Nino and I were at our respective homes standing by to provide support. Nothing much happened until 1AM when the calls and the emails started coming in. There was a major issue and it didn’t look like phone support will do. So by 4AM, I took a quick shower and drove off the the office. By 5AM I was already at the office resolving the issue. Fortunately, it resolved pretty quick and the rest of the day was comparably less frantic and I was able to leave by 3PM. Whew!
Work-Life Balance
Some people would call it Life-Work Balance but does the order really matter? It’s a balance after all :P
There was a time when I spent a lot of time at work. Even overnights. And there was a time, when I expect people to spend a lot of time at work. Even overnights.
Not anymore. When Jeanne was born my perspective changed. These days my ideal day would be:
6 hours – sleep
1 hour – prepare for work
1 hour – go to work
9 hours – work + coffee breaks + lunch
1 hour – go home
6 hours – remainder
Work and work-related time is 60 hours per week. Which leaves, not counting sleep, 66 hours per week for yourself: sports/hobbies, spending time with family and friends, etc. That seems balanced enough. But really it’s still not.
Tech Support Blues
I got to my desk this morning finding out the laptop has suffered a black screen of death. I rebooted and had to enter my SafeBoot password. Unfortunately, I couldn’t seem to correctly remember what it was and after several tries I got locked out. No worries, I thought. I simply called Tech Support and after giving out the details of my situation, I was told my problem will be escalated to Tier 1. An hour later, I got a call from Tier 1. The only problem is that he turned out to be at a different location. He said he will forward me to Tier 1 at my location. And I waited again, followed up, and waited some more. Getting impatient, I followed up again. This time, I was told that they had emailed me to go bring the laptop to them! How the heck could I have read that email? Doink!
Why I Hate Windows No. 35707
My Windows password (on my work laptop, I no longer have a personal Windows computer) expired and I had to change my password otherwise I wouldn’t be able to login or even send out my daily status reports. Unfortunately, it turns out that the task is more difficult than I imagined. Every time I try to change my password, I get the message: Your password must be at least 8 characters, cannot repeat any of your previous 13 passwords and must be at least 7 days old. My new password satisfied the first two requirements but I couldn’t figure out how a new password must be at least 7 days old. And my old password is definitely more than 7 days old. A frustrated call the the help desk didn’t answer the puzzle. Instead they just gave me a pattern for the password: 8 characters and a numeric character must be in the middle. Totally unrelated to the error message.