The One With The Workplace

Got bored at work, since everyone was already on a holiday mood and left me alone in the office, so I took some test pictures with the new camera. Nothing artistic or anything … just shots of the empty office of where I work. Referred to around these parts as “The Dungeon”, my seat in the office faces the big glass windows that gives me a clear an unlimited view of the … WALL!

Due to the nature of our work, we only get to see the sun when we come and go from the office. Other times we are not aware of what’s happening beyond our office. Being outsourced staff contracted to be on-site support, we are normally left alone to our devices until the clients needs us. Sometimes we can forgiven if we wondered if anyone above us actually knew we existed since we never see anyone except for the group in and around the area. But then again in our line, no news means good news and silence means tacit agreement.

If You Can't Have The Job You Love ...

I’m practically vibrating trying to reign in my frustrations with some of my co-workers this morning. Not only do I need to deal with people who believes that their purpose in life is work avoidance but I have people 2 levels above me wanting to micro-manage my day today as if they don’t already have better things to do with their time. I feel like I’m being spit-roasted but not in a good way!

It’s just going to be one of those days. Days when I have to tell myself that if I can’t have the job that I love then I need to be creative enough to love the job I have. Wished that I could snuggle under the covers and sleep in when it rained this morning. Instead I will have to make do with songs like Carrie Underwood’s “Crazy Dreams” to help me put things in perspective.

Thank God for country music :p

"Crazy Dreams" – Carrie Underwood

Hello you long shots
You dark horse runners
Hairbrush singers, dashboard drummers
Hello you wild magnolias
Just waiting to bloom

There's a little bit of all that inside of me and you
Thank God even crazy dreams come true

I stood at the bottom of some walls I thought I couldn't climb
I felt like Cinderella at the ball just running out of time
So I know how it feels to be afraid
Think that it's all gonna slip away
Hold on, hold on

Here's to you free souls, you firefly chasers
Tree climbers, porch swingers, air guitar players
Here's to you fearless dancers, shaking walls in your bedrooms

There's a lot of wonder left inside of me and you
Thank God even crazy dreams come true

Never let a bad day be enough
To go and talk you in to giving up
Sometimes everybody feels like you
Oh, feels like you, just like you
Yeah

I've met some go-getters
Some difference makers
Small town heroes, and big chance takers
I've met some young hearts with something to prove
Oh, yeah

Here's to you long shots
You dark horse runners
Hairbrush singers, and dashboard drummers
Here's to you wild magnolias
Just waiting to bloom

There's a little bit of all that inside of me and you
Thank God even crazy dreams come true
Thank God even crazy dreams come true
Yeah

Spinning Around

One of the perks of my current employment situation is that my office is located at the client’s premises which incidentally is the same office that I have been working at the past 12 years. As such, I am still very much in contact with the friends that I have known from the first day I stated working in the office. We are a varied bunch and would usually meet up for morning break to catch up with each other’s news without fail for the past 12 years. It’s frightening to think now of how long we have had that ritual going on and the realization that it was not going to be so forever.

That realization came to me when I realized that one my “breakfast club” members was retiring at the end of the week after working for 35 years with the company. She was here when the company first started operations and had gone through all the company’s ups and down periods. It was mind boggling for me not only because she has been working at the same place for as long as I have been alive but that the company was not even doing anything to mark the retirement of one of her pioneer employees in Malaysia. I did ask her if she felt that she deserved better given the years of service that she provided to the company but at this point she was already looking forward to her retirement to care much about it.

Looking back, I do feel a little sad seeing how far things have fallen for my former company. In the past, they really appreciated their staff and knew how to keep them happy to ensure a productive work force. While it was no longer the company that I work with, I can’t help but to feel some allegiance to them given that they were the one who gave me my first permanent job. To see the changes though the years up close was definitely disconcerting but in a way those changes were also happening in other MNC companies globally. Gone were the days that employees were rewarded for the years of service that they provide to the company. More and more, those who have been with the company for longer than 5 years were seen as part of an increasing resource overhead. Even when they are clearly contributing, these employees were seen as those who were stuck in a rut and were not dynamic enough to move forward. Considering to move forward meant replacing an even more deeply entrenched upper management, it quickly became a no win situation for the employee.

These recent events made me think of my own employment history which while technically I have been with 3 different companies since I first started working in 1996, I am still working for the same group of people. There are days that I can’t help but feel that they have taken my loyalty to my employee for granted with me always being the “go to guy” on site when something needs to be done. While I’m sure that the fact that they know that they could depend on me spoke volumes of how they perceived me in the organization but I could not help but wonder if it might limit me as to how far I would be able to progress up the organization chart. As it is now, my benefits package is no longer competitive to get another job with my current level of expertise and I don’t have the necessary skill sets to be in the level that commensurate with my current salary range.

Still .. things could have been worse. I could be out of a job and have other things to worry about other than feeling being stuck in a rut job-wise.

They Know Me Well

Had to do a personality/behavioral survey today in preparation for my Management Mentorship meeting tomorrow. The results of the behavioral study was eerily accurate! I’m posting it here so I have a record of it to refer in the future. Of course I had to change my real name in the report with my blog name and it was written as such to be read by another person. I’m not crazy enough to refer myself in the third person … yet.

"Nickxandar tends to be incisive and analytical. He is usually steady, easygoing and relaxed. He may have difficulty sharing his feelings if it may disturb the relationship.

When the time is right, Nickxandar can stand up aggressively for what he believes. Nickxandar can be discreet and sociable as called for by the situation.

Loyalty and being a team player are usually his goals. He is a good, steady, dependable team member.

He needs time for some study and analysis, particularly when doing new or challenging assignments. This allows him to adjust to the changing environment.

He can be open, patient and tolerant of differences. His natural quality of being nonjudgmental is a great strength. Because he is receptive and listens well, he excels in gathering information. Patience, control and deliberateness characterize his usual behavior. At times, Nickxandar would like to slow the world down and cut out some of the activities people want him involved in.

Nickxandar needs to gather data and facts in a logical fashion. Logic is important when trying to influence him. He pays more attention to logic than emotional "hype." Making plans and following those plans is important to him. When challenged he can become objective, searching hard for facts and figures. This may be his way of defending his decisions.

Nickxandar can be sensitive to the feelings of others and is able to display real empathy for those who are experiencing difficulties. He prefers to plan his work and work his plan. Others may find it refreshing to have him on their team. When faced with a tough decision, he will seek information and analyze it thoroughly.

Nickxandar tends to be possessive of information; that is, he doesn't voluntarily share information with others outside of his team. This may be a blessing, or a curse, to his superiors. He likes having others initiate the conversation. He can then assess the situation and respond accordingly.

He can be outgoing at times. Basically introverted, he will "engage" in social conversation when the occasion warrants. Rarely does he display his emotions; that is, he projects a good poker face. Others may get the feeling that he is unfriendly, when in reality he is not.

Nickxandar may guard some information unless he is asked specific questions. He will not willingly share unless he is comfortable with the knowledge he possesses about the topic. He is not easily triggered or explosive, but he may conceal some grievances because he doesn't always state his feelings. Most people see him as being a considerate and modest person. He probably won't try to steal the spotlight from others."

I couldn't have described my work behavior better than this report.

Is The Grass Truly Greener Out There?

Received a call out of the blue from a job recruitment agency consultant today. Normally I would politely say that I was not really interested and ended the call as quickly as I can mainly because I am not a big fan of unsolicited calls on my mobile. This time, however, I was a bit bored (keboringan tahap cipan as a friend might put it) being the only one left at the office and I was curious where this caller got my contact number as I do not remember giving it out to any job recruitment agencies. It turned out that she had a copy of my CV from about 10 years ago and was cold calling people on her list to see if they might be interested in the position that she had to fill.

10 years ago !!! I vaguely remembered getting a call from this particular recruitment agency offering me a position either to work for a company in the Middle East on contract or a permanent position at an overseas petroleum-based company in then the newly opened Cyberjaya. At the time, I was just starting at my current company so the offers were both very enticing but in the end I decided to decline both in favor of staying on to build my legacy in the company that already recruited me while I was in the States. In hindsight, things might have turned very differently had I taken either offer that I had back then.

The reason that the consultant called me now is to see if I would be interested to explore opportunities in the position that she had on hand. Since she was working from a CV that is already 10 years old, the positions that she asked me to consider were not exactly relevant to my working experience now. We then got to talking about my current job responsibilities and the skill sets that I have acquired since the last time I updated my CV. From her, I found out that my current pay is above average for a technical person of my job scope but was below average for the management tasks that I also perform for the company.

After working for close to 11 years with the same company, I have to admit that it is hard for me to think about leaving it for another job. For one, I have a 2 month notice period that I have to give my boss should I decide to leave since my position in the organization is categorized as critical and need to go through a through handover process before they would let me go. The other being my current pay and benefits package is a bit on the high side comparative to someone in the same technical level as me in the outside job market. I guess that I could jump into the management track but I would miss being in a tech role with all the familiarity I have associated with it.

One thing that has happened to me after being in the same company all these years is that I have been exposed to all facets of the IT infrastructure support field. I have had my finger in so many different pies in the past that I have accumulated enough exposure and experience to be somewhat of a jack of all trades in my organization. Try as I might to deny it, I have become the go to guy when my boss needs an overview of a problem and how the components of our organization might be mustered to resolve it. I like to think that I am more of a troubleshooter, the guy quietly surveying all to look for patterns that might point to a required solution but would not necessarily be the one designing or implementing the solution.

Currently I am in a regional role that support users in Asia Pacific which gives me international exposure as well as recognition from the people in our HQ in US. My work day starts when the people in Australia start work up until the last person in our supported office in India leaves. It’s challenging work and at times feels overwhelming but at the same time quite exciting for me. It would be hard for me to leave that behind. I also know that I am being groomed to take over from my boss when he retires in a few years time. I still have a ways to go to be ready for it but it is a tangible goal that I could comfortably reach in the foreseeable future. Hopefully that would bring with it a better compensation package that what I am getting now.

Leaving my current company for a new one would not be something that I can take lightly. A better compensation and benefits package would not be the only things that I would need to take into consideration. As I grow older, I need to look at how the new job would give me the financial and personal stability that I am already accustomed to. I used to think that I stayed in my current company out of a warped sense of loyalty to them but after the experience of being outsourced, I realize that was no longer the reason. I stayed with them because I get want I want from them. The minute that they no longer serve my wants and needs then there would not be any reason for me to stay. In the same vein, a new job need to fulfill the same wants and needs or else it would not make sense to change jobs just for the sake of changing.

I would be lying if I said that I don’t envy those who would change jobs for higher paying jobs each time or those who get contract jobs that pay a 5 digit salary every month. Having more money in my bank account would always be welcomed but I don’t think that I would be able to cope with the uncertainties of having something so unsecured (at least in my view). I crave, no, demand stability in life and not being able to rely on job stability would seriously cause major inconvenience. I would be lost and afraid that I may not recover fast enough to be a productive component of the organization. In short, I just a big wuss when it comes to the thought of changing jobs.

Regardless, that fact should not deter me from updating my CV with all the job accomplishments that I have gone through in the past 10 years. It would be nice to have a record of it and if it opened new avenues that I would feel more comfortable to explore then I would consider it as a bonus. After more than 10 years since I last wrote a CV, I need to now go and check out if the old ways of writing CVs that I learnt before still applies now.

Worse than having an outdated CV is having a badly written one !

WooHoo! Moment

No … this won’t be an entry about “The Simpsons” movie that I have not had a chance to see yet. I had planned to watch it last weekend when I went back to my parent’s place but everyone else their plans for the weekend. So instead of watching the movie as I originally planned, we (my mum and sis) spent quality time on retail therapy where they finally convinced me to update my business shirts wardrobe. I am now the proud owner of shirts with stripes to wear to work! I guess I will get used to wearing non solid color shirts to work … eventually.

Today’s entry is about my own woohoo moment this morning at work.

My line of work mostly deal with me troubleshooting a problem that come up in our daily operations of supporting our client’s computers. Every once in a while, I get a problem escalated to me where no one in my team has seen before. When I asked around in my regional team, everyone has seen it bit no one knew how to solve it. Not being one to just ignore the problem, I decided to take on the problem and see if I can figure it out.

That was 3 days ago!

I have this tendency to latch on to a problem like a rabid dog and obsess over it until I can find a solution for it. It is the same whether it’s a problem at work or something from my personal life. I keep thinking about the problem and try to look at it from every angle to see if the solution was something that I have seen before. I tend to try to break the problem into it’s component parts and see if any components are the root cause of the main problem. Suffice to say that I can sometime be overly methodological when it comes to troubleshooting problems.

It was after mulling it over the weekend that I came to the conclusion that it might not be something that I can resolve. When I came back to work today, I was ready to escalate the problem up a level above me to see if they can make sense of it. Fortunately for me, I decided to give it one last try which was when all the pieces fitted together and I saw something that I had missed in my previous deconstruction of the problem. Once I found the key to the problem, the solution fell in place as soon as I thought of it. What was even better was that I was able to replicate the same solution across the board in Asia and will be sending it off to US and Europe if any of my counterparts there run into the same problem.

It was at that point of realization that I let out a spontaneous “WooHoo!”. I didn’t think it at the time but it was loud enough for my staff to look at me strangely. An outburst like that was not something common from me and most have not seen me before it that state. I guess the first thing that they must have thought is that I was overcame by a Homer Simpson moment but I couldn’t tell as they avoided my gaze when I turned to look at them. Slightly embarrassed as I was, it felt good to let the frustrations out even if it is in a form of a “WooHoo!”.

At least my staff now know that their boss is still human and wacky at times.

On Leaving Legacies

Work this week was a little bit crappy at times. It’s not that I don’t love the challenge of my job but somedays it just feels like I want to run head first into a wall out of frustration at things I wish I had better control over. What’s worst is the feeling that I’m stretching myself too thinly to try to juggle all my responsibilities and deliver on my commitments to them.

One of the thing that I hate most in my job is when one of my subordinates come up to me to tender his or her resignation notice. By virtue of the job and client expectations, I run a close-knit group whose members are personally handpicked by me. Every member of my team was selected by how they could gel with existing team members and how their contributions would enhance the group as a whole. My "thing" when it comes to recruiting staff for my team is not just limited to their technical know how but also how their personalities would complement the rest of the team. Needless to say that when I lose a staff from my team, the team balance and dynamics goes out of whack.

To be truthful, I had a feeling that this particular staff will not stay long once he has gotten what he needed i.e. the experience from us. That’s part of the risk of taking in fresh graduates and giving them on the job training that other companies would not even bother to give. I’ve seen some staff from my team staying on just long enough to make themselves marketable from their experience with my team and then go off to greener pastures in some other company. It’s strange to see that since I firmly believe in loyalty to the company that you work with and standing by them through thick or thin.

I guess that ideal of employee loyalty is an outdated one in today’s job market. My first ever job right after secondary school was with a Japanese supermarket chain which I guess was where I picked up that particular work ethics from. I firmly believe in leaving behind legacies and you can’t do that if you don’t stay with one employer long enough for them to recognize your contributions. I try to impart some of that to my team and while some take it to heart, there is not enough of them to really make a difference in how often I have to recruit new people into my team.

At times I feel as the team that I have built up seems to be a training ground of a revolving cast of fresh graduates. It got really bad a few years back when I realized that another department manager took notice of the way I trained my team and started to lure them away with other offers to join their team behind my back. I eventually confronted the manager during one of our operational meetings and gave him a piece of my mind which thankfully put a stop to his shenanigans but it left me quite bitter for a while. It was bad enough that I worked so hard to get these people in and personally made sure that they were trained up to the level of my expectations of my team only to lose them, it was doubly worse other departments see me as their personal training officer and pinch my staff as soon as they get prospectively bright enough to get them noticed.

I do get a sense of pride seeing my old staff moving up the ladder after they left my team. I’ve met a few of them during external seminars and trainings through the years and see them heading their own teams. Some even still send me the occasional email to update me as to how they are doing now. I guess that I can say that these people will be the legacies that I leave behind as proof of the work I’ve done.

Now I have to go and find a new replacement to fill up the opening in my team. Don’t even get me started on the quality of people coming in applying for an IT field job nowadays … that would take a whole other ranting entry to spiel about.

Performance review, income tax and a worth-while venture

Kind of a hectic week this week.

I had to make sure that I complete the yearly performance review for my staff so that they would get considered for a pay increment this year. It is usually around this time I find myself thinking if I am actually doing good work being their boss. I like to think that I have an open door and hands off policy when it comes to my subordinate but some times I wonder if there is something that I could have done better to improve. In my performance appraisal sessions, my boss always suggested that I be more involved with what my staff were doing. “Be more involve” is his code word for micro-managing the daily lives of your staff which I could never agree to. As long as my staff completes the task/project given and keeps me appraised of any issues that comes up then I am happy with them.

I’ve submitted their performance review forms to the next level. Hopefully they would be agree with it and not ask me to go through any additional paperwork on it till the next review cycle.

I’ve also submitted my 2006 income tax form by using their online E-Hasil submission for the first time. I have to say that I found the whole process from start to finish to be fairly painless compared to the old method of filling up the manual form. It used to be that I would have to wait to get my income tax forms in the mail (which always came very late), fill the form up and send it in by hand to the Inland Revenue Board (because my frelling income tax form would always arrive in my mailbox 2 days before the submission deadline). Fed up with the last minute rush crowd at the IRB office year after year, I decided to make use of their online submission process that they started this year.

To submit the income tax form online, I had to first get a digital signature registration slip from the IRB office and download the digital signature certificate to my machine. Once I have that then I had to download a PDF version of the BE income tax form and fill up the information they required. One good thing about this online form is that I just need to plug in the numbers from my EA form as well as from my deductible receipts and the form will calculate how much I still owe the government in taxes. The form also considerately grayed out all the spouse info, child-care deductions and joint declaration section once I selected the appropriate marital status option. Once completed, I only had to click on the submit button in the document to digitally sign the completed form and submit it to their servers. They also provided a nice acknowledgement of submission acceptance screen for me to print out and keep as proof that I’ve submitted my income tax returns for 2006.

It was that easy. If only it was as easy to get more tax deductible entries to add to my annual income tax returns.


Speaking of tax deductible ventures, I like to take this opportunity to promote an online charity event organized by a few local bloggers that was highlighted in the latest entry at SultanMuzzaffar’s blog. The “Pledge Your Donation” event is coordinated by Badrul Hashim who writes the BadrulAfterSix blog and would like to collect pledges from the online community for support of the Baitul Fitrah Charity Home in Rawang. The Baitul Fitrah Home helps out young orphans and single parents in nearby areas but is currently finding it difficult to do so with their current resource limitation. They would warmly welcome any help that we could offer both in terms of financial pledges or items that they sorely need for their daily operations.

Drop the organizers a line at Badrul_hashim@astro.com.my if you think that you would like to chip in and help them out.

Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

Part of the nature of my job is that I get some days that I have absolutely noting to do and I just sit there twirling my thumb in the office. Other days I would be up to my neck in things that need to be completed basically the day before even thought it was just sent down to my desk 5 minutes prior. Someday the systems that I watch over just purrs contentedly like a sleeping cat but then things could suddenly change and I find myself harassed trying to figure out what when wrong.

The latter was what happened today at the office. A few of the machines that I looked after suddenly refuse to cooperate by not going into a reboot cycle every other 5 minutes. By the time I traced the problem to a malfunctioning redundant CPU/motherboard cooling fan unit, half of the hard disks on the unit just died on power up. It didn’t help that the machine was an old piece of crap and that they decided to forego continuing the recently expired maintenance agreement in order to save cost against my fairly reasonable objections. When the machine decided to spontaneously destruct on them, they all just had to accept a big “I TOLD YOU SO” from me before I started to run through the checklist of things that might have gone wrong.

Sometimes they don’t understand that when you work long enough around the same computers you tend to learn their unique quirks. They always looked at me strangely when I describe the way the computers sounds, how the chassis vibrates and how the CPU smells. Work around them long enough you learn to pickup the differences in those sensory cues when something is wrong. Most of the time, after 10 years around the same pieces of equipment, they have yet to disappointed me.

Obviously with all that was happening today, I didn’t make it to the after office hour outing. The rest of the team carried on with the original plans after kindly enough making sure that I’ve got everything I needed to get the job done.

I could always catch that movie this weekend.

Afterhours

It seems that to some people that I work with at the office felt that we don’t know each other well enough so they have organized a after-work outing for everyone in the office tomorrow. The plan is that we will leave the office as soon as possible after work to go for an early dinner and then to the movies for a show. I actually can’t recall the last time I went to see a movie in the middle of the week so this should be an enjoyable change for one. I also totally forgotten that they still offer half-priced tickets for selected movies every Wednesday at TGV.

I’m not really that big on socializing with my officemates after work as we don’t really move in the same circles outside of the office. If it were some other activity planned instead, I might probably took a rain check but since it’s going to a movie in a cinema just across the street from where I lived, then I guess I could spare the time. Other than putting some hours in the Xenosaga II game that I’m currently engrossed in, I don’t really have anything else planned on Wednesday nights.

We’re going to see the new Ewan McGregor movie “The Island”. I guess I can whip up a movie review sometime later this week if I don’t decide to recap the Malaysian Idol special show this Thursday. We’ll see how it goes.

A Glimpse Into a Workday

Kinda of a slow day today at work. Been working hard to prepare the team for an upcoming Sorbane-Oxley audit at the end of the month. One advantage of working for a multinational company is that you get the chance to be audited for one hundred and one different things every other day.

I’m being sarcastic if it doesn’t seem apparent above.

Anyhow ... it is true that one advantage of working at a multinational company is that you get exposed more to the processes that are not necessarily applied in a local company at this time. This year is the second year I have to prepare the team for a SOX audit. In a way it is easier this year as I know what exactly they will be looking at and I have a clearer picture of the current level of preparedness in my organization. There are still things that I’m still not 100% satisfied but we still have 2 weeks get ready.

At least I have one more detail to pad my resume with.

Have you hugged your IT support person today?

I have been working hard for the past 2 days to contain the recent outbreak of the new MyDoom worm virus at my customer’s office. We were lucky this time since the first outbreak of the virus happened during US work hours which meant that my US counterparts had to deal with it first. Of course that didn’t stop them from calling me at 3 in the morning to inform me of the virus threat and to put me on standby should they need to get something done for Asia. Anyway... by the time I got into the office, the worst has passed for us as our anti-virus vendor had already provided us with the latest definition file that would fix this virus. The only thing that I had to do by then was to make sure that my automated virus definition update process was running and that all the computers at my customer’s site got the updated file. We still have blocks up on our email servers to scan all incoming and outgoing email attachments which does slow down our email distribution system a bit but it is well worth it considering we are consider liable if our systems start distributing viruses.

MyDoom worm doesn’t seem to cause much damage to the machine it infects per se but it does use the resources of the machine to launch a denial of service attack to several website this coming February month. While the user can still potentially use the computer, these zombified machines may run slower than normal as it continues to bombard the intended target when the viral payload is triggered. Our team here is working hard to put controls in place that will block the package, if there are any left in our network, from going out and jamming the intended target. We have the means to do this but I doubt that every one would be able to do the same especially those home users.

This latest virus and most of its ilk could have been easily avoided if people simply exercise a measure of common sense when operating their computer and/or email account. I think that we have seen so many similar attacks reported in the media that almost every one who owns a computer should know by now to be wary of unsolicited attachment files coming from unsubstantiated email addresses. I could rant on and on (I already did this in a previous entry) about opening unverified attachments but I guess that it all boils down to the individual. As long as they see the computer just as a black box and have no basic or the even the desire to learn about the basics of how their computer works, they would never be able to learn this lesson until they themselves get hit by a virus and have to lose their data.

Of course by then, it would be too late and more often than not they come crying to IT support people like us to pull a miracle and salvage their years of work. Sometimes, if they are lucky and we like them enough, this can be done. Of course if they come to us all hysterical and blaming us for everything short of the end of the world because they made the stupid mistake of opening something that they should have not opened in the beginning, we might not be as friendly or helpful. It pays to be kind to your suffering IT guy. Most of us are power hungry geeks who would never pass up the opportunity to act out our fantasy of becoming the all mighty Wizard of Oz. You may be a director in some company to others but to us you are only another insignificant blip on our network.

Maybe this is just me enjoying my little ego trip a little too much today?

My Own Damned Fault

I am officially bummed out tonight.

I was supposed to write an automated script that would have pushed the latest security patch released by Microsoft to all computers that I took care of yesterday. I should have known better than to start something so late in the afternoon when I could hardly stay awake much less think straight. I should also know better than put something in production mode before thoroughly testing it but as I said my priorities yesterday was totally screwed up. As a result of my negligence, I came to work today amidst a scene of total chaos. It seems that the automated script I wrote did not send out the security patches that I had planned but instead disabled the login user IDs to almost 1000 computers at my customer’s office. I had to spend the whole day today fixing the problem as well as taking a lot of heat from my inconvenienced customers. My boss didn’t say a word to me the whole day about it but I can clearly see that he was disappointed with me about the whole thing.

I take a lot of pride in my work. I have been patiently building this reputation of being the dependable and go to guy in the office in hopes of getting noticed by the big wigs at our head office who might offer me a promotion out of there. Now I feel that this mistake will cost me major brownie points in terms of that promotion. I feel that the hard work that I’ve been putting in is slipping through my fingers. This was a mistake that should not have happened and one that I could have easily caught before it caused this much damage if only I were paying more attention to what I was doing. Having to explain myself and calm down furious customers on the phone for the whole day today didn’t really help me feel better about myself. In my line of work, people tend to think that you are part of the furniture and generally ignore you like you were invisible if everything was running smoothly. The moment that something breaks down, everyone suddenly knows your name and phone number to call demanding that you fix the problem immediately.

I realize that there is no use to cry over split milk. Good thing that I quit drinking or else this would be a perfect occasion for me to curl up with a bottle of Stoli and medicate myself into a stupor like I used to do in college. Instead, what I should do now is learn from this mistake and take steps to ensure that something like this never happens again. This means that I should follow the procedures that I was supposed to follow and not take shortcuts just because I happened to be the one who actually wrote the procedures for my team. I should also find a way to be more alert after lunch instead of nodding off at my desk every time it hits 3pm. I might also want to think about cutting down on my web browsing at work. All that slash fiction involving Dawson’s Creek characters, while can really be an *enjoyable* way to spend afternoons at the office, doesn’t really help me concentrate on my work.

It actually feels good that I am able to put this down in writing and file it away as a lesson learned. Now I can move forward and enjoy the remainder of the evening. The only regret I have left tonight is subjecting the people who come to my blog site with the details of my pathetic existence.

Now, that sounds depressing.

Buck up little camper!

I better sign off before I start arguing with myself again.

Mind Your Viruses

As part of my job description, I am responsible for maintaining a secure computing environment for my customer. While it does give me the perk of being able to browse the Net at any time I like, it also falls on my shoulders to be aware of any potential security threats to the computers under my care. These threats, most of the time, involves computer virus infection and on some rare occasions an intrusion attack to the internal networks. It is part of this job description that I came to know of the recent Blaster worm attacks that are ravaging the computers in the US yesterday. This particular computer worm, while not very destructive in nature, managed to cause substantial chaos to computers connected to the web which had the vulnerability it was designed to exploit. It was a good thing that when the vulnerability was first announced a few months ago, I quickly initiated a patch schedule for all computers under my care or else I would be faced with all the problems my counterparts in the US are facing.

Computer viruses have been around as long as computers became popular with home users. I still remember the old DOS viruses like Michelangelo that used to prey on unsuspecting boot sectors of old. Back then, computer viruses most probably would have be transmitted from using an infected diskette or from installing some file someone downloaded from a computer bulletin board. These types of viruses are almost extinct today due to the decline of diskette usage popularity and boot sector security features of today’s operating systems. In their place, new classes of computer virus that use social engineering methods to propagate across the multitude of computers on the web have begun to emerge. These new breeds of computer viruses are much more challenging to fight as they use human frailties to ensure their continued survival and success.

One thing to know about the computer viruses today is that it is totally harmless on its own. Much like their biological counterparts in the world, computer viruses need to piggyback on another executable component before it can begin to cause any damage. Most common delivery practice is to include virus codes into document macros or executable files that are sent through the email architecture. These emails are usually worded with the intention of getting the unwary recipient to download the attachment and running them on their computer. Most often than not, these infected attachments will then proceed to make changes on the victims computer to ensure that copies of itself gets distribute to other computers connected to the same network and hope that it reaches a similarly gullible person who would begin the cycle anew. Depending on what it was designed to do, the potential of damage these computer viruses can cause grows exponentially with every computer it gets executed on.

I truely believe that all the automated computer virus detection and protection system in the world would be worth a damn if the computer user continues to ignore common sense in dealing with unsolicited email. The most common answer that I got from computer users who got infected by viruses by running these attachments was that they were curious about the file that came attached to the email. Although they have been reminded time and time again of the old cliché of how curiosity killed the cat, there are always those who choose to ignore the reminders and execute the infected files. I don’t actually care how popular one is in the office but would some lonely stranger in the US really send you a love letter that comes with a screensaver executable? I am still astounded by how many people actually fall for this trick.

As long as there are gullible people using the computers who continue to ignore the reminders from their friendly IT staff, the potential of computer service disruption due to computer virus infection will continue to be a possibility. The anti-virus protection software that we have in the market today can only protect us from known computer viruses as long as the users keep them updated on a regular basis. Having anti-virus software installed on your computer doesn’t immunize it from virus infection as long as the human component of the computer equation is still ignorant of the methods being used to spread computer viruses. Although I appreciate that these clueless computer users are effectively making sure that my job continues to remain relevant, I would rather that they learn their lesson quickly and save us all the grief of having to deal with computer viruses.

Of course with the over-exposure of this type of computer worms and viruses in the media today, the computing environment is poised to meet the next evolution progeny of the computer virus. When everyone is sufficiently educated and proficient on ways of avoiding current computer virus infection, someone out there on the Net would surely design a better virus. We don’t know yet what the next generation of computer virus might look like but I have a feeling that they would use the Web as their chosen method of transmission. The technology now exist to easily run executable commands the moment a website is visited and the instructions on how to do something like that are frighteningly simple to obtained. I have yet to see this kind of virus in real life but I would bet that it is out there somewhere on the Net just waiting to be unleashed.

Work Satisfaction

I have never really considered doing some part-time work outside of the office. Partly it is because by the time that I get back from work, I’m usually totally knackered and would rather just drop into a nice comfortable bed. My weekends are out of the question since they are the only time that I really have for myself that to spend them working for somebody else seems wasteful. It is not that I have any shortage of offers to earn some money outside of the office. In fact, I have been receiving a bunch of offers lately to do private consultancy work that would take some of my personal time out of the schedule but I just can’t find the drive to commit to them. Some of my friends whom I’ve told about these offers actually find it strange that I would so easily give up these opportunities that I had to make extra cash.

Looking back, I don’t really know why I keep declining the offers that come my way. It is not as if I’m rolling in money all the time. In fact, I am actually barely scraping by month after month with my single paycheck but I have to say that I’m still living comfortably with it. I still get to put a part of my take home pay aside for saving, insurance and some minor investments even after paying all my bills. On some occasions, I still have the opportuinity to pamper myself to a special treat if I plan for it in advance. It would be nice if I could have more money to spend but who doesn’t think the same regardless of how much they earn. I have to truthfully say that I don’t put much stock in living your life in the pursuit of wealth. Most probably this is because that I have been taught all my life to live only within my means and always have a safe nest egg for emergencies as no one would be there to pay your way out of a jam but yourself. Does this attitude make me an underachiever? Maybe but I’m not too sure if that is actually a bad thing to be.

When I first started working, I set a goal for myself that I would earn more money than my father ever did while he was still working. To date, I have not only achieved that goal but also surpassed it two-fold. I’ve also surpass all other people in my extended family in terms of monthly income which makes me a bit guilty for feeling that I should try to get more. Most of the people whom I’ve told them about this don’t really understand my feelings of guilt about it and frankly speaking neither do I. Maybe it is because I hate seeing how much more I have compared to them. My family is of course very proud of what I have done for myself and thankful that they would have me to help them out but that only makes me feel singled out and isolated. I try to be gracious about their praise but I can’t help feeling that this is adding to my increasing issues with isolation and abandonment.

I feel guilty for feeling greedy but am I actually greedy for wanting to achieve more in my life? If that achievement happens to come with monetary rewards must I always hesitate to grab it? I guess that these are the things that keep running in my mind and writing all this down helps me to vocalize it in my head. I may not find any answers to these questions but at least I have the opportunity to acknowledge them. It’s no wonder I can’t sustain any meaningful relationships. This is just the tip of the iceberg of my emotional baggage I carry around and some days I have to wonder how I can get up in the morning to face the world.

Somehow I still do.

Say No To Spam !

I had a really interesting request from a user this morning. It seems that his email account has been flooded with spam about penis enlargement pill ads and he wanted to know how to block them. After showing him how to block spam from coming into his email account, he thanked me profusely and told me that it was embarrassing for him to get these types of email in the office. He then proceeded to tell me, right to my face, that he definitely did not need any penis enlargement pills and winked at me. Needless to say, I was absolutely floored by that extra tidbit. Was this a pickup line? I wouldn’t even know one unless it came dressed in a pink tutu with flying elephants circling around it. I wasn’t even sure whether I should feel flattered or scared at the insinuation. I actually turned my head around to see if he was talking to someone else but it turns out that I was the only one there. Blushing to the tips of my ears, I quickly beat feet out of there before I embarrass myself more.

The point to this anecdote is that spam is so prevalent today that there is no escaping them. On a normal day, I get at least 60 emails in my home email account and out of that 90% are useless spam. The types of spam range from email from people in Africa who wants to give you money to cheap herbal Viagra and sexual performance drugs to free porn. The worse of the lot has to be spam for incest sites that really use very graphic language to describe sexual acts between family members. I find even the thought of it disgusting and I can’t image anyone who would find any of this stuff interesting. The subject of incest sex really wigs me out in so many levels that I really think that anyone who is into this subject really need to seek professional help. It’s right up there with people who are into kiddie porn and scat/golden showers in terms of things that turn me off.

No matter what I do, spam still comes into my home inbox everyday. Good thing that I have a spam blocker in my office email system so I get to be spam free there. It is up to the point that I’m considering of terminating my current home email account and applying for a new one. The downside to this is that I wouldn’t have my current email address anymore and have to tell all my friends about the change. I guess that I could invest in one of those home anti-spam software that I see advertised in Yahoo but I still need to do some research on them before I decide which software would be the best for me. Until then, I just need to continue to delete useless junk from my inbox the old fashion way.

Bean Counters

My boss can be a royal idiot sometimes. He tends to jump into things head first disregarding the advice of those under his supervision. Sometimes it just takes all the patience that I can muster to not inflict bodily harm to him when he pulls a stunt like that. It is very difficult for us to support him if he goes half-cocked without really seeing the big picture that we are trying to tell him. I would think that after 20 years of experience, he would at least know better before making a complete fool of himself and his direct report staff. Today’s staff meeting was one of many examples of the extent of his stellar idiocy. Most of the staff in that meeting was struck dumb at what we were hearing coming out of his mouth. I don’t know of anyone who can give out so many conflicting priorities in the same sentence. Frankly speaking, he does not inspire our confidence in his guidance of the way the department is being run.

At the moment, there are a lot of things that will see change in the near future. With the recent outsourcing, we have been requested to change the way we do business and our relationships with our ex-peers. In the meeting today, I quickly realized that one of my fears about the company has been true. I have joined a company of bean counters!!! Not only do they expect their staff to charge for every service rendered to our customers but we are also expected to report them back to the HQ in a series of daily meetings. The way I see it, half of my workday will be dedicated to getting all the charge reports together for a lunch time meeting. That would only leave me with half a day to work on any service request that come my way. If that is how things are done, I’m sure that we will be getting a lot of irate calls from our customers.

Sometimes I think that I’m living in a Dilbert cartoon. I’m just waiting if a “Wally” type turns up in the next employee change to complete the collection.

Outsourcing Orentation

I spent the whole morning today attending a new employee orientation briefing at my new company HQ. After the customary meet and greet with the new management team, we were given a tour of the site. I must say that I was impressed initially by the scope of their operations. It was definitely larger and far reaching that the one that I used to have in the old company. I have yet to figure out where I will fit in such a large operation. This was one of my earlier fears about the whole thing. I’ve been working all this time to position myself to be able to move up the ranks of my previous organization but now those plans need to be redesigned depending on how many more layers of management I have to go through. I hope I have an answer to that soon.

After the operations tour, we were showed all the other department offices and I have to say that I am a bit disappointed by what I saw. I would think that after seeing such an ultra-modern operations center, their offices would at least be a bit better than what I actually saw. They had people bunched together in small cubicles that could really do well to learn the principles of proper house keeping. I would imagine that most of the cubicles clearly never seen any sort of natural light since they were so clustered together. I think that even Dilbert will balk at the office arrangement! Good think that I don’t have to move into this office or I’m sure I would have a claustrophobic attack daily. At least for the time being, I get to keep my airy and well lit cubicle in my old office area.

I still have questions after today as to where I fit in and how best I can plan to move up the ranks. It may take me a while to adjust to this new working arrangement but hopefully that adjustment will not be too painful. Until the greater picture is revealed, I just have to go on with business as is and continue to take small steps. It could well be that it’s the journey that counts rather than the destination.

A New Start and A Sad Farewell

The whole dept got treated to an appreciation lunch today. It was held at a nearby hotel as a show of our company’s appreciation of all the effort that we had contributed in the past. I also like to think that this was a gesture of goodwill to smooth out any ruffled feathers from the outsourcing deliberations these past weeks. I have to say that there were times that the discussions got a bit tense for both sides and no doubt that some people may have taken offense to some of the things said. Now that everything has been completed, it is time that will put all of that behind us and start fresh. At least that is the impression that I got from it.

Tomorrow will be a big day. It would be the first day that we officially start our duties with the new company. Good thing that our offices do not get changed or I’ll have to adjust my daily schedule so I can get to work on time. This is really a wakeup call for me to get off my butt and get that driver’s license that I’ve been delaying for quite some time. I can’t continue to depend wholly on others to get me to where I need to go. Anyways … we are expected to attend an orientation briefing at the HQ tomorrow and fill up the necessary HR forms at the new company. I’ve never been to the place so it would be an interesting day tomorrow.

Hopefully I could get a good night’s sleep tonight. I’ve always had this problem that I would always end up tossing and turning in bed whenever I feel anxious about something. I’ve tried almost everything short of sleep medications before and nothing works. I hate for that to happen tonight and I end up with waking up tired and still sleepy. Maybe if I try to really relax myself before I go to bed tonight, it can help me sleep better.

BTW … I just read today that Katherine Hepburn passed away yesterday. She lived to a ripe old age of 96. I will never forget the first time I saw her in “On The Golden Pond” playing opposite Henry Fonda. The image of her as a feisty old woman endeared me to her because it reminded me a lot of my own late grandmother. I’ve never actually seen any of her earlier movies but from what I’ve read about her, she was quite the gal. Her passing will be remembered.

Leaving Legacies Behind

Late this afternoon, I was surprised with an afternoon tea gathering held in my honor by my peers in my company’s volunteer corp.

I had told them last week that with the upcoming transfer to the outsource company; I would no longer be able to chair the group as I have done in the past 5 years. I decided this as it would be unfair to them if I could not devote as much of my time as before once I start my assignment with the new company. My decision was met with a little resistance but I convinced them that it is for the best. I have done my very best to help them develop as a cohesive team and have groomed several of the members to be capable team leaders to lead the rest. I felt that I’ve left the team in good hands.

Late this afternoon, I received a call requesting me to come to the cafeteria for a short meeting. What I didn’t know was that the whole team was there and the short meeting was actually a tea gathering in my honor. Regardless to say, I was shocked speechless by the turn out. It got even more embarrassing when they put me on the spot for a farewell speech. They even had a cake made for me and everything. I blushed even harder when afterward they presented me with a small token of appreciation. This was happening in a cafeteria full of other employees! I don’t think that I have ever blushed as much as I did at the gathering.

I have never been good at being the center of such attention. I’m more at home working in the background and celebrating our successes quietly. I wished that I could be more gracious with their show of appreciation but I was too stunned to react. I kept quiet about it but I truly felt that I did not deserve this much attention. All I did was to guide them as a team to initiate and execute the activities that we planned together. I tried to give them as much respect to them as individuals as they gave me. Come to think of it, I didn’t really do a lot for them when compared to what they all did for each other when they come together as a group.

As I am writing this entry, I realized how much little things that you do affect others a lot. Their overwhelming show of appreciation and the team’s success is proof positive that I can make a difference to the people around me by just staying true to my ideals. If the team takes this lesson to heart then I would have left a good legacy behind.