Unusual day at work today. It was one person’s last day, and two others are revealed to be leaving by the end of the month.
It’s weird to see people leave who have been with the company longer than I have. It’ll change the work dynamic, definitely, but the upside is, I get a bigger office space.
Sugar High Friday was an event that I single-handedly started when I was working for Dakotah Direct in Spokane, Washington. Here’s the gist of it (hearts and arteries, beware):
Some arbitrary Friday, maybe one Friday a month, there is a suggestion and a mutual consensus to have the Event. There is no overt advertising, simply word-of-mouth, but word gets around. On that Friday, everybody participating brings to work some assortment of candy and junk food in an obscenely sweet pseudo-potluck. And for the entire day, everyone consumes the sweets (often washed down by copious amounts of soda pop) and partakes in the hypoglycemia-inducing, high-calorie bonding. All are welcome, whether they contribute or not.
Sounds disgusting? It probably was. But it was a hell of a lot of fun, and it’s one of the few things I genuinely miss about working for Dakotah. Until my current job, I hadn’t worked for a company that’s had enough people to make a Sugar High Friday a true Event. Now I am, so maybe it’s time to try to start it up with a new batch of coworkers.
Spread the word! Enjoy Sugar High Friday in your organization!
Hell, maybe I’ll set up a website and truly institutionalize it…
My day at work was certainly a tech support nightmare. Get this: as soon as I walk in, I’m told the server is down. Thinking (hoping) they meant the connection to the internet is down, I clarified the issue.
Nope. The server. Damn.
This is the main file/print server that everyone in the office uses to store their work on. Excel, Word, Publisher, QuickBooks, you name it, it’s there. Plus, it houses the intranet I developed (and the MySQL database that backs it), Microsoft Mail server (which thankfully no one much uses anymore), and the Intuit Master Builder server software the company relies on.
(I know, I know, words of caution about putting all your eggs in one basket, I know.)
There had been a power outage the night before, and now the server was completely dead, no power at all; but the server had been plugged into a UPS, which was still on and working. Odd. Tried plugging it into several other outlets, nothing. Tried a different power cord, nothing. At this point I deduce it’s the power supply, and that’s hopeful because if that’s all it is, nothing’s lost except some productivity time.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a spare, so I have to wait til the local computer store (who originally built the server, so we have an account with them) opens at 9am to get one. Luckily, I get through to someone in the store at about 8:40 when I’m calling to leave a message, and they’re sending the tech right over with a new power supply.
And guess what? I was right—the power supply died, and everything else was intact and fine. We got the server up and running again by 9:10 tops.
Talk about sweating bullets. Even though we had a full backup of everything important made the night before, there’s still nothing quite like that head-pounding, sweat-behind-the-eyeballs, bowel-clenching feeling that you get when something like this happens.
This past month since I last posted has been a very transitional one.
I quit my job with Alpine, and I’m taking on a new one in September. I’ve got slightly less than three weeks off as of now. Of course, that means I’ve had to change servers; I no longer have the convenient access to everything I needed on the Alpine servers to play with my websites.
I’m going with Pair Networks as they offer an affordable, reliable service with PHP and MySQL. So now, chuggnutt.com is brought to you by Pair!
Anywho… during the decision-making period to leave one job for another, and the subsequent “last days” with Alpine, I’ve neglected my site. Not that I imagine anyone was reading it anyway, apart from a few family or friends. But, it’s back. I’m back.
In other news, I made a batch of homebrew today. For the first time in 2½ years.
2½. Years.
Keeping in mind that I used to make a lot of beer. Not as much as some homebrewing friends I have who are fanatical about it, but more than average. But, once the kids were born, I just didn’t find the time… or so I told myself…
And I’d been thinking about it lately. So, enough was enough. I’ve got (nearly) three weeks off, so yesterday we went to the homebrew shop, bought some basic ingredients (pale malt extract, ½ lb. 40L crystal malt, 2 oz. Cascade hops, dry ale yeast) and a wine kit for my wife, and today made the beer and the wine.
The beer is bubbling happily away as I write this. The house smells like malt and hops.
I’ve missed this.
Still around. Had a nice, four-day holiday weekend, and now I really don’t want to go back to work Monday morning. It’s odd; I love working with the Internet, and developing in PHP, and the cool technologies, and being hands-on in all aspects of a web site from domain name registration and server management to server-specific Apache configuration, but I’m also growing very weary of the day-to-day Alpine grind.
(Grind is not exactly the right word, but I’m being lazy tonight. Also, it alliterates nicely with “Alpine.”)
Thinking about it now, perhaps I’m getting tired of being a part of a struggling start up company. It’s draining, and wasn’t what I had set out to do two and a half years ago when I was looking for a new job. I often feel that the amount of energy and effort and personal stake I’m investing (as I am with Alpine) should be directed to my own endeavor and not necessarily somebody else’s vision and risk.
In other words, if I want to work for a start up, it should be my own.
But don’t necessarily hold your breath.
Yet.
Ah, Friday. A fine end to a skewed week.
We finally got a decent connection to the Internet at work, after three weeks in the new office in Bend. The DSL connection provided by Oregon Trail Internet just didn’t work out— the connection kept getting dropped, and when it was active, bandwidth would fluctuate wildly. No good. So we replaced the DSL with a high speed wireless connection provided by, well, High Speed Communications, formerly Empire Net. Today was the first day it was active, and it was stable and fast. Finally!
Plus, my mid-week trip to Portland really threw things off for me. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to get back on track.
Random Web Link: VillianSupply.com
We’ve been spending the last week or so at work packing up the old office in Sisters (Oregon) and moving into Bend, so things have been thrown into chaotic disarray while we unpack, build out, and get used to our new office space. My commute has been cut from 25 miles (one way) to 5 miles, which I am indescribably happy about. I can get to work in just over 10 minutes now!
Our new office is sweet. We’re located in an old mill building right in the middle of a developing area (called, appropriately enough, the Old Mill District), in a very SOHO-like atmosphere. It’s still raw, but very, very nice and will be awesome when it’s all finished. I can’t wait.
It’s been one of those days at work which is just driving me nuts because pretty much all I’m doing is fixing old problems rather than getting current and new things done. No progress has been made. It’s those mindless, repetitive things that you have to do over and over again to fix them, and they’re not anything that you can click a button or write a script and poof they’re all done, but you have to do each thing manually over and over and over and over and over and over and over… kind of like stuffing envelopes and licking stamps for Christmas cards. You just gotta do ’em, and there’s no way around it.
So it’s been one of those days at work. Extrememly frustrating.
