Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Bang Bang!
Don't worry about me shooting you if you break in my house. Be afraid if my kid meets up with you!
I Know Too Much
There are days I wish I did not have the insight that I have as to what all is going on at work. I write here because of a semi-anonymous way to blather to people who don't really know me or what is going on.
I just saw an email talking about how we need to make sure that company "X" doesn't get upset with us as they are still pushing our PBX. We don't want them to stop pushing it also.
Also? So I moved over to a department where I was promised I was working on the NEXT BIG THING, to find we are pissing people off left and right?
Wow. Great career move huh?
Oh well, as a side note I am spending my free time prepping to get some extra cash in. Hopefully I can start pimping out my wares. We'll see.
Worse come to worse, I can be a phone man... Oh wait! ARRRRGH! I AM!
I just saw an email talking about how we need to make sure that company "X" doesn't get upset with us as they are still pushing our PBX. We don't want them to stop pushing it also.
Also? So I moved over to a department where I was promised I was working on the NEXT BIG THING, to find we are pissing people off left and right?
Wow. Great career move huh?
Oh well, as a side note I am spending my free time prepping to get some extra cash in. Hopefully I can start pimping out my wares. We'll see.
Worse come to worse, I can be a phone man... Oh wait! ARRRRGH! I AM!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Messing With The Template
Yep, I got bored with the old one, so I will shift things around over the next little bit. I am inspired by Joel Watson creator of Hijinks Ensue. It's a three times a week web comic which he is using to try to make a go of it on his own.
His dream is my dream.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy being lied to and disrespected in the corporate world, but I could really enjoy working from home doing drawings, making funny pics and designing shirts and stuff.
As I shift the blog around I will also be pimping my wares. I have shirts and stuff on CafePress and I will also be teaming up with some local folks to try to make some stuff which is cheaper and I will ship it out personally.
If anyone has any requests for drawings, shirts or anything in particular, I will do custom designs for a reasonable price and get them to you. Also anything on here you like, just let me know.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
A Moment To Complain
It has become obvious to me my time has come to move on from PHONECO so i will be looking. I have often griped on the blog about this or that and certain things which torqued me, but I have been loyal to the company and done what was asked of me.
I cannot say that any longer.
The final straw began when I was moved into a temporary assignment and asked to cover a product I hadn't worked on for two years to help out as they were losing one of their support guys. I immediately agreed and was enjoying myself fairly well. Until the second support guy turned in his notice to leave. This group only had four people, so I thought it over and decided to apply for the open position. My thinking was to get more Microsoft experience under my belt and not be so pigeon holed.
Long story short, I was given the position with a title change, but no money. The money didn't bother me too bad as I understood things are tight, but since I have been screwed before by a title change with no money, I know that the money will not come later. I respectfully asked for my title to remain the same.
I was denied.
Apparently management fought so hard for me to get money that the offer of a new title was all they could get and since they made such a huge fuss they don't want to go to the big boss and tell him that this underling is willing to do whatever for the exact same pay and title. I guess I can understand that, but a snazzy title doesn't pay the bills.
Next up we were told we had to participate in mandatory vacation and take every Friday off to burn vacation hours off the books. This is an accounting trick to free up cash as that way they don't have to show as much money on the ledger for the half. I was moderately irritated but the family and I were taking vacation in August, so I wasn't exceptionally worried and actually was looking forward to the long weekends.
Well, apparently even though everyone was told to take off, tech support has to cover for all the days, plus after hours support. This resulted in my vacation getting screwed so the family is now no longer taking a road trip for the vacation. This is minor compared to two of my co workers as one has been out of the country for a month and has to take off still and the other who is going out of the country later in the year and also has to take off. Obviously they don't have enough hours to cover this and management gives a big shrug of the shoulders to that with an "I don't know," when they are asked how they will handle that.
The last thing which set me off was me finding a write up over the weekend talking about how our sales are up 24% from last year.
I have the offer letter sitting on my desk. I'm sure I will sign it as I will do what I have to do to take care of my kids, but I'll be damned if I will forgive them for this one.
I cannot say that any longer.
The final straw began when I was moved into a temporary assignment and asked to cover a product I hadn't worked on for two years to help out as they were losing one of their support guys. I immediately agreed and was enjoying myself fairly well. Until the second support guy turned in his notice to leave. This group only had four people, so I thought it over and decided to apply for the open position. My thinking was to get more Microsoft experience under my belt and not be so pigeon holed.
Long story short, I was given the position with a title change, but no money. The money didn't bother me too bad as I understood things are tight, but since I have been screwed before by a title change with no money, I know that the money will not come later. I respectfully asked for my title to remain the same.
I was denied.
Apparently management fought so hard for me to get money that the offer of a new title was all they could get and since they made such a huge fuss they don't want to go to the big boss and tell him that this underling is willing to do whatever for the exact same pay and title. I guess I can understand that, but a snazzy title doesn't pay the bills.
Next up we were told we had to participate in mandatory vacation and take every Friday off to burn vacation hours off the books. This is an accounting trick to free up cash as that way they don't have to show as much money on the ledger for the half. I was moderately irritated but the family and I were taking vacation in August, so I wasn't exceptionally worried and actually was looking forward to the long weekends.
Well, apparently even though everyone was told to take off, tech support has to cover for all the days, plus after hours support. This resulted in my vacation getting screwed so the family is now no longer taking a road trip for the vacation. This is minor compared to two of my co workers as one has been out of the country for a month and has to take off still and the other who is going out of the country later in the year and also has to take off. Obviously they don't have enough hours to cover this and management gives a big shrug of the shoulders to that with an "I don't know," when they are asked how they will handle that.
The last thing which set me off was me finding a write up over the weekend talking about how our sales are up 24% from last year.
I have the offer letter sitting on my desk. I'm sure I will sign it as I will do what I have to do to take care of my kids, but I'll be damned if I will forgive them for this one.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Prepare Yourself
Wizbangblog has a piece on the 73,000 blogs shut down by the government last week for copyright infringement. Now keep in mind a very small minority of them had anything objectionable on them but the government shut the whole of Blogetery.com down.
If you have a website, I would suggest (as Wizbang does) to move it to your own server if possible, and back up religiously. They used the phrase that we were being driven underground and I have to admit, this instance of killing a fly with a Buick seems that way.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Sick Of It
Just tired of watching people who don't have a clue try to snowball those who do. I also looked at a competitor to PHONECO's phone system and just thought...
We do all of that too, what makes people think this thing is so great?
Beats me. All I know is I am being forced to clear off vacation in the first half of this year. Usually we don't have to do that until the second half.
Management, here is a suggestion, FIRE THE PEOPLE WHO DON'T SELL and GET SOME WHO WILL!
Anyway, any time I have time, I am making cartoons, so eventually I'll... uh... do something with them.
Bless you all and I hope God takes care of each of you.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Long Term Thinking
This is boring work stuff that I am just wondering out loud, so you may want to leave. I promise I have cartoons for the next few Fridays so hang around for those. I am tired of missing deadlines.
Here at PHONECO we saw an email where a customer has a faulty fan in their Flux Capacitor unit. They want the fan fixed, but they don't want to pay for the whole Flux Capacitor. They are no longer under warranty so whatever happens, they will have to pay for it.
We respond back with, we don't normally fix just one component out of a Flux Capacitor and send it back, we just replace the whole unit, it's just easier to do things that way. We also let them know NEW Flux Capacitors don't even have a fan, so the fact their old one gave out will cause no problems in their unit.
The customer still wants it replaced... Just the fan though because they don't want to pay for a whole new unit. Apparently we will do this for goodwill and to keep the customer happy.
I completely agree with keeping the customer happy as customers are the ones who buy our equipment and services. I want to do everything to keep them coming back.
BUT!
There comes a point where you have to say, I'm sorry, we can't do that.
Now for this ONE CUSTOMER, who hasn't bought anything in years (you can tell by the lack of warranty) we are going to get their Flux Capacitor, track it, fix it (with a fix that is now non-standard) and ship it back. So we are doing special treatment and handling for this customer.
The customer who hasn't bought anything for years from us...
...and won't be buying anything for years from us.
I just don't understand why people whoa re in charge of things jump through flaming hoops for a dangling carrot. It is OK if you work at Long John Silver's to tell a customer you don't make hamburgers. Why is it not OK to tell this customer we won't do the mod, but they are welcome to go to Radio Shack and buy a fan to repair their unit. It's not covered by warranty anyway?
Oh well, time for another cup of coffee.
Here at PHONECO we saw an email where a customer has a faulty fan in their Flux Capacitor unit. They want the fan fixed, but they don't want to pay for the whole Flux Capacitor. They are no longer under warranty so whatever happens, they will have to pay for it.
We respond back with, we don't normally fix just one component out of a Flux Capacitor and send it back, we just replace the whole unit, it's just easier to do things that way. We also let them know NEW Flux Capacitors don't even have a fan, so the fact their old one gave out will cause no problems in their unit.
The customer still wants it replaced... Just the fan though because they don't want to pay for a whole new unit. Apparently we will do this for goodwill and to keep the customer happy.
I completely agree with keeping the customer happy as customers are the ones who buy our equipment and services. I want to do everything to keep them coming back.
BUT!
There comes a point where you have to say, I'm sorry, we can't do that.
Now for this ONE CUSTOMER, who hasn't bought anything in years (you can tell by the lack of warranty) we are going to get their Flux Capacitor, track it, fix it (with a fix that is now non-standard) and ship it back. So we are doing special treatment and handling for this customer.
The customer who hasn't bought anything for years from us...
...and won't be buying anything for years from us.
I just don't understand why people whoa re in charge of things jump through flaming hoops for a dangling carrot. It is OK if you work at Long John Silver's to tell a customer you don't make hamburgers. Why is it not OK to tell this customer we won't do the mod, but they are welcome to go to Radio Shack and buy a fan to repair their unit. It's not covered by warranty anyway?
Oh well, time for another cup of coffee.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Sneak Peek - Billy the Exterminator
Sadie is this guy's biggest fan (and I think she has a tiny crush on him). I would not be surprised if I have to take a road trip to Louisiana very soon.
Hope to ink it and add some color tonight.
 |
| Billy the Exterminator (Rough Pencil) |
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Unreal
I pull after hour support for PHONECO and sometimes we get strange calls. I now deal almost entirely with Voice Over IP so telephones running over your IP Network. Kind of like Skype with phones like you would normally use for your office.
Over the weekend I got a support call stating the phones could not reach the server and the system was completely down. I make the call and find out his DHCP server is down. A DHCP server is what gives each piece of equipment on the network it's own specific ID number so it can send and receive information on the network.
IT IS NOT PART OF WHAT I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR.
So while I am trying to be nice, I also am NOT assisting in helping the tech fix what he broke on his server. My job is the phone system and the phone system only. If I start telling him how to fix his network I open PHONECO up to all sorts of liability because that is NOT WHAT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO DO.
We charge for that.
My job is fix the phones. If your server does not give out IP Addresses, you need to fix your server to give out IP Addresses.
This is like calling your mechanic to look at your car which is out of gas.
*Sigh*
Over the weekend I got a support call stating the phones could not reach the server and the system was completely down. I make the call and find out his DHCP server is down. A DHCP server is what gives each piece of equipment on the network it's own specific ID number so it can send and receive information on the network.
IT IS NOT PART OF WHAT I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR.
So while I am trying to be nice, I also am NOT assisting in helping the tech fix what he broke on his server. My job is the phone system and the phone system only. If I start telling him how to fix his network I open PHONECO up to all sorts of liability because that is NOT WHAT WE ARE SUPPOSED TO DO.
We charge for that.
My job is fix the phones. If your server does not give out IP Addresses, you need to fix your server to give out IP Addresses.
This is like calling your mechanic to look at your car which is out of gas.
*Sigh*
Monday, July 05, 2010
Awesome Man Boobs
So we went with our church to a hotel to watch the fireworks from the pool last night. My fat man self eased myself into the hottub and was enjoying some quiet when I noticed some teenagers coming out to the hot tub. There were three of them, two boys and a young lady. One of the youths was an athletic young man, handsome and confident and the other was chubby.
Obviously I understood his pain.
See this young man started to take his shirt off and then promptly stretched it back on. His two friends started razzing on him for wearing a shirt in the pool.
The young lady was a lovely girl with dark skin and a wide smile. Her slender frame was perched on the edge of the hot tub and she taunted the chubby youth. "You're just wearing your shirt because your titties are bigger than mine!"
The athletic youth with her snickered and obviously pointed out to her she had just mad a crack about man boobs in front of an old white dude with large man jugs. She turned her head away so I couldn't see her embarrassed smile but I could see the stretch at the corner of her eyes ad the shaking shoulders of her buddy.
I looked her over from behind my mirrored sunglasses, "Don't worry," came my cold reply. "Maybe some day you'll actually grow some boobies."
The snickering stopped immediately and she had a shocked look on her face. The embarrassment growing deeper in her heart until with a tear in her eye she looked at me and replied, "I'm sorry mister. I should have been more cautious when choosing my words."
Yeah, that's what happened... In my mind. Ten minutes after the embarrassing comment.
What happened in real life in real time was I sat on the side of the hot tub (man boobs hanging out) and pretended not to hear the kids.
*Sigh*
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