Break from the norm

As many of you have seen, I usually post about tech related items. This time I am breaking from that because I have a personal rant. It’s something that eats at me and I have a hard time handling it.

What bothers me to no end is when I’m asked to do something and then criticized for not doing the way the requester thinks it should have been done. I’m not talking about someone that says “Hey, can you do X job this way for me?”. I’m talking about the people that ask me to do something, leave it up to me to figure out how to do it and then gripe about how I did it and that I should have done it another way.

I’ve actually had a boss threaten to fire me because I didn’t setup a clustered MS SQL 2000 server the way he thought it should be done (even though his way wouldn’t work). He just told me to cluster the server using the existing Compaq servers and a single external array. It took me 3 days, because I couldn’t interrupt normal network operations (the plant ran 20 hours/day), but I got it done and it worked flawlessly. The boss then came in and flew off the handle because I did it “only like a geek would” (?) and made it impossible for him to administer the way he thought he could. This is a man that had 0 (zero, zip, nada) database experience so how did he expect to be able to admin it? That was my job and I was damn good at it.

What bothers me the most about this pet peeve is the fact that I have a hard time getting over it. It could be weeks before I cool off after someone pulling that move. I don’t care if they have insight on how I could have done it better, but to completely down everything I did? That’s just unacceptable.

That’s the end of my rant. Stay tuned for further tech news that is of actual interest.

17.Apr.05 Life Comments (0)

Good luck to a new government

I hope the Iraqi people are able to form the government of their choice and not a government chosen by others (even the U.S.). It will be very interesting to see how they develop their own constitution and laws. Whether we agree with their new governmet or not, we will be able to see how a newly formed government uses the power given to them to govern their people. This is truely a mark in history that is rarely seen and should be well documented.

It looks like they had a good turn out for the elections even though their were threats of violence. I think the Iraqi people are proud that they finally had a voice in who their next leader would be so no threats could sway them. They took pride in something that America has come to just expect every four years. If only we, as Americans, could take pride in the elections instead of focusing on the negatives of the candidates. We should all be proud to have the freedom to elect our officials and accept the winners of the elections. Instead, we try to find the worst possible dirt on the candidates and complain constantly if our choice didn’t win. Maybe one day it will go back to the days of just being happy to have the opportunity to vote.

31.Jan.05 Life Comments (0)

POS workstation

I work on a lot of computers every day. In the four schools I’m in charge of supporting, I have about 1,000 workstations total. Something is always breaking because someone loads a program that has spyware, they pushed on the CD drawer while it was open, etc. Normally, I can fix the issues by ordering (at most) a single part. But, there have been a couple of workstations lately that have been nothing but trouble and I can’t seem to get one of them going to save my life.

Here is a description of what each of them were doing:

That was were I was stuck. That damn power light, which in turn meant no boot or video at all. These are Dell Optiplex 260 workstations running Windows XP. The one I finally got working was by ordering yet another motherboard. That was all fine and good but I HATE ordering multiple parts. Even though no one else probably cares, I can’t help but think that they are saying “Damn it, does this guy not know what he’s doing?”.

So, I got one of the workstations going but I can’t get the other one going. I received one power supply but it didn’t work. It was DOA so I ordered another one. Got the new one in, installed it and the system started to POST but then died. Hmmm, okay. I removed the motherboard from the case and placed it on a non-conductive surface. Then, I just connected the power supply and the power button. What happened? Same thing, it would start to POST then cut off. I tried a different processor and stick of RAM but that didn’t work so I ordered a replacement motherboard. The new board came in and it didn’t work. I even tried the outside-of-the-case troubleshooting method and it still died. I figured I just got a bad board so I ordered a replacement, again. Well, looks like the guy in charge of ordering the parts may be thinking that I don’t know what I’m doing. I got an email response to my order request saying “Just bring me the machine and I’ll fix it. I’ll give you another machine to put in its place for now.” Damn it all to hell.

I hate when this happens. The only thing that I care about doing perfectly is my job. I put a lot of weight in what my supervisors think about the job I’m doing. Even though I’ve done a lot that has gotten some praise, I think I’ve just thrown that all to hell. I just need to get back on track but sometimes things like this shake me to where I become my own enemy and start doing poor work. I’m not going to let this happen this time. I can’t afford to if I expect to be able to get promoted. If they see that I get shaken by this kind of thing and lose confidence, that would be bad because that makes for a poor trait in a manager. I’ll just have to chalk it up to bad luck and just kick ass on the rest of my work.

21.Jan.05 Life, Technology Comments (4)

Certification testing

I made a new year’s resolution to study for, and pass, the CCNA exam so I can get my Cisco certification. It’s not going to be easy but I’m going to do it so I can move up at my employer. Plus, I’ve always wanted to get more in-depth with networking and setting up more advanced LAN’s and WAN’s.

I can’t thank the teacher, at one of the schools I work at, enough for giving me his old Cisco training material. They actually teach CCNA at the high school! It’s a four semester course so the students have to start it their junior year. Even though it’s not the most current info, it covers the last test released by Cisco. It is very in-depth and covers everything about setting up and configuring Cisco routers and switches. The training material even includes virtual labs. The virtual labs are pretty nice since I can’t get my hands on any real Cisco routers/switches to practice on.

Pretty soon, I’m going to have to update my MCSE+I (NT 4.0) certification to Windows 2003. I may try to go with MCSA instead of MCSE. Go here to see the difference between the two. Basically, MCSE’s are certified to plan, design and implement Windows 2003 server solutions. MCSA’s are certified for all that and to manage and maintain Windows 2003 networks. Managing and maintaining is what I am interesting in doing.

I also know that I’m going to have to upgrade my MCDBA from SQL 2000 to SQL 2005 in the future. Those test are going to suck because the SQL certification tests (two of them) were the hardest certification test I had taken. It took me almost an hour to take each one and I was sweating it the whole time. The SQL trainer didn’t help much when he announced that, “About 60% of the people that take the test fail it on the first try.” Thanks. I studied my butt off and passed them both the first time. I’m not going to say I was lucky because it wasn’t luck, it was persistant studying.

Studying for the CCNA isn’t easy but it will definitely pay off in the long run. At the same time as studying for that, I am also trying to learn to code PHP pages. I know some HTML and ASP but I want to create dynamic pages using PHP because they operate much faster than ASP and work in all browsers. Sometimes, ASP pages don’t seem to render correctly in non-IE browsers. If it gets to where I have to drop CCNA training or PHP training, I’ll drop PHP training temporarily because the CCNA certification holds more interest for me.

06.Jan.05 Life, Technology Comment (1)

Christmas Travel

I just got back from going to Mississippi to visit the family. It was nice to see my grandparents and my brother came up from Florida with his wife and son. I wish I could see them more often but work kind of prevents that from happening. My parents really enjoy seeing my little girls and watching them open their presents. At least I saved some money this year since we just got gifts for the kids.

22.Dec.04 Life Comments (0)