Sphere of Archives

July 1, 2000

Fraternity

My brother Ian is visiting. He'll be here until July 10 (including a short trip south for a badminton tournament). By now, I have ordered him to clean up his papers that are cluttering my tables, and I've chastised him for bringing too many clothes. Now my tables are tidy, and his luggage is on the balcony. We're going to play squash this weekend, and I will kill him.

We went for a walk downtown this morning. We went to the Second Cup for coffee. At 10 am, the streets were already crowded. There were people playing bagpipes, and lots of street vendors selling red-and-white touristy stuff. We decided that staying downtown all day for a good view of the fireworks was not worth it. We did not look around for "Joe Canadian" doing his little rant to promote a brewery. Instead, we stood on my balcony and watched four separate (though distant) displays from venues around the city.

July 7, 2000

Zeros and Ones

I was well-prepared for the 1xRTT party that was held this afternoon. The managers were going to recognize all the work various groups put into making the project a success. Whether the timing was planned with my department in mind or not is up to the individual. My manager who accepted the responsibility for supporting the project left for another group. And his surrogate and the technician who did the hardware installation were both on holiday this week. That left me as the only person in our department who actually worked on the project.

But I couldn't go either. At 10:30, I was called to a lab to observe some people install upgraded software on the SSG-5000. This is the same software that the 1xRTT group will use, so it was prudent for me to be present. It is also only the fifth such installation on the planet. I joined two rotund Texans -- Mike and Jason -- who were having quite a bit of unexpected trouble. This isn't like installing some PC program, where the user runs the install program and everything works. We're installing on UNIX. And as I said before, there are very few similar systems to provide a comparison for troubleshooting. The documentation is contradictory or vague or just wrong. For support, the installers are calling the guy who did the last job.

We finally got the system up and stable at 3:00 pm. The Texans had to catch a plane, and I had to hurry to catch the tail end of the party. Mike was joking that I will do the sixth installation. At least, I think he was joking.

I rushed to Karter's Korners (mini-golf, go-karts), arriving at 3:30. It looked like everyone had left. There were only two managers from the lab that I recognized. The time to get the free entry to the mini-golf had expired, but the cashier felt sorry for me, I guess, and let me in at no charge. Ten minutes later, I was done the 18-hole course. The two managers were leaving. They pointed out some huge bags of uneaten nacho chips at the picnic tables, and said I could help myself. Everyone had a great time, they told me.

July 8, 2000

Finally, a New Conversation Topic

I bought a new flatbed scanner today. It has a USB port. The FutureShop salesman was visibly miffed when I refused the "special offer" of a 3-year return policy for forty bucks. I took it straight home and installed it and all of the software.

Tonight I go on a blind date set up by my friend Ken. He and his wife will be there too, to observe. The woman's name is Susan, and she works in his accounting office. Ken told me she likes to dance. That implies she likes dance music. If she even makes one unironic or non-deprecatory reference to N-Sync or Spice Girls or any other music industry product, this will be our last date.

July 9, 2000

About Last Night

It's the day after another blind date. I knew beforehand that there were expectations of instant love on the part of the chaperones -- a vaguely satisfied husband and wife -- because that's how things are for them. Couples are supposed to act like those people in beer commercials. "You two will really like each other," he told me. "She's introverted, like you. You want my advice? Pretend to be interested in whatever she says."

We went to a bar in the basement of The Marble Works, a cosy British-style pub that happened to be empty that night. The woman is pretty. She's short (5'2"), has short-brown hair, wears glasses and slightly baggy dark clothes. And she is reserved. I asked about where she was from, her education, her job, her family, what movies she liked -- the usual first date stuff. She offered a few sentences to each, nothing to hold a conversation. She never asked about me. Throughout the evening, the chaperones took the time to criticize me.

After quitting that bar, I led the group to Stoney Mondays, for more beer. The subject of astrology came up. My date was very interested in my chaperone's sign ("You're a Scorpio, too?"), but none in mine ("I don't know anything about Aries."). Everyone took the opportunity to joke about my being a "hot metal dog." I tried to push the conversation deeper, into a discussion of the use of astrology in the scientific age, but I ended up talking to myself.

I drove everyone home at one o'clock. After I dropped off my date, the chaperones offered their opinions in the car. I was too quiet. I was aloof. I looked uninterested. I missed the signals. They would have handled things differently. Then the husband said he and I would have to meet and analyze what went wrong.

July 11, 2000

Let's Talk About Your Problem

We met at Nickel's, a 1950s-theme restaurant chain partly owned by Celine Dion. Here we picked apart the events of the blind date of a few days ago.

He had talked with the woman at work. She likes me; I met her expectations. She thought I didn't like her. He didn't ask for specifics. Next time, I should provide him a list of questions.

But there was a lot of talk about what the hell is wrong with me, which was a rehash of what was said in the car on the way home that evening. He never had "those problems" with women or people in general. What did he mean by "problems"? He meant saying anything just to keep the conversation going, and looking enthusiastic in the face of boredom. Did he mean I should have lied to her and pretended to be someone else? He wouldn't put it like that, but yes, I should have pretended to be someone else. That wasn't the sage advice I needed, I thought to myself, but on the other hand, he did end up getting married.

Another date is in the works, a picnic in the Gatineau Hills. I'm expected to organize it.

July 16, 2000

It Ain't No Picnic

Never let the laziest person in the group organize things. If you take one thing out of this journal entry, take that.

Ken, his wife and my prospective girlfriend were supposed to have a picnic yesterday. Everyone wanted to go to the Gatineau Hills, so I suggested Meech Lake, but the weather forecast said rain, so we decided to go to Dow's Lake instead. We were supposed to be at the pavilion at 2:30, then find a place to sit in the park. I would bring the Kentucky Fried chicken, and Ken would bring the alcohol.

I got the chicken and arrived at her apartment at 2:20 pm. Ken called. I could tell by her responses that Ken was trying to cancel the engagement. He said his daughter was asleep. He asked us to wait until she woke up again, so that she wouldn't be cranky. For forty minutes we sat in her tidy, spacious apartment, filled with her mother's furniture and a few Mayan knick-knacks. I stifled a grimace upon seeing an extensive Disney cartoon video collection in plain view by the television. I sat in the middle of the couch, to appear open, giving her plenty of space to sit beside me. She decided to sit in an easy chair across the room from me.

At three, Ken called to say he was ready, and we left for Dow's Lake. We got there at 3:20. No sign of Ken. Then it started to rain. Then it started to pour. We took shelter in the pavilion, and I called Ken. I got his wife instead, and she said they decided not to go because of the rain. Since they had no way to reach us, Ken would be driving by the pavilion to inform us of their decision. So we waited. And waited. Twenty minutes later, I called again. "He just left." We watched the rain and waited some more. I was certain he had gotten lost.

I had brought a frisbee and tried to get my date interested in playing to pass the time. Not a chance. We passed the time silently. Then I spotted a car that looked like his. It circled around the little parking lot, and then took off. "Was that him? Why didn't he park? Was he expecting us to wait outside in the rain?" As it turned out, yes and yes. As we were heading to my car after giving up, we spotted him at an intersection. He had driven all the way downtown along the canal and back looking for us. Goof.

At four, we arrived at his apartment, and the fun started. We drank Ernest & Julio Gallo wine and ate the re-heated chicken, and after we had liqueurs. We watched "Deuce Bigelow" and "Fight Club" and played Trivial Pursuit. I drove my date home at 1:30 am. The whole evening, she and I never touched, although I did make her laugh a couple of times. I don't know how this is working out. I'm finding more and more differences between us: she doesn't play any sports, she doesn't like the same music as me, she doesn't read the same authors as me (in fact, I have no indication she does read books), and she doesn't seem curious or inquisitive or spontaneous.

Ken and I are going to have another debriefing. Maybe the audience can offer some analysis.

July 20, 2000

Misery Searches for Company

The Wireless DSL group invited members of the department for lunch at The Haveli, an Indian buffet restaurant in Bells Corners. This was their way of saying "thanks" for getting their new lab set up. The network administrator, in his hyperactive way, insisted that we go together. He said that he didn't like Indian food because it was too spicy.

Maybe I'm becoming oversensitive. We arrive first and get seated, the waitress asks what we want to drink. The network administrator passes. I order coffee. The other co-work we carpooled with orders a beer. Then the network administrator pipes in, "Then I'll have a beer, too." It really grated on my nerves -- his defensive indecision, his fear of reproach, his need to follow others even in something as insignificant as choosing what to drink.

It was an enjoyable lunch. Some of the people had great fishing stories. When we got back to the office, the network administrator was in my face. Would I go to The Haveli for lunch tomorrow, he asked? I said no. He started laughing his high-pitched giggle. It was clear he didn't know me. I explained to him that I wouldn't even eat burgers two days in a row. I thought it was a nice restaurant. Then he said he had asked other people and one said he wouldn't go for at least a month. He started giggling again. I thought, "What an ungrateful asshole. I hope something happens to the network while I'm on holiday."

July 22, 2000

Caught

I was out walking around the neighbourhood last night, minding my own business. Then around a corner came this guy. I didn't recognize him at first and continued on my way, absorbed in my own thoughts. He yelled, "You haven't been going to class!" Ulp. He is one of the younger members of the tae kwon do class I have avoided for the last three months. Not only does he live in the area, he also works as a waiter at Le Bifteck, where I usually have lunch on Sundays. I made an excuse about being tired and out of shape. He seemed skeptical. I made a promise to return in September. After we parted, I debated whether or not to change my walking route.

July 26, 2000

Slag

A special "recognition" lunch for a few people in the department today. The manager and the four people (including me) who worked on a special training course for lab users had lunch at Red Lobster. They have a new colourful drinks menu that looks like a small book. The book has pictures and short descriptions of the drinks. The special was "Red Claw," which is "kind of like Mick's Red" according to our waitress Debra. The picture was a pint of red beer with a plastic lobster claw beside it. I asked her if the beer was crab-flavoured. Sometimes I like to know the details, and Debra caught on. When I asked her how big a plate of pasta was, I got a short story that involved her husband ordering pasta at another restaurant, and that got us joking after she left. "How big is the plate? Well, my husband ordered pasta once. We're happily married with two children -- Tracey, 5, Michael, 7 -- and we like to travel. While we were in Costa Rica ..."

We spent lunch drinking Red Claw ("Red Claw! Arrr!") and talking about people at work. Does that make us gossips? But we presented our opinions, not rumours. I guess that makes us snipes.

August 4, 2000

Unreachable

The following messages were waiting for me on the answering machine when I got back from the camping trip at Clearwater Lake. I gave out my parent's number on the understanding that it in cases of emergency. That's the context you should keep in mind while reading the transcript. Also, it sounds better if you read it in a shaky voice.

Message 1

Message 2

Message 3

August 4, 2000

Froggy Goes To Town

Today was my last day to do everything. First stop was Black's at Intercity to get my pictures developed. When I got there, I saw a small crowd standing outside the store, watching a policeman dust the security door for fingerprints. I was told to go to County Fair, so I did. Then I drove to my sister's place to return the fishing gear I lent from her husband. I ended up drinking a cup of coffee and setting up their web browser bookmarks.

I had set up a lunch date with the travel agent who had booked my ticket home. Her name is Kathleen. I got to her office, asked for her, and was pointed to her cubicle. She was with customers. After waiting five minutes, she came out and said she had to cancel because the office was short-staffed. She is pretty, too. Tall, fit, long blond hair, perfect tan. Magazine pretty.

Back to the mall to pick up the photos. Then over to my friend's house to drop off the duplicates. I had gone to the back door to see if he was home (he wasn't) so I walked out to the front to put the envelope in the mail box. I noticed a mustachioed man watching me from a silver truck out front. He hadn't been there a minute ago. I smiled, but didn't wave, as I deposited the envelope. I could sense him watching me as I walked back to my car and drove off.

It was 1:30, and I still hadn't had lunch. I called my friend Paul, and we went to Rattlers. Terrible service at Rattler's. Good food, though. I got back home just in time to leave for camp.

August 7, 2000

Personal Growth

"Everyone should read one of these books every year." -- My Dad

For the desire to read something in the wilderness, I get sucked into a kaizen life. My peronal opinion: if you have to read more than one "self-improvement" how-to book per lifetime, then you're not listening. It's the same as holding yourself back a grade in school. These books are just collections of badly reworded concepts from Kantian and Neitzchean philosophy, with some Jung thrown in for colour. And these tenuous intellectual supports hold one basic idea -- "Why can't you be more like me?" That's why I like the Stoics (and the Daoists), because they're not afraid to throw up their hands and admit that sometimes we have no control.

My dad told me about a recent magazine survey that said that women are not attracted to muscular men. I scoffed. The respondants must have lied, I averred, because buff men are used to sell all sorts of products to women, including underarm deoderant and potato chips. The advertisers wouldn't do it if it didn't push product. So I asked my mom, "Mom, are you turned on by muscle guys?" She laughed. She said she and her high school friends once had a thing for a guy with a nice smile. He wasn't good looking, she said, but they loved his smile and it was all they could talk about. "So, you don't want a guy who can do push-ups while you're sitting on his back?" She laughed again. Nice smile, hmph. It can't be true.

August 8, 2000

Do Not Taunt the Weather Stick

My parents are the proud owners of a weather stick. It's supposed to have 100 percent accuracy in predicting the weather. It looks like a stripped branch nailed to a simple wooden plaque attached to our camp. But that's the beauty of the system. It's simplicity belies the complex technological inner workings that can tell a person whether or not it will rain today. When I got to the camp, the stick was straight out or slightly downward, indicating -- not much. But the next morning, it was sticking up at about 30 degrees, indicating rain. Sure enough it was raining. And it kept raining. For three days, that weather stick pointed to the sky, and for three days it rained.

Did the rain cause the stick to point upwards, or did the stick pointing upwards cause it to rain?

How to broadcast this fantastic discovery to the world? On the 24-hour weather channel, there is air time to spare for "Weather Sticks Across the Country." Instead of the tired weather forecasts on local television stations, the producers can cut to a suitably common person standing in front of the town's giant weather stick. And don't forget the 24/7 content provided on WeatherStick.com, a site that broadcasts weathersticks around the globe via web cams.

August 11, 2000

A New Adventure Every Week

This was the moment of truth. Once again, a little knowledge had brought me to the point of trashing a very expensive technology. All I needed was a wailing siren and a wisp of smoke coming out of the back of the machine to match the blinking red lights and complete the scene. On the good side, no matter what happened, I'd have something to report in the department meeting next week.

A little background. I had tried to load a switch with a new load, which turned out to be incompatible. Normally, when this happens, the switch automatically boots with the last known good load. Unfortunately, I had deleted this load. So the switch was continuously looping through the initialization procedure. I couldn't telnet to it. I couldn't connect through a console port. I told my manager about the situation, and he was cool. "It's okay. Those cards are only thirty thousand dollars each." And I was cool. I called somebody for help, and I did some research and found a procedure (it used the phrase "brute force") that might fix it.

I returned to the Captive Office. The Captive Office for the labs can be intimidating, stark, austere, yet I also find that its simple efficiency is beautiful. White high ceiling, white elevated tile floor, distant purple walls. Rows of tall computers humming and cooling fans blowing. I set up the computer terminal in front of the computer frame, and got to work.

The procedure called for removing the face plate of the affected card and connecting some jumpers on the circuit board to force it into a command mode. Then I had to replace the card, connect the laptop terminal to it, and enter some commands. And then it would be fixed. Simple, in theory, but reality is not described in the procedure. This type of switch is being sold to the public, so it comes with lots of "stoppers" to keep customers from tinkering with things. That's what 1-800 support lines are for. I ran into trouble with step one: remove the face plate. There are 20 teeny screws holding the face plate onto the board, and only the smallest socket wrench or a pair of needle-nose pliers can be used to remove them. This is Nortel's way of saying, "You really shouldn't be doing this." Half-an-hour later, I had the face plate off. I found the jumpers, but none of those little jumper thingys to make the connections. They aren't included on the board ("You really should NOT be doing this."), so I had to grab some from the Prototype Lab. I slotted the card, and connected the laptop. Yes! I had a prompt.

I entered the first command. It was rejected. Uh oh. So I entered "?" for help. The console responded "*** Welcome to EggShell ***", followed by the esoteric syntax to set variables and access memory space. None of it had any relation to the procedure. I think I started to sweat as I stared at the screen. Even the name of the operating system implies iminent destruction. "Welcome to EggShell. Hit any key to fry the machine." I went crazy for a minute. I started entering random command words, sometimes just single letters, and once a pair of commas. Nothing worked. By chance, I tried a command from another procedure for logging into another card on the machine, except I entered the name of the card I was connected to. Eureka! A DOS prompt. I kissed that DOS prompt. I was on my way home. After another minute of entering commands, the alarm LED on the card flashed quickly, then turned green. I removed the jumper connectors, replaced the face plate and closed the laptop with a satisfying nudge.

August 16, 2000

Et tu, Eric?

A temporary setback for the network administrator in my department. It started last month, when a switch management server wasn't working properly -- telnet sessions disconnected, but local functions at the console still worked. It seemed like a networking issue, but the network administrator denied it. "If it was a LAN problem, every device on the network would be affected," he said. Since that was not the case, it must be a device configuration issue, so he pushed it back to the switch management team in our department. The switch management looked at the device configuration, compared it with other configurations on the network that were working. The configurations were the same, so they conlcuded it must be a networking issue. On and on, back and forth, both sides saying it was obviously the other's responsibility. I know about both sides because I happen to be on both teams. I thought it was a networking issue, too, but I had no idea what it could be.

On Monday, the network administrator forwarded to the entire department an e-mail from a project manager asking for speedy resolution of the problem because their deadlines were coming up. The network administrator added his own comments: this is an important customer that we've worked hard to impress, and we should pull together to solve the problem quickly, and if there is anything he can do, he would be happy to help. When I got the e-mail, I could only shake my head. Who would ask him for support after a month of his denials? Doesn't he see that his theme song "I don't know about [enter device]. I don't know about [enter software]" was seriously eroding people's confidence in him?

But that was just the first salvo in a little e-mail battle the administrator was about to lose. His manager responded by writing that his e-mail was condescending, that the team didn't need lessons in customer service from him, and that a month had been wasted while we figured out who would solve the problem. I thought, "There's no way the administrator can respond to this, and he had better not try." But he did try. I heard him tapping away for a little over an hour, constructing a curious defense to his manager's admonishment. I say curious because, first, he didn't apologize for being condescending, and second, he said he wasn't responsible for device configuration issues, which made his "call me" tagline ring hollow. And after that, the team decided to keep him out of the loop until the end.

It was a networking issue. A lab user was using an IP address without proper authorization (happens all the time), and this address happened to match the one the network administrator gave out for the switch server. The conflict resulted in the server getting bumped off the network because it wasn't constantly advertising it's connection. With a couple of commands, I found out the MAC address, and from that determined what company made the offending device, and from that information I had a good idea of what lab group was involved. I didn't share this information with the network administrator. Instead, I plotted with the switch management team on writing a sarcastic and ego-bruising message declaring resolution of the problem. "It was a device configuration error after all -- a duplicate IP address on the LAN."

The network administrator was furious. He jumped up and started pacing around the cubicles and swearing at no-one in particular. He shouted that he was going to give a very stern lecture to the guilty lab user, when he found him (not likely, given the administrator's skills and the dumb network hubs he installed on the LAN). As he ranted outside my cubicle, I turned to my computer to hide my smile. I thought, "Maybe now you'll listen to my suggestions, ya lazy idiot."

Does that make me an asshole?

August 26, 2000

Distraction

I'm an idiot. I put some hot water on for spaghetti (got to get rid of that sauce). I decided to start a game of Diablo II, while I was waiting for the water to boil. I was really into the game, completed the second quest, and so on. Then I started feeling hungry. "Hmm, what should I have? Spaghetti? I'll go put the water on now and... uh oh." I ran to the stove. The element was glowing yellow, and the steel pot was tinged brown. Foolishly, I picked up the lid and burned my fingers. I still put it down gently, though, so as not to disturb the neighbours with clanging noises. The bottom of the pot was glowing red, and I could see the alloy on the bottom had melted and was dripping into a pool in the grease catcher. It was smoking a little, but the fire alarm didn't go off. Maybe I should get that checked.

I waited for the metal to cool. Some of it had melded to the element ring. I debated calling my mother to ask how I could get it off. I imagined her saying, "Soak it in soapy water." I'll just have to buy a new one. And I have to buy a new pot, or there won't be any perogies for little Eric ever again.

August 27, 2000

You Never Call

Called my "girlfriend" to see if she wanted to go to a movie today, after three weeks of loneliness. She never called back. It's over.

August 28, 2000

Saaah-reee!

I bought a replacement battery for my camera yesterday. I went to "Battery Plus" in Bayshore Mall, showed the old one to the bored clerk, and got a new one. Not an exact replacement, though. The new one had a different model number, although it met the specifications for the camera. When I got home, I inserted the battery into the camera and pressed the power switch. Nothing happened. I pressed the power switch again. Nothing happened. Hmph.

Today, I went back to the store to ask for a new battery. The clerk checked the one he sold me, and it was fine. "Is it possible you put the battery in the wrong way?" he asked. "No," I said, attempting to transmit my irritation at the question. I mean, the orientation is clearly printed on the sticker inside the battery compartment. He didn't have the other type of battery that would fit in my camera, so he returned my money. I went across to Black's and got a similar battery. It was a dollar less, too. When I got home, I inserted the battery and pressed the power button. Nothing happened. I checked the sticker. I had been putting the battery in the wrong way all along. How interesting.

I imagined the Battery Plus clerk scratching his head at the battery that would not work when it should have worked. Would this mystery puzzly him forever? Or was that customer a complete idiot? He will never know for certain.

And on my way out of the parkade, I nearly slammed an elderly man into a wall. I bounded down the parkade stairs, as is my habit, and shoved the security door open. He muttered, "Jesus Christ!" at me or at the situation. Is it my fault? There's no window on the door to see who is on the other side. He should have been more cautious.

September 9, 2000

A Backbone Transplant

So, now I know what the network administrator has been doing for the past three weeks. He has been fretting over the LAN he must design an implement for the new building. He is "lost" and "stressed out" because lab groups are making demands, and he can't deal with it. In the past, our previous manager would have taken control and made the necessary decisions, regardless of the consequences to his reputation. That meant the administrator could act tough, then run to his manager if there was trouble. Now things are different. Now the managers are placing the responsibility on him. He doesn't want to risk making any bad feelings, so he hasn't made any decisions. He needs someone to take the political heat for him. And so, he turned to me.

Yesterday, I found out what a sorry state things are in. Over the past weeks, I have given him advice on how to write a business case report to justify his decisions for the LAN: problem statement, criteria, constraints, alternatives, action plan, and so on. He has done nothing with that. His entire report consists of the diagrams (3-D, full colour!) I made for him, and which now bear his name as well as mine, because he changed one label. It's frustrating.

Next week, there is a critical meeting where he must convince a lab group to follow his plan instead of going with another LAN support group. He told me about the last meeting he had with their manager. Evidently, it didn't go well. The lab manager was self-assured and refused to discuss any possibility of our group providing support (and who can blame him, given the state of things?). Our managers sat back and talked about compromise. This situation scared the administrator. He said it was because he didn't have the full support of management, but I think the real reason is that he had learned helplessness because of the previous manager, and he was starting to realize his years of coasting are about to end.

He was wrapped up in feeling sorry for himself. That's frustrating, too. Before I knew it, I was yelling at him. He asked for my advice and then interrupted me. He started tapping my arm to get my attention, and I had to warn him twice to stop. He has become desperate. He wants me to go to these meetings and convince the managers to follow his plan. This is getting ugly. I told him that I can't do his job for him. It's his job to convince the managers that his plan is worthy of support. It's his job to prepare for these meetings. It's his job to administer the LAN in a way that satisfies the users. Throughout my short lecture, he shook his head and waved his hands and said, "No, no, no. I didn't mean I want you to do my job. I need someone to back me up. It's a partnership. I go to you for advice. You come to me for advice. We work together." Right.

I gave him another action plan for him to ignore. I strongly suggested that he meet with our managers to discuss their expectations of behaviour, and once that is settled, they should discuss strategy. Classic Org. Behaviour. Then I urged him to write a solid case report, similar to one I wrote last week for a budget issue. But I don't think he was listening. His only objective was to get me to these meetings to speak on his behalf. He wouldn't let me leave until I half-heartedly agreed to it.

I am considering going to our manager and telling him what is going on. It might get the administrator out of my face. On the other hand, my manager already doesn't think much of the administrator, and my information might further convince him to make some organizational changes. This administrator is my friend. Don't I have an obligation to keep him from getting fired? I'll make up my mind after the first meeting.

September 13, 2000

The Snake and The Rat

The Survivor theme continues, but in a more banal form.

Yesterday was the day of the departmental meeting. Every two weeks we sit around for thirty to forty-five minutes. We eat donuts and drink coffee. Sometimes we give status reports, but only if we really have to. My manager didn't want to call the meeting, but I did, for my own selfish reasons. No, not the donuts. I was planning to bring up the extra work I was doing for the new LAN (refer to post of Sept. 9). It was item number six in my hidden agenda.

But the network administrator beat me to the punch, which surprised me because it was counterproductive for his goals. It was in his best interest to keep this affair secret for as long as possible. But then I realized, the next meeting on the new building is tomorrow. If he expected it to be a chance to get managerial approval for his decision, he had to be delusional. Here is the conversation, which lasted thirty seconds.

I wanted to pipe up and say, "You didn't want me to feel excluded? That's not what you told me last week." Putting him on the spot might seem petty, though.

Of course, it wouldn't end there. Nothing is stopping the administrator from asking me questions that he should already know the answer to, if he was doing his job. "Eric, how long is the building? Eric, how many fibers should I have installed in the pipe? Eric, do you think using the passport is a good idea?" To which I replied, "You're asking the wrong person. However many you want. It depends." Since I was being rather unhelpful, he decided to ask another co-worker who has absolutely nothing to do with networking. His response was a lot more vocal than mine. "What the hell are you asking me for? Geezus, that's your job!" Sigh. I wish I had said that.

After that, I had to assume my manager had been told everything, because that co-worker is a gossip. Later, I found out how much he knew, when we met in the coffee room. He asked, "Do you want me to have his knee caps busted? It's very painful." I replied, "How about breaking one finger for every question?" "There aren't enough fingers," he said.

September 17, 2000

It Isn't My Fault I Suck

Another weekend shot. Wouldn't you know a critical system fails days before a customer demonstration "showcasing" the technology. I spent Thursday and Friday fielding calls from engineers sounding more desperate and more angry as the hours passed. This morning, I'm in before everyone else to look over the system. I'm co-ordinating with one of the software designers in Kansas.

Could the news get worse? Oh, yes. The engineers decided to move their tests to a different system. Then that one failed, too. I started thinking, maybe it isn't the system. The expert in Kansas generally agreed. There was a subnetting error on a static route (my bad), but other than that, everything was fine. But that was the problem. The tests started working again on the first system, and everyone was happy. I got to watch a video conference between two mobile phones, which the engineers got quite excited about.

You'd think I'd be happy, too, but my inexperience caused a critical three-day delay, and that weighed me down. And who could I have turned to? No-one else in my department has the expertise, especially the network administrator ("Can you ping the machine? Then it works!"). I just have to take better notes, and keep that expert's number handy.

September 19, 2000

A Shadow from the Past

She said, "Hi, Eric."

I was leaning against a wall outside of a lab, tapping away on a laptop, and didn't see her approach. She was the first in a series of ill-conceived pairings engineered by well-meaning friends. Fortunately, I recognized her instantly. Wouldn't it be terrible to break up with someone, then forget everything about her within two years? How embarassing that would be for her. So, here she was, as pleasant as ever. No longer was she in a corporate campus I never visited. Now she was in the same building as me. We chatted for ten minutes. She suggested we go for lunch. For some reason, I mentioned an invitation to a celebratory lunch for the latest success of a particular project. The e-mail said to bring "your S.O." (I thought it meant "Supreme Overlord," and asked my manager to join me.) She said she'd go, if it fit in her schedule.

It's clear to me, though, that we could never get back together. Our talk was pleasant enough, but there were no feelings, at least on my part. I felt almost complete neutrality towards her.

September 26, 2000

What kind of FREAK are you?

I got invited to a celebratory dinner for helping create a successful customer demonstration last week (watch for the press release). It was at the Kasbah, a Moroccan restaurant on Bank Street. The project manager is an important person in the division, and there were a couple of key designers and testers, and me. The restaurant is small, but decorated nicely with carpets, wall hangings, and suspended lamps. The dinnerware was pretty, too. The waiter was a tall Moroccan who switched between English and French while he was talking to us. We ordered red wine to start. The food, when it finally arrived, was delicious.

Mostly, the managers talked about their stays at Nortel sites in Dallas, India, and other parts of Canada. The big guy asked if I was from Ottawa, and when I said I was from Thunder Bay, I inadvertently prompted a 20-minute comparative analysis of weather patterns around the globe. They expressed some amazement at my tolerance for cold temperatures, especially when I said I didn't turn my heat on last winter.

Then we talked about reality television. The big guy's wife is a "Survivor" fan, but she doesn't know anything about the various Internet sites devoted to it. I had the inside scoop on the characters, the subtext, and the behind-the-scenes action. I quoted contestant's speeches. I hinted at upcoming intrigue. I became the Reality Television Guru. She joked about getting my e-mail address so that she could get more information. Then she asked about "Big Brother" and it's various incarnations ("In Europe, they have sex all the time."), and the Australian import "Popstars". I didn't get to tell her about "The Mole," because she left the restaurant early, without her husband. She had to get home in time to watch "Survivor."

September 29, 2000

The Trains Will Run On Time

No-one believed me when I said the department's team-building game for September would be bocce. Yet it was a rousing success. But someone had to maintain order. Someone had to keep the players in line. Yes, it was me against the rising tides of anarchy. "Green shoots! I said GREEN!"

A lot of the work I do goes unappreciated.