My Life Blog

I have just about hit a career low in terms of how I have felt about my work.  Ideally, you want to do meaningful work that is interesting and have some fun doing it.  Unfortunately, it seems the environment I find myself in is so far from that.

In the information technology business, you do the work some business entity needs you to do.  At Nokia, it seems each business entity seems to run their own little company with the budget they are given.  Some play nice and work maturely.  Others are completely unreasonable.  Our small organization meanwhile fights and scraps for work, so it cannot be choosey about the work it gets.  Sometimes these factors combine to form a very bad situation.

The business we are working with grew their own software internally, but has recently turned it over to us in IT to maintain.  Their system is built poorly with now-obsolete technology and has little documentation.  It also is quite unstable keeping our fledgling staff up until all hours to keep running.  Fortunately, I am not one of those people.

Due to one of their vendor packages no longer being supported, it must be replaced.  As such, they chose the replacement and negotiated the contract without IT involvement.  They also chose to swap out another knowledgebase type of product.  And at the same time, they wanted their obsolete system replaced. 

Of course, they wanted all of this done in three months.  They also wanted their existing system maintained.  No, they did not want to document the requirements for the new system.  No, they did not want to put a testing group in place.  No, we don’t have much leverage over the vendors in doing their package implementations — those agreements were done without us.  No, we don’t know the details of the 26 integrations required.  No, we didn’t have our outsourced team up to speed yet.

Our architect arrives to work at 3am and sometimes doesn’t leave until 5pm and works through lunch.  I’m an architect too, but playing the role as developer on this project.  Others work 10+ hours between developing the new system and supporting the old system.  Prior to the Christmas break, it was suggested that we limit our vacation.  Two and a half months later, the pace continues.

With the lack of documentation, it has been difficult to estimate the work.  In addition, the one vendor has not kept to their schedule.  In both vendor cases, the integration approaches are sub-optimal.  As you might imagine, we’ve had several deadlines along the way, but missed each one of them.  Given all that I’ve represented, is there any wonder why? 

With all the schedule slips, our business is rumored to have inquired about our technical competence.  Our management doesn’t seem to understand the scope of the project, the resourcing shortages, the vendor relationship challenges, and the affect of long-term heroic measures.

I go to work every day feeling that the business doesn’t respect us and views us as slaves who should not have lives.  I lose respect for my management every day for not stepping in to provide us a sane working environment with realistic and attainable project goals.  I view the situation as hopeless and given that our competence has been questioned, I’m not inspired in the least to give any of my personal time to benefit the unappreciative business. 

As an additional point, our bonuses this half were cut because the business rated us poorly.  And yet, this is the same business that puts us in these situations.  Of course, our own management perpetuates the problem by enabling the business to do so. 

All these factors have me questioning my value system and wishing that I had a job which complemented what I think my value system really requires.  Its less about money and more about doing something that matters and sharing the experience with people you enjoy and respect.  And working with leadership that respects you, inspires you, and places you in positions where its possible for you to succeed.

Last week, the Aggies lose by a point to LSU.  This week LSU beats Duke by 8.  So by the transitive property of math, A&M would have beaten Duke by 7 tonight. 

Seriously, I do think A&M’s tenacious defense would have made the match-up interesting, but we’ll never know.

Its no wonder my Aggies couldn’t beat Texas.  Just look closely at the picture to see their defensive secret weapon!

Suzanne and I continue to add refinements to our house — its Extreme Makeover: Married Edition!  So the latest project is getting new countertops.

As we were disappointed by Home Depot in our island installation, we decided to try Lowe’s.  Its too bad for Home Depot since this job was about four times more expensive.  HD’s poor customer service cost them this job and our continued loyalty.  So we were very hopeful that Lowe’s would provide a much better experience.

But we must have the black cloud of home remodeling perpetually hanging over our heads.  This job goes no better.

We are currently on day two without running water in the kitchen after the faucet installation was aborted by the sub-contractor.  His reason?  The faucet we bought was uninstallable due to its shallow mounts.  It seems the combined depth of our countertop and the undermounted sink means there’s no room to thread the connector hoses. 

We were incredulous when the sub-contractor advised us to buy another faucet and Lowe’s seemed to support that advice.  I could not believe we were going to have to spend additional time to pick another out.  But we went to Lowe’s anyway and looked at alternatives.  All had the same "shallow " mount.  So it would seem that the shallow mount is actually standard.  So after failing to find a workable alternative, Lowe’s finally does what they should have done all along and commits to having the sub-contractor "core" out the sink to make additional threading room. 

We are pissed because we spend 1.5 hours at Lowe’s when Lowe’s could have done the right thing saving us the trouble.  And since we returned the faucet upon entry to the store, we had to buy the same damn one on the way out.

There have been other rough spots along the way, but I’ll spare everyone those details.  Suffice it to say that the home improvement industry has a ways to go with their home remodeling services.  I think we are like most customers, we want a smooth, trouble-free experience with no surprises and all work done as advertised. 

As a point of information, the sub-contractor admitted that Lowe’s serves only as the middle man and that they take 30% of the job cost before delegating to their sub-contractors.  Given the amount of value they provide for that 30%, they are surely very profitable with this approach.

Having a Counting Crows kinda weekend here in Dallas.

This story from last weekend:

Irving police have taken their fight against drunken driving to a new
level. Irving officers and state agents targeted 36 bars and clubs
Friday and arrested some allegedly intoxicated patrons before they
departed the businesses.

I’m astounded by this and didn’t even think this was possible.  If you can’t drink in a bar, where can you drink?

I’m glad I’m married now for a great many reasons, but being so also keeps me out of the bars.  I cannot tell you how many times I was probably "legally" intoxicated inside a bar in the last twelve years. 

So how do you think the bar business is doing in Irving these days? 

Wow!

This may sound like sour grapes since I’m in a foul mood from the Aggie loss, but I feel I must publicly criticize CBS for its broadcast coverage of this game today.

In the Dallas market, no other game is as important as the LSU vs. Texas A&M game due to its regional interest.  And yet, CBS inconsiderately shifted the broadcast to other games that we’re nearing their conclusions.  Unfortunately, they did a very poor job of resetting the situation when they returned to the A&M game. 

For instance, Acie Law picked up a second foul early in the first half while we were away, but that important detail was not communicated to us viewers.  That’s a critical strategic development in a game of this magnitude. 

In past years, I recall them going to a picture-in-picture approach where both games could be monitored.  Apparently that technology has been lost this year as they are making the hard-switch to the other game.

So CBS…thumbs down to you!

Earlier in the day, I was listening to the radio as the analysts were busy assessing the prospects of Duke in the next round.  At the time, Duke had advanced to the next round and awaited the winner of the LSU vs. Texas A&M game.  One commentator asked the other how LSU would match up.  My eyebrow and my ire was raised since LSU needed to go through my Aggies before getting to Duke.  Suffice it to say that the national media is slow to give A&M much respect.

As it turns out, LSU did advance, but they did so by the narrowest of margins  — 1 point.  The final score was 58-57.  And what a heartbreaker it was for Aggies fans. 

A&M got down by 12 early and things looked really bad.  Then they rattled a 17-0 spurt to go ahead, before settling for a tie at halftime.  In the second half, it was hard-fought and late in the game the Aggies found themselves down by 7.  It looked really bad at that time.  Then the Aggies tied it.  Then they took the lead by 2 with 19.2 seconds left.  In my mind,  I thought they were going to win as LSU had not been able to solve the Aggie defense.  I sure didn’t think they would take the lead.  But LSU came down and worked the ball around before settling on a long 3-point shot.  It went in leaving 3.2 seconds for the Aggies to tie it.  They could not muster a shot.

But what a great showing for a team that was 0-12 in Big XII games just two years ago!  They definitely knew the Aggies were there.  Beating Syracuse who had earlier beat the favored team in the tournament UConn.  Then playing the higher-seeded LSU so close! 

I’m so proud to be an Aggie today…this was a short, but great run.  Hopefully we’ll get to do this again next year.

Normally the words I write about Kauai describe my complete fascination with its beauty and the inner contentment I feel while I am there.  So it is quite different to associate "tragedy" with Kauai.  But such is the case today.

Earlier this week, a reservoir dam failed in the northeast part of the island spilling millions of gallons of water down a river stream all at once.  The flood level was said to eclipse 40 feet in height and resulted in several houses being swept off their foundations.  More importantly, two are dead and five are missing. 

The water level temporarily temporarily closed the Kuhio Highway which represents the only way for road travelers to go from the north side of the island to the south side.  This effectively cut people off from the airport and from the only major hospital on the island.  Tourists with plane flights were being transported by helicopter if they were lucky.  Newly-arriving tourists with lodging arrangements on the north side of the island were either taking the return helicopter flight or staying the night in their rental cars.  So basically, for two days Kauai was no place to be if you had plans in the affected areas.

It has come out that the failed dam was an earthen dam.  What’s more, its a dam more than 100 years old, owned and maintained (or not) by the landowner.  The years of neglect and the recent heavy rainfall combined to create the failure.  The chilling part of this is that this is not the only such dam.  For a while, there was concern over a neighboring dam failing as well, but it appears that the situation has improved such that that is no longer a concern.

We are due to be in Kauai again in less than 60 days, so we’ll be able to witness this first hand.  If you have an interest in following this story, you can do so at the Garden Isle News site.

Billy Gillispie brought the team to the arena today to watch the entire day’s schedule of games.  The first game started at 11am CST and the Aggies finally took the court at 9pm CST.  The intent was obviously to give the players the flavor and intensity of the tournament.  The secondary purpose was to soak in the experience.  An Aggie team last played in this tournament in 1987 and last won a game in 1980.

Syracuse was the talk of the tournament after having won the Big East tournament this past weekend.  The Aggies meanwhile bowed out of the Big XII tournament in the second round with a narrow loss to Texas.  Prior to that, A&M had won 9 straight games.  So it was #5 seed Syracuse versus #12 seed A&M.  Boeheim vs. Gillispie. 

The media will try to spin the Aggie win as a case of them capitalizing on a team trying to play with an injured point guard, Gerry McNamara.  However, the guy started.  And yes, he played poorly.  But as in any team sport, if you build your team around one guy, you are bound to eventually lose. 

In my opinion, the Aggies won because they outhustled and outplayed Syracuse.  They also appeared to be well-prepared as they had weren’t intimidated by Syracuse’s 2-3 zone defense and scored several times against the full-court press.  Despite what may be said in the national media, the Aggies were the better team in every facet of the game.

You must understand that the Aggies have not won a game in this tournament since before my time at A&M.  Obviously, that’s a very long time!  So next up, LSU.  All I know about them is that they struggled against little Iona.  Its doubtful that the Aggies will sneak up on them, so it should be a really good game.

I realize this will probably be a short tournament run, but like Gillispie and his players, I’m soaking it in and enjoying every minute of it.