Archive for the ‘Such is Life’ Category

I sold an old friend today

Monday, December 21st, 2009

well yesterday now.

My Ensoniq Fizmo Synthesizer Keyboard. A lovely person, Jen, purchased it. She’s studying music, and doing some movie soundtracks, in a band etc etc. As i mentioned to Jen, she’ll love this synth that i had bought brand new from Mannys at Johnstone St Collingwood. That shop/store isn’t there anymore apparently.

It is weird this sale. It’s gone to a damn good home, mind you, but as i didn’t want to sell it, like some more stuff i think i’ll have to sell, it’s like losing a friend.

So yeah, as i jokingly said, i’ll shed a tear, and maybe buy it back one day!

Thanks Jen. You are a star!

peter

Being Made Redundant

Friday, March 20th, 2009

I’m going through an interesting time in my life. I’m very circumspect and level headed these days. So last December i thought i’d enquire about Voluntary Redundancy where i work.

I’ve always been pretty good at predicting things – i asked my Mum to sell her shares a year ago and put them into cash. She didn’t, but she eventually got out after a small loss.
As for me – i could see that where i work was gonna be hit with “headcount pressure”. That’s Stock Market speak for “we have too many people and we need to lose some”. (more…)

My name is Luka

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

i live upstairs from you. So the song goes.

i actually live downstairs from you…stop the f#^king noise otherwise i’ll be upstairs with Luka, knocking on your door!

have a nice day, service is restored.

peter

We’re Back! But not all quite right.

Friday, August 29th, 2008

hey, sorry for not posting fo a while. And yes, 7:40am a sign of my new times!

I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately and was ok, until i was told that i had to work offsite coz my preferred place of work was a distraction.

Fuck off.

The project manager basically didn’t like that i had to attend team meetings and an ad hoc meetings. We are a f’ing support team after all.

No they wanted me to work in a foreign environment on a foreign computer. I DID point out that me using a Windows PC would significantly reduce my productivity – i use a Gnome Desktop, and not that it matters between Linux or Solaris, i use OpenSolaris. Given all my testing and dev work is on Solaris 10…..makes sense right?

Unless you’re using Red Hat, then that’s a “don’t get me started” type of argument. And thankfully, as aforementioned, i’m on OpenSolaris. I can’t test zones on Linux, unless i use VMWare and saccrifice RAM and resources, but given i’m 100% Solaris 10….fek…why would i?

So, when will i be back?

When will Project Managers be banned from walking up to my desk?

I think you can deduce the answer. I’m undergoing “counselling”…and will most likely work afternoons until further notice. Project Managers – we shall see.

peter

Logging in Our Forests

Monday, April 28th, 2008

Sorry…i have a whole lot off of pics to post…but as usual tech stuff (and i’m dman good with that) means that i cant bring the logging, the burning off and all that,.

so sorry

peter

24 Hours On Call People

Friday, December 14th, 2007

sorry for the lack of posts lately and whatever your religion, i hope you have a peaceful break over the Christmas holidays (vacation)

well, the title of this Blog entry? it’s not a party…like 24 Hour Party People, the film about Joy Division, New Order and Factory Records, the record company.

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Happy Birthday To Me

Sunday, October 14th, 2007

i worked Friday night, Saturday morning until 2am…the last of the Internet Banking implementations….and it, Oct 12, was my birthday too.

Such is life.

I got home at 3am Saturday 13th… everyone asleep, no-one to phone up…..

later

Stress and Music

Friday, October 5th, 2007

as most of my work colleagues know, i’ve been off with stress leave this week. It’s been an interesting process and i’m still dealing with how this works…but in reality … how it doesn’t work.

I thought i was going to be given help with how to manage it, but seriously my Taxi driver, Eli gave me the best advice of anyone. And i’m not sharing that. email me if you need that info.

The process at The Bank doesn’t seem to acknowledge that’s there’s an issue within the workflow allocation, or the processes in place, or the management of these things… and that we have contract Project Managers (PMs)…not permanent PMs… that aren’t signed up to The Banks charter…and coz they are not full time staff of The Bank and they haven;t been educated in how permanent staff of The Bank are to be treated….but the work allocation seems to deem that it’s the person with the stress issue that is/has the problem ………hmmmm how very 1980′s.

I had my consultation with the Corporate Psych people, and they, while nice to talk to, were not in The Banks process as it turned out. I had a good chat though and that certainly re-inforced a few things for me. One was that The Bank was an “unsafe working environment” and subject to the full letter of the Law as far as OH&S laws go. Apparently i have a case to sue The Bank. I wont be doing that …it’s not in my nature, but i guess it’s out there if i need to fall back on it.

The Banks process seems to be a case of “OMFG…we have someone that’s stressed”. I was put on hold six times while they gathered my details. I was being “served” by a junior bloke, but still…being on hold when you are under stress and finally decide to phone up….fek…what if i was suicidal???

I’d be dead.

So i got a case number, but still it is not clear what i am to do. As mentioned above, i had my consultation with the Psych people…no one from HR has phoned me…i’ve had four days off…where do i go from here?? I’ll phone them this morning i guess and see what happens…sadly i have to work tonight 5pm – 6am as there’s no-one at The Bank that can really do this “change” that i’ve got to do…which is pretty scary given that this Bank brings in 5 Billion Aussie dollars profit.

Whilst i was winding down tonight…

Thankfully i was able to listen to RRR FM 102.7 and tonight/this morning the lovely Loz (‘scuse speeling) kept me up beat and sane with an amazingly wide variety of tracks from loads of artists. She must suffer a similar storage issue to me given the amount of CDs she had on hand and well i have lots of CDs and vinyl as well.

But it’s a good problem to have, i think :-)

Thanks sweetie

cheers

peter

New Servers Now Serving the Public

Sunday, September 30th, 2007

aaaaah…..and no i can’t say too much about that. But they are Sun T2000s and are handling it really well.

We are half way through our deployment so everything is going well. Except that all of us have sacrificed our Friday nights/Saturday mornings….4th in a row and will continue up to and including October 19th.

I won’t be working that day…i’ve negotiated it off…hopefully…but geez….8 Fridays and Saturday mornings in a row is too much….

What more can i say?

Working 27 Hours A Day for The Bank

Thursday, September 20th, 2007

I work at a Large Bank.

There, i’ve said it. We are short staffed where i work and we’ve undergone a restructure. My “old” department is 3 or 4 people down and i recommended a guru that i’d worked with years ago and that had worked at the Bank and recommended him to help alleviate the loss of staff (2 very key and senior people left) and also ‘coz this guy had worked here before, knew the environment and would have no issues in getting up to speed. I’m the only senior person left now.

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