It is clear that humans did not evolve in an environment where noticing scroll bars was essential to survival.
After the big disaster that takes humanity down, cockroach archaeologists will determine that the root cause was... a copy and paste error.
I discovered that one co-worker has pledged never to speak with me again. One down, 118 to go.
It does not take a lot to make me happy at an event. If i do not have to wear a tie or manage PowerPoint, I am good.
I have started a plan to make myself so unpopular that they will be glad to see me retire. I call the plan "my normal day to day behavior".
Implementation plan: a report where you describe what you would be doing if you were not occupied writing the implementation plan.
Redid my will. Program allowed directions for the funeral. My only rule was that PowerPoint should not be allowed.
3 minutes to create a fix. 4 hours to forget about it. 6 hours of debugging problems over the next 3 days leading back to: the fix.
Tomorrow is National Ask a Stupid Question Day. As an IT professional, I would like to know what day isn't?
When they came for XP, I said nothing because I do not use XP, when they came for printers, I said nothing, because I do not use printers...
I suppose the second part is not true... I said nothing because I really hate printers.
Old and irrelevant. I'm down with that.
Gems that led to my impending retirement: "Grant the user full access". Done. "They are not going to be able to modify anything, right?
Came to in the middle of a meeting with the workflow diagram pointing to "work queue 237". Have I mentioned I am retiring?
I just don't get it. It is almost as if some people don't appreciate it when their mistakes are pointed out to them.
You do not know data geek pain unless the number 16,384 makes you wince.
Confession: I am a desktopist. I judge anyone who still has the original window desktop image a computer illiterate. I am usually right.
I don't mind telling you, as someone who dealt with 5.25" floppies, having a 1.5 Terabyte hard drive makes me giggle a bit.
The highest level of incompetence is to have an error checking program named after you.
My exact response to the request for a color change on a complex data map was "go suck an egg". HR come and get me. 288 days left.
Hint. When your co-workers say your spouse must be a saint, they are not complimenting your spouse....
The less glorious part of front line IT that they do not tell you about: clicking OK 1,123 times during a migration.
For clueless computer users, I emphasize the 3 R's. Reboot, Right-Click, and Read (the error message). Too bad "think" does not start with R.
Today I measured how long "forever" is, as in "it takes forever to pull up this file". Turns out, in 2013. "forever" is 46.5 seconds.
We need a word for forgetting to attach the file to an email. "Stupid" would work, except when it is me that forgot.
Today I fixed 2 things I didn't create, don't understand and don't really understand exactly what I did to fix them. I am ready to be a CEO!
Voice Mail Preview: Yes this is Richard at this off about rubber mormon. Created by Microsoft Speech Technology. Learn More..
Managing the publication database means I get to ask people "you really have not published since 2007?" I make a lot of friends.
You know you are an administrator when you do not feel the pleasure of completing a project until you also delete it from your to do list.
Let us admit it: right up there with penicillin, the safety pin and air conditioning: copy and paste.
This week I have done tech support for an operating system I have never used. (about the only OS I have never used)
I had to use algebra at work. My long dead, long forgotten algebra teacher was right, it is useful! I bet he feels..long dead and forgotten.
On a day to day basis, knowing I do not know is the most valuable thing I know.
Today I heard my least favorite phrase 3 times: "that is the way we have always done it". Drink!
1 ppt created on Mac, 1 with video embedded, 1 with video attached. All OK till unplanned switch to laptop with ppt 2007. #IhatePowerPoint
Elapsed time between excitement over a new feature and wanting more: 45 seconds.
Bad IT policies seem to originate from incidents that occurred to non-IT high level administrators. They suffer once, we suffer forever.
Top management in for profit leads to new growth. In non-profit they work to eliminating obstacles to growth their own bureaucracy created.
As an administrator, I need a way to say "Your assistance on this is greatly appreciated" with an implied threat of violence.
4 out 5 administrators agree, there is nothing more disruptive to an organization than a proactive legal department.
3rd sick day, will count as a workday. Day one I scared staff by not emailing for 2 hrs. They assumed I had died. Signals need for change.
My "todo" flagged email count just went below my "waiting on someone" else flagged email count. And look, it is almost 5PM!
You can call it what you want, but a retreat is just a really long meeting.
On telecon with a slide deck from heck. Presenter is in edit mode enabling us to see that we are in slide 24 of 57. Despair sets in.
When sys admins get on each others' systems and have problems, few words are exchanged, only screenshots. We know. We believe no one.
User opened the link to the online form, printed it, filled it out, circled the print button, scanned the paper to pdf and emailed it to me.
A tech just came in to rifle my connector cable collection (pile), looking for male/female and left complaining that all my cables were gay.
Angels dancing on pins have nothing on teleconning administrators dancing on a single word. They can do entire chorus lines.
Another day, another new NCI username and password. That makes 3, and this one has no change capability. Explains a lot.
I think i may actually chew my own foot off to escape this telecon. Perhaps if I feigned a severe heart attack?
Memory upgrade day for one of the labs. If only it was this easy for people!
If getting people mad at you was a business plan, I could retire just on my work today!
Today has been interlocked communications via telecon, twitter, IM, email, chat room, and F2F. Accomplishing nothing has become fractal.
Digging through my action needed email list in September..."please respond by August 8th". Another one off my list! I am so efficient sometimes.
Learned that a program I did as grad school project is still in use in a lab 20 years later. Do not know whether to be honored or terrified
Time travel note to morning self: When you see that rock, do NOT turn it over, and do NOT open the can marked "Worms!" you find underneath.
Never is the phrase "thanks through clenched teeth" better seen than when setting setting someone up to work from home.
I found the problem 16 years ago. It is still there. Instead of trying to fix it again, I am going to beat it with a good retirement plan.
I think I pushed several people to the edge of sanity today. It was a good day.
Key to setting up older user's computers: first leave something really annoying. come back later, fix it. The new things are then trivial.
My new email rule is that if there are more than 3 recipients, I need not read it.
Observer effect for data admins: The moment a report is compiled, users find unentered data that invalidates it.
Email stopped working, network connections became flaky. It was not my job to fix it, so it was time to go home and begin the long weekend.
The data analyst's corollary of the Dunning Kruger effect: the people who need error reports never think to ask for them.
People who say there are no stupid questions never worked front line tech support.
We had been pushing her to go to a smart phone for years. Now that she has, we realize the phone was not the problem.
10 year old server went off line last night. Consulted with 3 high level server techs, and we went for the obscure reboot fix. Worked.
When we techies say "It was no problem" to a user what we are really saying is "There was no problem with your computer, YOU were the problem"
I do not think of it as being a faceless administrative drone, I prefer the term "security through obscurity".
I was able to use a xkcd cartoon to explain how I fixed a web site today (Little Bobby Tables). Life is good.
I have discovered my super-power: missing phone calls.
Trying to imagine having to work on complex projects without having a search engine handy. This will be the new definition of the dark ages.
My IQ is down 20 points...#googledown
Actually taking a lunch break, first in years...wait I am answering emails... You cannot beat The Man.
Google is down. everyone can go home, no work can be done.
Not feeling gratitude from staff for new, larger screens for their PC's. You would think I was giving them a shot. They squint suspiciously.
Systems life: unraveling one problem leads to 3 more. It is not me that is easily distracted, it is reality.
Watching non-profit bureaucracy in what passes for 'rapid response mode', it becomes obvious how we maintain our non-profit status.
I am playing editing ping pong with the bureaucrats behind ClinicalTrials.gov. They have better macros than I do and are winning.
Drama at work reminds you why you really don't mind work being boring.
30% of office email traffic could be eliminated if folks would read their email in reverse chronological order.
If this is what it is like now after two impromptu days off I think I will just move into the office permanently!
The nerd lunch: triple onion burger with a side of onion rings. No one will waste my time with chit chat this afternoon!
"Leukemia tends to be a weekend disease." Overheard and seconded by some weary looking clinicians.
How is it that after all these years and miscommunication, we still lack a sarcasm font?!
My voice mail will now be forwarded to email. Carrier pigeon messages will be forwarded to smoke signals.
Clarke's law inverted: Any computer trick, to a sufficiently stupid person, looks like magic.
Who needs a window in the office when you can have 3 24" flat panels?
Pretty women are attracted to me. Pretty women with computer problems that is.
"I know you must think I'm stupid..." my answer: "Yes, that thought had occurred to me" What? This time you wanted me to disagree with you?
There are so many people I am going to miss when I retire, but you are not one of them. Oops, did I say that out loud?
My job is dependent on networks. My vacations are destroyed by them.
The number of delays and problems renovating the parking deck is directly correlated to the number of executive reserved parking spaces.
I am embarrassed by the number of places where the government shutdown impacts my work. Recognizing the bureaucrat in the mirror. #shutdown
Today was a day i was glad my children no longer have "parent's career day" (and for reference: my previous job was in parasitology)
The first question to ask in a reorg is "who were they unable to fire using official procedures?"
Solution for the IT track's planning issues: think about what caBIG did, and do the opposite. #CCAF13
A compromise leaves everyone unhappy, what is it when everyone is angry?
So we are back at trying to build computers that do what humans already do, instead of letting computers do what humans do not. #ascoqlty
Quality Improvement projects are a routine part business. In medicine it is exotic research worthy of a publication. Go figure. #ascoqlty
"Target rich environment" That is a phrase I knew I would hear at a medical quality improvement symposium. #ascoqlty
The amount on my memory that has been replaced by Google is beginning to scare me.
I felt cool about being connected at off work hours, till I hung with 20/30 somethings who did not even recognize the work hours construct.
All these years I have tried to discourage use of printers. Now our IT folks have a better strategy: make printers almost impossible to use.
Live by the calendar, die by the calendar
Happy code dance!
In 15 years of server administration, only blonde users have ever suddenly zeroed out a server. Just sayin.
We have removed 3/4 (>10K) of the printers here. There are a good number of folks that would give up their children with less fuss!
Work emails seem so petty and inconsequential when viewed from afar.
Yes, I knew that but I have not recompiled lately so it was not implemented. (file under excuses that work for computers but not for people)
Budget cuts: food at meetings, printers and travel. I am safe, hating paper, travel and being on a diet.
Micromanaging is the only kind of managing that manager knows.
I used to think obsolescence would hurt, but apparently it has its own analgesic effect.
The real digital divide is between those that seem to just attract spyware, and those that do not. I think they are on a different internet.
When an IT person's answer to your question begins "uhhm..." you have been dissed. If they write that in an email, you have been an idiot.
Trying hard not to complain, there are worse ways to learn how to spell mesothelioma than this report. One in particular comes to mind.
Auto-complete in the email To: field was probably done by the same starved for entertainment nerd that invented reply to all.
I love that period of time after the automation of a task but before everyone catches on and you stop getting full credit for doing the task.
I am attempting to avoid using verbs in all email replies today. #bored
The odd thing about meetings is that how much they really accomplish is independent of how annoying they are to sit through.
So it is kind of late... but I finally realize what a superpower it is to be the person in the room that truly trusts math.
The curse of the data geek are the people who want answers but are unwilling to actually ask questions.
Sometimes coding makes you feel like the rifleman must have felt the first time he fired a machine gun. Mass destruction!
It is not often you get to quote Tolstoy in an office memo.
Arghh. How many times does a computer system have to be right before people quit making the developer do the work by hand as proof?!
My outlook has a urgent tag, and a get back to tag, a waiting on someone tag. I need a "sender is a moron" tag.
It is 2014. You would think people would quit so reflexively questioning a computer's ability to add and subtract.
The likelihood that computer output is correct is directly correlated to the amount of time you spend doubtfully questioning it.
I was a parasitologist, I was known for knowing poop. Now as a data analyst, I am known for knowing mistakes. I am sensing a pattern here.
Data Detective...leave big data to the big people, I specialize in little data cases.
Using Google makes me feel like a cyborg. I actually remember when not knowing things could last long enough to make me feel ignorant.
Though it has done nothing so far, this storm has scared some of the most computer phobic users to learn out to use remote desktop.
A successful coder need only program faster than the administrators can explain the changes to the staff. At some places that is a low bar.
The great cycle of life: Work is what gets you behind on email. Meetings are what helps you catch up.
Nothing good can happen after a data request sent to you at 4 in the morning on a Saturday.
Speaking truth to power is easy, speaking truth to stupid is Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun.
Debugging programs is so much easier once users learned to use windows snipping tool.
This job is months of emails, followed by a few seconds of work.
Oh, wait. You're telling me Dilbert is fiction?!
It's Monday so that means decrepit laptops in my office.
Ah, the last XP security patch.
Had to install IE9 for a project test. In terms of productivity effects, I could have just broken the fingers on my right hand.
The better my email spam filter gets, the more sales calls i get. Is there some universal annoyance constant that must be maintained?
Being an old computer geek means explaining out of date software to your friends. (How does iTunes work?)
Let us put our blinders on! Quickest path to a problem free workplace is to task whoever discovers the problem with fixing the problem.
A young woman in my office just mistook my keyboard vac for a vibrator, and began asking why in the world... then stopped. Awkward...
Being the only non snow wimp on this end of the office means I can play my music as loud as I want.
Legacy systems never die, but at some point near the end they are murdered, with at least one crying user hanging around the hit man's ankle.
I have crashed Vista, XP, Windows 7 and Mac OS all before lunch. Does that make me a polyglot?
There is always that special moment when they grow up...and your new pc has its first bsd.
I am really starting to dislike the word "workflow". It has become the euphemism for needless complexity.
Someday I am going to read that daily error message.
Got the ancient legacy system to run on Windows 8. Yippee. Secretly I wish it hadn't worked.
Eased into work without setting off the motion sensors in my office. It is dark, and I am a Ninja.
The company has done so many retreats lately that the question has been asked: why don't we just surrender and save all that walking?
Rearranging chairs on the Titanic, in denial until the water is at our ankles. Damn the water is cold, but that chair does looks better there.
If you have to get up and give a presentation explaining that your dept. is not the holdup, more than likely your department is the holdup.
I have seen my future obsolescence: upper managers that know how to use google.
By being an old timer here, I know more than anyone else, but because the % wrong is about constant, I am wrong more than anyone else.
Form, is not function, as anyone in systems will tell you, but an accretion of historical accidents.
That last cynical tweet was brought to you by Friday, and a number of buck passers.
The modern adage: The watched .NET Framework update patch never installs.
Give a man a fish, he will be full for an hour. Give him a computer and he will bug you for days with questions.
The closest I come to killing vampires is hidden Word formatting styles. A stake through the heart is sometimes not enough to kill them.
If i can beat my open window count down to under 10, i might just start getting something done today.
I am looking for the computer knowledge stick, with which to beat a few people. Barbed wire wrapping is optional.
For all the communication channels available to me, when i want to get in touch with people, I might as well be in the age of smoke signals.
Last meeting of the week is done. Now I have 6 hours to do the real week's work.
When I said my presentation would be without powerpoint, (having given powerpoint up for Lent) there was scattered applause. MS, take heed.
The meeting paradox: the longer the meeting, the more likely the participants will be confused afterwards on what was decided.
So, IE 6, we meet again.
Oh, look! The CEO brought in a consultant to tell him what we've been saying for months. Sure beats listening!
Bad sign: your project number becomes a curse word in the office. "Oh 21204! I spilled coffee on my lap!"
The real way to thank an IT person is to not send an email thanking him. (Send him a voice mail if he did it wrong and deserves punishment.)
Listening to my retired father describing office life before email and remote access, feeling cheated.
After the printer confiscation project, now comes the forced encryption of Mac laptops. I think I will just work from home for a while.
Last week it was tabbed browsing, this week edit/find. My job is SO secure! Let's hope no one ever hears about the free money url...
Apparently i am not 508 compliant. but then again, i am not accessible to anyone, so we're even.
There comes a point where you cannot tell a fully patched Windows XP box from one infected with system slowing malware. #dumpXP
Bob's rule #4 of reports: new monitoring reports mean mgt understands the corrective action that is needed but are unwilling to take it.
Bouncing a server after updates from 11 miles away. for 10 years i have done this, nervously waiting to see if it comes back.
Bob's rule #3 of reports: reports that give bad news will generate new report requests until the bad new goes away or a new report masks it.
Sheesh Adobe, I thought no one could do a parody of the constant updates of Microsoft, but you have managed it.
Question posed by IM from user: "Is Windows XP a newer version than Explorer 7?" Sigh. Where do I start?
Once you go 64 bit, you will not go back. Apparently it is a rule.
Not my week. Cell reference errors, typos... My data layer is pristine, my presentation layer is muddy. My application layer is sleepy.
My new rule: trust in information should be inverse to the number of excel cell references between it and the raw data.
When the submission deadline is less than 24hrs, grant tweakers should be anesthetized.
Just asked the user: What is the average length of this kind of document? Reply "there is no average." Well actually, I am pretty sure...
Grantsmanship: someone here is worrying about how thin lines are in a table, while we have 4 days of error correction to do in 36 hours.
With people you also get BSD's but instead of Blue Screen of Death, you get the Blank Stare of Dummies. Dope slap to reboot.
I am sure i have said it before, but .pst files are the most evil invention since the necktie.
I can go between windows 7, windows xp and mac os without difficulty, But give me my lunch and a new microwave....
Turning a server off turns out to be much more work than turning it on.
Today I turned off a server I managed from cradle (cost justification) to grave (migration planning). 10 years. No hardware failures. Sniff.
There is nothing like migrating 10 years worth programming to a new server to tell you what a kludger you are (were).
My effort reporting is officially the most complicated. We all excel at something, mine is getting a lot of people to buy tiny slivers of me.
Bob's rule #2 of reports: the more formatting requests that a report has, the less it will be used.
My employer spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to pick a new name, and all I get out of it is a new email and broken listservs.
The smell of my impending vacation has leaked out of my office apparently, judging by the circling gyre of the project deadline vultures.
Bob's rule #1 of reports: the more difficult a report is to set up, the less it will be used.
I have done the Vulcan greeting to a coworker every morning for 5 yrs. Today for the first time, she got it. Who is off here? Me or her?
Email is flaky today. Come on people, turn on the IM client, get on twitter, or smoke signals! I don't want to actually "talk". How archaic!
Day 2 of a staycation. My todo list grows, rather than shrinks. Email and telecons still demand time. I need a wilderness retreat.
There are those that do, and those that document. And then there are those who ask those that do to document what they do. Stay out of #3.
We have one number to keep track of the patient, and 7 numbers to keep track of the patient's money. #whyyourbilliswrong
How bad it has gotten with printers: given the choice between blaming the blonde or blaming the printer, I blame the printer.
"Someone" discovered the last recurring meeting that I have avoided for 11 years and mandated my presence. Meeting is after work hours. Grr.
More email processing while pretending to pay attention to something else. For an important meeting (oxymoron!) I would ban laptops.
I have discovered that I am not so much a valued employee as I am a good luck charm. It is demeaning, but it pays ok.
Listening to a talk on medical adverse event terminology. There are 56 terms for fatigue, and I am accounting for 20 in this meeting.
Die meeting, die!
You can get a lot done on a long walk if you have an Internet enabled phone. I mention it because I am old enough to remember mono-time.
DO WHILE .not.eof()