Please accept my apologies ahead of time for the use of profanity.
Remember my "thin skinned" story from a week ago? It still lives. My organization has been battling this issue for over two weeks. The school districts are fed up. Students will submit an answer in the middle of a quiz and lose the entire shooting match. Their quiz is lost - gone. Somebody asked me where it went? Did it go up into data land? I looked at them. A memory from 1983 came rushing back to my head. I was training my sister how to do my data entry at work (I was leaving) and because of a poorly configured computer system we lost our all work one evening and when she asked where the work went I told her it went up into data land. She reached up her arms grabbing the air "Can't we just pull them back down?"
Wow. It was that kind of moment when you realize that certain people cannot see the dimension. Nothing against them. It is like me with math. I cannot see it. I have not had an instructor who has been able to break through to me to see it. It was like this.
Where does it go? I told the lady yesterday it was never there to begin with. Her head exploded. This was after she told me she was afraid the country was heading toward socialism. It was all too much for her to handle. I like this lady, I just do not share her beliefs.
Back to my story....this issue has become critical for my organization. Our clients (schools) are not happy. Since the problem is happening at many school districts we are the ones who have to fix it. It isn't "them" it must be "us". "Us" looks for somebody else to blame and they chose my appliance. The filtering system. Which makes sense because my filters were down on October 22nd and the problems appeared on October 23rd. How can you fight with that logic?
I have worked every day with a top level engineer from my appliance's organization. My luck has been lousy. Every time I can manage to get this tech on the line (he is on the west coast, I am on the east coast) I have difficulty getting a tech at a school who is also available. Then the rare chance that I get a tech and this engineer at the same time do you believe the fucking system will not trip? It is like the old adage of taking your car to the mechanic and it runs like a dream for him. The engineer observes the appliance while the tech browses site after site after site - with not one flipping issue. Ten minutes ago the tech could barely get anywhere on the Internet without getting "Page cannot be found" or "Cannot connect to the Server". It is maddening beyond belief. This happened so many times it was just spooky.
We had a department meeting yesterday. There were five of us in attendance. All know that this issue is critical crazy. My director (the one who reprimanded me for using the word "hell") asked me for an update on the problem. I began explaining what schools are having the issue and what schools are not. Some schools just plain do not tell me. This makes troubleshooting very difficult. At one point I looked over and one of my co-workers was sitting with his eyes closed. He is notorious for sleeping during meetings. WTF? Very nice. No help from him.
I continued. What do you do? Wake him up? Point him out? He used to be my manager. He used to sleep during meetings when he was a manager, too. For the record "I" did not sleep during the time he gave HIS update. Screw him. My next question was for a school in another county. Another co-worker (has always been a friend) took care of this district so I asked him, "Has school 'a' been having this issue?" He turned and looked at me. "Having issue with what?" Jesus H. Christ! Mother Fuckity Fuck!
Seriously. This is a critical matter where the schools are going to lynch us. If we do not get this issue resolved we are looking at a gigantic break here. How long do we expect the schools to put up with this crap? He knows of what problem I am speaking of. What is wrong with this picture? I have to take the week-end and step back. Am I too close to the problem? Was I being a bore? I tried not to go into detail because I can lose people in the explanations.
They have been working with me for the past two weeks. They are aware of the problem. Why are they acting dumb at this meeting? Like I said - there is my thin skin issue again.
4 comments:
There is an easy solution: go back to the way things were done before computers. Yeah, I didn't think you'd like that one either.
Sometimes I get so angry that these kids today depend solely on computers and then I realize that's the way it is and that's the way it's gonna stay and there ain't much I can do about it.
Cheyenne - that is what I was telling people a few years back.
There is no going back, now. We are so dependent on them and society as we know it would stop dead in its tracks.
I assume the problem is not confined to the schools assigned to you. Why don't the others see any urgency in gritting the problem fixed?
Grumpy - I know, right?! I fretted all week-end over this. It is almost like they are saying Peruby handles the filter - it's her problem. I always try to offer them a hand and at least some ideas when they are up against a brick wall.
I get sleeping and playing dumb co-workers. Thanks for the support, guys. Care much about the students/teachers out there who have to put up with this problem?
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