Writing In Twilight

I am a solutions kind of person. Yes, I like my whine (with cheese) but that's an outlet for frustration with a world that doesn't work as smoothly as I think it should. (Frigging entropy.)

Government fiefdoms ANNOY THE HELL OUT OF ME.

Little people protecting their little patches of dominion, with their egos at stake, puffing up their authority to seem bigger.

Oh, please.

Right now, we have a resourcing situation.

Resource 1: knows the work, developed the application, is in another state.
Resource 2: is busy with other work, doesn't know this patch of the work, is on site.

Both resources worked with the project for several months, have logins, all that jazz. Resource 1 is perfectly capable of doing the work remotely.

Guess which one Little Man With His Little Fiefdom went with, because he doesn't want offsite resources.

And guess who's Resource 2.

*grumps*

It would take me a couple of days to get through what Resource 1 can do in a couple of hours. But I'm on site! (And on LJ, waiting for access things to happen - the other thing about government fiefdoms: you have access for precisely the amount of time that's needed, not one iota more. Which means when one comes back to do more work, it's necessary to get all your accesses re-validated again.

UGH.

Buddy, you wrote the damn thing, you know perfectly well how it works. If you'd spared 15 minutes this morning to explain what was going on, then I could have saved a large portion of this day.

I have never worked on this system before, I didn't even know how to connect to it, and it took me a couple of hours to work out what was going on.

Yes, you're on another job, but even some information yesterday at the end of your day (when I first asked about this issue) would have been helpful.

And now it's nearly 4:30pm and I'm only on this testing work for the day and it looks like half the things we're supposed to be testing are only half-done, and half-assed half-done at that. But rather than put me in a position to fix it, you're hanging me out to dry - without even a "check this out here" to help.

tl;dr: I hate it when people get territorial about their work.

eta: "It should really be very simple." If it was simple, then I wouldn't be asking your help. Stop fucking patronising me and start being helpful.

For heavens' sake. This work wouldn't be so long and drawn out if you'd give me the information I need - or, at least, tell me that the information isn't available and I'll have to work it out myself (painful and annoying as this is, at least I'd know I'm not going to get shot down halfway for going in the wrong direction).

eta: while writing this post they got back to me - other priorities. Which is fine. I'd just rather be told.

Aside:
This is kind of the story of my life: I can take 'no, I'm busy right now', 'no, I'm not interested', 'no, your fanworks suck', and 'no, I don't want to be friends with you'. Yes, it hurts. Yes, I may go away and quietly cry. But I'd rather people were upfront about it rather than passive-aggressive, and be left with the lingering feeling that I've somehow transgressed without ever knowing why and having it eat away at my self-confidence forever because I'm not sure if you were slighting me or if this is one of those socially political power-plays that I failed at school and consequently at the rest of life.

If I've failed and someone lets me know, I can get better. If I've failed and everyone is so busy belonging to the Cult Of Niceness, then I'll just keep on repeating what I'm doing because I won't know otherwise.

There's a reason I work with computers: they may do obstructive, frustrating, and brutally logical, but they don't do passive-aggressive. It's not that they're not working with you because they don't like you, it's that they're not working with you because they don't like humans in general.

--

But back to the topic on hand. Melbourne was pretty nice and the training course was...educational, although rather intense. I'm not sure I actually understand the new software, and I suspect I'd prefer to keep going with the old, but maybe practise and experience and a broadening of knowledge will be a little more helpful?

The hotel in Melbourne was distinctly ordinary - I think they stuck me up in one of the towers that is mentally termed 'less desirable', although that was probably based on the price of the room. Their bar food was very good, though. And I still love the Melbourne tram system, now that I've worked out how it all goes. Also, now that they have the Myki card, which is kind of like an Octopus (HK) or Oyster card (London) only for Melbourne. (Possibly just for Melbourne trams, which might be a pity.

Also, MoVida restaurant in Hosier Lane has the bestest food ever. I want to go sometime with more people than just myself, so I can order some of the larger dishes. But the individual tapas are great.

Oh, and order the 'Flan' - creme caramel with some deep fried Spanish 'donuts' on the side (like really short churros) - for dessert. Then share it, because that baby is rich.

--

Incidentally, Pornbattle 14 is up. I currently have four Steve/Maria scenarios and...complete blanks on all the others.

Whether they get written is another matter.

When the error message says "there's a problem with the server", it may just be there there is a problem with the server.

You don't need to go through my code looking for the problem. The system would tell me in no uncertain terms if there was a problem with my code.

And if there is a problem with my code, perhaps it would make sense to first CHECK THAT THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS WITH THE SERVER before looking for an alternative?

So frustrated.

Network guy thinks entirely too literal.

( network guy rant )

And this is why I would never want to be a manager (as discussed in a conversation with some co-workers yesterday). The truth is that I have enough trouble dealing with 'stupid people' as a programmer. I should hate to have to deal with stupid people ALL THE TIME as a project manager or team leader.

Hell to the no.

(ps. this is going to be the shape of things for the day, I suspect. I'm going to rant on here because there's not really anywhere else to rant.)

It's amazing how many people seem to believe that the problem with the human race is religion and that if we did away with religion, the world would be somehow full of sunshine and roses and puppies playing with each other instead of war and hatred and anger and selfishness.

I hate to break it to them, but the problem with the human race is the human race. Religion (or a political mentality or a social philosopy) is simply the excuse that people have used through time immemorial to be nastier versions of the people they already were in the first place.

--

No, I don't want a husband. Or a boyfriend. Or kids. I don't think that someday someone will come and I'll suddenly want to be a housewife, mother of his progeny, and sex toy for his pleasure - especially considering all evidence in my history points to exactly the opposite, and the numerical odds of me finding someone of suitable age and inclination to marry me - let alone who wants to marry me - are slim enough without adding the decreasing likelihood of healthy children given that I'm turning 35 this year.

And I'm not worried about it, and neither is my mum.

Thank. God.

--

Yes, Praha (Prague) has a lot of bridges. There's a freaking river running through the city.

I just said that we were going up to the castle for dinner.

If I'm not talking, that's because I'm trying to retreat into my cave where I don't have to make human contact, so I can come out tomorrow and be something resembling a human being capable of speaking with other human beings.

No, I will not wake you up when you snore because there's no point. You'll just turn over and keep snoring.

--

I want to go home. Only, when I get home, I have to bury the cat and start the hunt for a job.

It's not exactly something to look forward to.

I have a feeling it's going to be a long, cold winter for me.

Dear co-worker,

It is not at all funny to say we should put a guy in a dress to pass him off as a woman because we don't have enough female players to play in the mixed soccer competition. Not. At. All. Funny.

You know why? Apart from the fact that 'putting a man in a dress' does not make him a woman, and that the idea that wearing a skirt defines gender is ridiculous in both an office where women were trousers all the time and in a sporting competition where not a single woman has ever worn a skirt on the field, and that you persistently make this 'joke' every time we're down on female players and seem to think it hilarious every time, it is frankly insulting to have my femaleness boiled down to what I wear, as though my body or history or the way I was brought up or my body chemistry has nothing to do with being female.

As though anyone can be a female just by not 'doing man-things'. (ie. wearing a dress.) As though being female is the refuse-pile of gender binary thought. (I'm not even going to address the problematics of gender binary with someone like you. You're not educated even halfway enough to attempt that conversation.)

That is what your comment boils down to - a particularly nasty breed of sexism that shoves anyone who doesn't adopt the behaviour or dress of what you think of as 'manly' into the category of 'a woman'.

I've been polite before. I slapped you back today with hints as to why it was aggravating. Make the 'joke' again, and I will have to explain with painstaking detail why this shits me and just how it is offensive.

You have a 12 year old daughter whom you love. For her sake, at least, think about the world you're helping shape and which she's growing up in and what your stupid suggestion really means when you peel off the layers of alleged 'humour'.

Okay, other than the fact that your three attempts over two years at getting this system live FAILED like a big flaily faily thing.

( cut for work rantage and control freaks )

Crossposted on Dreamwidth with comments.

It's September already! I start my RTW trip in just over three weeks. I think that calls for an EEEEK!

I put a USB drive through the wash - it was in my jeans. Seems to have survived without trouble, though!

Yesterday, I discovered that I can write 2000 words in a day, cook, do the washing and washing up, surf a little internet, (mostly) resist Facebook, and fall asleep in the bath without drowning.

The falling asleep was unexpected.

--

( books: CJ Cherryh and Philip Pullman )

Gay Rights

"Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable waving rainbow-coloured flags from the safety of our lounge chairs and claiming that this makes one 'a good person to know' than taking our cues from how people behave to one another, particularly those of a different mindset and lifestyle?" ~ SelDear ~

I would like to know exactly why posting the 'Gay Rights' meme in my LiveJournal has anything to do with what I really believe and how I act on that belief when the rubber hits the road. Emotional blackmail is one of the core prompters of this meme - the unsubtle implication that if this meme does not appear on your LiveJournal, then you clearly do not believe in Gay Rights and, as such, are an evil of the magnitude of Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, anything that Dubya says we should hate, and the Iranian Nuclear Program.

I'm being who I am and saying what I feel, because I think that belief in Gay Rights and the acting out of those beliefs is a whole lot more than just posting a badly-written meme on your LJ.