Better
Posted: Wed 10 December, 2008 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Health, Work-related | Leave a comment »Following on from Monday’s lurgie-fest, I was actually better yesterday, and fine by today.
I don’t know what caused the problems, solely that once I’d thrown up (while in work, but fortunately not anywhere public, or at my desk) I felt better, but went home at lunchtime – and then slept ’til 6. You can always tell when I feel bad, because I tend to prefer to just sleep.
I was OK by the evening, although not straining the system with food too much. Following another [x] hours sleep (can’t be arsed to work it out) I was fine in the morning, and went in to work.
So yeah, no idea what attacked me, but something certainly did. Thankfully it only lasted for the day – a bonus, considering the chaos at work yesterday. But that’s a post for another day…
Feeling Rough
Posted: Mon 8 December, 2008 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Work-related | Leave a comment »Today is emphatically not a good day.
I feel like death warmed up – and the office’s heating system has thrown a paddy over the weekend, so it’s only just starting to warm up now, at 10am. I’ve been here since 8.
Having come back from her own good weekend, Hound was a total pain in the arse last night – it’s OK for her, she can sleep all fucking day. Suffice it so say, my mood is not the lightest.
I may fuck off home come lunchtime if things don’t improve.
Locked Down
Posted: Thu 4 December, 2008 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Geeky, Security, Work-related | 8 Comments »One of the things I’m kind of fascist about in the workplace is locking down workstations when people are away from them. In a big environment, it’s all too easy for someone else to use your computer to do something that they don’t want attributed to them (Such as sending a rude email to the CEO, for example) and if the workstation’s left unlocked then it’s even easier.
In the new place, people just don’t have the mindset to lock down their computers when they leave them. It’s something they should be doing, and it’s part of the IT policy, but they just don’t.
So since I started, I’ve been instigating a guerilla campaign to start making my colleagues lock their workstations down when they leave them. In short, if they don’t lock them down, I play…
(Note : I should point out, if I were to leave my workstation unlocked, I’d fully expect them to do the same to me in return.)
- Stage One : I created emails to CEOs, colleagues etc., but didn’t send them, and just left them on the desktop.
- Stage Two : Close down open applications
- Stage Three : Change the Desktop images
- Stage Four : Change the colour schemes
- Stage Five : Change the password…
So far, we’re just on Stage Three. People are learning slowly but surely, but as they learn, the penalties for mistakes become far steeper…
BugHunt
Posted: Thu 27 November, 2008 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Cynicism, Work-related | Leave a comment »Over the last couple of days, I’ve been bug-hunting on some code that needs to go live on Monday. It’s a whole new development, and has been done from scratch in less than three weeks, including ecommerce, credit-card payments, the lot.
In short, things here have been fucking frantic.
But the BugHunt was primarily around the credit-card payments, where we decided to test the newly-sent-live payment portal. The test system worked fine, the live system didn’t.
Of course, the first phase is the paranoid “What’ve I fucked up?”.
The second phase is checking everything that I’ve written that deal with the transactions.
And when that’s all been checked both by myself and by someone else who hasn’t seen this project before, and it’s all come back fine, then you start on Phase Three : “It’s some other fucker’s fault”.
And lo, Phase Three was right.
The people providing the payment portal services had – um – not typed in the Merchant Number correctly.
Sometimes I despair. Two days of wasted effort, when I could be doing something much more interesting…
Still, at least it’s all working now.
I’m a Twat
Posted: Wed 26 November, 2008 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 1BEM, Customer Services, Work-related | 1 Comment »Related to the previous post, today firmly established my “I’m a Twat” credentials.
At work we’ve just gone live with a new credit-card payment system, and it’s got problems. So I took screenshots of the complete card authorisation process, to show the payment system developers where it was going wrong.
Yeah, you can see where this is going already, can’t you?
Included in the screenshots was the credit card number, expiry date, security code, the lot.
I’m such a Twat.
Of course, the card’s been cancelled – it’s always fun to make a call-centre operative laugh by saying “My card’s not been lost or stolen, but I’m a complete twat and gave out the details of it, so can I cancel it now please?”
The only good point about it is that at least it wasn’t the bank card I’ve just had replaced, but instead was a card coming to the end of it’s validity period anyway.
Ambition…
Posted: Sun 16 November, 2008 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Own Business, Writing | Leave a comment »Yesterday I saw a news release that just made me go “Ooooh. Me Wanty.”
Red have released information about a whole new digital movie/still camera system that they’ve created and frankly, Wow.
Maybe one day.
Cable Release
Posted: Sat 15 November, 2008 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), NCFE Course, Photography, Work-related | Leave a comment »Last week, one of the assignments on the NCFE course was to take some night shots.
I did try – but my subject was rather more ambitious (and thus far less successful) than I’d hoped for, so I’m going to be re-doing the entire thing at some point.
The bit that annoyed me more than anything else though (well, other than the vile weather on pretty much every available evening) was that I couldn’t do a better job, despite having the right equipment to do a long exposure. Regular readers with long memories will recall that I bought a Pclix two years ago which is ideal for the task of long exposures – only I’ve lost the cable that connects the Pclix to the camera. And that, of course, is the bit I really needed.
So I’ve ordered a new cable – which also means I’m due to find the old one any time now – and once it arrives I’ll go out and actually make use of that purchase from two years ago…