It was an odd sound. Odd, yet familiar. I used to hear it a lot. “Used to” meaning in November, before my vacation started.
It’s funny how hard it is to “get into” vacation mode. Sure, we look forward to it, but we often bring along our unfinished agendas and todo lists.
When I worked for Microsoft there were two unique aspects to time off. First, was that managers were evaluated by how much time off their team members took. If your team didn’t take enough time off, you’d get dinged on your evaluation. Managers were pretty motivated to make sure their team members were using their vacation.
The second unique aspect to time off had to do with FMLA time. That’s Family and Medical Leave Act time. It’s 12 weeks that every employee is guaranteed if they need time off to care for family. While at Microsoft I had a child born to us and we adopted kids. Each time I got to take FMLA time. Microsoft was really interested in making sure I didn’t try to work during my time off. They locked my network account and shut off my access badge. I couldn’t work if I wanted to.
My current job isn’t so restrictive. Not only is my access still active, but I’m still on call. I still sometimes have to work. Mostly if we have an outage. And if we have an outage I have to attend a 4:00 pm meeting to explain it. If we don’t have an outage, I don’t need to attend the 4:00 pm meeting.
I’ve gone a couple of days with no outages and therefore no four o’clock meeting.
Funny how I’d almost forgotten what the meeting notification sounded like.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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It was a private number. I was on another call, so I ignored it. Immediately I got another call, presumably from the same private number.
Is this Mr Bliss?
Yes.
This is Officer Johnson from the Orem police department.
Do you own a tan colored Chevy Suburban?
Yes.
We have reports that it was abandoned on 600 W, 400 N. A woman was driving and left it there.
Yeah. It died on her.
It’s currently blocking traffic. You have ten minutes to move it or we will need to have it towed.
That was not a call I was expecting. My lovely wife had called me an hour earlier and told me that the car made a grinding noise as she attempted to make a U-turn on 600 W. She then couldn’t get the car out of PARK.
The road was blocked off. (Hence the need to make a U-turn.) She was a block away from her appointment, so she walked. . .and called me.
When an all wheel drive vehicle “makes a grinding noise” while turning and can’t get shifted out of PARK, the list of possible causes is pretty short. . .and fairly expensive.
It could be a tranmission. Rebuilding a transmission is $4000-$5000. (I bought the Suburban for less than that.)
It could be a transfer case. Rebuilding or replacing that is $2500-$3000.
There are other things that can cause a car to make a grinding noise. Differential going bad. Drive train linkage locking up. I’ve even seen a couple of missing bolts on the transmission case causing a grinding noise.
When I got the call, I was on my way to pick up my lovely wife from her appointment. The closed off road was no longer closed off. We arrived at the broken down car before the tow truck did. We endured a perhaps justified lecture from the Orem police officer about the dangers of leaving your car blocking a street (it was only blocking a little) without at least turning on your hazards.
I parked my car and went to try starting my Suburban. It started right up. Much to the frustration of my lovely wife from her location on the sidewalk listening to the police officer. I held my breath as I moved the shift selector out of PARK. I slowly pulled the car out of traffic and parked at the curb.
Oh, my car was broken. But, not with any of those big pricey causes. It had a problem with it’s electrical system. That’s why it kept stalling. An electrical issue is typically one of two things, or two of two.
- Bad battery
- Bad alternator
- Both
Replacing a battery is about $150 and you can do the work in the parking lot of the auto parts store. An alternator is slightly more expensive, but is still something that a backyard mechanic can do himself. A bad alternator can make your battery go bad. Generally a bad battery doesn’t screw up your alternator.
My lovely wife drove the Suburban to the auto parts store while I followed in my car. The Suburban died in parking lot again. The helpful guys at O’Reilly’s checked the battery and the alternator. Just the battery was bad. We switched cars and she headed off to more errands.
It’s $150 and more time away from making Christmas presents. As I was driving home with my Suburban, I thought about how it had already been a frustrating day. I’d spent hours working on an issue for work. I hadn’t gotten a single Christmas present made. I’d gotten a call from the cops. I now had to add “repair car” to my already too long list of todo items.
And yet, I realized that I should be grateful. And I even managed to convince myself to be grateful. I was grateful for the broken car. Why? Because it was $150 instead of $5000. And it was something I could reapir myself.
Yep, despite everything, it was my lucky day. (Of course, I believe it!)
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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Salesmen know it instinctively.
All purchasing decisions are emotional. “Facts” are simply a way we convince ourselves to feel better about the decision we’ve already made.
Emotions affect debate as well. And I don’t mean only formal debate, but political discussions, family decisions, even who was the greatest basketball player of all time.
If you try to argue against an emotional point using logic, you are destined to fail. Likewise if you make an emotional response to a logical argument, the person you are debating with will completely miss your point.
For example, I love baseball. And I especially love the Seattle Mariners. The greatest player to ever wear a Mariners uniform was Ken Griffey Junior. While I might like to consider it a fact, it’s an opinion. And it’s an opinion I’m somewhat passionate about. In other words, an argument based on emotion.
Randy Johnson was one of the greatest pitchers to ever put on uniform for any team. He played for the Toronto Blue Jays, the Seattle Mariners, the Houston Astros, the Arizona Diamondbacks, and the New York Yankees. Randy, as he’s affectionately known to Mariners fans, had a great career. He pitched in two world series. He pitched a perfect game. And he killed a bird with an ill-timed pitch.
The latter is just a sad commentary, but the other successes are impressive. Was he a better player than Junior? He was certainly a better pitcher. (Griffey played the outfield.)
Still, since my argument is based on emotion, no amount of logical arguments are going to make a difference. You could point out that Griffey never played in a World Series, while Johnson helped his team win titles.
But, I’ll counter, World Series don’t count. Since the Mariners remain the only Major League team to never play in a World Series, when deciding the greatest Mariner player of all time, we don’t have to consider World Series appearances.
You could quote Johnson’s WAR rating (Wins Above Replacements.) Essentially the WAR rating tells you how good (or bad) a player is compared to the average player in his position. Johson’s WAR is 101.1. Griffey was 83.8. But, I could counter with the difference that Griffey made on an otherwise bad team.
I could even counter with Griffey’s Hall of Fame voting. He earned 99.32% of all possible votes. Johnson? 97.3%.
The fact is that we won’t be able to come to an agreement if you are quoting facts and I’m relying on my feelings.
What’s the point? The point is that in business, just as in baseball, you are going to find that some people use emotional arguments (I remember when Microsoft products were not allowed at some companies because ‘Microsoft was evil,’) and some peopl are going to argue from logic. (ROI, cost of licensing, etc.)
If you want to have success in convincing teams, managers, and executives, you need to match their language, and avoid trying to convince them that Griffey is the greatest Mariner if they are most interested in statistics and WAR ratings.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2019 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I’m enjoying my time off. I’m focused on building Christmas presents. My list is finally starting to get shorter, but I’m still anxiously watching the calendar and wondering if I have time to get all my projects done.
Still, I know what I want to make for people. I have it planned out. I know most will like it. All will be appreciative.
But, there’s another set of gifts that scare me to death. What do I get? Do I get anything at all? Who should I include?
This second group is the people I work with. Christmas can be a dangerous time for figuring out what to do and who to do it for.
Christmas bonuses are not as common as they were in my grandfather’s day. Still Christmas gifts are not uncommon. I worked for a religious organization at one point. The Christmas gifts from the company were religious books. A leather bound Bible one year. A leather bound hymnal the next. A leather bound book by an early church leader. They were thoughtful and I still have each one.
Other places I’ve worked have given gift cards. I honestly don’t remember what Microsoft used to give. But, they offered plenty of gifts during the year.
Most companies also do some sort of Christmas event. My team this year will be attending a showing of the new Star Wars movie. I worked for a company that used to do the traditional Christmas dinner for employees and spouses at a local restaurant. Honestly, while I appreciated the gesture, it wasn’t the best setup. Thirty people along a big long table meant it was loud and you could only talk to the people around you.
I like the movie ideas better. You don’t ask people to commit to an evening away from home, and the team members can choose to sit by and socialize with whomever they please.
Companies have typically figured out the gift giving. But, the employees often have to figure it out themselves. Last year I gave a bunch of the people I work with boxes of chocolates. That’s a safe gift. Even if they, like me, don’t eat candy, they can easily regift it to spouses or kids.
Most of my team does not work in the same location as I do. I’m not sure if I should try to send a gift. Then it takes on a whole new level of commitment.
In a way, I’m glad I have vacation scheduled for the rest of December. Maybe I can just pretend Christmas isn’t happening.
What does your company do for Christmas?
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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I adore my lovely wife. But, sometimes I could adore her a little less.
I’ll explain.
I’m working on a series of Christmas gifts. I have gifts for my grandkids and gifts for their parents; my kids and their spouses.
I did the grandkid gifts already. I made them from plywood. The cuts were sometimes a little rough, but I “fixed” it with multiple coats of paint.
I’ve moved on to the gifts for my kids. I was going to make them from plywood also. My lovely wife came out to the garage to check my progress.
Are you going to make the gifts for the kids from that playwood?
Yeah, I was planning to.
Don’t you think it would look nicer if you made it from solid wood? I mean, the ones for the grandkids are fine, but I thought you might want to make the rest a little nicer.
I was trying to do it with just the wood onhand.
Well, aren’t those boards in the corner solid wood?
Ah. . .
But, you go ahead and do it how you want.
I hate that. I did have a plan. I knew how I wanted to make them. And now I now a new way I want to make them. And it will take an extra few hours to draw them all over again on the solid wood pieces.
I just know you won’t be as happy with them if you don’t do your best.
Well, I would have been, but now that she’s mentioned it.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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I am taking a few weeks off work. Starting tomorrow, I don’t have any more work days scheduled. Well, I have a short trip to Arkansas, but it’s two travel days and two days on site to help with a migration.
Other than that, I’m OOF.
OOF: O_ut O_f o_F_fice.
I’ve never understood why OOF became the abreviation for Out of Office. Maybe no one wanted to say they were going to be OOO. It makes more sense than the more recent phrase I’ve heard for being on vacation, “Out of pocket.” That’s not what that phrase means.
Out of Pocket: To need to pay for work related items out of your own pocket.
But, I’m not exactly sure when my vacation starts. I’m not even sure if it will start. I’m on call. I may have a quiet month with my family. Or I may spend hours and hours on the phone with people from five different states working through outages and problems.
I really can’t control whether we’ll have issues or not. It’s not really up to me. So, as we head into December, I’ll either have a wonderful vacation or spend the month working. It’s like reading a book with a surprise ending.
I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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They both have temples. Both are old institutions. The Mormons have been around for 189 years founded in 1830. The Masons were founded in 1717 and are formally 301 years old, but probably closer to 625 years based on a reference found in the Regius Poem in 1390.
Both claim a much older heritage however. The Mormon Church views itself as a restoration of the ancient Church that Christ founded. It’s why the Mormon Church has a quorum of 12 apostles and the president of the Latter-day Saints holds a position of prophet.
The Masons also claim an ancient heritage. Their mythology dates back even further than the Mormons. They trace their lineage back to Old Testament and the Temple of Solomon.
Both have ceremonies that are not for public viewing. For the Masons it is the initiation ceremonies and the oath that every Mason commits to. For the Mormons it’s a ceremony performed in their temples called “the endowment.”
The Mormons and the Masons share even more commonality. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was raised as a Master Mason in Nauvoo, Illinois. Shortly after that he revealed the endowment ceremony. The Endowment is a ceremony for both men and women.
One of the tenets of Masonry is that it is strictly a fraternal order: no women allowed. In fact, sharing the masonic secrets with a woman is one of the things that will get you kicked out of masonry.
The Masons decided the Mormons’ temple ceremony was a little too similar to the Masonic ceremony. They kicked out Smith and all of the Mormons. The animosity between the two groups followed the Mormons to Utah. In fact, the Masons would not consider a man for Masonry in Utah unless he could prove he was not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Although they just said he couldn’t be a Mormon.) Although Mormons could petition in other states, it wasn’t until 1983 that the Grand Lodge of Utah lifted the prohibition on Mormons joining the fraternity.
I requested to join the Mormon Church in 1976. I was baptized in Olympia Washington. I’ve been a member in good standing ever since. I petitioned to join the Masons much later. It was about ten years ago. I’ve been a dues card carrying member ever since.
When I decided to join the Masons, I consulted my uncle. He’s been a Mason his whole life. He’s never been a Mormon.
Are you sure those Mormons are going to be okay with your joining the Masons?
I think so. They have a Masonic temple in Provo.
But, I had some trepidation. I talked to some friends in the Church.
Are you sure those Masons are going to be okay with a Mormon joining?
I’m pretty sure.
Turns out both groups were just fine with it.
I attended a Masonic ceremony today. It’s one of the three that are public. The others are a cornerstone laying ceremony and Masonic funeral rights.
Today’s ceremony was the installation of new officers for my home lodge “Story Lodge #4.” The new Worshipful Master is Craig Call. He will be in charge of lodge for the year 2020.
Good luck to Worshipful Brother Call and all the new officers of Story Lodge #4. I count myself privileged to be among you.
*The Mormons no longer want to be called Mormons. The term they prefer is Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint, or simply Latter-day Saints, but not LDS. The Masons, on the other hand are perfectly happy to be called Masons.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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PTO: Personal Time Off, Employee Vacation or sick time
My company doesn’t offer sick time. Instead they offer PTO hours. It’s up to the employees to decide how to use it. It can be used either for sick time or vacation time.
The company also has a use-it-or-lose-it policy. Any PTO hours unused at the end of the year are lost. I’ve been with the company long enough that I get 25 vacation days each year. That’s more than a month.
And that’s the problem. I don’t take a lot of vacations during the year. Even when I try to take vacation time, it doesn’t always work out. I’m a salaried employee. So, if I work for any amount of time during a day, by law it becomes a work day. My of my previous supervisor said, “If you take a phone call, it’s a work day.”
So, given the number of outages we have and their tendency to follow me on vacation, I end up in December with quite a few days that I need to take vacation for.
This year I 96 PTO hours headed into December. That’s 12 days. We get Christmas day as a company holiday, so I requested from December 13 through the end of the year off.
I filled out the forms and since I don’t need to have anyone cover my “shift that was the end of it. Oh sure, if we had an outage call during the last two weeks of December my PTO days will turn into work days, but otherwise I’m all set for a long vacation.
Except. . .our client decided to make a trip to our Arkansas location in two weeks. I sent email to the VP,
The client wants to visit our Arkansas site on December 18 and 19. Do you want me to arrange to be onsite?
Yes.
And there it was. Could I insist that “I had those days scheduled off!!”? I suppose. But, the fact is if the client is going to be onsite at our call center in Arkansas, I needed to be there too.
So, now I’m requesting PTO for December 9 – 16, and then again from December 23 through then end of the year. A couple of travel days and weekends round out the rest of the month.
My friends suggested that I should insist that I wasn’t going.
I simply replied, “Who wouldn’t want a couple of days in Arkansas in December?”
olp
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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It happens every year about this time. Even before Thanksgiving, and certainly by the time Christmas rolls around, computer systems start crashing.
Most corporations institute what is called a “change freeze” for the last couple of weeks of the year. One of the largest reasons is financial. Or, more accurately, financials. Companies have to close out their books at the end of the year. They have to get out W2 forms in the first thirty-one days of January. They don’t want to risk anything delaying their ability to get those financials posted by the end of the year.
Okay, great, a change freeze sounds like it should help prevent outages at the end of the year, not cause them. So, what gives?
Project Managers. Many projects have the end of the year as either a formal or informal deadline. Also, many companies do their reviews based on a calendar year. That means, if you are a PM and you want to get that big bonus (ha ha, actually, I’ve never heard of a project manager getting an end of year performance bonus. But, I digress) you want to get your project rolled out by the end of the year.
That doesn’t mean December 31. That means before your change freeze date. Many projects get rolled out in November and the first half of December.
It’s said that the greatest period of instabiility for any system is the week after your team gets back from a tech conference. They just can’t wait to try out the new tips and techniques they learned.
The same thing happens with end of year changes. Modern computer systems are terribly complex. And sometimes just terrible. But, even the best architected and maintained system has an incredible number of moving parts. In fact, most systems are too complex for any one person to understand all of it.
And new systems and programs have to integrate smoothly into the existing architecture. You do that by testing. But, testing, no matter how good, can only get you so far. It’s typically impossible to truly test a complex system without actually having a test system that is as big as your existing system. Even if you could do that (and virtually no one can,) you still couldn’t replicate all the users on the system at once.
What happens is that much of the testing is actually done in a “live” system. And the whole point of testing is to find weaknesses. Those weaknesses, when exposed in a production environment results in problems and outages.
Every year we see it happen. It’s like clockwork, or the turning of the seasons. We’ll spend the next couple of weeks “testing,” putting out fires, testing some more, and finally, the change freeze date will arrive to relieve the stress. Almost like Christmas. . .Just a couple weeks early.
The end
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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Don Quixote was crazy. Okay, I’ve never actually read Don Quixote. Not in translated English and certainly not in the original Spanish. But, I do know all the words to the musical “The Man of La Mancha.”
We know Don Quixote was crazy because at one point he decides to attack a windmill. Or maybe he attacks multiple windmills. I’m not sure. That part wasn’t in the “Man of La Mancha.”
Anyway, attacking a windmill because you think it’s a giant is so crazy that we’ve even incorporated it into our lexicon:
Tilting at Windmills – To attempt to accomplish an impossible goal.
I realized today that I’m just as crazy as Don Quixote. Why? Because I too tilt at windmills. (Tilt is olde english for jousting. . .I think.)
You might tilt at the saem windmill I do. It’s my email inbox.
I’ve been on vacation for the past week and a half. My inbox had 373 unopened items when I returned to work today. One of my goals was to get that number below 50 by the end of the day.
I even tracked it throughout the day.
8:00 373
8:30 355
9:00 278
10:00 200
10:30 177
11:00 152
12:30 111
1:00 97
1:30 74
2:00 53
3:00 33
4:00 29
Yes, I met my goal. But, the crazy part, the Don Quixote and his windmills part is that I felt like I had actually accomplished something.
But, tomorrow, my mailbox will start to fill up again. And when I take a couple weeks vacation at the end of the month (gotta use those use-it-or-lose-it vacation days)I’ll come back to another huge number of unread messages in my inbox.
There’s an old proverb. It was described to me as Chinese, but who really knows? It was a test of insanity. The person is shown a pond and handed a bucket. The test is to empty the pond. If a person starts to immediately bail out the pond, they are deemed insane. If they first divert the stream feeding the pond, they are deemed sane.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, the pond is starting to fill back up and I need to find my bucket.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2019 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved