Well, the second week of Carcosa Corp is over. Lots of meetings over
the last couple of days, still getting all my ducks in a row. My workload
is increasing, but I'm also getting more used to the pacing. Test on a
development box and verify it works in general, then test on a staging
server, and let the developers verify it does what they want, on the
same exact config as production. Then schedule an update during a window
and verify again. It's very different than what I'm used to, but then
again this is a whole different ball of wax. I keep saying that, and it's
starting to sink in. Next week I get to play cable monkey, but I'm only
tracing patch cables and moving them from one switch to another. Again,
not my choice of fun, but I feel more motivated here, and not just for
the moneys, but because I like my coworkers. That's pretty good motivation.
Speaking of monies, I got paid yesterday, paper check. That's...different. (direct deposit should
kick in in a week or two). Not quite a full week, but a nice chunk of
change. Mostly either going to pad the savings, or pay down credit cards.
Going to spoil myself a little too, a smidge. *grin* I deserve it.
Tonight is watching 'The Thing' (both the 1982 and the recent prequel),
updating stuff, fixing some stuff for a friend of mine, general tinkering.
How to relax on a Friday when you're a geek. Tomorrow is adulting during
the day, and visiting some friends I haven't seen in too long in the
evening. Fun fun fun. Then next week it's back to work, and getting
stuff in order. Go me! And on that note, I'm calling this a post. Catch
you all later.
Few days into week two at Carcosa Corp. Things are still mostly good,
there are some 'meh' things, but nothing that will normally stick in my
head. Trying to squeegee them out of the brainmeats. Nothing to
worry about...if I compared the stressors to late era Shoggoth Pitness,
it's a whole different, sunny world. With grilled cheese whenever I want
them. *wink* (ok referring to Carcosa as 'sunny' is kind of odd, even if
it has two suns)
Outside of Carcosa, not much has been going on. Sleeping pretty ok,
especially getting up early (for me). I get a good chunk of down time
between leaving work and bed time, so I can read or watch TV/movies.
Once I get settled to the schedule, I'll probably start occasionally
being social during the work week. Eventually. Today I felt going to
Wally World was big enough of a challenge.
That's about it for today/this week so far. I am looking forward to the
weekend. Down time and social time in equal measure, with a side of laundry.
For now, I'll finish watching Egyptology shows, grab a shower and hide in the
land of books. Catch you all later.
Well Saturday has been a tad more mixed emotionally. Slept soso, woke up
early, before 10. (Early for a Saturday at least). Got up, decided I would
be semi-social and go see Star Wars VII with some friends again. Since
I had time to kill, I decided to watch episode VI. Figured out the big
celebration scene at the end = emotional rollercoaster for me lately,
seems every time I've seen it lately, I've teared up or cried. Not sad, but
emotional. Had a nice cry, then got a couple of errands done, and
headed to the theater.
I enjoyed VII as much as the first time, it's not a perfect movie, but none
of the Star Wars movies are perfect. I saw a lot more easter eggs, and I
appreciated the characters, both old and new more. Favorite is still
Poe Dameron (or as I say in my head Edgar Allan Poe-Dameron), but I've
always wanted to fly a X-Wing. Plus he's what the prequel trilogy needed,
someone with a bit of swagger in them. After the movie I had to take
off, needed to drop some stuff off with Amythest. When I left the
theater my anxiety spiked up, and my moodyness reared it's head. No reason,
unlike the stressors at work. But, I took my happy pill, and skipped
out on the errands I had originally planned for post movie. Now I'm home.
Going to take it easy for tonight,
finish up the VM updates, probably going to stick to watching
movies tonight. There's a new horror flick on demand, 'Jeruzalem' which
is the first Israeli horror movie I think I've heard of (though there
has to be more). Probably will go to head with book fairly early, like
last night. Catch you all later.
It's Friday night, and I've survived my first week at Carcosa Corp. Today
was another decent day, finished up that Exchange issue, well it's pending
the people who are going to use it testing it, but it worked for me.
Had one meeting and one conf call, where I got to see some of the virtual
guts of the setup. I forget how much stuff you can monitor with Cacti besides
network stats. Day went by pretty quick, I turned in my hours to both my
manager and to the staffing firm (guess they need a name too). Left
at 5, came home, made a quick lazy dinner and have been watching movies.
So, one week. So what's the verdict? It's different. If there was a
scale of corpness, with a company run by Discordians on one end, and
the Laundry on the other...well the Shoggoth Pit would be about 1/3rd of
the way on the curve towards utterly random, and Carcosa is about 2/3rds
of the way towards Bob Howard's average days. This is _not_ a complaint,
I keep saying this, but it's just not what I'm used to. Also, the
pacing is different. For years, if I was asked 'What have you done?',
I'd have to come up with a laundry list of tickets and issues I solved
to be ok. Carcosa is slower paced, with more double and triple checks,
meetings to make sure that everyone is on the same page. So instead of
leaping to fix a problem, and later figuring out that the fix was something
else, they test, they research, and they have the infrastructure setup so
that unless things are really buggered, we think twice, fix once. I think
once I stop feeling the urge to go 110mph, I'll be comfortable. Also,
my team are a fun bunch, and the other people I've interacted with so far
are pretty friendly. There's a cafetera downstairs that's pretty decent,
and I don't mind hanging out with my coworkers, vs my usual sitting at
my desk in a book. Plus the 15 min commute doesn't hurt.
So long paragraph short, I like this place. I'm sure there will be things
that get on my nerves, but that's life. And I don't want to get too
attached, as it is a 6 month contract. We'll see how things go.
Otherwise, things are pretty kosher. I've lost a couple of pounds, I'm
sleeping less but not having crazy times waking up. Less Code Red, and
less snacking. I haven't been walking much, but I'm still moving around a
bunch, and I added a notification on my workstation to remind me to get up
and move around every hour. All good things. So, I'm going to have a
nice relaxing weekend, and I'll catch you all later.
Well, the job has an official nickname. 'Carcosa Corporation' Not for any bad reasons, but because of a flood of King in Yellow references lately in my life. (New book edited by Joe Pulver, audiobook given to me by Amanda Downum, watching 'True Detective' the day of the phone interview). No one walks around in a pallid mask or in ragged yellow robes...but it is only the first week. Expect a real post in a while about my first week. *waves tentacles*
Day three was alright. Got some stuff setup, did 90% of an exchange
foo change, we were unable to test it due to bigger issues coming up at the
end of the day. First real experience with Powershell, I'm pretty sure it
will make more sense than the Windows GUI to me. Also started reading up
on Ansible, which they use. No cables, which is a plus.
Came home after a quick store run, had to deal with Aetna insurance, which
has upped my stress level. I feel like yelling at people, but I was
good and didn't scream at the CS person. It should be fixed, well for
January. Then I have to call back in Feb, then maybe in March will the
autobilling be fixed. *facetentacle*
Oh well, it's done. Tomorrow is Friday, Friday good. No real plans for the
weekend, I think I'll mostly be at home and vegging. It's not been a
bad week, just so much change. And on that, I'm going to change into a
pumpkin. Night gang.
Day two was alright. A little harder to wake up, work itself was mostly ok.
Two meetings, more tinkering with Outlook/Exchange, and a case of the
flashbacks. One of the other admins asked me if I could help him with
something...
Can I help run some cable?
*facetentacle*
As most of you will recall, I hate running cable. Least favorite task
by far. But, Admin#2 is a nice guy, and it's day 2, so I put on my
positive face and we got to work. First time I've run cable under a
raised floor. Had flashbacks to 'Aliens' when I had to stick my head
under the floor to hand off cable. Neither of us were having fun, so
we snarked about it, something I couldn't do with exboss #1 at the Pit.
I did have a few ouchies, once was I was further under the floor than I
thought, and I felt stuck and claustrophobia said hi. I also leaned
wrong on my rib cage, and one of my ribs shifted. Owowow. Not a break,
not even a bruise, just...shift = ow. Oh well, we got them done. And while
it wasn't what I wanted to do, it was good to be helpful, and to have
tricks up my sleeve that made things easier. Oh yeah, and duct tape is
great to block where cable was hanging up. I have mad improv skills.
I left closer to 5, was chatting with coworkers. Got a little turned
around trying to get to the road home, tried to find a new route. Oh
well, I'm home now. Package waiting at the apartment office, and a note
from some of my favorite Cthulhu folks. Going to watch some brain candy
tv, eat some dinner and probably go to bookland early.
Weekend plans are to pretty much be a bum around Château Innsmouth. I
need to probably do a major store run...I keep wanting to do it after
work, but again I'm drained (and sore). Not that I'm _needing_ anything
emergency wise, I'm just running low on stuff. Maybe tomorrow or
Friday, or this weekend. We'll see. Ok, going to call this a post.
Catch you all later.
First day, and like most firsts, it was kind of challenging. I slept ok,
got up on time without issues, stopped by the store to grab a soda and a
notepad, since I didn't have any, and got to work on time. Badge to
get into the building wasn't setup, but the Project Manager for my
group was in, so I got in. (I should get my badge tomorrow). Had
foo with my workstation, but our desktop support guy worked out a fix,
and later figured out it was an image install issue. Nice workstation,
i5, 8 gigs of ram, 3 monitors (one 4x3, 2 widescreen). Windows, but
that's expected.
Day went by fairly quick, two meetings, one ticket pseudo assigned to
me to do research on, lunch with the two other admins and the PM, and
much arguing with Outlook and Exchange and SMB, fixed the SMB, gave up
on the mail issues after I was there late waiting on Exchange to make
up it's mind after the 3rd attempt. Came home, now I'm writing this...
mostly to get things out of my skull.
The job will be...challenging for me. Not the work itself specifically,
though I expect that to have it's own challenges. It's the fact that
this company is run very 'Big Business', and I'm used to 'Small Business'.
I'm used to fixing my own systems, installing my own software, dealing with
issues on the fly, etc. New company is more structured, more belief in
meetings and accountability and...general structure. This isn't bad,
actually it's good...as I haven't worked like this in over a decade. It's
just a little anxiety inducing to look at things their way. Luckily, I
have meds for that. And I have good coworkers, and good support people
(aka you guys). It will be ok. Just have to work on that being
flexible thing.
So, that's day 1. I'm going to go nuke my leftover Chinese food, watch
something silly, take a hot shower and crash. Catch you all tomorrowesque,
when Vulpine has his first 'Stand Up' meeting.
Last day before I start at new job. Plan was to get up early to help set
my sleep schedule. Instead I slept in under blankets. Got up after
a loud thump from upstairs. My neighbors worry me some days.
I'm chilling out at home, watching 'Silence of the Lambs' right now. Not
sure what else I'll do today. May continue with the Hannibal the Cannibal
run, may start some other comfort flicks.
I'm probably going to be pretty disconnected for the upcoming week, at
least compared to the last while. I'll probably post stuff at night when
I get done with the work day, but I don't know how caught up I'll get
online. Trying to keep with being professional and stuff.
Otherwise, I've kind of given myself a mulligan on this week for goals
and stuff. The focus is the job, and taking care of myself post job.
Not much else to say right now. Going to be quiet and calm and hopefully
tomorrow will go smoothly.
Random musings. Hung out and watched 'Dragon Blade' (among other movies)
with friends today. Learned something, the random death-rattlish noise
I make when history is violated loudly amuses people to no end. It
seems Crassus' army went east along the Silk Road, fought another Roman
army with the help of the Chinese, the Huns, and other related nations...
and were then rescued by the Parthians.
The above mentioned friends laughed themselves silly at each noise of horror.
Besides history fails, it was a fun enough Jackie Chan fight fest. Just
forget everything you know about the late Roman Republic.
I realized a few days ago that it's been 4 months since I quit the Shoggoth
Pit. And the next time that I plan to leave a job, don't do it in the
beginning of Fall. Too many things to distract a fox from job hunting.
Of course, after 12 years at the Pit, I probably need 4 months to recover.
I'm at the moment equal parts nervous and excited about Tuesday. If
I think about it for any length of time I get more anxious, but that's
me thinking of all the ways I can mess things up. Ahh, low self esteem,
thou art a pain in the arse.
I'm also alternating planning upgrades to the Château Innsmouth network,
specifically I want to replace my three old Dell FP2001 monitors with something
new. But that's a decent chunk of change, and really I shouldn't spend
the money til it's more of a requirement than a want. To get what I really
want would also require a video card upgrade, and then it just seems to
spiral into throwing more money at 'the perfect system'. I'm trying to
keep myself from thinking about it, at least til after Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
comes out later this year, and I see what all changes. Plus by then,
I'll have a better idea how the joblife will be, and if coughing up funds
will be a viable plan.
I think I'm in the middle of reading about 10 different books. History
and horror, sci fi and such. Tentacles everywhere. Oh yeah, and a
King in Yellow themed audiobook while driving. That's pretty good, good
enough that I bought the ebook version so I could check spelling and
word choice where the audiobook reader was...unclear. Aklo is a hard
language for people to speak *wink* (for the confused, Aklo is one
of the eldritch languages used in Mythos fiction, it's originally
from Arthur Machen's fiction). But the multiple books is due to a
severe lack of focus, I'll read a chapter or two of one, then switch to
something else, Or a short story in a collection. And when in doubt,
the history of Ancient Syria is nice and dry...*drumroll*
I'm exhausted right now, but I started a load of dishes and have 'The
Resurrected' playing, so I'll be up for a while longer. Slept badly,
dreams of bizarro world version of a friend, and other uncomfortable
bits. Hope I sleep better when I do go to bed in a while. Tomorrow
when I wake up is the usual Sunday. Yay Amythest time. Then Monday
will either be doing all the things, or doing nothing. We'll see.
For now, I think I've got most of my odd thoughts out of my skuill.
Will catch you later, probably with a much shorter post. Ciao.
