Reality Me

Category: Daily Life

Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.

  • Bad customer service begets bad service

    So one of my clients call Friday, "Doug, our network is down!" So I drop everything and rush over there as quickly as possible to spend the afternoon tracing through knotted cables resembling a plate of spaghetti and a cluster of switches and routers with extra routers thrown in as leftovers from the previous technician’s troubleshooting attempts. See, everyone always wants to pull in the lowest dollar solution first because any upstart techie is going to say, "sure, I can do that." which has this rippling effect of rising costs and client doubts. When the lowest dollar solution fails, they call in the next higher yet lowest dollar solution who now has to not only solve the original problem but fix any problems created by the previous low dollar solution. The result is that the higher lower dollar solution has to bill more than if they were the first on the job. If that person fails and another person has to be called in, the costs only escalate.

    I still have moments when I will tell a client "I’m not the right person for the job." My father-in-law cringed recently as he overheard a phone call in which I did just that. That said, I also subscribe to the philosophy of "never turn away a sale." The two statements are in obvious conflict. The way to keep the sale and do the right thing for the client is to say "I’m not the right developer but let me run project through someone I trust." That is not always plausible but gives you a billable while knowing that your client will be taken care correctly since you will be managing the work.

    After resolving Friday’s network issues, the client sent their company’s financial computer with me to get a new version of Peachtree installed. After spending the better part of the weekend removing spyware, malware, and viruses, I proceeded with the upgrade only to find it consistently failing. My first round with Peachtree technical support sent me retracing my steps through possible solutions already researched via Blingo. Slowly I began to think I had a bad compact disc.

    I have visited one of the plants that mass produces cds. A cd is created much the same way an LP record is produced. A mold is created. Little plastic pellets are melted into gooey platter. And the data is pressed into the plastic. Yes. I said, "the data is pressed into the plastic." That sounds weird and inconsistent with the cd burners you have in your home computer. A cd writer uses a chemical process. Mass produced cds use a physical process which includes creating pits and lands that reflect the light from the laser differently. When the cd reader detects a change from pit to land or land to pit it tells the computer that a 1 was read. If there is no change, say pit to pit or land to land, it tells the computer a 0 was read. Your cd burner at home removes some the dye in the cd and causes light to reflect or not reflect thus emulating a pit or land. This chemical is prone age which is why a "burned" cd has a shelf life.

    You’ll note the reflective metal (aluminum or gold) of the CD is on the top, under a thin layer of acrylic which is just under the label. The bottom of the cd has 1.2mm of polycarbonate plastic. This is why I cringe when I see someone lay a CD down upside down to "protect it from scratches." The laser focuses beyond the surface of the bottom of the CD and minor scratches on the bottom have no effect while a minor scratch on the top can destroy the reflective surface. Scratches on the bottom can be buffed out while scratches on the top cannot be repaired.

    The odds of getting bad pressed CD are pretty slim. The Peachtree installation disc was just that. Because the odds are so slim, technical support is alway hesistant to send replacement CDs. It took some doing but they finally gave in. There was only 1 file I could not copy from the CD. They would not give in and put that file online for download. That I consider bad customer service. My client understands what has happened but it does not negate the fact that I told them they would have their machine before business opened Monday morning and I still have it on Wednesday.

  • Nice

    A niece

  • Squirrels in the Attic

    Last year we had some unwelcome guests, two squirrels in the attic. I ran us out of the house by converting our home into the sweet smell of my grandmother’s closet. By the end of the summer, the moth ball smell had final dissipated and the critters had not returned. When this year’s cold came, so did our boarders. Eventually I will get them out of the attic.

    All day today I’ve heard scampering in the bedroom. I finally figured it out! We have squirrels in the woodstove! My solution? I grabbed a string of firecrackers, lit it and threw it in. Unfortunately, I have to come realise that my woodstove is more of a crab trap for squirrels than a home. Now I have a trapped and very frightened squirrel. It is Christmas. Maybe I’ll name him Ches and simply light a fire…

    Update for clarity’s sake: For the record, a Fisher wood stove will comfortably house two crazy squirrels and contains a fist full of fireworks very well but will not keep the smell of gun powder from permeating throughout the house.

  • I hurt my wife

    but I got the splinter out.

    So, like, she has been glaring at me most of the day and once barked at me, "are you blogging?!" Obviously something was wrong. So I turned on my super mind reading powers and got nothing. I inquired. I got nothing. I reviewed the day. I got nothing. Finally, I found the instant messenger window that was hidden away that had a message from an hour and a half ago, "would you get a splitter out please?" Note to self: Check that more often.

  • It’s that time of the day

    Explain it to me again. Exactly, why do they have to eat?

  • How long can you hold stress?

    I was thinking about stress while driving around today…btw, for the Knoxvillians, the James White Parkway ramp from I-40E is closed until September of next year…anyhow, I think I have been chronically stressed since 1992. Yup. That’s it.

  • The errors in my life

    Errors I have been fighting all weekend

    • Error -1607: Unable to Install InstallShield Scripting Runtime
    • Error 1305.Error reading from file C:\Program Files\Peachtree\Pchapp32.dll. Verify that the file exists and that you can access it.
      Installer stalls at 37% for C:\Program Files\Peachtree\Pchapp32.dll

    Rid machines of viruses and malware can be very difficult and time consuming. Plus it demands just enough attention that you can’t really focus on something serious so multitasking for productivity is kind of out of the question. So, what gets sacrificed? Estimates and sales.

    Some references:

    Update: I have cleared all temp areas on the harddrive, have checked for bad sectors on the harddisk, have uninstalled the old remenants of the program being upgraded, have uninstalled and reinstalled the InstallShield engine, and jumped through many suggestions found on Google, and still at 37-40% of the way into the installation, it fails. So I tried on another computer and at 40% it failed with "Error 1305.Error reading from file C:\Program File\Peachtree\Pchapp32.dll. Verify that the file exists and that you can access it." So I wised up and decided to try to eliminate the cdrom from the equation. I can copy every file from the CD except d:\peachw\install\Data1.cab. When I try to copy that file I get "Cannot copy Data1:Data error (cyclic redundancy check)" from any machine.

    Update: Peachtree agrees the disc is bad but won’t let me download Data1.cab. They are sending a new disc in the mail.

  • The early bird gets…tired

    Nothing quite like getting up at 2am to get to work. Particularly when multiple deadlines loom and none of them look promising. I’d rather be hiding in bed right now.

  • What’s your office look like?

    Cluttered productivity<

    Yes. Much room for improvement…

    Update: You can now click the picture for a larger view.

  • Santa Isn’t At the North Pole!

    Santa Claus actually lives in central London! Here’s sending out a special thank you to a special person across the pond who has spread a some extra Christmas cheer to our children at just the right time! Merry Christmas!

  • We ain’t completely cityfied yet

    American Black Vulture

    On the drive home from getting Tommy from his visit with the grandparents, I spied 3 American Black Vultures feasting on a road kill (see last paragraph). I tried to photograph them with my cellphone but fumbled when the car behind me got irritated and started tooting its horn. I do love seeing interesting wildlife.

    These are very large birds of prey at 65cm length and with a 1.5m wingspan. Their plumage is mainly glossy black; they have broad wings with white tips, a short tail and a featherless greyish head. In comparison with the Turkey Vulture, the Black Vulture flaps its wings more frequently during flight. … Though not having any natural predators, they have become scarce in some areas due to lack of suitable nesting habitat. [Source]

  • Don’t work for free

    I have this standing rule that I break all too often: Don’t work for free. I had this bad habit of giving too much and asking too little. I like seeing people happy; that is why the stage is so appealing to me. On the stage, you instantly know if the audience is happy and, if they are not responding well, you can change the show on the fly to fit the audience. In the business world, not asking for your worth is a guarantee that you will not survive. The customer is temporarily happy but because you undercharged or over delivered their expectation will not be realistic. For future work, you will either not be around to service them because you went out of business due to not making your expenses, or the future work will appear exorbitantly high since they received so much for so litle from you in their previous experience.

    I entertained a phone interview recently. The recruiter had explained that if the interview went well, the company would ask me to write a sample webpage. At the time, I thought this made sense. All creative types should keep a portfolio to demonstrate your worthiness. However, when you start running at the pace that I keep there is little time to manage a portfolio; simply pointing to work you have done is no good because other hands change it. For example, if my job was to paint a mural by the interstate, overnight my artwork could turn into a mess of graffiti. The Internet is very similar. You might make a wonderful site that validates and is Section 508 compliant but the minute your influence is gone from the company you cannot expect that website to stay compliant.

    Section 508 requires that electronic and information technology developed, procured, used, or maintained by all agencies and departments of the Federal Government be accessible both to Federal employees with disabilities and to members of the public with disabilities, and that these two groups have equal use of such technologies as federal employees and members of the public that do not have disabilities. [Source]

    Doing a sample website could show my skills that portfolio, pages due to time or lack of budget, may not reflect. Like I said, seemed like a good idea at the time. I did have the wherewithal to ask the recruiter if I would have an hourly rate for the sample project…no. When the interviewer got to that part of the phone interview, I was graced with the sample project. "Could you set aside 5 days?" My jaw dropped!

    I have a checks and balances when it comes to estimating projects. I have dollar figures defined for lengths of commitments to clients. I do my estimate based on the specification but then I check my standards to see if my estimate is accurate. That means if a client says they need me for a day the estimate should be between $a and $b; if they need me for a week, the estimate should be between $m and $n; and if they need me for a month, the estimate should be between $x and $y. A week generally looks like $dddd.dd.

    I mentioned in a chatroom, with ambiguity for client confidentiality, the request to write a sample website and asked if that was common. The online community of chatters responded with outrage stating that a portfolio should be sufficient or that questions in an interview should easily ferret out the developer’s skills. The people speaking are big names in my industry; I could walk through Borders and point to several books written by them. Frankly, they suggested I not consider the company and asked, "if this their expectation in an interview, what will their expectations be as an employer?" They implored me not to do the sample project and reinforced that such a trend could be bad for our industry.

    Now in all fairness, I interpret 5 days as "we are giving you five days so that you can show us you can meet a deadline and we understand you have other work to do." The interviewer said that it really shouldn’t be a day’s worth of work (that would look like $ddd.dd). I hope he is right that it doesn’t need the full 5 days otherwise I have already blown the job possibility. This week I also had a small project that turned out to be somewhat painful. Additionally, a client was holding payment while I worked out a bug in an application so that had my focus. I have 3 people waiting on estimates (estimates are the hardest part of my job and they pay $0). I got the go ahead on the next phase of a client’s project. Another client said I could begin working on his project because he is certain the end client will give the go ahead on Monday. And a maintenance client needed me for half a day because their network went down; they also need me to upgrade their accounting software this weekend. Sounds equitable right? Maybe in a perfect world but if you read it again you’ll see that almost none of that pays until down the road (if at all).

    I suppose I could have ignored everything except the sample project on the premise that I will nail this job. That would have shown a huge lack of ethics toward my existing clients plus I have assured them that if I step out of consulting or take a long term committed project that I will give them sufficient notice and make sure their work is uninterrupted. This potential job is with a company that I admire. And, if this sample project is indicative of how they organize their actual projects, working with them will be an absolute pleasure. However, I must manage my risk and assume that the job will not come through. I know the interviewer is a big blog reader so I am certain this post will appear in their feed reader. Hopefully it is not read negatively.

  • They walk their own path

    Choose your battles. Choose your battles. Why so many battles?! Today I gave in and let my 13 year old girl wear a piece of shrink wrap to school today. If she doesn’t tug at it a good 2.5 centimeters of belly and back show. The sleeves have got to chafe her armpits. The boys will certainly know she has breasts. I hope the school chooses to send her home.

    Dad: "Did your mother approve your outfit?"
    Sarah: "Uh. Yeah."
    Dad: "That shirt does not fit."
    Sarah: "Yes it does."
    Dad: "[Where the sleeves meet the shirt] should be here on your shoulders."
    Sarah:"They make them to fit this way!"

    Me thinks my girls needs some debate lessons. Think I’ll write a book: "How to win friends and influence people even though I am a bullheaded, know-it-all teenager." I read someone yesterday that lamented that their teen "child" is a young adult trying to prepare to make it in the real world on their own and that we need to give them space to do so. We must let them make mistakes. She can walk her own path but that path will still have laws to be followed. Today she got off with a warning.

    English to metric conversion provided by OnlineConversion.com

  • H20, Radiator, Very Cold Nights — Bad Mojo

    Remember when I replaced the water pump on the Jeep? Seems I forgot to remove the water and replace it with anti-freeze. Tonight may have been the Jeep’s last ride.

  • Ambivalent…sorta

    Sometimes I just wish the air would clear briefly. I accomplished today but I still feel so far behind…