The good news is there is a laptop here on site that has all our software installed on it, and I managed to do one download today that was vital for the test we are doing on Tuesday.

The bad news is I was a sweaty mess the entire time because the laptop is old and unreliable, and I prayed to every god there is that nothing would go wrong. Fortunately it worked and we're good.

And no I didn't make that decision on my own, I had to bother an engineer on a Saturday to discuss and get him to sign off on me doing that. He was super happy about it too. :lol:

Anyway, I am not relaying any of that information to IT. As far as they know my laptop is still down and they are fucking over one of the biggest clients this company has ever signed. I simply cannot wait for the emails to start flying on Monday.

Jan 27, 2024 20:44:56 GMT Foos said:

How does your company not have a 24 hour emergency IT line?

We do for fire alarm. For regular office tech support they just work Mon-Fri. Which is stupid because we use our laptops to fix shit. I dunno.

Can't work yet today. We use a virtual network and apparently it's down North America wide. nerd.io Gyro LC you know things. Do you know anything about this?

IT issues although it's remote server issues either way are frustrating. Oh well. Time to do some filing I guess. Maybe I'll just bounce and go donate blood.

Don't you work for the Federal Government? Is this is network that got hacked this week?

No, not Federal government. We're an independent agency. Our mandate is through the Provincial government and we're funded about 60% Federally and 40% Provincially.

No clue about a hack. The company that runs the remote server nerd.io is having issues.

Jan 31, 2024 15:53:22 GMT Foos said:

Can't work yet today. We use a virtual network and apparently it's down North America wide. nerd.io Gyro LC you know things. Do you know anything about this?

IT issues although it's remote server issues either way are frustrating. Oh well. Time to do some filing I guess. Maybe I'll just bounce and go donate blood.

No, I haven't heard about that. No problems show up here www.saashub.com/nerdio-status

Jan 31, 2024 17:09:32 GMT Gyro LC said:

Jan 31, 2024 15:53:22 GMT Foos said:

Can't work yet today. We use a virtual network and apparently it's down North America wide. nerd.io Gyro LC you know things. Do you know anything about this?

IT issues although it's remote server issues either way are frustrating. Oh well. Time to do some filing I guess. Maybe I'll just bounce and go donate blood.

No, I haven't heard about that. No problems show up here www.saashub.com/nerdio-status

Thanks Mr. LC. I'm just repeating what my IT people said.

Did you turn it off and back on again?

Jan 31, 2024 15:53:22 GMT Foos said:

Can't work yet today. We use a virtual network and apparently it's down North America wide. nerd.io Gyro LC you know things. Do you know anything about this?

IT issues although it's remote server issues either way are frustrating. Oh well. Time to do some filing I guess. Maybe I'll just bounce and go donate blood.

The whole VPN thing works great... Until it doesn't

Jan 31, 2024 21:06:25 GMT iron maiden said:

Did you turn it off and back on again?

:suspic:

Jan 31, 2024 23:26:56 GMT Foos said:

Jan 31, 2024 21:06:25 GMT iron maiden said:

Did you turn it off and back on again?

EDIT: Systems all good today Foos?

Yup. Fixed at 5:06pm according to the email that went out last night. Great timing to fix it as soon as everyone has left for the day.

Electrician - "hey RT I need your help with something. I'm stumped."
Me - "No problem man what's up?"
Electrician - *describes problem*
Me - "sounds like one of two things: your devices are labeled backwards or they are wired backwards."
Electrician - "Yeah it's neither of those things."
Me - "well it has to be."
Electrician - "Can you just come look at it? It doesn't make sense to me."
Me - "If you are certain it is not your labels, check your wiring. I'm positive it is one of those two things."
Electrician - "Pleeeeeaaaaaase?"
Me - "Ok be right there."

Several Moments Later

Me - "It's wired backwards."
Electrician - "WHAT!?"


I have been dealing with this exact same scenario at my job for most of my career, but lately it's become extra tiresome because the electricians I work with get paid DOUBLE WHAT I MAKE yet somehow don't know when they crossed a pair of wires.

This happened to me today and the guy that was confused had been troubleshooting for two days. TWO DAYS. It took me 10 minutes to find the problem after I already told him what it was over the phone and he still couldn't figure it out.

I work with electricians daily. I feel your pain. Most are schooled in the art of weaponized incompetence only surpassed by engineers.

Maybe I should put this in the positive thread? I've been doing some tile work lately. I do it on and off as needed. They brought in some contractors to redo our floor since it looked bad. In my defense I have maintained the condition I inherited it. If nothing else nothing gets worse after it becomes mine. A few, not many as most no sell it, but a few have commented on it. I don't think it's a great job. I certainly wouldn't take a pic and put it on any kind of website advertising the services, but I suppose a 70/100 is a decent scoring for what it is. Hate the ones who insist on doing the annoying lobby customer "hyuk hyuk feel free to do mine next" bit.

Makes me think maybe I could've been an okay handyman if I took an interest in those fields out of HS.

Feb 7, 2024 22:54:03 GMT RT said:

Electrician - "hey RT I need your help with something. I'm stumped."
Me - "No problem man what's up?"
Electrician - *describes problem*
Me - "sounds like one of two things: your devices are labeled backwards or they are wired backwards."
Electrician - "Yeah it's neither of those things."
Me - "well it has to be."
Electrician - "Can you just come look at it? It doesn't make sense to me."
Me - "If you are certain it is not your labels, check your wiring. I'm positive it is one of those two things."
Electrician - "Pleeeeeaaaaaase?"
Me - "Ok be right there."

Several Moments Later

Me - "It's wired backwards."
Electrician - "WHAT!?"


I have been dealing with this exact same scenario at my job for most of my career, but lately it's become extra tiresome because the electricians I work with get paid DOUBLE WHAT I MAKE yet somehow don't know when they crossed a pair of wires.

This happened to me today and the guy that was confused had been troubleshooting for two days. TWO DAYS. It took me 10 minutes to find the problem after I already told him what it was over the phone and he still couldn't figure it out.

Feb 7, 2024 23:00:51 GMT iron maiden said:

I work with electricians daily. I feel your pain. Most are schooled in the art of weaponized incompetence only surpassed by engineers.

It will back up every one of your preconceived notions to know that I am a qualified Electrician.

I have a "Call me last" policy, which is good that I don't get annoyed all the time for trivial BS.
The bad part is getting called after 10 people have worked on the problem... It takes more time to get back to Zero than it does to solve the original problem.

Two weeks ago I had to go online with a customer's machine and all the IP addresses had changed.
Took me an hour to scan the IP range, find the right device and connect.
Then I remote connected to the touchscreen, put everything in auto and pressed the reset button.

It annoys me because my customers track machine downtime and these faults will be recorded as electrical faults which  affects the reputation of the equipment.
I have asked before why there isn't a code for gross incompetence.

I'm covering for one of my coworkers the next 2 weeks. They gave me an 'admin' to help me so basically she is supposed to process my orders for me in the system so it frees me up to chase orders, quotes, etc. since I am doing double the workload.

I send her an order to create this morning at 7am. I saw she was in, but it's now 11am and nothing so I go to message her and she's gone for the rest of the day. Plus I find out she doesn't work Fridays and has taken Tuesday off (Monday is a holiday here). Nice of anyone to let me know. I mean, why bother? My busiest days are the days she's off and frankly it's just easier to do it my damn self which I am now doing. Grrrr.

We haven't been getting much snow lately, which is good but it always seems to snow on my off days which normally you'd think would be good... but then it just means I have "extra" work to cleanup whatever the mutants decided to "help" with. A lot of carriers hate holidays for that reason. It's not really a "day off" if the next day is double the workload. And since a lot of the holidays are jobber shopping ones (President's Day for example) it's a waste.

At least once a week I find myself kicking my own ass thinking... shoulda just left it alone. Granted that's one way I learn, but still.

So I wanted to have some tools set aside for when the water needs to be shutoff in the restrooms. Was testing turning off the water via the sinks because I didn't wanna have to figure it out in the middle of an emergency. And of course couldn't get it back on. Submitted to maintenance to to add to our other list of plumbing problems. I wish they'd stop ignoring it* and deny it if they don't wanna fix the toilet because then it can be sent to a plumber.

* I'm super skeptical that they purposely de prioritize my installation since I do so many things.

Feb 20, 2024 23:30:41 GMT @ness said:

At least once a week I find myself kicking my own ass thinking... shoulda just left it alone. Granted that's one way I learn, but still.

So I wanted to have some tools set aside for when the water needs to be shutoff in the restrooms. Was testing turning off the water via the sinks because I didn't wanna have to figure it out in the middle of an emergency. And of course couldn't get it back on. Submitted to maintenance to to add to our other list of plumbing problems. I wish they'd stop ignoring it* and deny it if they don't wanna fix the toilet because then it can be sent to a plumber.

* I'm super skeptical that they purposely de prioritize my installation since I do so many things.

What sort of valve was it?

There's three units in my building. Finance. Age of Majority. Abuse. I was originally scheduled to cover AOM most of this month because the supervisor had AL time to take. No problem. But the Abuse unit supervisor has been sick the past few days and she asked me to cover. Ok, sure. Happy to help. Finance Director has been away in meetings. And the #2 is on leave this week. So everything on the entire floor comes to me this week uuuuuuugggghhh. I've been so busy but almost none of it has been my work.

So after 23 years, the head of our AP got the Golden Handshake today. Basically she's 65 and though she wanted to work another 2 years before retirement they pretty much packaged her out. My boss is now nervous as she's 57 and planning to work for another 10 years, but I told her she might want to streamline that plan to 8 years.

They must have thrown a boat load of money at her to keep her from coming back and citing ageism.

Today was the first morning in 10 years I can remember not having anything to do work wise so I ended up taking vacation time to cover it. Luckily, it picked up in the afternoon, but it has been slowwwww the past month and I've been told not supposed to pick up for another month or so. It's not just me either. There's at least another buyer or two looking for more work too. Things are supposed to pick up, but I've heard we've lost contracts and the clients have cancelled projects or delayed others-some into 2025. I picked up another project in the meantime, but I hope it picks up soon.

Are you seeing much of the same iNCY or others in your respective fields?

I'm in social services...so no. In fact, I got hit with three distinct special projects to do at the same time in addition to my usual workload. And they want me to run a Biggest Loser competition too because apparently I'm "trustworthy" and "non-judgmental". Wonderful. So now I have an encrypted spreadsheet with the weights of about 20 women and get to track their weight loss progress every 2 weeks for the next three months. But hey, before I can catch my breath it's already been three hours gone. A sandwich and a few phone calls later and all of a sudden it's end of the day. Insanity.

Apr 4, 2024 23:16:36 GMT iron maiden said:

Today was the first morning in 10 years I can remember not having anything to do work wise so I ended up taking vacation time to cover it. Luckily, it picked up in the afternoon, but it has been slowwwww the past month and I've been told not supposed to pick up for another month or so. It's not just me either. There's at least another buyer or two looking for more work too. Things are supposed to pick up, but I've heard we've lost contracts and the clients have cancelled projects or delayed others-some into 2025. I picked up another project in the meantime, but I hope it picks up soon.

Are you seeing much of the same iNCY or others in your respective fields?

Yes, the industry that I work in is down about 15% from the highs.
Two of my biggest customers are cutting staff and cancelling capital projects, especially the Japanese owned companies.

It weird I think we really have a two speed economy these days where some segments are up and others are down.

Economically the rate rises aren't having enough of an affect on inflation. I don't know that they can take the heat our of the economy before something breaks.

Apr 5, 2024 1:28:47 GMT Foos said:

I'm in social services...so no. In fact, I got hit with three distinct special projects to do at the same time in addition to my usual workload. And they want me to run a Biggest Loser competition too because apparently I'm "trustworthy" and "non-judgmental". Wonderful. So now I have an encrypted spreadsheet with the weights of about 20 women and get to track their weight loss progress every 2 weeks for the next three months. But hey, before I can catch my breath it's already been three hours gone. A sandwich and a few phone calls later and all of a sudden it's end of the day. Insanity.

So Foos is going to be alone with 20 women and a scale multiple times for the next few months? You sly dog.

Really, that is ridiculous. They should all weigh in and record as a group to make sure there's no funny business. 

Apr 5, 2024 3:46:44 GMT Gyro LC said:

Apr 5, 2024 1:28:47 GMT Foos said:

I'm in social services...so no. In fact, I got hit with three distinct special projects to do at the same time in addition to my usual workload. And they want me to run a Biggest Loser competition too because apparently I'm "trustworthy" and "non-judgmental". Wonderful. So now I have an encrypted spreadsheet with the weights of about 20 women and get to track their weight loss progress every 2 weeks for the next three months. But hey, before I can catch my breath it's already been three hours gone. A sandwich and a few phone calls later and all of a sudden it's end of the day. Insanity.

So Foos is going to be alone with 20 women and a scale multiple times for the next few months? You sly dog.

Really, that is ridiculous. They should all weigh in and record as a group to make sure there's no funny business. 

Up to 23 now. But three men have joined.

Issue is that we have three offices in the city, and 8 remote on reserve offices. So I can't witness everyone in person, as much as I'd love to be there when a bunch of indigenous women are checking their weight loss progress.

Also just found out the Executive Director and Director of Finance are both gone next week so they dumped a meeting on me to attend. I just love going in blind to things like that. All I know is that an agency we work with has "adminstrative errors" that need to be discussed and resolved. I'm guessing that's slang for we screwed up and you guys owe us more money than we invoices for, please fix this for me.

You are one lucky guy Foos .

Since I was looking for more work, my coworker dumped every order she didn't want to do on me. You know things that are already in process that now I have to call people and find out where it's stuck and 'unstick it'. Oh well at least it will keep me busier. 

I've got tons of pictures of feet on scales now. I should send them to @ness for his fetish needs 👍

How many of them were cuties?