I was told in class that this will be a particularly bad week for homework. In a way that’s good. When you front-load the work, you’re not lulled into complacency. You start out with a realistic idea of what needs to be done, and you don’t have one of those cartoon-anvils fall on your head later. Still, it’s driving me crazy.
Right now I’m on the phone with our programmer. We’re extending the Point-of-Sale system to include the cafe. (In Courthouse, but it isn’t built yet - there was an independent operator in that space, but he’s gone now. There must have been some ‘artistic differences’). Yesterday they loaded a new version of the cash register program to account for the fact that food gets taxed differently in Virginia. There probably wasn’t a provision for tax categories at all in the old version. They probably had to update the Database Schema for food items. Why have I been on hold so long?… No, wait, the line just dropped. My ear was getting sweaty.
But there were some User Interface irregularities with the new version yesterday, and it had to be pulled. Since the cafe isn’t open yet, there’s still time to work out the bugs, but today we got an error running Sales Batch Update. As you can probably guess, sales data is being read out of some journal file, processed for accounting, and stored in another format. Those file records are a little different now. Not every store runs this sales analysis every day, so we had just the one problem today, and it is supposed to be fixed for now.
Posted in infogami-blog, olssons, school | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Wed, 10 May 2006 13:30:00 GMT
I don’t really like being out on the edge like this: I was not just tired on the bus ride home last night, waves of decoherence were washing over me. My mind couldn’t integrate all the stimulus, but stimulated it was.
Being part of a group project for a class creates all sorts of problems I wouldn’t have in my working life. Yes, in large companies, you might get thrown together with strangers, but that’s your life. You work at company. Your’re already putting the lion’s share of your time and energy into it. It’s not some extra thing tacked on that deserves time all its own but isn’t going to get it. Eight week classes just exacerbate the problem that you don’t have any social grease with these people. They are strangers, and you don’t get many opportunities to get to know them, learn what they are good at doing, and get some instinct about what they can handle. Also, with so few classes, each topic we learn is compressed: There really has to be two steps. First you attend the lecture, then you assimilate the information, then you can put it to use. I reached the end of a 14 hour day with four team memebers bickering about why I wasn’t delegating them precise tasks. Heck, I just learned it too, I need a day or two to let it percolate. And I’m not even going to get that, since I’ve got another 14 hour day staring now. It’ll be in the back of my head, but what I really need is to sit down to work on the abstract examples for hours at a time, then take a few hours to map that on to our group project. I told them to work on the damn homework, cause that’s how they’re going to learn what they need for the project. It’s good advice for me too.
Then try to schedule a meeting. That’s why I like being in an office every work day. You’re actually with the people you work with. Doesn’t that sound fabulous? In the group, my coworkers are a clandestine cell, not fully able to admit what they are doing. I know I have to hide my schoolwork from everybody else in my life.
Posted in school, infogami-blog | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Tue, 09 May 2006 13:04:00 GMT
One more wacky Monday. I have management class tonight. I have to do a lot for work, but assignments for class are due Saturday at midnight, which means I don’t even have to think about handing anything in on Monday morning while I’m busting my ass on other stuff. I still have work to do for BIS325. I tried working on it last night, but it was agonizing - I wasn’t able to concentrate for long.
I’ve become used to the idea - let’s not call it instant gratification - that results have to be snappy. If anything takes a long time you’re either doing it wrong, or it shouldn’t be done. But education goes against this. For all the things I do know, there are still so many things I don’t know, and plenty more things I’m not good at doing. This means there’s still a lot of agonizing work to be done if I have the motivation. Most moments of my life there are the little things that have to be done, and might be accomplished quickly, but don’t have any lasting glory. Consider the kitchen sink. Or the bathroom floor. I always knew those things didn’t matter in the same way as: Figure out what you know, what you don’t know, and what you have to do to your brain if you would ever hope to know it. I envy people who make it look easy, but the truth is that it is probably not easy for them, they just manage to do it without complaining. On the other hand, my brain is like a stubborn mule. It can carry a ton of supplies, but if it doesn’t feel like going someplace, I’m basically out of luck. There’s so much friction with even the simplest operations.
Posted in infogami-blog | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Mon, 08 May 2006 13:48:00 GMT
I finished “Great Society Subway” at the laundromat this morning. Now I’m trying to catch up to schoolwork and housework. As if that could ever happen. The landlord came by with a city inspector today. They called to warn me as I was heading out the door to do laundry. I got the distinct feeling that I would be sorry, and when I returned, my back door was chained. I was livid! Every time that bozo comes by, he screws up something. I need a restraining order or something. Until last month, you couldn’t even chain the door because that part of the door frame was not connected to the wall. The last act in painting the apartment was to nail that sucker back on the wall. I would never chain the door anyway: The door frame came off when the guy kicked it in four years ago. Until that day I couldn’t lock the door from the outside, so we bolted it shut unless we needed to hang out on the fire escape or take out the trash. After the break-in I had a new way to enter and exit my apartment. And since I’m the only one living there now, I wouldn’t block an entrance that I might want to use. I only go in and out the front door to check my mailbox, or if it snows really hard and I’m too lazy to sweep it off the fire escape. The landlord won’t fix the door frame for four years, but thinks he should chain the door when he visits for five minutes? WTF!?! Neglect is what I like best about my landord. I thought that was what I was paying for.
Posted in infogami-blog | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Sat, 06 May 2006 23:44:00 GMT
I got the idea to go see Christina at work today. The weather is so nice that the prospect of walking several miles between Vienna and Dunn Loring didn’t seem so bad. I set out at 10:30, got a coffee, then rode the 42 to Farragut Square. Once again I forgot that they close the entrance on the square, but I was right on time to catch the Orange Line when I went across to the other one. I brought along my Web Design textbook and a bottle of water, so I could endure the trip, and relax in the cafe at Whole Foods for a while. I’m used to walking such long distances in town, but out in Fairfax there are vast stretches of nothingness. I read while walking, and fell into a kind of meditation. In Vienna proper it was interesting to sort out my mental map of the place, and examine the architecture. On foot you feel the lay of the land in a way I don’t remember from driving by in a car. When I got to the electric pylons by the old railroad line I knew I was close, becuase Christina told me that the Whole Foods is in a building that used to be a train station.
I think she was happy to see me, but this is one way we don’t see eye to eye. She was a bit flabbergasted that I showed up, and it even seemed a little like I was interfering on her territory. I think it is nicer to see her than to not see her, but she probably thinks it is agonizing to see me while she’s stuck at work. I knew she wouldn’t have lunch until well after I had left, but I thought the chances were good that she could have five minutes off. She didn’t. She introduced me to some coworkers, got me a discount on lunch, and I went to eat and read a while in the cafe. So in summary, the visit was disappointing in many ways, but: I am no longer a merely postulated person to her coworkers, and I can visualize her workplace. I can’t begin to say how much that puts my mind at ease. I hated not being able to visualize it.
On my way out I walked the W&OD trail going past the store east to Gallows Road, then caught the train back to town in Dunn Loring. I’ve been through that stretch on my bicycle several times, and walking again is a different pace. I stopped to read historical signs with old photographs, since it wouldn’t really slow me down. Along the way I spotted an old bridge embankment, (dated 1880’s) that would have carried another set of tracks. When I nosed through the wooded path out to the street, it was as I had guessed: Electric Avenue. The credit union where I took out loans for GW was right there. It was a place from the past that made sense. I didn’t bring any sun block, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I didn’t get too much sun in my short sleeves.
Now back at home I’ve got to switch gears and do shoolwork for the reat of the evening. MGMT404 is under control except for the groop project charter due tonight, and I have a bit to do for BIS325, but that can happen tomorrow and if I get any spare time tonight. Now perhaps another coffee…
Posted in infogami-blog, school | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Sat, 06 May 2006 21:39:00 GMT
Of course, I got a little burned out yesterday. I worked a long day to make up for Monday & Tuesday when I had class, and we had a little party for one of the part-timers in the advertising department who is moving to California. Despite my best intentions, I got home late & fell asleep.
I’ve decided that deadlines don’t bother me anymore. A deadline is a wonderful thing. What sucks is when I want to get started working, but something is preventing it. I have a lot of idle time in my life waiting to get started on projects with strict deadlines. Some of that time I put to good use working on less urgent matters, and some of it I spend watching TV or something. I even scheme on how to get the jump on a project, but that only goes so far. My bosses conspire one way or another to narrow the window of opportunity.
Posted in infogami-blog | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Thu, 04 May 2006 21:00:00 GMT
2:00 PM 5/2/2006
I’m struggling to keep everything together right now. It’s fun until things actually do fall apart - like being weightless during freefall. Work seems a lot less important when the pressure is on at school, but there’s one major hurdle at work I’ve been forgetting about. My boss is going to Australia for at least two weeks, and we’ve gotten rid of practically everybody else. So just like I’m the team leader in my PM class, I could step up and lead here. Only problem is: there’s nobody to lead. It’s another case where I’m the worker. And I’m not even all that great of a worker. Am I supposed to have any help in that interval? Meanwhile, I’m being asked more and more to account for micro-slices of my time. Maybe that’s a good skill to have, but the real trend in my life is toward multitasking. Visualize a three-ring circus. I have to keep circulating from one area to another, and it’s not so easy to say what I was working on a couple hours ago, or if I was even working at all - sometimes I have to back off and consider the big picture, or even just veg out for a few minutes. In that vein, I’m hoping to direct that energy into this page. More often than not, the thoughts I have are not coherent. Just turning my attention to the sheet of paper or the weblog window can scare away the feeling that I know what I’m actually thinking. When there is pressure to arrive early and stay late everywhere I go, something has to give. Time has to be juggled.
Posted in infogami-blog, school, writing-craft | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Tue, 02 May 2006 19:00:00 GMT
11:43 PM 5/1/2006
Mondays are going to be a bear for a while now. MGMT404 is going to be a lot of fun and a lot of trouble. This is a chance to replay the awful time I had in Business 115. We broke into groups, and had to select an Information Technology Project. Based on a combination of age and confidence, I wound up as the team leader. I usually like to stand back. I’m not involved with a lot of teamwork at my job, so it’s relatively unexplored territory for me. There’s so much to say, but I’m about ready for bed.
I’m riding the Metro, and reading a book about the Metro on the trains and buses. I’m reading about a massive public works project on my way to a Project Manaegment class. Discuss.
Christina & I had lunch today. She got me some groceries at discount, then we schemed about lunch. Standing in front of the sushi case at Whole Foods, I was considering my options, and she called me ‘Indecisive’. The nerve! We put down the sushi and went to Adega. I was craving ADega the sandwich shop with the wine store built right in, and they have veggie options. She loved it. The manager at Adega saw Christina in her Whole Foods vest, and got excited. He gave us a discount.
Posted in school, infogami-blog | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Mon, 01 May 2006 16:43:00 GMT
8:35 AM 5/1/2006
It’s May again. There are supposed to be Immigrant’s Rights Boycots today. So far nothing seems out of the ordinary. My South Texas Correspondent has accused me of not knowing any illegal immigrants. She might be right. But if I were illegal, I wouldn’t want to advertise it, so the number might be fairly high. How many people assume that at 34 years old I have a college diploma? Probably all of them. On the other hand, I make it a point not to know that many people.
Christina has another training session at Whole Foods in Silver Spring, so we’re planning on having lunch. Today I’m the only one in Operations, so I have to make sure we don’t spend as much time out to lunch as the last time. She thought they would be starting earlier today, and be done earlier, so that gives us a few more choices.
School has been acting strangely again. Three of my quiz grades in BIS315 mysteriously disappeared. Now on the final grade they show up as zeros, giving me a ‘B’ for the class. It’s absurd! I took all three online quizzes while they were available, and got excellent scores. They were so easy - it was like a free gift. Naturally I took them because I needed insurance against the final, which might trip me up. Of course, I got nearly a perfect score on the final. He didn’t make it as difficult as I expected. When you finish the online quiz, the system auto-grades it. You get to see your answers against the correct answers right away. Unfortunately, there’s no way for my browser to provide any forensic evidence.
Posted in school, infogami-blog, relationship-angst | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Mon, 01 May 2006 13:35:00 GMT
11:20 AM 4/29/2006
I couldn’t remember what night my MGMT404 class was, so I went back to the poorly designed interface at DeVry, and the online class said something in the title about “Day”. This professor is good enough to insert little easter eggs like that in the material. It’s Wednesday morning. While Wednesday morning is not impossible, it would rock the boat at work, and I would rather not do that if I can get away with it. It also makes scheduling a new job problematic, should I attempt to do that in the next eight weeks. Next, I got signed up for BIS325, which had BIS315 as a prerequisite. And then, I switched sections in MGMT404. So now I’ve got Management on Monday, and Web Development on Tuesday. I hate having class on Monday. It makes Wednesday morning look awfully tempting. Just a couple more semesters of trying to make their system work, I’m crossing my fingers.
Posted in infogami-blog | no comments | no trackbacksPosted by Evan Bittner
Sat, 29 Apr 2006 16:20:00 GMT
