Scheduled Updates and Chron Jobs

Kicked back, upgrading car washes and lube centers from the comfort of my office at 9:40 PM, listening to selective bits from Punk’O Rama CDs from yesteryear.  I’m working ON #7 as I write this, and I find that I’m still enjoying the NOFX/Rancid crossover after all these years.  There were a lot of good songs on those albums.  I learned of a lot of good bands and good music.  Those, and the Warped Tour CDs.   Both harken to different times in my life, and certain CDs almost bring me back to times years ago.  Has it been a decade?

Had an upgrade Monday night.  An upgrade Tuesday night.  Hopefully, I won’t have any more this week.  It would be nice to spend some time at home for a bit and get a more consistent sleep/work/home schedule.  The Monday night upgrade was hell.  Verifone Viper boards are picky pieces of proprietary junk.  When you follow the right procedures, they work like a champ and fire off without problems.  Note that the right procedures aren’t written in any manual or taught.  Verifone would rather spend 45 minutes talking about putting the stupid thing in a Sapphire and two minutes on actually configuring it.  Granted, there isn’t much for the installation.  But the tricky bits that cause you to get the system up and running the first time aren’t ever documented.  Except in some persons’ head.

I’ll tell you.  Don’t plug the network in the first time until the network is completely configured.  And if you have to reload Viper… unplug the network.   Or get a V920, as they seem to operate better and don’t like an ungainly kludge of a device.  You can definitely tell engineering genius when a cable exits a box and goes back into the box.  At least Verifone was smart enough to make those cables replaceable.  Except the one they decided should be proprietary.  

All told, it could be worse… it could be better, too.    This upgrade shouldn’t take me all night.   Hopefully, another hour and it will be done.  That would only make this one only two and a half hours.   Though Monday was 9 hours and a 6 hour upgrade, and today was another 6 hours and a 3ish hour upgrade.  That’s only a bit over half a week of work crammed into two days.  I think the company will hate me if they ever make me hourly.

And hey, what do you know.  Microsoft Outlook 2010 has the ability to create reoccurring daily tasks.  They can repeat forever or for a definite amount of time.  In the last week or two, I’ve read about 100 pages of material.  That’s more than I’ve covered in several months before that. I like these things.  It’s that doohickey that is causing me to write this.  How many days will it take to burn through 100 days of “read 30 minutes” or write a blog?  I don’t know.  But it’s pretty easy to eat an elephant at one sitting, 30 minutes every single day.

Showing Up.

I think we spend too much time watching movies.  In the movies, a lot of time is spent on quick cuts and training montages that take a daily accumulation of effort and cram it down into several minutes.  What the mind sees, it believes.  So although a part of our mind realizes the training montage took weeks or months, it was broken down into seconds.  So the mind believes it only took seconds.  So we get this… mental idea that all things should happen in one grand event.  And that’s wrong. 

It’s not a grand montage or some sort of event.  It’s the steady accumulation of small events on a daily basis.  It’s not that a person was perfect every day, it’s that a person showed up and put in an effort every single day.  That accumulation of days caused success. 

The concept is so contrary to our culture that it’s hard to believe idea like that still exists, but fundamental truths are hard to get rid of.  Mostly because they are the truth.  And you can’t get rid of the truth, no matter how hard you try. 

So, next time you decide to start something realize this: you don’t have to be great every single day.   You just have to show up every single day.   And that in itself is also complicated.  But doable. 

Doors

So I kicked in a door yesterday.  It wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve done while employed.  But then I started thinking about it, and the entire situation that led me to kick in the door. 

Before I start: I was wrong to kick in the door.

But based on the behavior of the company, I think it was a logical decision.  I also think it was in line with the companies behavior towards its IT department.   Now, let’s put the entire situation in context.  

I had an upgrade scheduled for Monday night, starting at 11PM.  At the morning meeting at 8AM, I was told I needed to be at that location on Tuesday morning for an install.  I didn’t hear about this install until Thursday.   And the night upgrade schedule is posted at least two weeks in advance.  

So…   Monday night at 11 PM, upgrade.  The next day, drive an hour and do another upgrade.   Great.   I work my 8A to 5P Monday and go back to work at 10:15 PM and finish at 4AM Tuesday morning.  I’m back to work at 10:00 AM Tuesday.   I’m not hourly.  So this is “free time” for the company after I hit 40, and I’m only working three days this week, and I got over 30 hours in those 3 days.   Isn’t it wonderful?

But…  Here I am, waiting for an upgrade.   And the manager tells me someone locked the room where all my equipment is located.  I’m thinking we have to be in that room in the next ten minutes.   So I lose my head and kick in the door.  And it gives in one kick.  

Remember…   5’10”, 135 pound guy kicks open the “secured room” in one kick.   Humorous.   I probably should have called a locksmith to get the thing open.   Anyways.

I found out the next day the entire plan was changed Monday and the scheduled update was pushed a week.  But no one needs to tell the IT department.  So I slept four hours for nothing. 

And I got to thinking about something I learned in the military.  Security is an illusion.  It is nothing more than a collective set of blinders we throw over our eyes to deny what can happen.  Humorous that your secure room can be kicked in by the scrawny IT guy in one kick.  Idiots.

Getting Back on the Horse

After my half a day ride to the dumps yesterday, it’s time to get myself back in the game.   Yup.  Time to get going. 

Let’s state the problem in the proper manner:  I don’t feel like I’ve been making progress in what I want to do.  If I go look at my task list I find that it is mostly empty.   I have no to-do list.  I have no sense of progress because I have no manner in which to gauge my progress. So that’s first on the list.

But what do I need to fill my task list with?   There’s the real question.

I can’t remember where I read it, so I’ll paraphrase here what I’ve learned. 

A salesman went for help because he had been stuck at the same sales point for years.  He wanted to do better, and had always had a goal of making $100,000.  The person he talked to knew cold calling was part of sales.  So instead of having a goal of “making money”, the guy started a different goal.   The goal was to make 10 cold calls a week.   As the story went, he had surpassed his goal in less than half a year, and was on track to hit $200,000. 

So fill the task list with action steps that lead towards the goal.  If your goal is to lose weight, then your daily task list might be filled with “run 2 miles today” five days a week.   That might do it.  It might not.   It’ll certainly get you closer than whining about your problems.  Because no one likes a whiner.   If your goal is be an author, then write for thirty minutes every stinking day.   As the saying goes “How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.”

I’ve wanted to keep up better with my blog, so I think that’s going to go in my list as well.  No one seems to read it, but screw it.   It’s a place for my thoughts.   And it’s something to do.

The combination of Exchange server and an iPhone provide me with all that I need to succeed at this.   Now all I have to do is get back on the horse, quit whining, and get moving.  Success is there for the taking.  

Found this on the wall at a small business I visited.  I think it will be my motivation today.

Down

Feeling down, and I can’t explain why.  Perhaps putting it all on paper or whatever this happens to be will help.  Probably not.  No sense in not trying.

The big problem with me seems to be a complete and utter lack of progress in what I desire and want to accomplish.  I feel like I’ve given up almost everything and I’ve made it nowhere.  I’ve made it to the top at work, and it’s all boring.  I have to teach myself everything, because I’ve passed everyone else in most of what I do.  There are few things to learn here or there, but the 80% is accomplished in everything.   Now it’s just a matter of refinement.   That bores me.  The process of getting from 80% to 90% will take as long as going from 0% to 80%. 

So what to do when nothing seems to be going where you want to go?   Normally my thought would be to go hunting through the Bible for some motivation, and that’s probably what I should do.  But it’s not what I’m going to do now.  What I’m going to do now is refocus on what got me here in the first place.  Not to depression…  To success.   Because what took me here will take me where I want to go.

I’ve just got to go find some motivation. 

Yup.  Think I found it. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kZg_ALxEz0

Moving on…