Behind the Wall

I love it when someone here at work gets stupid, gets himself with an AIM-borne virus that replicates itself across the network.

Communications are rather crippled now, as AIM/Trillian connections were ordered shut down UNODIR (UNless Otherwise DIRected).

If anyone's trying to reach me by AIM, you're currently SOL UFN (Until Further Notice).



That is all.

Apparently, I work with a bunch of vultures...

Not here in the Data group, where I park my carcass day in and day out, but over in the much larger Voice group.

Today there was a potluck. I brought in two plates of cookies from a local megamart, so yes, I paid my admission into it. As did quite a few others.
My guess is that the company threw in the buckets from KFC.

Well, thanks to a brief yet furious outage, we Data folks couldn't get up there quick enough (well, maybe less than a handful did). By the time I had a chance to go snag some food, all that was left of the lunch-type stuff were a few nachos and a spoonful of ziti.
All the KFC was gone, picked over, nothing... not a sausage (literally).

And here I am, without a lunch.
Oh, I have food here, but it's either cans of Pringles or a couple cups of nukable mac-n-cheese. Nothing of any real substance. And I refuse to go out and spend more money on getting me something to eat when I should have been able to get something at the potluck as I spend like $15 on the cookies, yet those who didn't bring anything got their faces filled.


Fucking annoyed by this, and rightly so.
Annoyed, hungry, and not bothering to eat now just on fucking principle.
Appreciation my blanched arse.

(This was my post to techsupport)

Dear Valued Customer,

You want me to do the following...
Change the hostnames on two PTR records. Fine, that's no problem
Change the MX records on... get this... 50+ domains for customers of yours????????????????????? WtF???????????????

Mind you, to do this, I have to:
Load and access each domain's zone file...
Copy the current zone file and paste into the ticket...
Access the page where I can make the changes...
Make the changes...
Save the changes...
Copy the new zone file and paste it into the ticket...
Lather, rinse, repeat...

Seeing as how the domain zone file database (being web-based) takes approx 20-30 seconds to load each page, 5 seconds for each copy and paste, another 10 seconds to make the changes (two MX records per zone file)... we're talking roughly five minutes (give or take) per domain.

And, of course, I get handed this fifteen minutes before shift end, too... and I was on the phone with the customer for 20 minutes BEFORE I could start any changes.

No, there's no feasible way to do it as a bulk change, because most of the domains don't have their MX records fitting a similar across-the-board pattern.
This is the way I have to do it. I'm already approaching two hours of overtime on this, for which I am grateful, but I would like to be able to see my son for a little while before his bedtime, and at this rate (I'm only 2/3 of the way done, and the database is now crawling, adding about another 50-60% onto the time it takes), I won't be able to do so. Not to mention the miniscule migraine that's already creeping in, and the fact that it's nearly 100 degrees in my cube (the AC doesn't work so well around me) and all I've had to eat since 9pm last night are two pop tarts, a small bowl of cheese puffs and a package of ramen, I'm quite starved and would like to go home, get food down my neck so I can do the Tylenol/ibuprofen/Jim Beam and vanilla Coke combo so that I can try to forget you made me do this and get some sleep.

Thank you very much for putting a complete damper on my good mood and a good evening.

No love,
pfloyd

PS: DiaF. Please.


For the uninitiated...
Domain zone file = a zone file is a database element of the domain name system (DNS) used by BIND and other DNS server software. A zone file typically contains information that defines mappings between domain names and IP addresses and can also contain reverse mappings which can resolve IP addresses into domain names. A zone corresponds roughly to a domain name (including top-level domains and subdomains). The format of the zone file is defined in RFC 1035 as well as the documentation for BIND.
MX record = Mail eXchange record -- maps a domain name to a list of mail exchange servers for that domain.
PTR = PoinTer Record -- a pointer to a canonical name. Unlike a CNAME, DNS processing does NOT proceed, just the name is returned. The most common use is for implementing reverse DNS lookups by putting a PTR record for a hostname in the in-addr.arpa. domain that corresponds to an IP address. For example (at the time of writing), www.icann.net has the IP address 192.0.34.164, but a PTR record maps 164.34.0.192.in-addr.arpa to its canonical name, referrals.icann.org.

So we've got more of the white stuff coming down from the skies this morning.
Colleen got a reprieve -- no school for Shrewsbury today.
By the time I got to her car this morning (she insisted I take that one), there was a good couple of inches on the ground. It took me several minutes to get out of the driveway. Of course, I was backing out of it, heading slightly uphill with a front-wheel drive car with between two and three inches of snow. Times like this I miss the old Tracker...

So I got out of the driveway at pretty much 800am. Stopped at the Exxon 1.2 miles up the road for a fillup, then went to Dunkin Donuts for a large Miliky Way hot chocolate and two sugared donuts. (Those things are like eating fried dough.) Roads were in shit state -- sort of treated, sort of plowed, can't really follow in anyone's tracks.
I wisely decided to avoid I290, as I heard that the highways were rough going, with spinouts galore.
You can certainly tell where the townline between Shrewsbury and Worcester is -- the roads in Shrewsbury were an absolute dream. In some spots, they were down to wet pavement. So I drove on W Main Street, through Shrewsbury Center and onto Rt20. Northboro also did a good job with the roads, and the short (1 mile at most) drive through Marlboro to the office was very driveable.
I called Colleen from my parking space at around 850am. Not too shabby.

So here I am at work... snow is still coming down...
Colleen and Marcus are playing at home...
The PTB (Powers That Be) are arranging for pizza to be delivered, making some poor schlub drive in this crap to bring us a hot lunch.

On a side note, I have another one of those snarky headaches. I've already downed some migraine tabs (asprin/acetaminophen/caffeine combo), and am drinking a Dew -- in case it's a caffeine headache, and I didn't have any yesterday. I've also applied HeadOn Migraine. This stuff feels kinda neat -- like IcyHot for the head.

I can see the outside world if I stand up and turn 135 degrees left.
Snow is coming down at a 45 degree angle from both horizontal and vertical, and rather steadily.
We know that the drive home is going to be piss-poor at best. Will they let us out early? Hells no.

Talk about timing...

Last Saturday, I bought the Sansa MP3 players for me and Colleen...

I get into work today, and as a company-wide "Thank You" for a good 2006, everyone got a 2GB iPod Nano! Holy Schnike!

I'm still keeping the Sansa as something to use in the car, since it already has an FM tuner, and my car's radio is shite.

I know it's been a good while since I've last read LJ... even longer for an update, so here goes...

On 2 October, I started my new job in the Data Support group at One Communications in Marlboro. The whole week was somewhat of a slow start, as I didn't have a cubicle to call my own (I snagged an empty one for the time being), nor did I have any network logins. I spent the next two weeks sitting with other techs, listening in on calls, and eventually taking some while sitting in their chairs and having them coach me along.
It wasn't until yesterday that I finally got my PC from the IS group. By this time, I had logins for most of the network resources that I would need, and I started soloing.
It's not too bad, but I'm still new at it. There's another guy who started just this week, so now he's FNG, and I've given myself the nickname of Probie. (If you don't watch NCIS, you wouldn't get it.)
My cube is home now. I have about eight pictures of Marcus set up around me, and I have my stash of munchies. I hope to be getting up to a decent speed soon, but with some people out this week and two people leaving for jobs elsewhere, it'll be tough.
But at least the working atmosphere is better than at my previous job -- less restrictive, not as confining.

Also in the past couple of weeks, I've had a couple of batches of hives. I don't know what's causing them, but they annoy the shite out of me. I got some antihistamines from a prescription for the first batch, and they cleared up in a couple of days. They're not as hard-hitting as Benadryl when it comes to the drowsiness, but they still lend a bit of fatigue to the day.

On 11 October, silvara77 and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary. I made a nice dinner of beef tips and rice. However, the "going out to eat" dinner wasn't until the following Friday, when we went to O'Connor's, and had a lovely dinner.
Colleen's parents were up for a visit over Columbus Day weekend. All five of us went to Southwick Zoo, and got to see lots of animals. My favorites are the lemurs, tigers, bintarongs, and any of the other big cats that are there. All they need are a couple of wolves. There's one area where you can have the deer come right up to you and eat out of your hand without having a fence between the two of you. I managed to get a couple of young deer within a couple of feet of me. One even sniffed my hand. That was a real treat.

Well it's off to bed soon. I hope the pills kick in soon so the itching will cease and I can get some sleep. At least I don't have to be on the phones until 900am, and it's only a 15 minute commute.

Out here.

I just got a call from my future employer. (paladyn will know who...)

I start 2 October at One Communications/Conversant as a Data Support Technician.

Commute is to Marlborough, and will take me roughly 15 minutes. Pay will be decent, at a higher level than my last job, and the work will be more relevant to what I've been trained to do.

So I'll be working with paladyn and hbabeu now. Way cool.


Thanks to paladyn for helping a brother out.

Oh no, not again...

Anyone looking for a PC Repair Specialist who can also do some network administration? I'm available... fulltime as of today.

Contact me for resume.


Yep... again...

Not going to talk about it, why should I, I wasn't exactly where I wanted to be anyway.