Take the goods with the bads..

You always hear people say "Take the good with the bad", right? Well, I'm taking it. Taking it up the tailpipe.

The past few days have been pretty stressful at work. Lately, it seems as though there are LOTS of server problems (some self-inflicted, some uncontrolable). But, it all adds up to frusterated users who come screaming to me about their problems. Truthfully, I really want to help them. But, in most cases, there's not much I can do. It all comes back into the hands of our network guys. Which shouldn't be a problem. Except when they're too busy to take the time to solve an issue completely. What I'm getting at is this: There's no closure. A problem happens. The network crew "looks into it". A week later, I ask if the problem has been fixed. Has the project been completed? Usually, the answer is something along the lines of "Oh, no, I never got to the bottom of it, I got distracted with something else." Now, I gotta give our network crew some credit. They work their asses off. I'm starting to wonder that there just isn't enough of them to get the job done correctly and in a timely manner. Every time I bring this up to others in my department, I feel like I'm just bitching and moaning. For example, I'd love to see our help desk do more than answer the phone, ask if they've rebooted, and then log the call into the system for a tech to take care of. Then what, may I ask, is a help desk for?? I've always though of a halp desk as tier I support, and if they don't know the answer, they pass it off to tier II support (the techs). This clearly isn't the case and people are starting the get frusterated. My biggest frustration is that there's no effort being made to learn. Learn why a Mac stalls for a few minutes when it can't find a server at startup. Learn how to locate a print queue and check to see if it's stopped. Basic stuff...not rocket science. Apathy. It runs deep @ Martin.

Here's some AWESOME news: I've got center caps on my passenger-side wheels! Nope, they didn't magically show up tonight. I ordered them through a local custom shop that promised me they'd get the right ones. Yeh, I had heard THAT line before. But, much to my surprise, I called today and the dood on the phone described the center caps he was holding as having a "chrome door knocker" in the center of the cap. That's it! I rushed out the door at 5:30 and drove halfway to BFE to their store. They only charged me $14.95 each for them, of which I will demand that Firestone refund in full ASAP.

The truck is driving awesome. The only bad thing? It's loud. With my exhaust ending just behind the cab, it's really loud in there. I guess I'll be needing to look into extending my exhaust (somewhere!) in the near future.

Tomorrow's Wenesday. Hopefully, we'll get off work early, although I have a feeling that I might stick around and get some stuff done.