Done some good today

A former colleague showed my former supervisor (who is the most brilliant developer ever) how to redial on his phone today.

I provided insight to someone on how come their Outlook deleted items folder was highlighted bold and had a (1) beside it. They were sure it was because of a meeting request someone had sent, because it was the most unusual email they'd ever seen. (wow!) But no.

Yesterday a guy left work and called me on his way home to ask if I'd done something to his computer. I denied it. I totally had forgotten that I used his computer for about a minute because he has Acrobat Distiller and I needed a single image from a single page extracted from a PDF file and I'd sent it to myself, obviously using his email. When I clicked send, his email got hung up on our postal code and website address the signature so I added them to the dictionary. Because spell check is freaking annoying! He kept insisting that I'd "done something good" to his computer, something had changed... so he tried to explain it when I realized "oh! Right, I added those to the dictionary without thinking. Sorry, if you don't want that I can reverse that..."

"No no! it's something good! I didn't know you could do that!"

The poor guy has had email for 10 years and never noticed the add to dictionary spell check option. I had to show him how to do it on his own today, so that every time he emails some of our colleagues with interesting names it won't suggest alternate words. I used to work with a lady who's name wasn't in the dictionary and occasionally she'd get emails addressed to "Radish" -- which isn't even close!

Fun!

The concert last night was a lot of fun, and for a good cause. The best part though is hanging out with my sister and some friends all night long. My three favourite things about last night that had nothing to do with the actual music at the concert:

1. Bryan Adams is coming to Edmonton next week for a concert. I've thought he was a wanker since forever. My sister knows this hatred of mine and she agreed that we're boycotting the show. (not that we'd go anyway!)
2. AC/DC is coming to Edmonton tomorrow. In a surprising twist my sister declares her love for AC/DC.
   "Really? You?"
   "Yeah! 'I Saw The Sign' is one of the best songs ever!"
3. It was 10 pm before my sister heard a song she knew. She's the best for sticking it out... :)
   

Further confessions

In addition to secretly watching The Girls Next Door and openly liking country music I offer the following insight.

• I'm going to the Big & Rich concert tonight and I'm immensely looking forward to it.
• Who am I kidding, the last book I read was "The Book of Air And Shadows" in Cuba in April. It was fiction. I enjoyed it.
  
• The last thing I read from start to finish was either a gardening magazine (okoko, I looked at pictures) and several knitting patterns.
• I just spent $8 x 3 gorgeous buttons for a sweater I'm knitting.
  

I went to a wedding where I didn't know anyone, except for the person that invited me. This was something new and unusual for me! I've never just been a guest and not known the couple. It turns out weddings can be fun and relaxing! Who knew?

Well, the very fun part, besides it being on the River Queen and watching the dragonboat races because the wedding was delayed for over an hour, was observing the guests. As a special treat one of the female guests decided to wear a slinky purple lingerie-style gown without a bra. She was wrong, fer 'shur. The groom was a mechanic so all of his family and guests had handlebar moustaches, mullets, leather pants/chaps and vests with fringes!

Pip Squeak

Just took a very serious call from someone who's mouse I replaced today.

"Hi, what's up?"
"You know my new mouse? It squeaks. Did you know that?"

In fact, I did not.
In fact, I would not know that from ALL THE WAY OVER HERE.

I don't want.

I want a smock so I don't get dirty in the shop and they tell me smocks are a safety hazard and they could order me a jumpsuit or a uniform.

I WANT a SMOCK!!

And I want it to say "IT GIRL" on the name tag.

Hierarchy

Pom: A lady on my bus has a seven or eight assorted dog shirt. Is that better or worse than a 3 wolf moon combo?

M: Better, Definitely. 7 > 3, duh.

Help? Anyone?

Here's the kind of support call I have to decipher. No wonder I'm not getting any help:

I've been told that the backup is having problems again, but my question is if it's happening with the batch file that left created?.

Huh?

The mystery of the high-pitched whining.

Someone is complaining about the printer I replaced in their office.

Claim: The new printer produces a high-pitched whining noise ALL DAY LONG and drives them insane. (Oh really? You should try my job and see what high-pitched whining I have to deal with all day long!)

Work around: turn it off and then when it's time to print it takes "a while" to warm up. This is a disastor. Disastoooor!!!

I go and check it out and warm it up, but the person won't get up off their chair so I can get at it. The printer is in a corner of the desk, jammed in to the bookshelf. Finally I make them get up off their chair and I notice two empty vases sitting behind the printer and one of them has a metal flower decoration in it that is leaning against the next vase...

...in fact, it's tinkling, ever so slightly, ever so melodiously, against the next vase.

Tinkling.
All day long.

This is an example of a thing one cannot figure out for themselves.
You need an IT person to solve it.

The neighbours

From the vantage point of my bedroom window I counted seven wind chimes around their front door. SEVEN.

Four dogs.

Thirteen hockey sticks in a 5-gallon pail by the side door.

And their bedroom window is boarded up with plywood attached to the most gigantic A/C unit that runs loudly all night long.

I hate photocopiers.

Disaster 1: the photocopier in the back office is broken! You'd better come here quick, come fix it right now!

The details reported to me: the display is dark, definitely broken. even putting in paper and hitting copy doesn't work, so probably the whole copier is broken.

My troubleshooting strategy: walk over, turn on power, ask "fixed now?"

Outcome: oh.

---

Disaster 2: Do you have a manual for the photocopier. We want to fax a double sided document and don't know how because you didn't show us.

The details reported to me: found the manuals for the old copier in a dusty cupboard, can't find the new ones. getting irate that we can't find the new ones!!

My troubleshooting the 1st problem: walk over, locate manuals in the left-hand, handy side pocket.
2nd problem: look, you already know how to copy double sided and fax. Now blend that info in your head! Push the button "2 sided original" and then press "fax" -- done!

Outcome: you should probably cover that in the training sessions because it's very important!

Seriously?? In six months you can't be the first one to fax a double-sided document...

So awesome

Today we got a pieced/taped/photocopied resume, at the bottom of the page was hand written "Has Car".

Un-ingenuity

For fun sometimes I run stats on the network. Yes, stats are fun! Today I was curious: how many folders are on my network and shared drives with the default name "New Folder"?

New Folder: 46.
New Document: 15.

Troubleshooting

Me: my light bulbs are flickering. >:(
R: haha, you have too much stuff plugged in

Driving like a moron

A: If I were a cop I'd only pull over pontiacs.
M: I would too. They all drive terribly. Yesterday on my way to work I was passed by a neon on a donut spare while I was doing the limit + 10.
A: Ha ha awesome!

More Calculations.

Sometimes I wonder if I am a bad person? Like today when I had another encounter with summer student.

He wanted to borrow my graphing calculator to do some simple calculations and I wouldn't let him. I've had it ever since ever and it's my own personal calculator and I don't want it leaving my office or it will disappear.

I told him to use the calculator that comes with windows and he said "But I don't like using that one"

So then I offered him another calculator that is actually on the face of a ruler (it was a freebie I got while traveling this spring) and he said "No, that's just embarrassing".

So then I said well then use Excel. "But I don't know how."

"It's extremely simple" I said

"Well, I've never taken any classes in excel before"

"Look I'll show you. Click on a cell. Press the equals sign on your keyboard then a number then a plus or a minus (because that's the extent of what he has to do) and then another number and then hit enter."

Then he just mumbled something and started walking away saying something about "Well, whatever, it's just simple math I can do it in my head." (This coming from the guy I just helped convert kilometers to meters. )

"No," I said "Please do it on a calculator because we want it to be accurate."

So then he left and I'm hoping he chooses one of my alternatives or I'm just going to have to re-do it all. I just know it.

Boggle

I just had to help our summer student convert from kilometers to meters.

It's mind-boggling.


Last week he told me he either wants to be an industrial psychologist or go into pre-med. Yeeeeeeaaaaaa, I don't think so.

Virus alert

Today there was an all-out-emergency I got called on at lunch because someone had an extra space in their system icons tray and they were very suspicious that a virus was hiding in their system icons, masquerading as a blank.

I'll just let that sink in for a minute or so: a virus masquerading as a blank...

Time to be disconcerted

Today I was alerted by 2 perturbed staff that the time pushed to their PCs via my server and the time displayed on the phone system was out by TWO whole minutes since the last time change!! Oh the outrage if someone caught them going for lunch on the phone time and coming back at the PC time, they'd get two whole minutes extra of lunch! On top of that outrage they had noticed that the time clock for the back of the shop was also out a few seconds. Nothing I could be doing would be as important as fixing the time! Because by the next time change it would be as much as five or six minutes out!

And here I thought I was anal.

SMS

Marcella writes:

There is a woman sitting across from me wearing ankle weights with hot pink straps. She also has a tinkerbell bag.