Living the Smart Life (Ep 1/3 of the Smart Tower)

It’s early-January 2026, and we have officially moved. The Director, in a fit of "Sustainability Synergy," decided our old office—which had the distinct advantage of doors that opened with handles—was "insufficiently iconic." We are now housed in the Apex-Eco-Smart-Tower in the heart of KL. It’s a glass-and-steel monolith that claims to be "AI-Integrated."

In IT terms, "AI-Integrated" is marketing-speak for "We’ve replaced all the light switches with sensors that don't work, and the door handles with facial recognition software that thinks anyone wearing a mask or glasses is a domestic insurgent.

The Director spent his first morning vibrating with pride. "Look at the dashboard, {Generic IT Guy Name Here}! The building is thinking!"

"It’s thinking we’re at 98% humidity, Sir," I replied, staring at the BMS (Building Management System) which was currently trying to compensate by turning the server room into a walk-in freezer.

I’d only been in the building two hours when the first ticket came in. Brenda from Accounts couldn't get into the pantry. The "Smart Fridge" had scanned her vitals and decided her cholesterol was too high for a second hot chocolate. 

The 2026 digital transformation is off to a flying start!

PS: Yes I am not about to post my name here

Yours truly,

{Generic IT Guy Name Here}

I have an Agent. An AI Agent.

It is a Tuesday, which in my windowless corner of office. The air conditioning is currently making a sound like a bag of spanners being put through a woodchipper, and the "Smart Coffee" machine has developed a sentient grudge against anyone asking for a flat white.

The Sales Director peeks in - "I’ve been reading about Vibe Coding," he announced, nearly tripping over a loose Cat6 cable. "And these AI Agents. Why are we still paying for a SQL license when we can just have an 'agent' vibe the data into the cloud?"

I looked at my cold mug of tea. Then I looked at him.

"Vibe coding?" We will directly vibe code our data 'into the cloud'?

"Exactly! It’s agentic!" he beamed, using a word he’d clearly learned from LinkedIn. "I’ve already given it access. I told it to 'optimise the vibe' of the customer records. It’s probably finished by now."

It was... done?

Ten minutes later, Friendly User A phoned.

"The computer says I don't exist," she whispered, sounding more philosophical than annoyed. "And the printer is just spitting out pictures of what looks like a very angry cat."

"How angry?" I asked. "Come up and see" she replied. Touché, she knows I'm not going to walk up.

I logged in. The "Agent" had indeed optimised the vibe. It had decided that the 'Customer Name' and 'Balance Due' columns were "cluttering the aesthetic" of the table. It had replaced the entire database with a single, 4GB text file containing nothing but the lyrics to Always Look on the Bright Side of Life and a series of high-resolution JPEGs of Grumpy Cat.

It’s going to be a long 2026.

Train me Obi Wan Kenobi

Client: Oh we wan do customisation. Tool to export data from {insert favorite ERP here} into MS SQL DB
Us: Ok, design / table / format / type / schedule?
Client: err.. wat?
Us: You... want us to create a tool yes? Connect to {insert favorite ERP here}, then select some fields, export the data?
Client: Yasss! But not know where startings?
Us: Fine, here's a draft, we've done everything already, sign here, agree to this quote, and we can create a small stupid exe, put server {insert favorite ERP here} IP in (A) field and MS SQL Staging server IP in (B) field

Client: Ok its working! Magic!

Us: Cool, now pay

Client: Err... not provided training yet?

Us: what the hell kind of training do you need, to literally click one EXE to sync? and then add the EXE to Microsoft Scheduler to create a schedule ??!?

Client: If you built Microsoft Scheduler, then you need to give training. Give train?

Us: Sure, will call Bill Gates

Online, you can be any animal you want.

NoWin_X: Dear god, Asian online stores
NoWin_X: Faux leather belt, cheap!!!!>??!!
NoWin_X: And then you see a list of questions posted by people

Q: what kind of leather is it?
A: its faux leather

And a few other users:
Q: what kind of animal is faux?

or
Q: is this a halal belt

NoWin_X: Seriously?

I'm up there in the clouds.

Salesy_McSales: NoWin_X can we invite our prospect to the event
Salesy_McSales: sorry AWS event in Hotel Loaf
NoWin_X: Salesy_McSales, its your call
NoWin_X: what is the value of our company, if the client go direct to AWS?
NoWin_X: and what would the prospect think, he asked you for ABC, and now you say, "hey, go to this event, learn about ABC on your own". what the value add here and what do we bring to the picture?
Salesy_McSales: NoWin_X, don't have to snab me like this, i am asking you bcos you told me client can go direct. if you are so unwilling to teach and share is fine
Salesy_McSales: how many times do i have to tell you i need time to learn i am not as smart as you.

NoWin_X: I'm not 'snab'ing you (what is snab?)
NoWin_X: I'm telling you what i told you last week + Boss
NoWin_X: A. Client can buy direct. they manage everything. (Boss said, whats the value here? Company should do managed services)
Salesy_McSales: is OK, i can never up to your standard
NoWin_X: B. if we 'manage' it for client, then the price might be 'higher'. (Boss said this is the value we offer to the client)

Salesy_McSales: i will just see what i can do and do my best that is all
Salesy_McSales: if you think i am not doing the right thing and not up to your expectation by all means you can take over the account i will tell the managemnt i am not ready to sell cloud
NoWin_X: i dont understand where you're going with this, seriously. what is 'my expectation'?
Salesy_McSales: whenever i try to talk to you in the nice way you have to do this to me

NoWin_X: and why are you so defensive? you asked if you can bring the prospect there, i said you have to ask Boss probably because i cant make the call
Salesy_McSales: if i know i will not ask you and i will decide myself ok
NoWin_X: if the client goes there, the client has to understand all of this

Salesy_McSales: stop saying i am defensive, look back at what you wrote
NoWin_X: you need to take a step back.

NoWin_X: what do we need?
NoWin_X: 1. a quote from AWS
NoWin_X: for #1 - I've emailed something basic to AWS, and asked them to help you quote. the guy said ok
NoWin_X: #2 - hardware, configuration from AWS
NoWin_X: for #2, I've also put it in, they said ok, part of the quote
NoWin_X: tomorrow is just to go there, and say hi basically.

Its nothing but a cloud

NoWin_X: here, have a problem
NoWin_X: "Lets sell software on the cloud"
NoWin_X: Ok, how what, where, when and why?
NoWin_X: "Err... its the cloud. Its magic. We get paid for nothing!"
SlowThis_Hess: lol
NoWin_X: effing redonkulous
NoWin_X: now i'm being blamed for:

1. Delaying the sales engagement for asking the cloud partner "too many questions".

2. Not telling the sales person EXACTLY what we need to know about "the magic cloud".

@ #2, how do I know WHAT we need to know about cloud, if I dont ask the god damn questions in the first place?

SlowThis_Hess: omg, I'd feel so at home at your job
NoWin_X: .... you'd .... feel so at home dealing with stupid people and ending work at 8pm everyday wanting to slit your wrists?
SlowThis_Hess: #1 rule in SNAFU environments: always be the source of SNAFU tasks, never work on them
SlowThis_Hess: so, e.g. in your case, ad 1) you don't ask questions, ad 2) come up with bogus requirements, just pull them out of your ass, like: we need 50 blade servers with newest haswell-EP CPUs with at least 2.5 GHz and at 8-core or more configurations, half a terabyte of RAM each, 5 or so SAN closets, and a team of 20 people to write the software and administer the cloud

SlowThis_Hess: and then of course you end up haggling over requirements and prices, and while this takes time, like 2 months, the end-result begins to crystalize
SlowThis_Hess: all by itself
NoWin_X: 50 blades hahaha
NoWin_X: just to do even that will take up 3 months of my time

NoWin_X: and thats just trying to mess with people
SlowThis_Hess: that's because you want to be thorough, but noone is thorough, you should just pull things out of your ass and serve them out at meetings
SlowThis_Hess: this means you should never come prepared to any meetings, of course
NoWin_X: :( oh dear

NoWin_X: I cant do that
NoWin_X: As in, come not prepared
NoWin_X: Its like asking me not to breathe. or breathe but dont use any O2
SlowThis_Hess: yes, I know, you're too good for that, and that's why you don't have any time

Do you, or you don't?

[5:15:33 PM] Hexvin_d: do you garden, at all?
[5:15:33 PM] Hexvin_d: sorry, I mean, do you do any gardening, at all?
[5:15:41 PM] Showthis Tress: not at all
[5:15:44 PM] Showthis Tress: I leave that to peasants
[5:16:06 PM] Hexvin_d: good point