I slip into the office, bright and early (9.15am) and settle down to the cube farm and mundane work related items (stopping all my fileshares and my torrent downloads that I left to run overnight) and I fire up my email, scanning through the latest issue of Dilbert.
I'm a little taken when I see 3 new emails with the subject's in CAPS and running about a mile long. *sigh* its going to be one of those days.
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Email
Subject:
PLEASE FIND ATTACHED THE FILES YOU REQUESTED LAST WEEK ON THE UPDATES THAT WE HAVE DONE TO OUR COMPUTERS AND SERVER, AND IF YOU REQUIRE ANY ADDITIONAL INFO EMAIL ME
Email Body:
Thank you
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*facepalm*
I email the client back, and say that I've received her info, and as tactfully as I can, I request that she stop using CAPS and to keep the subject line as short as she can. She doesnt email me back, so I take it that she understands me.
Lunch time comes along, and we slither off for some BBQ pork and stuff, comming back I read the paper before sitting down for more work (finishing up that Penny Arcade archive comic run), and I check my email. Lo and behold, there's a new bit of email, from the same client as earlier in the morning
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Email
Subject:
required
Email Body:
i require a list of customised reports that is being the completed by your side and when we can get them because the reports are needed and our management needs the reports for their management reporting by the end of the management reporting week
thankyou
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*facepalm again*
Now I'm torn between going down there and smacking the client, for A. not using a punctuation mark (see the Merriam Webster) and for B. Not making much sense.
I give up and continue to read Penny Arcade. It's not WORTH IT
Dav out
PS: Yes, there isnt a funny line, or a joke. Its work!
Expert systems are meant to solve real problems which normally would require a specialised human expert. I'm in no way saying that Expert Systems work on their own. All I'm saying is that Expert systems can be built, and can work very well, when used IN CONJUNCTION with an human expert.
Expert systems (PDF File, or right click and Save As)
That is all.
My Holy Oyster, I'm depressed! Here I am, a mind the size of a university computer center, and they give me inane tasks to do. "Would you please configure a VPN server on that linux box?" Sure, I mean, I'll do it, just don't try to give me anything easier to do. And I've got this terrible pain in the right part of my throat. And my right ear aches, too. It's all because of the phone chatter. "I've got this SQL query that takes only a couple of minutes, but if I add another condition, it takes a whole day. Is it possible to optimise it in any way?" Oh Holy Banana, those people simply lack any and all imagination. There I go, engaging my brain for three seconds to solve a problem, and then switching it off for ten minutes while I explain the stuff. What a waste. No wonder my throat and ear ache. They're terribly abused, compared to my brain. What a depressing bunch of people.
I could easilly run the whole world, but no, they know it better. They'll just give me bits and pieces of puzzles to solve. Undoubtedly such a kind of bits they don't feel like solving. They just don't have a soul. How depressing. Here I am, a mind the size of twenty Google computer clusters, and all I keep working on are tasks that wouldn't take more than a trained rat to solve. Well, I admit, the transaction server I'm currently designing and coding would take a large and mean-looking trained dog, but this is only a small exception. "Hey, this works great! Say, is there anything wrong? You don't look very glad about it." Sorry, it's just that it's been so long since I used those muscles on my face they've atrophied. I'd have to do special exercises for a year to rebuild them. But I don't think two grins a year is a sufficient motivation. Just give me some tape and I'll fix me a smile.
This world is all wrong. Instead of giving me the control over the planet so they can relax and enjoy beach parties (along with me, of course), people rather make themselves and me miserable. But of course, they know it better. What a waste of a great brain and perfectly fine beaches.
The boss slips into my quarter cubical of personal space and says beamingly, “Wireless networking! That’s the way to go!” Acting like the good drone I am (well, at work, see it’s an act) I swivel my chair to face him and tilt my head a little to the left, perfect drone body language for “What?”
“See, I saw it on this Tech program on my satellite TV! It’s wonderful; you can hook up your computer to the internet without wires. Amazing stuff, imagine this, working any place in the office, and still being connected to the LAN and internet. It’s going to double our productivity!”
Now I tilt my head to the right, prefect IT body language for “What the heck?”
He still doesn’t get it, and plows right on. “Once we get ourselves the gizmo to go wireless, we can pull the internet waves from the very AIR!” At this point he’s frothing slightly at the mouth.
I raise my hand, catch his attention and say “We get internet access from the air?” “Well”, he stumbles on, “I think we do. The TV program wasn’t too clear on that.”
Thinking fast, I ask, “So what do we need to get in order to get wireless then? Maybe a 802.11 G router and a couple of access points thrown in for good measure? Some wireless NIC cards for the office desktops and maybe a few PCMCIA ones for out laptops without WiFi? I’m guessing it should be around $5000, $7000 if we spend it wisely.”
*choke* “$7k if we spend it wisely? But you said it was about $5000!”
“Yes, about $5000 if you run out and grab the first bit of hardware you find on the store shelves and the older kit the sales people will shove at you priced at a premium. Then later, it could be another $3000 when you find out that not of the hardware come from the same company, causing problems with the network; in your zeal to grab them at the store. Lastly, and this is if you’re lucky, its going to be another $1000 in data repair when you forget to lock down the WiFi access with WEP or anything else, and the kids in the office block beside us get into our LAN and mess things up. So, all in all, that’s about $9000 in total. Not that bad a blunder… err I mean investment don’t you think?”
At this point the boss starts to sweat and slowly curses that TV show he’s watched, wondering why he didn’t just switch to SpongeJoe or whatever that cartoon is called like he usually does at home.
“Ok, then maybe we’ll go with your initial guess of $5000, how do we do that then?”
Now I perk up and lean over, looking to my left and right as I do so. I beckon for the boss to move closer, and lower my voice, “We get the latest wireless router we can, like 802.11G, but we cut back on the expensive NIC cards! See that way; we have a big bandwidth router right? It doesn’t matter if the NIC cards have a smaller bandwidth with standards like A or B, because the amount of data and bandwidth coming off the router is big already!”
“Oh my god! Its genius! We’ll save a BUNCH!” says the boss, saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth. “I’m not sure if ‘Bunch’ is the technical term I would have used, but yes, that’s the whole idea. But we’d need to get one 802.11G PCMCIA card though, for my laptop. It’s the only way we can maintain the router setup and firewall, its stupid I know, but hey, that’s the way it works,” I slip in. “Only one? OK I guess that’s not a problem” says the boss, waving the issue off.
2 weeks later and I’m downloading a 200MB patch for my Americas’ Army game over my 802.11 G standard WiFi at the max speed, as I hear the others in the office grumble at the average performance they are getting with their WiFi cards.
Hrmm… looks like some more ‘upgrading’ is in order!
"... and then you find out the top 30% of most sold items and sum them up."
I go: "Ahaaa...", as I try to wake up the hamster inside my head.
"... sales statistics... adjust prices... the tax report... inventory..."
"Ahaaa..."
"... a loophole... percentage... minimise the income figures... spending..."
"Yeaaa...."
"So, will you be able to do it?"
"Sure."
Still in a dizzy state, I search the phone book for something with the word "tax" in it. And then make a call.
"... tax office... blah blah..."
"Um. Yeaa.... I'd like to report a tax fraud. Fuzzboys Inc. want to evade a bit of tax with some statistics."
"... blah blah..."
Whatever. I hang up and go out in search for a cup of coffee before someone kills my hamster.
Curiously enough, on my return a coworker tells me that Fuzzboys Inc. cancelled the order for that big twisted statistics calculation module.