IT Technicians are not Gods

We, the IT nerds of the world, are not Gods.  We don't magically know what's wrong.  We don't magically fix it.  There is frustration.  There is failure.  There are times where any one IT nerd cannot fix the issue, and they themselves have to go for help.

So, that in mind, let's listen into this latest tech support call:

Mother: "Could you bring up my account?  I'd like to see what I'm actually paying for."
Tech: "Okay, one second."
Mother: " I'd like to see if I'm getting the phone and the internet. "
Tech: "Yes, you're getting the internet and phone bundle."
Mother:" My daughter's phone hasn't been working for months, I'd like to cancel the phone."
Tech: "Okay...? What seems to be wrong with it?"
Mother:" It rings, but she can't talk on it.  The sound doesn't work.  She called in before, and someone came out when she wasn't there."
Tech: "Did she try another phone?"
Mother: "No I don't think so."
Tech: "I could do some diagnosing on the server side, and some diagnosing over the phone with her, but it might end up requiring a service call."
Mother: "Would the service call cost anything?"
Tech: [pauses because this is the worst part of every conversation]
Mother: "No!  I'm not paying on more penny to get this working."
Tech: "One second, let me explain how it works."
Tech: "After the thorough diagnosing, if we feel that a service call would be needed, we would schedule one.  However, if we got on site and there was an issue that was not a problem with our equipment, then there would be a fee."
Mother: "I'm not going to take that chance on something that hasn't worked yet, especially if it might be something like she didn't know she needed a battery."
Tech: [Not able to stop himself] "She wouldn't know she needed a battery?"
Mother: "Yes, she's busy, she wants to use the phone, but that's why she hasn't tried to fix it more."
Tech: "And does she have a room mate that could diagnose it?"
Mother: "Her roommate doesn't give a crap about the phone."

What the tech wants to say next is "apparently neither does your daughter."


The point of all this is:
If you have a problem with your internet, or phone, let your service provider know.  They have an entire network to look after, and it is a difficult task keeping up on the "electrons behind the curtain," much less monitoring every apartment and house we serve.

I mean, would you (and that mother) have preferred this situation:
Tech1: "Looks like the audio bug we install in 90210 Coastie Av Apartment 777 seems to imply that the tenant's phone audio is not working."
Tech2: "One second I'm too busy watching this girl do her yoga videos on the spy camera we installed to make sure her cable was working."

Okay, now that's a bit overboard I know.  But the point is.  You can't fear that we are watching everything you do, AND expect us to know whenever your service breaks down.

Stay the course? or choose a new path?

I'm not doing very well as an engineer.  I don't seem to have much interest in it.  I'm not sure what my interest is anymore.  But one thing is sure, I'm not likely to get into the college of engineering, especially not without lots of work catching up. 

I'm not sure what my passion is.  Everyone I know in this city is passionate about something.  My childhood friend and her best friend are both crazy into school, pharmacy and biochem respectively (I think).  Plus her and her friend (but more her friend) are deep supporters of LGBT rights. 

My brother is passionate about building computers, and his girlfriend is passionate about art and creativity. 

The other part time employee of the company I work for is passionate about learning about networking, and quite passionate that he is not worth much (much to my attempts to convince him otherwise).

And then, the friends I met at school all have their passions.  For two it's dancing, and school.  For another, it's school and computer science. 

They all have plans, and goals.  And here I am still wondering what I like to do most.  Maybe I'm passionate about stories.  Or maybe Ideas.  I do spend a lot of my time thinking up interesting things, but I rarely get a chance to actually make/do them.  Maybe I'm passionate about video games and animation?

Or maybe I just need to get it into gear?

I think I will end up leaving Engineering and going to Letters and Sciences.  From there, I don't know.  I could use the little bit of transfer over I have from ECE, and go for a computer science degree.  Or I could try something new.  Art, or English perhaps?  But anything that's not computer science related might take another 2 years.

I don't know what's best.

Random Thoughts

Deleted speech openers:
    "Equipping our troops with the best Body armor research can offer is important because then we could finally give up the notion that civilians equipped with civilian weapons could ever stand a chance in a revolution, and maybe be a bit more relaxed about our second amendment rights."

   "Anyone who has every played a first person shooter knows that body armor is important.  It allows you to take more damage while owning the newbies in the face with your assault rifle."

In related news, I have a theory that the more pockets something has, the nerdier it is.  My bookbag?  Quite nerdy.  My coats, quite nerdy.  Military vests, very nerdy.  Of course my definition of a nerd might be a bit off from yours.  My definition is that it is anyone who takes a greater than normal, usually obsessive, interest in something others do without the obsession.  Construction workers with their huge tool bags. Nerds!  U.S. and other Western soldiers covered in pockets and bags. Nerds!  And me, a Computer Technician who feels the need to carry a few tools with him everywhere, "just in case".  Nerd!

Japanese Music

I think I should explore Japanese music more.  Not the Jpop stuff people tell horror stories about.  But their rock/alternative music.  Similar to the music I like in english, only in japanese.

For instance, the below attaches to the opening theme of the second half of an anime I've been watching recently.  

Darker than Black Second Opening - (uh, hard to sum up, but I'll just say it's interesting so far)

 I thought I liked them because they used rhythms differently than singers who sing in english, but now that I think about it it's probably that I don't know what they are saying, and it is just another form of an "instrumental" then.  I'm sure my ex would be really smug about the fact that I'm learning to appreciate songs without knowing what they say (what was said was never important to her).   
xxxHolic - weird supernatural anime.  Explains some of the footage.
Outlaw Star - one crew in one ship verses the universe.  Or, close enough to sum it up.
Blood+ opening 3 -  Amnesic Anemic seemingly Teenage Girl who is really one of two twin queen vampires who have been battling for centuries, fights against her sister's offspring, as she regains her memory.
D.Technolife- UVERworld- Another one by the band that did  Blood+ opening 3.  This song was used for one of the *many* Bleach anime opening.
Stereopony - Tsukiakari no Michishirube - Used as the Second Season opener for Darker than Black.  Has a cool rhythm and intonation in the chorus.

Today, could be better so far.

So, Today, Kronos, my car, spluttered to a halt, and refused to restart at the first stop sign outside of my parking lot.  At this point it was 9:50 or so.  I had to be to work in ten minutes.  Well, that wasn't going to happen, since it was about a 6-10 minute trip going about 30 mph.

So, I spent the next 10 minutes or so literally "putting my back into it," pushing Kronos backwards, back into the parking lot.  2300lbs on tires goes fairly well on level ground, but there was an incline into the parking lot, and then a decline once in the parking lot.  So once in the lot, I had to push it back upwards into it's spot.  Not the best way to start your day, but Kronos hauls me around everywhere, so why complain when I have to return the favor?

On a side note, I know it's nerdy to name my car, and even worse to make the direct reference to it being a Saturn, but eh... It works for me.  It deserves some recognition for being a worthy companion (not starting aside).

Then, when I got to work, I found out I forgot my laptop power cable.  So, to save that for tonight (having learned my lesson from missing the movie last night and having nothing to do while waiting for the next showing, so we decided to reschedule. So, I decided to bring my laptop tonight), I'm not going to use it during the day.  Which works.

About what's wrong with Kronos? Well, I think it's probably the rain got somewhere in the ignition system.  It seemed to be running on 3 cylinders before I was acting like a total newbie and flooded it.  So I think that maybe the coil for one of the cylinders, (2nd one from the drivers side I think), or the spark plug wire, have some water shorting them out.  This also happened on cold days.  So maybe I just have a bad coil?

Walking is not so bad, Today is not over, and with the day starting out as it did, perhaps the rest of the day will seem better?

So, The rant I promised.

This stems from my process of thinking through a conversation or a situation a head of time.  Which, likely, stems from my residual social awkwardness.

This is, more or less, the thoughts I was thinking about saying to a person on my facebook.  He apparently was having a hard time with a woman or some such thing.  So he took it out on all women, at least all women he had on his facebook.  Or, as he put it, he "thinks all the women on the planet should go die. Sure, humanity would be [f@#$ed], but at least all the men would be pretty happy all around until we died."

This is the behavior of what the internet calls "Trolls," named after the technique of fishing known as trolling.  Where you put out bait, and slowly propel the boat through areas with fish.  In this case, the bait is the outrageous statement, and the fish are anyone who would give this troll the time of day.  Good or bad.  

He then went on to in his next post try to bring out the Twilight fans by bashing everyone's favorite glittery vampire.  


If he was having trouble, and simply came to facebook saying, "this is what's going on, does anyone have any ideas?"  Or if he came directly to me and asked "Hey, I know you've been in relationships before, how do you get over a woman who hurt you?"  (or what ever his problem was).  I would have been much more open to sympathy.  Instead he takes it out on the good women out there.  That I can't abide.  


But I missed the moment, people moved on, he apologized.  Next time I see it happen though.  Maybe I'll just say what I've been thinking. 

Mosquito Laser is done.

And if your quick, you can look it up in Wikipedia, and it will be close to what we (myself, and two other aspiring engineers) intended it to be.  Before the ravaging masses descend upon it.

Enjoy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser

To the lady who looked to be panicing.

No I was not following you.  I live here.  Just because I ended up walking behind you for 4 blocks does not mean I'm stalking you. 

So, Please, calm down, slow down and quit giving me that "Why is he still there" look. 

Mass Effect 2

I just beat it.  It was quite good.  Awesome.  And many other words of approval.  So awesome infact, that when they offered to have me restart the game with the character I just beat it with, I played 15 minutes before I realized it.

It was a great story line, but I wish it could have been a little bit longer.  I mean, Dragon Age: Origins clocked in at about 45 hours.  I believe ME2 came in at about 25-27.  Now, I by no means did everything in ME2, but if I know myself as well as I think I do, I'm pretty sure I didn't do everything in Dragon Age either.

Overall a glowing example of my theory about Video Games being the ultimate way to tell a story.  Maybe I'll have to explain that in more detail later, but for now.

Good night.

Snapshot.

Recently, I've been working on some random things.  I'm writing a program to solve sudokus.  Because I can.  It's currently in the "if computers could speak english, this would work great," stage. 

Other than that, I had a company outing last night, but not the boring kind with ties, and conversations with people you've never met before.  With spouses and significant others, my company came in at a trim 20 people.  Then, about half or so of us retired to one of the buildings our sister company owns, and played video games, pool and even some card games.

Lastly, I'm working on a longer post involving rants, and false facebook friends.

Good night and good luck