When I was a Lad*

After a few years of fumbling around in various jobs in various industries, it became apparent to me that the field in which I'd do the best was IT. Not because I had any coding skillz (I'm a French Major and the only coding language I'd studied was Pascal--with a soupcon of C) but because after a few small successes (learning HTML, learning Dreamweaver, figuring out how AppleTalk work) that I'd had incidentally while doing other jobs, it came to my attention that if I wasn't scared of computers I could learn to deal with them. It was certainly better than dealing with people.

I'd worked, in various administrative capacities**, for a Formula 1 team, a car company and web development company. While working for the Formula 1 team I learned to use Dreamweaver (at the time, I had to close all the other programs on my desktop in order for the computer to have enough resources to run Dreamweaver 1.0) type-setting the copy in the French, Engilsh, German sections of the website and checking the French and English portions. At the end of this project he told me "toi aussi tu peut être web-master!" (You can be a web-master too!) At the time, I wanted to be a Formula 1 journalist--unfortunately so does half Europe.

When I got a job as a receptionist at a web-company several people saw that I am bright and tried to develop me. I learned HTML, some time doing QA, and wrote a few business proposals. While it was nice of these people to try to help me out--none of them had any follow through. They had other things to do, and the firm needed a receptionist (best not develop her too quickly or we'll have to hire and train another one!) More significantly, I started in 2000--when they were still getting business all the time. But soon it was 2001 and the phone wasn't ringing anymore. The Patriots had decided to find a new web-developer and we weren't getting any calls from EMC either.

In the mean time I noticed that the Sys Admin--who was probably not any smarter than I was and who spent most of his time un-jamming the network printer (not something you need a CS degree to do) was probably making three or four times what I made in salary.

Because this was a geek firm, people installed their own software. At some point in time I decided to start installing my own software as well (if I screwed up, it was no more than was to be expected of the receptionist.) One of the desktop scanners got jammed. The only guy who knew how to unjam it was the CEO. Since this was my boss's scanner I walked in as the CEO was cleaning it and asked him to show me how to fix it. He did so.

By Fall of 2001 the writing was on the wall for the web company. We'd had two rounds of lay-offs and the founders had quit. It was a miserable place. I'd dyed some streaks in my hair blue an taken to playing the Clash and Black Sabbath on my PC. I figured that no one could object since we had no clients.

Clearly I needed a new job, the trick was to find one that would allow me to move out of administrative duties (at which I have always been terrible) into IT. There was a small financial firm in Back Bay that wanted an Office Administrator and Webmaster. They gave me an interview.

"We need someone to take on some of the tech support here--it's mostly my business partner who deals with it." Said my soon to be boss "Obviously, if I'd hired some grandmother who could barely use a computer this wouldn't be a consideration."

He also said, and this amuses one of my best friends much "Some of our clients are people who live in Cambridge or JP and are into Socially Responsible Investing." She (my buddy who was living in JP at the time--I was living in Cambridge) always says I should have said "Some of my best friends live in Cambridge and JP." Instead I stammered something about how please I was that in spite of being a financial firm, they weren't all right-wing assholes.

I took the job as Office Administrator/tech support/web-mistress/carpenter/gardener. The firm has grown to the point where I moved into a purely technical role 4 years ago.

I accomplished this by working 6 or 7 day weeks (before the company was well off enough to offer comp time or overtime pay) going to Bunker Hill to take classes in operating systems and SQL and generally busting my ass. I was really hoping to work my way towards Director of IT, but so far I've only gotten to the point of desktop support.

Along the way I've learned a great deal about how small business operate, Windows Server 2008, how to deal with other people, ACAT and non-ACAT transfers, 201 CMR 17, smartphone support (mostly I've learned that Droids suck) and how to give a PowerPoint presentation (strictly speaking, I learned most of that in Business School.)

So. Now what?

*From HMS Pinafore

**because if you have a degree in French Literature you have to start out as an administrative assistant or a receptionist. Not because you're particularly suited for the job, but because it's an entry level position.

On writing

I have many friends who write poetry and fiction that actually gets published. They write professionally--I write for fun.

Part of why I write is that my Mom was a consultant for the New York City Writing project. She believed in "never a day without a word." I'm pretty sure that none of my mom's creative work has ever been published, but that doesn't matter in this context. What she did for a living was encourage people to use their verbal skills better ("If you're stuck on a math problem write down what you are thinking")

What she did as a mother was encourage me to write. Because. What would she have done if I'd been dyslexic? Luckily for her I am not. I started my first journal in second grade. I decided that all of my entries should be in rhyme. That didn't last long. I discovered that poetry didn't have to rhyme. And then decided that poetry wasn't my thing*

I am a verbal. I like reading and I like writing. I write letters (e-mails) to friends I don't see and I write blog posts. I am happy to have the brain-space to do so much. What I'd really love to be able to do is write fiction. I haven't been able to do that for years.

I don't want to be published (although that would be an amusing thing to put on my CV) I just want to write creative fiction because nothing (with the possible exclusion of sex) is more fun.

Yesterday, I stopped by my buddy's place because we were supposed to have dinner together. He had Word open and was clearly working on a piece of creative fiction. He said he hadn't written much today--he got started late. But later, when I spoke with him I could see that he saw where his story was going. I am very surprised that the green envy leaking out of me did not dissolve the chair I was sitting in. I thought "he has no idea how lucky he is." And then we went to dinner.

Last night after I left the dinner party I went home and, much to my surprise, started to write a short story. I looked at what I had written last night. Yep, it was terrible.** But I don't care. Being able to write creative fiction is not my priority this fall--there are five other things standing in line before that. But, since I'm a professional desktop support analyst/network administration who needs to get into another graduate degree program, creative fiction is not likely to float to the top of the list any time soon (unless application essays count as fiction.)

So writing a bad short story amused me for an hour. This gives me hope that when I have the time I might be able to write a good short story one of these days.

In the meantime I'll just do my push-ups on this blog. Like my mom taught me to do.


*My parents friends had a baby. I didn't get to see the baby because small children who attend public schools are typhoid marys. My parents gave me a few particulars about the kid "She has brown hair and eyes." And I wrote a poem about the baby, because my parents suggested I do so. "You are not a pastel baby...bees bring you sweet, dark honey." The parents were ecstatic. They loved my metaphors. What metaphors? I'd never set eyes on the kid. This was my first lesson in how the author's intentions don't always count.

**The driver's ed teachers at a rural highschool have taken to smoking pot before their classes. The Assistant Principal's secretary keeps seeing them walking out of the same closet and assumes they're having an affair.

Anxiety

Tonight I called one of my former colleagues at home. She's got friends visiting Gloucester and, since she lives in North Reading (also on the north shore of MA, for those of you who are not from around here) I didn't know if she was staying with her friends who were visiting or staying at home and seeing them during the day. Her husband answered the phone. Yes, she had decamped to Gloucester to hang out with her Besties--she was having a Women's Weekend Away and Away means Away.

I talked to her husband, who I had missed talking to since my colleague left the organization, for a few minutes about work and how his oldest son had gone away to school. It was a good conversation in fact. I said I was wicked busy and he asked whether it was the good kind of busy ("yay! I have projects! they are fun! I'm getting help from other people!") or the bad kind "It's killing me me. I can see the end of my rope just barely because it's half a mile behind me.") He's an engineer--therefore he understands both kinds of busy.

Then I called my friend to recommend restaurants in Gloucester. I figured it would be easier than texting her, but also, after talking to her husband I realized that it would be nice to actually talk with her. I missed her.

We talked for a few minutes. She told me about where she was staying and took my recommendations of where to eat and shop and then she had to go to dinner.

Twas lovely. I had a happy glow in my stomach because there were people who were happy to talk with me on the phone (even if the cell phone reception in my apartment sucks.)

Here's the problem-by tomorrow morning I'll be obsessing over those conversations. Did I say the wrong thing? Were they just humoring me by taking my call? I could feel the obsessive worrying start, which is part of why I'm writing this.

I said out-loud to my apartment "What will it take for you Cantabridgienne for you to accept that..." I wasn't sure what came next. That it's okay for me to call my former co-worker and her husband (with whom I had gotten on well)? That people might be okay with talking to me on the phone? That if I was interrupting something they wouldn't *answer* the phone?

Hell, the husband actually called *me* back. If he didn't want to speak with me he wouldn't have done that--right?

I asked myself this question because I'm tired of being afraid of people. It really is tiring being so very anxious. While many of my metaphors and similes are computer related (i.e. "I feel like a processor.") clearly my brain is not a logic engine. People, friends, colleagues and former colleagues do in fact answer my e-mails, and agree to have lunch with me. Some of them even call me on the phone-and not just because they're having trouble installing Adobe Acrobat.

So what does it take for me to believe that people who haven't gone to college with me, aren't related to me by blood, or doing graduate school project work with me at the moment might want be willing (happy even) to take my calls?

Does everyone have this problem? I am sure that everyone has to deal with a certain amount of awkwardness when transitioning people that they worked with and liked into friends. Some of it involves deciding whether your former colleague is still friends with you "for business reasons."

I don't actually think any of the former colleagues that I e-mail or have lunch with occasionally are friends with me for strictly business reasons. They are still friends of mine because they are nice people. They ask my advice occasionally and I ask theirs occasionally. That's what friends do.

I guess the question I really meant to ask is "What is it going to take for you Cantabrigienne to accept that you're good enough, you're smart enough and dog-gonit people like you?"

Dork Dork Dork*

It all started with guacamole. One of the women I work with was asking me where the best place near where we work is to get guacamole so that she could snack on chips and guac. I told her to go to Trader Joe's

"Their guacamole is called something like "Avogadro's Avacado." I said (I looked it up just now--it's actually called "Avocado's Number Guacamole.)

Another guy walked into the kitchen and, overhearing our conversation said "Oh-Avogadro's Number."

"What's that?" asked my guacamole-seeking colleague.

"It's the number of molecules in a mole--right?" I answered looking at the guy who had just entered the kitchen.

"Yeah--6.02 something..?" He replied.

"Well I know it's not 273.."

"Right because -273 is 0 in Kelvin-absolute zero."

"They actually know how many molecules are in a *mole*?" Asked Ms. Guacamole looking perplexed and a bit horrified.

"Well..it's a constant." I said. "We don't mean a *mole* as in an animal--not one of these." I said putting both hands up to my nose and wiggling my fingers to imitate a star-nosed mole.

I laughed and so did my other colleague.

"You do realize that you are laughing about a *number*!?" said Ms. Guacamole as she pulled her soup out of the microwave.

"Well yes." I said "But he has a CFA and CFP and I work in tech support. *Both* of us work in financial services. So by any definition we're already dorks, so we might as well laugh about numbers."

I don't think she got it, but as I pulled my own lunch out of the toaster I heard the conversation propagating itself down the hall. I heard someone else say "Avogadro's number--that's the number of molecules in a mole."

This is the thing I like about working with smart (dorky) people--none of us has had to know what Avogadro's number was since we were undergraduates (or high-school students.) As far as relevant knowledge for what all of us do for a living, or what we're going to make for dinner or whatever our current hobby/obsession is it's as unimportant as Lady Gaga's latest alter-ego (although most of us probably have an opinion about that too.)

But yet, when Avogadro's number comes up in conversation we can all find it on the back shelf in our heads, where we've left it since the last time we had to take a Chemistry class.

*This title comes from Strong Bad's Haiku in this

How Mom got trapped in My Sister’s Van

I went to Lynch Park with my sister and her three small children and my mother. Lynch Park has two beaches, a playground a rose garden and an ice cream stand, so it’s the perfect place to take small kids. My Mom used to take my sister and I (and all of our cousins) there when we were kids for the same reason. Unfortunately for us, Lynch Park has lately removed all their trashcans in an effort to save money. (Because allowing people to throw litter on the ground and make the place disgusting isn't going to eat into your revenue stream the way having trashcans will?)

We spent the morning on the beach, and aside from the part where my smallest nephew decided he was afraid of seaweed, we had an enjoyable morning. We ordered take-out from Dom’s Trattoria in Beverly Farms and ate the take out at a picnic table. Because there were no trash cans Mom and I took the pizza boxes and plates back to the car to throw out in my trash. Here is where the problem arose.

We got stuff into the trunk, but then Mom wanted to put my niece’s shorts (which had gotten wet) into the car to dry so that my niece could wear them later. Mom pulled on the handle of one of the back doors to the mini-van and the car started crying. “Now we’re going to have to go get your sister.” Said Mom. I didn’t want to walk all the way up the hill to where my sister was, because then I’d have to oversee the three small children while she walked out to the parking lot. Also, the car would be crying and using up its battery the whole time this took, so I called my sister to ask for help. Unfortunately, she wasn’t answering the phone. I kept calling her.

After another 5 minutes of trying to get doors opened, I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands. I don’t drive—but I troubleshoot machines for a living. I asked for the electronic key fob. I pushed all the buttons on it (luckily for us, this key fob did not have a panic button which sets off the car’s alarm.) When I hit the button for close and lock all the doors (I assume-the key fob is a bit worn so the icons convey less information than they originally did) the car stopped crying. But now my 70-year-old mother is trapped in the back seat and the back doors won’t open (when she tried to open them the car started crying again.) She was uninterested in climbing back into the front seat to go out the two doors that work.

So I did the thing that made the most sense to me. I sat in the driver’s seat and turned the car on. “Do not turn the car on!” Said Mom.

“Mom, if I’m going to figure out what’s wrong with the car I have to sit in the Command Center.” (A friend of mine laughed her ass off when I described the driver’s seat as the “Command Center” but I think my metaphor was not too wrong.) I had unhappy machine. In order to figure out why it was unhappy, I turned it on and went to the place where all the information was displayed.

“Turn the car off!!” I really don’t know what she was thinking—*I* know I can’t drive—I didn’t plan on solving the problem by taking the car for a spin. “Turn the car..!! Oh. It’s in Drive. Put it in Park.”

“How do I do that?”

“Move the lever—no not that lever—the other one. Up one. No up one more.” My mother has a Master’s degree in Education, but apparently this does not apply when Teaching How To Operate a Motor Vehicle.

“So..the doors wouldn’t open because the car was in dive?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t put the car in Park when you ‘parked’ it Mom?”

It was at that point I heard my phone saying “To replay this message press 1.” So the whole episode was caught on my sister’s voicemail.

Frankenstein

On Friday morning, I was discussing Frankenstein with a good friend of mine over breakfast. We were in Sugar Magnolias,in Gloucester awaiting one of the best breakfasts to be had in Massachusetts. Now, my buddy Mike does not like Frankenstein where as I, well it will be hard for me to say I *like* it (which I will explain more about in a minute) but I think the book is very important and as a Sci Fi fan I think he aught to respect it more. Consequently I bring Frankenstein into the conversation and wave it in front of his face whenever I think there is an opportunity to make him think better of the book. I was bringing it up in this instance because I had asked him about the most recent Planet of the Apes movie which he had gone to see and which he had enjoyed. When he described the plot, it sounded remarkably like the plot of Frankenstein and I asked how he could still hate the book, when this enjoyable movie had the same plot.

That my buddy Mike will continue to engage me in discussions of Frankenstein, instead of shutting me up with a withering glare or by simply saying that I don't know what I'm talking about is a kindness given that 1) he is a professor of rhetoric and I'm a network administrator and 2) as became apparent in our most recent exchange he has read the book more recently than I have.

I don't remember what age I was when I first read Frankenstein, but I remember that I got the book by ordering it from Scholastic through my school. When I was a kid, before the advent of Amazon.com, Scholastic and other publishers of children's books would distribute catalogs through schools. The catalogs were age-appropriate so that a 4th grader would not see the same catalog as a 1st grader. A kid would get a catalog and an order form from his/her teacher and take it home. The kid and his/her parents would decide what books to order and bring the order form and a check back to the teacher. A few months later, the books would arrive.

I wanted Frankenstein because I was fascinated by horror and occult books. When the thin volume arrived I was disappointed because it said "abridged" on the cover. Even as a grade-schooler I saw no point in reading abridged books. I don't know what I actually expected the plot to be--I only remember that having discovered an interest in ghoulish literature, I was delighted to see a book that I knew (even at the age of 8 or 9) was a classic work of horror in my catalog.

I was disappointed and shocked. This was the saddest book I had ever read. I hated it, because it made me so sad. Why did Victor Frankenstein suddenly hate his own creation? It wasn't horrible to him when he was sewing dead limbs together (which I personally, would have found gross) but once it was alive he despised and feared it. Why would he not, once his creation had come to him and begged him for a wife not give it to him? His creation merely asked for a companion.

When I discovered that I had to read the book in 9th grade English I was dismayed--I hated that book. I have not reread the book since then. Why then am I forever bringing this book, which I hated in (let's say) 4th grade and again in 9th grade into the conversation?

Frankenstein made a big impression on me. At the time I first read it I was simply horrified by how stupid and cruel people could be--even smart ones like Dr. Frankenstein. But as I've read more science fiction, I have come to the conclusion that Frankenstein is important because it is one of the first pieces of science fiction. The story is important because although science changes and the manner of writing books changes (epistolary novels have fallen out of fashion) the story is still relevant. I realize that I am not the first person to have made this connection--but I made it on my own without the guidance of a professor or anyone else (since most of the people I know who have read the book prefer, like Mike, not to discuss it.)

My undergraduate degree is in French Literature--not English Literature. If,like my buddy Mike, I'd had to read Frankenstein in college and spend hours discussing, and writing papers on, whether Frankenstien's fear of his creation had it's roots in Pygmalion or whether he (Frankenstein) was trying to be God by creating new life, or whether the whole book was really about how people were afraid of science and scientists I'd probably hate the book too.

Instead I've come to my own conclusions about Frankenstein. They range from "why not just pick some guy who died of a heart attack and replace the heart--instead of building a whole new being" and "well, actually it would never work because once the brain dies, if you reanimate it, it will be with severe lack of function" "The real monsters are the normal humans" and "If you're into reanimating corpses, make sure you have stomach--not just curiosity."

That I think is the real point of the book, and it's one that is still relevant. If you are creating a monster, have some plans for what to do with it once you've created it. Have some sympathy for your monster

What I have been doing a lot of lately

It's 10 PM on a Tuesday and I'm pacing around my apartment having several conversations with myself. Most of them have to do with what I need to do at work over the next few days.

I have been very busy lately at work. I have been busier with straight-up work (as opposed to work-and-school) than I have ever been excepting the 12 day week I worked in Winter 2010 when we moved our environment to new servers.

I like being busy. I like learning new things (and I have certainly learned a boat-load of new things in the past few months*.) But I am overwhelmed. I feel like a processor in a computer. I move all day and cannot say at the end of the day what I have done (partly because my short term memory is shot, but also because I feel like I spend all day answering requests for data that someone else has to process.) I've become afraid of going into the kitchen for coffee because some staff member might corner me with a problem they're having with a printer or our Document Management System or worse, a problem that a client is having accessing our online client vault. I feel bad about this.

At the risk of ranging into Christian metaphors--the user community is my flock and I am their shepherd.** Or to put it another way, they are *my* clients and when they ask me for help I would like them to see my willing, helpful face as opposed to my "whaddayouwantnow-I'm bizy" face.

It's times like this that I wish I had some sort of partner. I can't explain everything that's going on at work to my friends and I can't express everything that I feel to my co-workers. I wish I had someone who could listen with a sympathetic ear and provide advice "Look into the SQL Management Console" or alternatively "Never touch the SQL Management Console again."

However, the technical problems are not as worrisome as the "people" problems. Technical problems can be hammered out, usually by speaking with software and hardware vendors. Technical problems are matters of electrons, resistors, conductors and the software that was written to make these things all work in concert. I cannot imagine that the ways in which we are trying to make our software work have never been though of before, so somebody must be able to make them work.

Working, as I am now, on IT projects all the time I had assumed that once we had gotten a blessing from the owners I would be working with geeks--INTJ types like me and that would make everything work smoothly. Sadly, no. I don't understand why.

Here I can't go into the details, because it's private, but suffice to say that people, who I had known for years to be sure to think "x" had suddenly decided to think "y."

I know that large technical projects are rarely completed on time and within scope (70% are not according to my Project Management professor Fall term.)

I am beginning to take a cynical point of view. I think of two things that people have told me. The first is my best friend on advising me on how people in New England drive "think of the least logical-the stupidest--way that people will behave and expect it and you'll be alright." The second thing that comes to mind with this current project is something a friend of mine in high-school said "My mom says that the number of teenagers present is the inverse square of the number of brains present" (assuming I stated that correctly 2 teenagers - 1/2^2 or 1/4 brains present.)

If anyone is actually reading this post I apologize for being vague and rambling. The point of this post was more to scratch a boil on my brain than to make any sense.


*to the point that I've had bad dreams about SQL 2008 Management Console and Microsoft Exchange
**Only in terms of technology. It is for others to decide everything from standards of customer service, trading workflows and financial planning workflows.