Brief Employment

I caved in and accepted the help desk job that i was pressured into interviewing for a couple weeks ago. Big mistake. I seem to remember telling people that I DON'T DO HELL DESK. Gee i wonder why...?

Monday was my first day. The first impression is a lasting impression. The people were very nice but then that's normal when you first meet them. The facility was pretty nice too. So far, so good. How bad could this be?

I started shadowing someone to get me an idea as to what life is truly like there. The most challenging thing that i saw them do was to walk everyone through getting their ip address so they could remote into the machine and do their job. The company owns a large number of small facilities around the country (500+). This is a result of the company going on a large scale spending spree in the past couple years and they gobbled up a lot of smaller ones. As a result, i was given 4 huge spreadsheets with basic info on what their networks looked like (static/dynamic ip, gateway ip, subnet, network printers, etc).

When a call comes through, the first thing that i would have to do is get the name of the community and fin it on one of the 4 spread sheets. Sounds easy enough? If so, you're giving these people too much credit for knowing the official name of where they work. In addition to the headache of finding the community name/info, we also have to determine if the user is using a regular PC vs a thin client. Oh goodie. The thin clients all talk to servers that are housed at HQ so there's only so much you can really do with that.

Let's not forget the fact that there were 2 users that called up running winNT and only about half of the calls were for winXP machines. The hodge podge of OS's is a result of all of the acquisitions that have been done. There doesn't seem to be a strong push to standardize and upgrade out of date hardware. No standardized image. Most (not all) at least have the same anti virus engine!

After Tuesday i realized i couldn't handle 30-40 calls that were all essentially the same every day. I was bored on the first day of work and the second day was even worse. I was a fish out of water. No one knew that parallel ports are being phased out from modern motherboards which explains why a user couldn't figure out how to plug their printer into their Dell d630 laptop. My time was being wasted and i was bored. The stage was set for me to leave gracefully.

So after a whopping 2 days on a job that i hated, i quit. Yes i needed the money but the work was too painful. Apparently i'm the only person that believes in working a job that you don't hate. It's such an alien concept. Everyone's response to me quitting is "i would have done it for the money at least". ( For the record, the money wasn't all that hot to begin with.) It's that attitude that leads to people bitching and moaning about their jobs and hating their lives. If you don't like your job then do something about it. Never let money tie you down to something you don't enjoy. In the end it's your life and your mental health should be top priority. Why can't people understand this? Money doesn't buy happiness. A large paycheck doesn't necessarily mean a large smile on your face.

Why is it that people think they have to drive 45 minutes just for a couple extra dollars? Between traffic, the time wasted commuting, and secondary expenses that come as a result of this trek, you just don't come out ahead. I look around and see people driving 45-60 minutes one way every day so they can make a few extra dollars at a job that they're apathetic about. I've done the drive like that already. What kept me going was that i enjoyed what i did. Every day i woke up and was ready to attack my work and give it my all because i genuinely liked my job. The hours were terrible. The work was hard. I had a great time despite all of these factors. It was when i got burnt out and stopped caring about my job that i left there. Driving a distance like that wasn't worth it anymore when i didn't have my passion.

I guess what i'm trying to say is that i quit that help desk job after 2 days because i felt nothing towards it. No positive emotion at least. A job isn't worth doing unless you do it 100%. This simple concept which is one of my core beliefs has been lost in our society. Taking the easy route and looking for the "slack" jobs has become the norm. People wonder why Americans are losing out to other countries in the global job market? It's because we've become lazy. We look for the easier jobs whenever possible and then demand more money because we believe we're entitled to it because of who we are (not what we do). I see money being the motivation behind more and more peoples motives. Why are you going to school? So i can get a good paying job. Is school not about bettering your self and learning about fields that you enjoy? Why would you torture and indebt yourself for 4+ years in a program that you don't enjoy with the sole purpose of making money in a field that you have no passion for in the first place? Why not just say you're going to school in order to live a tortured existence in a rut while trying to maintain the status quo? Is that not the same?

I guess i truly am a square peg in a world of round holes....

The holidays are a comin'....

Holidays and i don't get along too well. Year in and year out it's the same thing. Once upon a time i loved them. Then i came of age which coincided with my family intensifying the internal bickering.

Here it is the eve of Thanksgiving. I wonder how many people truly grasp the meaning of the name or even the concept of "thanksgiving". This is traditionally the time of year that i begin to reflect and prepare for the mental anguish of the holiday season. This year is harder than usual for me. I normally make a mental list of what i'm thankful for and carry it within me through the season as a source of both pride and strength.

Next monday i start a job that i dread. I've not had stable work since late February. I've been kicked in the face so many times from interviews that the sting of rejection doesn't even register anymore. I'm more surprised by rejection from a girl than i am from a job these days.

This is when i look back at the past year in a vain attempt at finding elements to be proud of. This year is more difficult than others it seems. I've managed to squander my savings away while waiting for the ideal job to come up. It never came up. My savings is nearly wiped out, i owe my parents (and the gov) a lot of money, my house is still a disaster, dating prospects are a joke at best, employment prospects are abysmal, and the future looks bleak.

As i look around i have difficulty finding things to be thankful for. A hand full of friends to confide in and empty promises. Not much different there.....

This is hard. Evaluating your life and comparing over a set amount of time (one year) versus another time frame (previous years). Most people say that they're thankful fo friends and family and other random shallow blessings. I'm not one of those people. I believe in saying i'm thankful for things that i'm truly thankful for. What is the point in saying mentioning something that you don't truly believe? I was told recently that i should be proud of my degree. How can you be proud of a monumental event like that when no one in the greater population respects or even acknowledges its existence?

Until this year i have prided myself on my work history. Whether it was working at Pick N Save or at STS or whatever else, i've always been damn proud of my accomplishments. I feel as though i've lost my sense of direction some days. I'm drifting. Stumbling through odd jobs while people sing my praises in one ear and then crush my dreams in the other.

In the next couple days i will make my "Thanksgiving list" which consists of what i am truly thankful for. It worries me that i don't have much of anything to record this year. I've never been one for accumulating a lot of things in any given field. Universally, i'd much rather have quality over quantity any day of the week. Some days, it seems that the quality is also becoming rather scarce.

Coming soon: The Thanksgiving List

Interview time...

So I was submitted for a phone support hell desk job the other week. Not too happy about that. Yesterday i had the phone interview. Ugh. Surprise, surprise, i did well enough on the phone to get an in person interview tomorrow. In theory i should be happy but i'm not. I DON'T DO PHONE SUPPORT! I'm going to potentially sign on to do 3+ months of something that is tedious, boring, and a waste of my time. Yeah i'll get paid but it's literally a step backwards for me.

I knew this would happen. I've now got my interview routine down well enough that it's hard to not consider me for a position that i interview for. Problem is, there haven't been any interviews lately. I'm genuinely hoping i don't get this one and i think i will anyways. Funny how the world works that way....

The other night at work i saw our maintenance people swap a hard drive from the computer that runs one of our machines. A Quantum Fireball 4gb drive!!! How much older do you need to get? They've got some hack telling maintenance that it's a HD problem when the computer can't recognize the machine. Nice. Meantime i wasn't allowed to touch the computer. All i could do was watch some obese maintenance guy fumble with how to swap a drive.

Next week i'm going to be the "on-call" guy for my friends business. That means any service calls that pop up, i get all for myself and i get to make lots of $$$ on the side. Finally, i'll have a challenge! The boredom has been painful lately and i can't wait to actually do what i'm good at for once.

That brings me back to the phone gig. Password resets and basic troubleshooting. Yeah. That sounds like punishment for me.

Stay tuned....

Dropkick Murhy's show (11/12/2007)

For a whopping $20, i couldn't pass up the chance to see a group i've loved for almost 7 years.

Here it is two days later and my hearing is finally 100%. Wow. The raw energy in that show was amazing. The Murphy's mainly played songs from their last 3 albums but that's ok. Not once did i find myself wishing they'd play something else or say to myself "not this song". In true punk rock fashion their music was a constant assault on all of my senses. Song after song after song with barely even a break in between them. I was in awe. I've not seen a show like this since i last saw Misfits.

I went to the show by myself and actually ran into someone i used to work with (mrolland). That was a real shocker right there. Here i am walking along and someone calls out my name. He was one of the last people i would have expected to see there. It was nice to have a familiar face in the crowd.

Around 1030pm they played the song "Warriors Code". At the same time i looked over and saw they had opened the main doors outside to let some air in. Immediately every hair on my body stood straight up. This was one of the songs i listened to while i was in Ireland last year and was playing when i heard about Castner dieing in Baghdad. It was surreal. He and i both really liked the Murphy's and we were going to see them the next time they came to town. I can't explain it but everything just made sense for a few moments there.

I want to find a set list for the night because i can't remember every song that was played. The opening acts weren't bad for once. They got the crowd going nicely and fit the mood for the night.

The Murphy's played from 10pm until 1130 which included a couple encore songs. The pure raw energy from the show left me drained the next day. My voice was hoarse from singing along to "Fields of Athenry" and "State of...". All i can say still is just WOW. Damn i can't wait until i can see them again!!!

RE: Shooting near UWM sparks safety fears

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=683433

Here are excerpts from the full story found at the above url. I encourage you to read the entire article first before reading my responses to it. I'll attempt to give background information as needed but apologize in advance for any shortcomings on my behalf....

Assaults were up from 43 last year to 72 this year. Burglaries and robberies were down.

Administrators at UWM said they have stepped up patrols, too.

At face value a numerical jump from 43 to 72 within a year seems like a lot. It's important to take a step back and realize what's going on in the area. In the past couple years, the Milwaukee Sheriffs department has increased it's presence both in the parks and along the lake front. The increased police presence along the lake is in the geographical area that is in question. How many of these assaults were recorded by the Sheriffs dept which was policing a geographic area that is clearly not part of the campus? What then could cause these numbers to spike so drastically within a short time period?

I believe it's the increased patrols not only by UWM but MPD (Milwaukee Police Department) too. It's quite simple really. If you flood an area with officers then there will be an increase in police contacts (citations, arrests, etc). That being said, if you increase police presence in a given area then you will see a rise in these contacts. These contacts are the basis of crime statistics. If a person gets hit with a baseball bat and has their wallet taken but then doesn't call the police because they didn't have any money in the first place and are not that injured, did a crime in fact happen? YES they were robbed but the statistics don't reflect that. If there had been more officers in the neighborhood which would imply a better chance at catching the perpetrator, then maybe the victim would have been more inclined to report this.

What i'm saying is that if you send officers into an area, then they'll come back with results. We need not look any further than the suburbs. Everyone knows to not speed in them because the cops are always clocking for speeders. Yet the overwhelming majority of people speed within the city of Milwaukee. Why there and not in the 'burbs? Because we have this belief (rightfully so) that Milwaukee cops are too busy to catch you doing 38 in a 30 m.p.h. zone. So if UWM and MPD have stepped up patrols in this geographic area, is it not reasonable to believe that they would also effect the number of reported incidents?

It's my belief that these assaults were happening before this and they only recently started to be recorded.

Monday's shooting victim, 21, was pistol-whipped and shot in the leg as he fled from two people who demanded money as he walked toward his home in the 2700 block of N. Murray about 11 p.m., Schwartz said. Police recovered suspected marijuana from the victim. He was reported in satisfactory condition Tuesday afternoon at a hospital.

The pistol-whipping, shooting and possession of marijuana strike me as unsettling coincidences. So the perpetrators got his wallet but not his stash? To me, the act of pistol-whipping someone is very symbolic. They were clearly close enough for physical contact and so his life could have ended right then and there. Luckily, it did not. The assailants pistol-whipped him and then shot him in the leg as he fled? Why didn't they just shoot him on the spot at close range? They already physically hurt him bad enough that he wasn't going to forget easily. Something doesn't add up.

Journalists are supposed to deliver just the official facts and so i look forward to hearing more of this case as details surface. One can't help but have a nagging feeling that this college student wasn't as innocent as everyone thinks.

Police said the assailants were described as two African-American men in their 20s, one about 5 feet 11 inches tall, wearing dark, baggy clothes and carrying a small, silver handgun; the other man was about 5 feet 9 inches tall and wearing dark, baggy clothes and a white do-rag.

So one of the suspects is slightly taller than the other...? Dark baggy clothes but no mention of color of clothing? They've ruled out orange, yellow, most shades of green, white, and pink so far. This should really narrow the search down! Not even a mention of if one of them was stockier than the other one. Once again an excellent description of most black males in this city. I guess if i get held up tonight by someone who isn't using a silver handgun, then it's not one of these two guys!

Why do i have a feeling that the victim knows his assailants after a description like this?

Students such as Franke can't help but notice the increase in campus safety alerts. From Oct. 2 to Nov. 5, the university posted a dozen alerts, including the shooting, an armed robbery, an attempted armed robbery, two attempted strong-arm robberies, two reported incidents of battery and several other arrests.

The increase in campus safety alerts comes as a result of the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16th 2007 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre). The faculty of Virginia Tech were blamed by a lot of people (media included) for not notifying students of what had already happened that fateful morning. UWM in turn started broadcasting campus safety alerts every time something happened in the neighborhood. Of the students who bother to check their email in the morning, most disregard these alerts for various reasons.

Have you ever read the story of the Little Boy Who Cried Wolf?

The department has 34 armed officers and plans to hire five more..... About a year ago, Marquette converted a university-owned house at N. 21st and W. Wells streets into a police substation that is manned 24 hours a day. The university has 48 armed officers on staff.

Both universities are in Milwaukee and so they are naturally compared to one another. The end of the article where this is brought up is what bothers me the most. The writer is literally comparing apples and oranges here. You have a private vs public school being compared. Cost of tuition per student is woefully out of proportion:

http://demo.mu.edu/edu/about/studenttuition.shtml
Undergraduate tuition per year — $26,270

http://www4.uwm.edu/financialaid/CostOfAttendance/index.cfm
http://www.bfs.uwm.edu/fees/Fall%202007/tuitionschedule.htm

Resident Undergraduate Tuition*

Based on 12-18 credits both semesters

$6,860

How is an underfunded state school supposed to compete monetarily with a private university like that? Consistently, every year the budget for the UW system gets cut while tuition costs rise for students? I would also like to point out that Marquette is located in an economically weak area which is why they can buy neighboring property easier than UWM. So you have a school that brings in more money and is in a cheaper area vs a school that is a more affluent area and suffers from budget problems. How is this a fair comparison? Same city. Both are major universities. From there, the similarities end.

****************

What's my point to all of this? My goal is to point out how badly the media has blown an incident out of proportion and topped it off by making unfair comparisons. The alleged facts that they used MUST be questioned. Go beyond asking what their sources are. Learn how their sources gather data in the first place. In the end if the methodology of gathering the info is flawed, does that not make the data flawed too? How then can you accept this outlet as a viable source if they consciously choose to use tainted data?

Not only is it sad that someone got shot but it's even more sad that we as a society brush this off so callously. We as a collective people have such little regard for human life that it's very disturbing. Some might say they do but they truly don't. If they did then they would be outraged every time they turn on the the TV and see another name get added to the murder count for the year while politicians pat each other on the back (as though they actually had a hand in this) congratulating each other because the number of deaths is lower by two or three when compared to last year at the same time.

Job hunt update

For those who haven't been keeping score, my job hunt has been miserable at best. Currently i hold a bachelors degree in criminal justice and i'm attempting to find a simple desktop support position. Desktop Support (DS) is what i'm good at according to my resume. We have to remember that a resume is a way of showing what you've done successfully and NOT a reflection of your potential. What a resume doesn't reflect is your potential or the circumstances under which you learned specific skills.

Don't go thinking a head hunter (staffing agency) is going to help you get a job. Anyone who tells you that their looking for "the right candidate for the right job" is full of shit and i'm proof of it. I've had them trying to convince me to be submitted to positions in surrounding counties. They justify it because from the city proper to these locations "it's only 30 minutes". First of all, they need to stop using mapquest because those times are under ideal circumstances. They also need to understand that gas prices are never going to go down to a reasonable level in my life time. Why the hell should i drive 45+ minutes for a job that pays $16-17/hour?

Flat out, i want them to stop bullshitting me. Plain and simple. What part of I WILL NOT WORK HELP DESK don't they understand? Yes i need a job soon and i need something to freshen up my resume but c'mon now for crying out loud. You want to send a hands on type of person out to go do a phone job? Where will you be when i walk out on the job after a month because it's complete bull shit, depressing, and completely not what i want to do? Oh that's right. You'll turn your back because i allegedly burnt you.

Why do these headhunters and HR clowns always ask me the most generic questions? "How much experience do you have with TCP/IP?" What kind of question is that? Seriously. Do you want me to give the wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite) definition? Are you looking for someone who has a concept as to what TCP/IP is or are you looking for a Cisco guru? You would know the difference if you'd bothered to do your homework before accepting this job.

I've placed my resume on sites like www.monster.com and www.careerbuilder.com. Those have been oh so much helpful for me. Monster got me a 4 month gig last year that paid an obnoxious a month and was painfully boring. Careerbuilder has done nothing but blow up my spam filter. I guess the moral of the story is that if you're using these sites you should change your privacy settings so no one can see that you exist and quietly troll the job listings. Also, make sure that you make note of who is offering the job. More often than not the jobs you see posted are generic jobs to get you into yet another head hunter database.

I got turned down for a non-profit this summer. Why? The job description was for desktop support. When i got there and interviewed for appx 1:45 (it was supposed to be < style="font-style: italic;">ME and no one else. I know i won't get paid for it but that's besides the point. It's something i can tell yet another headhunter and HR person about and have them be completely confused as to what i'm talking about. I can tell potential employers that i find the concept of snort (http://www.snort.org/) positively fascinating and then watch them as they get nervous because i know of a non-M$ product that they've heard of but have no clue as to what it truly is.

If you'll excuse me, VNC still doesn't want to play nicely and i need to go find my hammer....

Changes

On the right hand side you'll notice the last tracks i've listened to. This is courtesy of last.fm which is a super cool site.

Music has always been kind of a window into my soul. My collection is all over the spectrum and a site like last.fm is a way for me to show others that i'm not kidding. On any given day you'll see punk rock, metal, classical, blues, and whatever the hell else i stumble across. I guess the reason why i embedded the last.fm widget is so people can see first hand what makes me tick.

That ought to quench your voyeuristic urges! :)

American Gangster

Wow. Here's a movie that took me by surprise. Having seen Denzel Washington in Training Day (which was not a typical role for him) and knowing Russel Crowe was in this movie, i was cautiously optimistic. I'm happy to say that they overcame my apprehensions and i had the honor of viewing a very good quality movie.

At first i was worried that this would be similar to Scarface but that didn't last. Rather than glorify the rise to power of a real-life drug lord i could feel a very strong attempt to downplay the positives. Yes, Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) had everything he could possibly want during this time period. At the same time the viewer sees that the fame and fortune comes at a very high price. Seeing the heroine junkies after seeing Frank Lucas strutting around like some kind of high class businessman helped drive home the fact that there are in fact consequences to what he was doing. When he gets caught at the end (it's not like you didn't see THAT coming) i just couldn't feel any sympathy for him. He was a noble character because he took care of his friends and family while proving how much business sense i minority could have during this racially charged time period, and yet you feel that he got exactly what he deserved in the end.

Throughout the movie there were TV clips shown to reflect the status of the Vietnam War which was an interesting touch. Initially this bothered me because it felt very clumsy but in hind site i've realized that this was because the career of Frank Lucas was so deeply intertwined with the conflict. There were some very powerful images relating to both the war and Frank Lucas which i'm sure bothered some people but is old news to me (i'm a history nerd like that). I found myself wondering if the director/writer/whatever was showing these images to make a subtle hint at what might be going on in the two conflicts that the USA is currently involved in.

American Gangster is a bit graphic at times but not nearly as bad as i had initially imagined. Yes, some people get shot. Yes, there is some violence. It's rated R for a reason! Despite that, it really isn't your typical shoot 'em up mob movie. The violence has been toned down to emphasize more on the business realities and the leg work that went on in the pursuit of this character.

I've now seen this movie twice and i have every intention of seeing it again. Just mytwo cents worth on a movie i truly enjoyed....

Null Lives!!!

Null is currently online and gradually being tweaked! HUGE thanks to the people at FedoraFAQ.org (http://www.fedorafaq.org/) for their painfully easy documentation. They were a bit slow on updating for Fedora 7 which was one of the reasons why i lost interest in this project (long story to be posted later) but now things seem to be clicking quite nicely.

You can see my Putty window open in the attached image. Once i got the SSH service started, it was a cake walk to connect to locally. Now i can do whatever i want to without always having to bounce over with my KVM.









Next up is to get VNC working so i can use the GUI remotely (obviously) and then fine tune everything in firefox. Ideally i want to see how much (or little) needs to be done to get fedora 7 fully functional as an internet box for myself. Once i do so, i hope to make a check list for future reference and post it here. Ideally i would like to get this streamlined enough that when i build my next machine i can seriously consider *nix as an alternative to paying the obnoxioulsy high license fees for M$.

First things first. Need to get VNC working so i can actually see if any of my crack pot ideas work. More updates to come....