Did you ever have one of those weeks?

I think I’m having one.  Today.

It started out with that pain in the back of my neck.  I got to work, somehow managing to brave the traffic of the first day of school, which adds thirty minutes to my commute (a thirty minute commute).  Much to my surprise, everything was working.  You know how it goes… at that point you figure it’s only a matter of time until something breaks.  So you wait cautiously, looking up, figuring it’s only a matter of time until the Other Shoe drops.  Hence the neck pain.

At least I’ll never be accused of being an optimist (perish the thought).

Trouble is most conspicuous by its absence.  [damn - that's more than a t-shirt... it's a way of life]   While continuing to look skyward, the Other Shoe moved quickly into sight.   An external unit had an Email Tizzy<tm> because Comcast wired the site but told her someone else had to come by to hook up all the computers to it.

In actual fact, this is not cause for an Email Tizzy<tm>.  It’s not even cause for Mild Upset.  In plain english, Comcast told her to have her network guy do his work.  Because she works for the same company I do, she had no idea what the guy was talking about.  He used the word `computer’, which throws even the most seasoned coworker into sheer and utter panic.  Probably also because she works for the same company, she had forgotten that a teammate had placed the order for all of this and was coming out to hook it all up.

Much as this should have been no big deal for the site manager, it was no cause for alarm for my department either…. except for one little thing….she had send her frantic plea to my department’s email address, which has Boss Colon on it too.

By this point you’re either cleaning food off your monitor or just wondering uneasily exactly what is a Boss Colon.  Well I’ll tell you  [don't skip this bit, even if you're squeamish].  You’ve heard of hands-off management, right?  That’s where your boss doesn’t bother you unless there’s an issue.  Well this isn’t hands-off management.  This isn’t even hands-on management.  This is management so close that it’s up inside your plumbing, hence Boss Colon.

Boss Colon certainly has her own `style’ of management.   Or manglement, as I refer to it.  When they promoted me, they told me I could no longer joke about manglement, as I had become one.  Boss Colon came on board and inaugurated her tenure by gathering everyone together for a twenty minute Meeting about how we contact each other.

No, really.

Do we email?  Do we page?  Do we call?  Do we SMS?  Do we dance naked on the floor until the Special Team comes by to talk us down? (those jackets are very uncomfortable AND you can’t type in them)

Boss Colon believes that any complaint from outside the department is a valid one.  Any complaint against anyone outside of the department, well, we’ll definitely have to see about looking into it.  Some time.

Boss Colon believes in Better Technical Operations via Consensus.  This is where she has a Brilliant Idea<tm> to bring in some New Technology<uh-oh>.  Since she’s not totally stupid, she has gotten somebody some training (about enough to get something running, sorta).  Now stick with me because this is where it really gets fun.  While the New Technology<uh-oh> is going online, she gets the team together to make decisions on how to administer or even technically adjust the New Technology.

Imagine just having come back from a week’s training in something… I dunno…. wireless networking.  You created the entire wireless infrastructure and are working the bugs out of it.  Boss Colon immediately convenes a Meeting so everyone can decide what wireless channel to use where, how many receivers will be needed for additional square footage, and how/when it should be tuned (on your time, after business hours of course).

In most normal universes, where gravity applies or at least tends to keep things pretty much stuck to the floor, your subject-matter expert (the trainee) should have some glancing familiarity with the technology.  He or she knows the math needed to arrive at the answer.  Most times, he or she is the only person who knows the math. But in my little alternate universe (semi-affectionately and hereafter referred to as the Twilight Zone<tm>), this is not how important decisions are made.  The trainee may even get to say a word or two at the Meeting but is usually drowned out by everybody else who obviously knows better how the technology should be tweaked.  The last voice is usually Boss Colon, having made her decision.  If you’re really lucky, her decision may have something to do with the topic.  Most of the time it doesn’t.  A week later it may well have changed.

So you figure your little time in hell is over by this point but it’s just beginning (like Madonna’s fans).  Boss Colon is shooting the breeze informally and casually lets slip that the technical adjustments can’t take place til next week because we have to go over what’s happening with the end users.

WHAT?

Well yes, we need to improve communications and make them feel empowered, part of the process.  At this point I wonder aloud how gathering in a circle, holding hands, and making everyone feel better about technical adjustments is going to help.   I am assured that it will.

Let me give you a scenario.  Please.

CALLER: my computer don’t work.

IT: have you tried rebooting it?

CALLER: Uh, nope.  I’ll try now.

[one week later]

SAME CALLER: my computer don’t work.

IT: have you tried rebooting it?

SAME CALLER: Uh, nope.  I’ll try now.

Well, you get the idea.  In the Twilight Zone<tm>, this is roughly the average computer IQ of the denizens.  Now I can’t possibly figure this out (maybe due to lack of college degree) but Boss Colon wants to have a Meeting with several departments so we can `splain that IT Consensus is that we should go with wireless channel three.

At this point, the sucking sound you hear has very few possible causes:

• all of the air has evacuated the room for its own good
• fifty coworkers inhaling without a blessed thought in their heads
• fifty coworkers inhaling and saying to themselves `HUH?’
• me trying to explain quantum physics to my dog
• all of the above  (always choose this one - it’s the safest)

For some reason known only to selected wise men living on top of mountains in tibet, coworkers need to be informed of this.  It’s damn important.  Yeah!

Oddly enough, we have yet to experience, in the Twilight Zone<tm>, our payroll department calling everyone together to give their input into the rag content present in the new paychecks we’re purchasing.  Benefits never seeks consensus on which phone number we’ll use to call for service when every second claim is rejected, just for fun.   Accounts Receivable has yet to ask us which style of ledger to use.

Speaking of Accounts Receivable, my wife left me a voicemail.  Of course she left me a voicemail - I won’t pick up the phone when it rings.  My feeling about ringing phones is `don’t answer it - you’re just enabling them.’

Not content to have more physical ailments than Florida, my wife did a triple gainer down the basement steps. I assured her it was about time anyway, what with the major pain for the last sixty days or so not moving much.  She had an excuse though: she started to teeter and didn’t want to go head-first so she landed on her tailbone (pretty much the most painful area on her body, courtesy of a drunk driver).  She didn’t fall more than a step (don’t get excited).  I told her that she was thinking incorrectly.  She should have gone down on her head, where the only injury would be to the steps.  She agreed.

Because of the large Oompah band playing in my head, I thought it best to lay down for a bit.

Oom-pah.  Oom-PAH.  OOM-PAH.  I SAID OOMPAH, DAMMIT!

Timing being perfect, I came downstairs as she was going upstairs.  She gave up sleep for Lent and somehow never got back on schedule.  It’s almost like she’s sleeping whenever I’m awake.  [hey, wait a minute....]

Never mind - I’ll rough it.  I put a sausage into the microwave to heat, pulled it out to put on the bun, and watched, hypnotized, as I saw the sausage rip right through the scoring in the paper towel and perform an absolutely breathtaking nosedive.  Right into the kitty litter box.  In slow motion.

Now we all know that the only place you can’t get a paper towel to rip is at the scoring.   Try it if you don’t believe me.  You can yank til you turn blue but it won’t rip where it’s supposed to.  NASA is thinking of making the next space shuttle with scored joints so it will never break.

I somehow simultaneously managed to utter every curse word, phrase, and book I could summon along with realizing that I could never, as long as I lived, write anything that is so perfect as daily life.  If I could swear, howl with laughter, and appreciate the zen-like beauty of the moment at the same time, I would be three times the person I am now.  I can not.  I am not.

I tried again, varying an element of the equation for the sake of the experiment: I used a hot dog instead.  Said hot dog actually made it to the bun this time, sans kitty litter condiments.

I picked up my plate and took a bite of the hot dog.  Due to quantum-level effects, a large pile of cd’s across the room fell over.

Deciding that quantum entanglement could go get stuffed, I checked my email.  Bless him, my single Loyal Reader had emailed me to let me know the blog was down again.  I have spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on network monitoring software for work but never have I produced results anywhere near the accuracy of my Loyal Reader.  If the blog’s host went offline for five seconds, those particular seconds would be the ones my Loyal Reader would choose in which to access this blog.  But please don’t think I’m casting aspersions on the good fellow; apparently the service is down rather a lot and he just happens to be the only one who will admit to regularly reading this tripe.

When I had finally finished my so-called dinner, I noticed everything was suddenly quiet; causing that recurring pain in the back of my neck.