Still here. Still not queen.
Sep. 2nd, 2005 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
squeequegIf you've tried to reach me recently (or if you know people who have -- I'm looking at you, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sal_sal), then you know just how disconnected I've been. Our phone service is still down, and DSL might -- might -- be up next week. Maybe. The saga of How Verizon Sucks is something you should hear from thomascantor, who's been dealing with them with much more grace than I would have had.
One major downside is that because of the disconnect, and because we don't watch much tv, I've only had a blurry idea of how horrible it's been in New Orleans. I think I'll try to give blood, though I may get turned away because of my time in England (yes, I ate beef over there during the BSE trouble, and I don't think they have a test for that yet). Like many others, I want to help, have little money to spare, and don't know how else to help. And I can't think of anything to say that doesn't sound glib and lame in the face of this horror.
In other, much less important news:
- I interviewed for a position with ConHugeCo and got called back for a second interview almost right away.
- While getting dressed for the second interview, the zipper on my slacks broke. I switched to a skirt, which ended up making me look a bit like a nun. I consoled myself by thinking of Sister Mary Magdalene of the Special Action Executive of the Poor Clares. Or Sister Howitzer of Reasoned Analysis.
- I had to restrain myself from humming "The Girl from Ipanema" while in the elevator at ConHugeCo.
- When I have no internet, I'm much more productive. I made pestooooo!
- I also stepped on a wasp, but not while I was making pesto. I'm better now.
- I've run into a very weird situation at work. We've got a system in place that's about two years old, has been buggy the entire time, and is being expanded. Now we're told that everything that is wrong with this system is attributable to user error. Much of this error was inadvertent -- nobody thought to tell people to stop doing things the way they'd always done them because that would break the router. So they did them the old way, and the router broke every hour. Yes, it's user error, but it seems to be of the sort that the programmer should expect and at least warn against. The "It's a perfect system, as long as people are perfect" approach seems to be a real problem.
There are other logic flaws -- or maybe it's conceptual flaws -- in the programmers' approach, and I really don't know how to point them out. For example, the stories that appear in the newspaper differ from the stories in their original Word files because the editors make a lot of changes on the Quark document (the version I work with). Because the internet groups pull the Word files to put on the net, there have been discrepancies between print and net versions. Therefore, the internet groups want the editors to make all changes to the Word document alone. No changes to the Quark, as that won't make its way to the net. The solution that seems obvious to those of us in prepress -- pull the text from the final version of the Quark document -- is rejected out of hand. It seems like they're making heaps more changes and more work for the editors when there's an easier solution. (Plus, I'm worried that the guidelines I had for laying out pages, which will be relayed at the same time as these changes, will get ignored in the editors' response to this malarkey.)
How do you point out to someone that his or her program may work fine, but the basic concept and perception of our work process is flawed?
I'll be up in Maine this weekend, being a total geek. With any luck, I'll have scrawled on three chapters' worth of work and be able to plow through some more when I get back.
sal_sal), then you know just how disconnected I've been. Our phone service is still down, and DSL might -- might -- be up next week. Maybe. The saga of How Verizon Sucks is something you should hear from thomascantor, who's been dealing with them with much more grace than I would have had. One major downside is that because of the disconnect, and because we don't watch much tv, I've only had a blurry idea of how horrible it's been in New Orleans. I think I'll try to give blood, though I may get turned away because of my time in England (yes, I ate beef over there during the BSE trouble, and I don't think they have a test for that yet). Like many others, I want to help, have little money to spare, and don't know how else to help. And I can't think of anything to say that doesn't sound glib and lame in the face of this horror.
In other, much less important news:
- I interviewed for a position with ConHugeCo and got called back for a second interview almost right away.
- While getting dressed for the second interview, the zipper on my slacks broke. I switched to a skirt, which ended up making me look a bit like a nun. I consoled myself by thinking of Sister Mary Magdalene of the Special Action Executive of the Poor Clares. Or Sister Howitzer of Reasoned Analysis.
- I had to restrain myself from humming "The Girl from Ipanema" while in the elevator at ConHugeCo.
- When I have no internet, I'm much more productive. I made pestooooo!
- I also stepped on a wasp, but not while I was making pesto. I'm better now.
- I've run into a very weird situation at work. We've got a system in place that's about two years old, has been buggy the entire time, and is being expanded. Now we're told that everything that is wrong with this system is attributable to user error. Much of this error was inadvertent -- nobody thought to tell people to stop doing things the way they'd always done them because that would break the router. So they did them the old way, and the router broke every hour. Yes, it's user error, but it seems to be of the sort that the programmer should expect and at least warn against. The "It's a perfect system, as long as people are perfect" approach seems to be a real problem.
There are other logic flaws -- or maybe it's conceptual flaws -- in the programmers' approach, and I really don't know how to point them out. For example, the stories that appear in the newspaper differ from the stories in their original Word files because the editors make a lot of changes on the Quark document (the version I work with). Because the internet groups pull the Word files to put on the net, there have been discrepancies between print and net versions. Therefore, the internet groups want the editors to make all changes to the Word document alone. No changes to the Quark, as that won't make its way to the net. The solution that seems obvious to those of us in prepress -- pull the text from the final version of the Quark document -- is rejected out of hand. It seems like they're making heaps more changes and more work for the editors when there's an easier solution. (Plus, I'm worried that the guidelines I had for laying out pages, which will be relayed at the same time as these changes, will get ignored in the editors' response to this malarkey.)
How do you point out to someone that his or her program may work fine, but the basic concept and perception of our work process is flawed?
I'll be up in Maine this weekend, being a total geek. With any luck, I'll have scrawled on three chapters' worth of work and be able to plow through some more when I get back.
