For the last few weeks we have been doing out of hours training. Even
though it is out of hours i didn’t mind initially but then it turns
out it is on team viewer and hosted by a russian guy called Albert. I
keep wanting to call him Boris, is that racist? It feels like it is.
Even them, I was ok with coming because I scored a couch to sit on and
get paid to sleep. Sounds like a good deal right? I could be doing
more interesting things at home though. The only thing I’ve remembered
is the use of the word ‘gate’.
Albert really isn’t selling me on this new system. I’m really
appreciating WHMCS right now.
Jun 202011
Oh my, it has been an age since I’ve been able to sit in front of a computer and just relax. The only reason I’m doing it right now is that one of my tools has decided to stop working and I can’t work for the second but I’m hoping it comes back soon. I was on a roll!
March was hectic, although it was mainly just work, food, sleep and repeat.
At work we have a leaderboard system and every month the top 3 people on the leaderboard (for that month) get a bonus. This month I strived for 1000 points (each call I take is worth 1 point and each ticket I resolve is 1 point) and… I got it! My highest point was 1031 which was a record for the company. So, they arranged a little surprise for me. I got my bonus ($300, yeah!) and also received a $200 voucher for a massage place called Orchid Essence. TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS! I’ve never, ever had a professional massage before so this is going to be awesome and I might get a thing or two waxed while I’m there… probably just my eyebrows.
And that wasn’t all. I also got a little gift basket of chocolates from my team leader for my effort. So, needless to say I’m feeling pretty good about work right now. For the first time in, well, ever I actually feel appreciated at my work place. Last month 4 managers (at separate times) told me how much they love my work and and happy I’m in the company. It was all kinds of awesome. I’ve never had a CEO tell me I rock before!
I think they were building me up for next week though. One person resigned and his last day was today and another guy went MIA this week. Seriously, incommunicado! It is the strangest thing, they have tried multiple ways of contacting him (including calling his Mum) and nothing. Oh, and did I mention they made a whole team redundant and gave us their work! It is all kinds of scary.
Speaking of the guy that resigned. We had his farewell drinks yesterday afternoon and it was actually really great, I was kind of dreading it – given that most the people I work with are complete nerds – and I had a couple of drinks which is a first in I don’t know how many months. Granted, it may not have been the smartest thing considering I started work at Midnight and had a 12 hour shift but whatever, I’ll get over it.
In between all the chaos I’ve been trying to catch up on some reading but Cleopatra: A Life kind of bogged me down. One hard read. Glad I experienced it, but glad it is over.
Now, it is working again! Back to work.
And that will only be hilarious to people that have seen the IT Crowd. Best. episode. ever.
But back to the actual point. I was cruising along at work on my last 12 hr shift (midnight to midday) and decided I’d like something to eat. It was about 3:30am which seem as good a time as any but it wasn’t to be because as I was about to do it the fire alarm went off! Fortunately, my security pass has the instructions on what to do in this case. Although, I think they were the instructions for business hours not weekends at 3am. So I sit and wonder if it will turn off or if the beep, beep, beep will continue forever. It didn’t, it became the scary wooop, wooop of “get the hell out! We’re on fire!” and then a strange english man recording came on the PA and told me to calmly evacuate and go to the designated evacuation point.
So I calmly packed my stuff and walked out but didn’t know where the evacuation point was. I was told it is actually a block away! There was no way I was walking down there at 3:30am. So I waited outside for the fire brigade to come and fortunately, our technically minded people had been working down at the data centre (about 5mins drive away from the office) and had just finished up when this all occurred. So they also turned up and kept me company as the firemen went through and pretended to inspect the building.
I say pretend because they didn’t actually have full access to the building, including the floor they believed the issue to be on! They also didn’t talk to us or tell us what was going on. The simply, turned the alarm off and left. We assumed it was safe to enter. Which, 6hrs later, it appears it was.
I will say, that I was afraid to turn the sandwich press on for fear of sparking the smoke detectors and having the issue happen again. Stupid? Sure, but you never know.
Jan 292011
At my work we don’t get a lot of discounts or cost price offers – I was, I’ll admit, hoping for really cheap domain names but it wasn’t to be – however, something we DO get is a few free hosting accounts to play with.
I have a reseller Plesk plan – something which I’d never heard of, let alone used before working there. For any hosts in ‘this’ community. Is there a reason that everyone uses cPanel instead of Plesk? – and I host someone on it! It was one of the first accounts I’ve set up and it was a bit scary.
So, that being said, you should all go visit Brooke and commend her for using Plesk 
It was actually an awesome endeavour for Brooke and I. Brooke was stuck on Byethost who was having all sorts of issues so in a split second decision I said “You’re coming with me!” and before she could say no I provided her with her control panel and FTP details 
and then, this is where the magic happens, without actually being able to see anything on the site I was able to upload WordPress but (oh no!) I couldn’t install it. Never fear though! Brooke was able to update her Hosts file (which, if you’ve never heard of before and would love to be able to work on your site on a new server and make sure it works before updating your nameservers, you should google) but I wasn’t able too… Windows 7 doesn’t like letting people change it and I talked her through the install and then abracadabra! It all worked
Is that the success of the title? Well, it is only one of them! Well, the other freebie we get is a VPS!! Yesterday, mine was provisioned and it is finally working (I had a heap of problems on the first platform they gave me, so they bumped me up to a vmware VPS instead) and… AND! Lazily is now coming to you from it.
I used the WHM migration tool and it worked first time and properly! YAY, success! (there you go)
Not only that, but I made some cool nameservers for myself:
ns1.my-ns.info
ns2.my-ns.info
Coolest ever right?
Dec 072010
On my last post it was mentioned how people generally wouldn’t want to do the graveyard shift in an office by themselves because it is scary. Overall, I’ve really liked this shift and kind of like that there is no one else in the office at the same time as me. It is peaceful and I don’t have to worry about who will bother me today. All in all, bliss. Well, except today… 3hrs in and I am fading already… only 5 hours to go!
So, I am able to get a bus in on this shift and the strange thing I have noticed is that my local bus has had middle aged women driving it each night. Now, I will happily walk the 20mins home at 12:30am in the dark and I will also wait at the bus interchange at 10:50pm waiting on my bus but I’m not sure I would be willing to drive a bus around the suburbs near my house without someone else around. It is strange to me that the bus company puts women on these routes at this time without any support. I wonder how much they think about it everytime they make a stop. What are the odds that this person may be the one to pull a knife or threaten them?
Heres hoping they never know the answer to that question.
The Locals