I'm actually too tired to write. This has, to my knowledge, never actually happened. I've been too irritated to write (I'm sorta there as it is). I've been to sad to write. But I've written until I nodded off; I just don't get too tired to write. But this was a tiresome (not necessarily tiring) day. I just felt the need to bitch.
We had an exercise today. Of course, yesterday afternoon at about four thirty, right at the end of the day, the guys who run the deployment process at the base (I run it in my squadron) sent an email informing me that they had added about 40 lines to a program called LOGMOD that I had to assign personnel to, as part of a project we've had since early January and which had to be completed by the end of the day today. 40 lines in LOGMOD takes, conservatively, about an hour and twenty minutes. It's a slow outdated program, like most of the programs the Air Force uses.
I hate LOGMOD. I had already done the earlier part of the project. I figured, if they're going to basically double the project, the day before it's due, they'd at least extend the due date.
Nope.
Okay, so today I had to do this project, had to do it. I get in the car to be in by 0730, get to the base, and realize I don't have my wallet. So I have to turn around and come back home, get my wallet, and drive all the way back. I get to work by 0840. The exercise is due to start at 0900. I get maybe three names put in LOGMOD before we're told we have to "Shelter in Place." This means run to a room in the middle of the building and sit there. And not work.
I brought a magazine. We got out of the Shelter just after 10. Everybody had to move their cars away from the building as part of our "exercise threat level," so I had to open the flightline gate (one of the more glamourous parts of my job) and check IDs as people I work with every day drove their cars through to park on the flightline (our parking lot is too close to the building). Yaay! Just as we were wrapping that up and I was ready to get back to work--at this project that had to be done today--it was announced that we were supposed to still be in the Shelter. Somebody had messed up. Back to the shelter. I finished most of the magazine. We finally got out of the shelter just after noon. I finally got back into my office, grabbed my sandwich, took one bite, and loaded up LOGMOD. And then...
Then we receieved an evacuation order. It's now 1220. We had to evacuate the building. Our evacuation location was across the flightline, so off we went in a convoy of privately owned vehicles (which are NOT supposed to be on the flightline in the first place) to the Deployed Unit Center, back in the woods. There, we discovered that there were NO computers that could patch into the base network, so I wasn't the only person who couldn't work. We stood around talking for a while. Most people hadn't eaten anything yet. Tempers were wearing thin.
Around one, we found a stash of DVDs, including the original Star Wars. We put that in and watched it. The whole damn thing. We didn't get out of that thing until after 1500. Still, nobody had eaten (except me! Being cheap has its advantages; 70% of my coworkers go out to eat four or five days a week).
I ran to the office and, with the Weeds soundtrack as my guide, managed to finish my task by the official close of business, 1630 (that's four-thirty. Many people work later than that, but it's the official COB for convenience. Half the base leaves by 1530 so it's not really that great anyway). Then I went to the gym. It was packed (this is why I like to go at 1430 instead).
I got back in the car at 1738. There was a message on the office phone. Problems with the deployer, which surely must have emanated from my office since, as far as the deployment folks are concerned, I'm the only person in the 91st. So I ended up staying at work until after six.
Ah. Well. I feel better now. It's good to get that off my chest. Tomorrow will surely be a better day.
3 comments:
Man that sucks. I hate when things happen like that. I remember one Fall when we were getting slammed by our first big network worm. I came in at 0745 to start work. We were slammed removing viruses from laptops all day. I ate lunch while working on 3. I think that was the day I learned to use the touch pads on 2 computers at once; one on my left hand and on the right. Someone asked me how I was doing that and I told them to shut up while I was concentrating. I think I was cross eyed when I finished. Anyway, some of the machines in the smart classrooms were hit and incapacitated. The person in charge of the machines said he wasn’t going to fix them since they were older machines. I had done similar work on machines there and my boss asked if I could get them going. I said I could but it would take hours to get going and I didn’t think it was worth it. It wasn’t my job. Plus I assumed someone would bitch to a higher up the next day and the classroom machines would get fixed by force. I was overridden. So I left work at 2100 after having been there all day, had supper, and went back at 2200 to begin work on the machines. James came with me to help and answer e-mails. I worked until 0330 at which point I had one computer working and was copying the setup to the other machines. Network traffic from the virus made that exceptionally slow, so I went home. I was back at work again at 0730. Before 0930 it was determined that the person who was supposed to fix the machines would in fact do that. All of my work was for nothing. James and I left with Cris at 1500. We went to Hooters and had lunch. Then I went home and took a 3 hour nap. 70+ hour weeks suck, especially when that doesn’t include Saturday or Sunday.
Ah bitching does feel nice.
Gee, Smitty, you make the military sound so glamorous. Why on earth are they having a recruiting problem?
What kills me is for all the stupidity of yesterday, it was an exercise. If it was all for something real, okay. No complaints. But for an exercise, I have to ask: did they need us to stay cooped up in that room for three hours with a potty break? C'mon, one of the people in there is 8 months pregnant. You don't make her sit anywhere for 3 hours with bathroom access, that's just cruel.
And was it necessary to go straight from cooped-up-in-a-room to evacuated-across-the-base without even a half hour for people to at least grab a sandwich or even some snacks out of the machine? No, it wasn't. When we do an exercise, we're checking to see if our process for sheltering or evacuating works. We're not checking to see how long a pregnant woman can hold her bladder or how long we can make people go without eating for no good reason (and they get mean when they don't eat)? No.
Still, I may not have made the military sound glamorous, but Joel didn't do much for the world of IT either.
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