The Monday after a holiday, most people are already dreading it and hope to ease back into work. I had no such luxury. Here’s a breakdown of my hectic day that had me running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off. I barely had time to take a breath much less have that breath mixed with noxious cigarette smoke.
8:20 AM: Of course, a barrage of emails full of things to do.
Apparently one of our servers became unresponsive over the weekend and slowly ground to halt. Of course nobody was happy about that and were looking for an explanation.
8:30 AM: Before I could even begin to start tracking down the problem with our unresponsive server, I got blindsided – apparently we hired a new employee that nobody ever mentioned to me and I had to rush to find a spare computer, and set them up on the network, etc.
8:45 AM: Now we’re playing musical offices. The new employee was going to be using employee “B’s” office, so employee “B” was going to move to employee “A’s” office, which of course meant employee “A” moved to another office. So instead of setting up 1 office, I got to setup 3.
9:00 AM: While I’m waiting for the employee’s to clean up their areas and get ready to move, I had to finish setting up a new computer that arrived late last week for another employee.
9:15 AM: I get phone calls from another client looking to implement a portion of their website into some other product they had purchased and I know nothing about. Of course this was time sensitive as a meeting had been planned for 9:30 AM and they wanted me to have it done by then.
9:30 AM: I barely make the deadline, get the file sent off and go back to transferring files, settings, and installing applications to the new machine I had started setting up for an employee.
9:50 AM: While I’m waiting for everything to transfer over, I get started on getting another computer ready for the new employee. I also start unhooking some of the other computers getting them ready to move to different offices.
10:15 AM: I’ve gotten one of the employees moved. I go back start transferring more files from another employees old machine to their new machine. While waiting for the transfer to finish, I go and check to see if I have any more calls or emails – yup, sure do. I have to make some adjustments to the file I sent off earlier while the client is still in their meeting.
10:30 AM: I’ve sent off the revised file and have tracked down the cause of our unresponsive server problem and start documenting the sequence of events to be passed along via email to the required people. I get a phone call from another client pissed off and frantic, wanting me to cut off access to another client, do all kinds of crazy shit, and provide options on how best for them to proceed to achieve their goals.
11:00 AM: I finally get an old computer setup for the new employee and get that hooked up in her new office. I finish setting her up on the network and walk her through logging in, email, printers, shared files, etc.
11:20 AM: I’m now off to finish moving another employee to her new office, hook everything up and viola! There’s nothing on the monitor and it’s as if the monitor is receiving no information from the computer. I try another monitor. Nothing. Now I have to take her machine back to the server for some tests.
11:45 AM: I figure out that the video card decided to die during the short move, now I’m rummaging through really old equipment looking for a graphics card I can gut from a machine to replace the fried one. I finally find one and get it put in – test it, and finally it works. I get the computer back in the office, get it all hooked up and move on.
12:10 PM: I decide I deserve at least 3 minutes to hotbox a cigarette like I’m in the high school bathroom and rush back in.
12:13 PM: I check to see if the transfer of data has been complete, nope – there’s more there than I thought! Talk about a pack rat, there’s stuff from the 90’s in here.
12:30 PM: I finally get the new machine all setup, everything transferred, and now I’m unhooking the old machine, and getting the new machine all setup in the office.
12:45 PM: DNS servers need a reboot, exchange is slowing down, and 5 different employees have questions about various applications and what not.
1:00 PM: Most everyone is eating lunch. I finish some odds and ends on the various office moves and new/old computer setups. I finish messing with DNS and exchange and decide I need to take a lunch break.
1:30 PM: After cleaning out their offices, I have a box full of crap I need to sort through and put away. Screw drivers, cordless headsets, wireless cards, and various other crap. My boss comes in asking about the phones and if I can change the extension numbers since everyone has moved offices. Mind you, I know next to nothing about the phone systems – I don’t work for AT&T. But I try anyway.
2:00 PM: Another phone call, the last file I sent for a client still doesn’t work because the company they purchased their product from sucks balls, and their documentation was written in English by a 5 year old that only speaks Hindu. I make some adjustments to the file and send it back off to the client and await a response. In the meantime, I catch up on installing more crap software on yet another machine – this time running Vista. Oh yes, you can imagine the joys.
3:00 PM: Holy shit, I’m ready to explode. I’ve gone in a million different directions so far today and it’s not over. I need a cigarette.
3:05 PM: I try to calm down an irritated client and explain to them and my boss that I’m only one person and cannot do everything all at once – even though I seem to have done that today. I give some quick options on possibilities to achieve the clients goals and get my boss to communicate all this with his friend (one of our clients).
3:45 PM: I finally get a chance to sit in my office for more than 10-15 minutes and do some of the work I was originally hired to do. I start translating some shoddy designs (in PDF no less) into code for the web. So basically that means I’m doing all the design and just get some general direction from someone that clearly has no idea how to design for the web. Maybe not even print, I don’t know. All I know is I can’t seem to get the proper materials delivered no matter how many times I ask and decide to just stop talking to them and do it myself.
4:15 PM: I decide to just start coding and finish up the designs along the way. I want to get something done today and have something to show for it other than dirty clothes and a headache. I get some basics setup and coded and boom.
4:30 PM: It’s time to leave. I stay an extra 5 minutes and decide I’ve done more today than most of my co-workers will do in 2 weeks. I’m going home.