Journal for Researcher176378 My Day At Work...
(Dec 23, 2004)
So, today is the first day I've been to work at the college all by myself. All ready for a relatively un-eventful day...hell was *I* wrong!!! Came in this morning and got jumped on 3 times before I even made it through the front door. "Computers aren't working", "System is down", "Computers won't log on", etc. then twice more on my way up to the office, dumped my stuff, verified that indeed - logging on was not possible then went up to the server room. Walked in, and … …silence… The only sound to be heard was that of a single UPS screaming away in the corner… No server lights, No lights on the switches No lights on the UPS units (apart from the one that was screaming) No fans No nothing… It was like the bunker in Jurassic Park. All I had was the strip lights on the ceiling. Nothing computerised was on, nor would turn on, and I was the only one in… So, keeping entirely calm and composed, I thought... HOLY S**T! F**K! I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO? WHERE'S THE FUSE BOX? PHONE ESTATES! ESTATES AREN'T IN! S**T! WHAT DO I DO? HOW DO I DO IT? S**T F**K B******S! A**ES! Anyways - after I started breathing again - I phoned my manager, who has been on leave since Tuesday, and would no doubt be enjoying a lie in (and it turned out that he was!) He was surprisingly understanding about it all (he's a really top bloke). He managed to direct me to the mains trip switches, which I then switched back on, and then everything came back to life -like in Jurassic Park when Dr. Sattler pumps the big grey handle 3 times then hits the big red button… …or rather - everything apart from the vital stuff… So after the UPSs had had chance to charge up a bit, the domain controllers etc. came back on, and then I had to log everything back on, and fill in the unplanned shutdown reports that Windows Server 2003 require - and eventually managed to reboot everything again, in the correct order this time, log it all back on, and the college now is back working again!!! (or rather 95% of it) Manager phoned and asked for a progress report, and seemed pleasantly surprised. Anything still off will be fixed when we all get back on the 4th Jan. It was a lot of panicking, educated guess-work, and rebooting, but in the end, I managed to get the college back up and working for the admin/finance staff who were still in. Well chuffed.  Click here to discuss this (2 replies, Latest reply: Jan 18, 2005) Promotion for Xmas... (Dec 20, 2004) Well...Had the last meeting of the year withn the Star Trek group, and got promoted...to Ensign (Senior Grade) from Ensign (Junior Grade).  Click here to discuss this ( 1 reply, Latest reply: Dec 20, 2004) I'm a Bridge Officer... (Nov 29, 2004) I officially have BO!!! BO - being a reference to the Bridge Officer's examination, which I passed with 87% The pass mark is only 75%, but it takes a month to take the exam because it's pages and pages long!It's an exam written by the Captain of my Star Trek group - to qualify people to take command of the ship and away teams. I've only been in the group for 18 months, and I'm only 19 - so I'm pretty chuffed. Took my first away-team on Saturday as a result. Great fun - it went pretty well. Had to write a report on it afterwards - it's currently up to 2 pages! Let's just hope that the Captain also thought it went well... Click here to discuss this ( 1 reply, Latest reply: Nov 29, 2004) LAN Party.. (Nov 29, 2004) I've been invited to a LAN party by some of the guys at work.  Most cool!!!  Very excited about this.Click here to discuss this (11 replies, Latest reply: Nov 30, 2004) London Film and ComiCon... (Nov 8, 2004) Went up to London Film and ComiCon with the Star Trek group I'm with...the U.S.S. Pharaoh... I met Captain William T. Riker (Jonathan Frakes) yesterday - and he's a brilliant bloke. Lots of fun. Got signed photo and pic taken with him, and we even got a group shot  Hoping to meet Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and T'Pol (Jolene Blalock) next May (IIRC) and Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in February. Oh yeah...oh yeah... :D Click here to discuss this (2 replies, Latest reply: Nov 8, 2004) Greenhouse Nerd... (Oct 11, 2004) After a month of hard work, sharp knives, plastic, metal and ridiculously poor instructions... ...we have finally finished building my friend's greenhouse! Click here to discuss this (4 replies, Latest reply: Oct 12, 2004) Sci-Fi and Sickness... (Oct 4, 2004) I met Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner and Walter Koenig yesterday. I had (and still have) a stinking cold.Got some wicked photos though. When I get them off my friends cameras, I will stick them up on my website. Click here to discuss this (5 replies, Latest reply: Oct 5, 2004) Tentatively... (Sep 29, 2004) Right...I'm back. Needless to say - things have improved a lot in my life. E-mails heading out soon to two people (providing I can find the addresses again!). Let's see how it goes...  Click here to discuss this (10 replies, Latest reply: Nov 19, 2004) Most scaryness!!! (Jul 28, 2003) Most freakishly cool jobness going on!!! I'm 'unofficially' working at least 10 hours a day at my new job, apart from the actual official 14 hours over the weekend, and still keeping my job at WHSmith going during my afternoon break from the Gaming centre job. So, I started there 2½ weeks ago, but had to take a week off around Summer School happening, leaving me having practically worked there for 1½ weeks. Now I have my own security code, keys, am cashing up, and tomorrow morning, I'm opening up, and running the place for an hour by myself in the morning!!! I must have made one hell of an impression!!! Also - on Saturday I had my performance review at WHSmith. It kinda went like this... Strengths: Lifson is always on time or early Lifson knows how to do every job in store and is very flexible Lifson works hard and without complaint Lifson has a great raport with the customers Lifson works quickly and efficiently Lifson is very flexible in accomodating extra working hours Lifson was a massive help in the christmas replenishmentDevelopment Areas: Lifson needs to extend the raport she has with the customers, to her co-workers, as (and I quote) they're all scared s**tless of her.Aparently, the thoughts I have about the various nasty ways of killing the lazy morons who chat to each other about the telly while I'm fighting to clear a queue of 20-odd customers, come across in my mannerisms, and they are all terrified of me! I'm told I tend to be rather short and abrupt with them. My boss said that even *he's* scared of me a fair bit the time!!! My boss worte it very nicely on the form. Something along the lines of "Lifson needs to extend the raport she has with the customers, to her co-workers and extend herself as a knowledge resource." I'm a till-monkey for heaven's sake, not an encyclopedia!!! I can see his point, but I don't like fools, and I can't abide lazy people, and I'm stuck with a bunch of lazy fools, who can't be bothered to do their jobs, and haven't got the brain to make decisions on their own. Now I've got to be nice to them. Oh well. So the WHSmith boss is very happy with me, as long as I'm nice to my co-workers (I said I would be, and tried hard for the rest of the day) and my new boss is so confident in me that I could pretty much take over if I wanted too!!! Most cool! Working life seems to be working out quite well for me!!! Click here to discuss this (5 replies, Latest reply: Jul 29, 2003) <whisper> (Jun 2, 2003) The time is 00:34, and I'm in my room, writing this on my new laptop - Helios. Icarus b0rked y'see, and the company were a pain, so I got a different one from another company. Anyway - the reason I'm whispering, is because it's late at night, and not only am I not supposed to be on the Internet, I'm also not supposed to hook the laptop up to the phone at all, and I'm on my Mum's Freeserve account, which, surprise surprise, I'm also not supposed to use. So shhhhhh. Helios' specs?  Athlon XP 2400+ (1.8 GHz) with PowerNow and all that Jazz 512 DDR RAM 40Gb Hard-Drive CD-RW(24x)/DVD-ROM Combo Drive USB 2, Firewire, IrDA, TV-Out, etc... Ethernet, 56k Modem (as if you hadn't guessed!), 15" screen ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 Graphics Card (64Mb) Windows XP Home (gak! THAT's coming off!) Lots of extra little gadgets which plug in in various placesSo he's a bit shiny!!! All very nice. Took him in to college today to show a few people. Very impressed. Wasn't as expensive as you'd expect either (even though it was at the absolute top end of my budget!) Anyways - I'd better be signing off now, before my Mum notices. Click here to discuss this (6 replies, Latest reply: Jun 3, 2003) Darn... (Apr 5, 2003) Why do I keep doing such stupid things. I am constantly trying to find things I've lost by running a "search" on my house!!! I'm not even at a computer when I do this. I stand up, and try to enter the search into some kind of invisible computer, hit the invisible "enter" key and actually expect something to appear in my field of vision that tells me where it is and how many instances it found!!! The problem is that untill nothing happens, I have done this entirely automatically AND EXPECT IT TO WORK!!!! Some of the other things I've tried to:  copy and paste text out of a (hard-copy) book in to a Word document using my finger - and tried again when it didn't work the first time. transfer a file to another computer by sticking my finger in the floppy drive - only realising that it wouldn't work when it came up with "No Disk in A:\" use my finger as a mouse use my Palm m515 stylus to write with use my Palm pilot to turn my Minidisk player downand many other equally stupid things. Problem is that I get so frustrated when it doesn't work!!!  Click here to discuss this ( 1 reply, Latest reply: Apr 5, 2003) Ouch ouch ouch... (Mar 18, 2003) For the past 2 or 3 months, my shouders and arms have been hurting. Went to the doctor about a week ago, and he says that it's a result of me playing the bass Trombone too much, and not stretching enough. So I've started doing the stretches, and resting it, and I've barely played at all apart from a run of 3 shows I couldn't drop at the last minute. So why are my arms still getting worse. Yesterday I didn't go on the Law trip because they hurt so much, and today, I took the painkillers and spent all morning throwing up because you're not supposed to take Ibuprofen for more than 2 weeks, and I had them for about 2 months. I haven't had any for a fortnight, but the cumulative effect still seems to be there. So do I take the pain or the painkillers? I dunno. I just wish it would all go away.  Click here to discuss this (2 replies, Latest reply: Mar 19, 2003) Uh Oh... (Feb 10, 2003) I've just got into "Hero Mode" again. For those who don't know - "Hero Mode" is where I'm willing to go all out, work hard, kick ass and do anything else necessary to get the job done - particularly when the job is something near futile!!! It's a long story. Eeesh! Click here to discuss this (5 replies, Latest reply: Feb 13, 2003) h2g2 Winter Meet 2003! (Jan 31, 2003) It's about time I got around to writing up my fun at the meet - so here goes! Okay - got to Victoria a bit later than I expected. Rushed to meet Increase Mathers at Waterloo - arrived late. Wandered around a bit finding lunch and heading to Somerset House. When we arrived, we were about 20 min early. However - I recognised Pastey from last year, and so I knew we were in the right place, and at the right entrance (Somerset House has 3!). After a while others started turning up, and at around 14:00, Abi arrived. Tube arrived with Naark within about a minute of us moving inside the courtyard of the place, with a six-pack of salt and vinegar crisps strapped to each side of his backpack! "Lunch" he claimed, but I'm sure they were still there when I left at 21:15!!! He then proceeded to blow up a largeish inflatable axe. He remembered what my Mum had said the previous year about everyone on the 'Net being axe murderers, and so had brought this along to prove it! I proceeded to get more and more people to sign my  , and gave my spare orange to a reasearcher who didn't have a at all. My good deed for the day methinks! Due to the lack of hard places to lean on outside - most of the signing went on in the pubs, however it did prove to be a nice 'ice-breaker'!I went with Mina, Tube, Naark, Increase Mathers etc. to go play games in the "Shakespere's Head" where we met those who had gone to the  Trek exhibition (and narrowly missed the Central Line derailment!!!) first. Shazz had bought a vibrating squeeking Tribble - fantastic!!!So after watching a few warm-up rounds of "Snap!", we moved on to a Nostalgia trivia quiz, for which I volunteered to be Quizmaster. It was quite fun, and everyone seemd to have a fair idea of the answers but me! (Having been born in '85' proabably didn't help!) Blues  won this with quite a margin, despite late entries from Ripper T.A and Galaxy Babe being worked out in proportion to the rest.Afterwards, the "Abi's Tour" group caught up, and possibly the other group did too (if there was another one in the end - I dunno) and we all had a bit of a socialise in there for a bit, before moving on to the other pub. It was during this time that I met many new researchers, got them to sign my , and wrote DoctorMO's name on his forehead with my blue permanent( ) marker (in my very best handwriting of course)!!! He'd got no name-badge you see... It was also in this first pub that I (foolishly!) poked Mina with my  , which ended up with her grabbing it off me, and spanking me with it. Whether this is an embrassment or a privilige, I haven't really decided yet!The evening meet was in the "Pendrells Oak", which was quite a nice place, and had a bit more room to move than last year's place. Also there as a buffet-type thing, which was very nice. Mark Moxon turned up!  How hoopy is that? The man himself reappeared from his latest trek (or mission to avoid the peach bathroom  ) to turn up for the evening meet. Great guy. He too signed my meet . Great to see you again Mark! Peta also appeared (dispite having gone to the DNAHub, and therefore not officially being an h2g2 person any more!) and signed the . Thanks again Peta for getting my parents to let me come last year - no parents this year!!! You're a !In the Quiz, we came joint second to last, with 2 other teams, with a score of 15 (apparently). We were team "Eenie Meenie Miney Know". We were originally called (quite appropriately) "I Don't Know", but after we'd adopted DoctorMo's skillful method of determining which answer we were going to mark, we thought that "Eenie Meenie Miney Know" might be more appropriate!!! As I headed off, I left the in the capable hands of DoctorMO (now only with traces of his name left on his head!) and Tube very kindly gave me the inflatable axe to show my Mum. When I got it home, Mum gave me a very odd look - but now the axe is sitting, pride of place, in front of the Spiderman cut-out in my room! Thanks Tube!I also notice that many researchers have commented on my rather brightly coloured hat! Thanks guys - glad you liked it, I do!!! For my meet photos, including those of my meet - go to www.fractalplanet.co.uk, enter the site and use the password box. The UserID and password for the meet pics are:UserID: h2g2 Password: dna Have Fun! Lifson Kofie Click here to discuss this (No replies) Please...no more holidays...please... (Jan 5, 2003) I hate holidays. College is closed, so I can't even get out to be there, and the only way I'm allowed out the house, is to get loads of hours at work (hard work at Christmas). When I am at home, I'm not allowed to get on with the ton of coursework I've got to do, but have to do pointless, unnessercery chores instead. So I don't tend to enjoy holidays. However, this holiday has been worst than most. You know that feeling you get when you've just been horrendously let down and disappointed? That feeling as if you've been kicked in the stomach and want to be sick? Maybe feeling like that is an over-reaction, but it aches all the same. Firstly. I spotted my dream laptop. It does everything I want and more, and, most crucially, it's affordable. It even had £100 off in the pre-christmas sale. I could get a finance deal on it, which meant that I would have to pay an extra ~£25 in interest, but it was cool, because I'd have it all paid by Easter, if I got my £500 premium bonds back, and I would still be saving £75. There were 4 of these things left in the country, and they could hold one for me for just 2 days. All I needed was for my Mum to sign the finance deal (as I am still under 18) and it would be sorted. We talked it over. She let me think that I had a really good chance of getting it. I was really excited. I was going to have a laptop at last! An *hour* before the store had to sell it. Bang. "We're not letting you waste your money on something that'll be obsolete in a month." It wasn't going to be obsolete. I was going to get it all set up in time for Uni in September. It was 4 times as powerful as the desktop machine they bought me (with my money, and without consulting me) from Tesco just over two years ago. Then she hung up the phone, and hovering half-way between tears and fury, I had to go back on the till to work. They've now sold out, and my dream is no more. Ouch. That's not the end though. They won't even let me have the £500 back - for anything. It's *my* £500 premium bonds, in *my* name, paid for with *my* compensation money from when *I* got whacked in the head by some student with a coffee mug and *I* had to sit in the hospital for 5 hours waiting to get the big hole in *my* eyebrow to get sewn up. Problem is - my parents hold the paperwork, and without the bond certificate, I can't get the money back. It's apparently in the alarmed safe at my Dad's house. Out of reach. By the way - I have now reported the ATM card stolen, so hopefully they'll send me a new one. Fortunately, she doesn't know my PIN code. My darling Incease Mathers has been home over the Christmas holiday. I've been allowed to see him I think 4 or 5 times in 2 weeks. I was grudgingly allowed to see him on our second anniversary (Jan 3rd), by which time my Mum had also pinched my ATM card (Ouch), so I have no access to any money. He has just gone back (lunchtime Jan 5th), and they mucked me about so much yesterday and today with 'maybe's and 'not now's, that I didn't get chance to see him to say goodbye. Ouch. I had to phone him, minutes before he left. I now don't get to see him for weeks. Depending on whether they khybosh my attendance at the meet or not, possibly a couple of months. I miss him so much already. Ouch. Over the last few days, I have realised a lot of things. My parents insist on giving me lifts everywhere, so now they know where all my friends live. They took an interest in which Uni's they all went to. Mum insists on posting my letters for me when they go out work. So they also know exactly where IM's student house is. I now have very little access to my own bank account, and no access to my other money. I can not go out without permission, and even if I did, they would know where to find me. I have no rights, no privacy, and no escape. Ouch. I turn 18 in 135 days time. And in around 270 days, I will be leaving for Uni. Unless of course, as they seem to be hinting, they plan to khybosh that too. Ideas on a postcard please. I'm going crazy in here. 270 days is a long time for a 17½ year old... Click here to discuss this (7 replies, Latest reply: Jan 24, 2003) Nooooooooooooooo! (Dec 13, 2002) For the past 18 hours I've been walking up and down swearing. It's true. My college is merging with the one next-door, which merged with another one a year ago. This will mean that the past 19 months working my backside off getting our Students' Union straight, including the entire summer holidays I spent writing the Constitution (even the 4 days I was on tour in Belgium!), and all the work I've done looking into having a seperate Students' Union bank account means... ...nothing. 'cause we're going to have to abide by /their/ constitution and use /their/ bank account, and get into the same great mess that their joint union is in. The last 19 sleepless months of my life has suddenly gone from driving things forward and being the doer on the team, to being entirely pointless. I'm not entirely sure how to react to that. Click here to discuss this (7 replies, Latest reply: Dec 13, 2002) Agggggggggggggggh! (Nov 12, 2002) Too...much...stress!!! Click here to discuss this (13 replies, Latest reply: Nov 18, 2002) Don't look at me I'm cursed... (Nov 8, 2002) Friend #3 this year has now passed away, and I have 2 terminally ill ones. It's not Nov 8th. Only 53 more days to go this year - surely there can't be any more? Click here to discuss this (9 replies, Latest reply: Nov 20, 2002) My Meet Status - Latest Update: (Oct 23, 2002) The word is "probably" - so for now, boolean going = "yes"; Click here to discuss this (25 replies, Latest reply: Nov 9, 2002) Not again, and again, and again... (Oct 22, 2002) Why can't my parents just be nice for once. Yesterday we had our first Students' Union charity day, and as we're all off around Halloween, we thought we'd give it a Halloween theme. I even got in early and got myself painted up like a corpse and carved the pumpkins. It all went very well and we raised about £100. During the day - I also managed to book our venue for the next event - a big collaboration "Battle Of The Bands" thing between ourselves and two rival colleges, who I've managed to get talking. So what went wrong? Starts when I get home: "And you walked around college like that? No wonder people must think you're weird!" (Even most the staff were dressed up!!!) "You're not leaving that pumpkin there to just rot - throw it away" (Not, did you carve that Lifson? Not bad.) "Still wasting your time with the /Union/ are you? You'll never get antwhere unless you start doing some proper hard work." (I already have my place at Uni - I'm on my Gap Year)Why can't they say "Well done", or "Nice job", or "That's good"? Why - a couple of months ago at the est concert of my life did they just say "It wasn't bad - but you should have played some better known pieces"? It wasn't my choice! I am but one person in an Orchestra of 70 and we're not going to just play the "classics" all the time, or no-one would hear anything else!!! Why - when ¾ of the college are younger than me - am I not allowed to go to the college party by my parents because I'm "too young". Why - when they lent my younger brother £400 over a year for a computer he didn't need (I *gave* him another £300 from some compensation money) will they not lend me £550 for 2 months? Is it just me? Am I going mad? Or are they really being quite unreasonable? Click here to discuss this (10 replies, Latest reply: Nov 12, 2002) Woohoohoo!!! (Sep 16, 2002) I'm on a Photography field trip right now...only I'm not, because I'm in the Towers!!! Mega ! I've skived off from an Art Exhibition, and I'm actually sitting at Abi's desk (which is tidier than mine will ever be!), in the office, eating one of Natalie's lollies, sat next to Mina, and generally having a wicked time seeing all the behind the scenes bit!!!  Also - for any visiting Thingites, I have presented them with the gold <spork! Thanks guys! I keep saying that these guys aren't appreciated enough Click here to discuss this (2 replies, Latest reply: Sep 17, 2002) | ||