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Stardate: 20190209.11h04 | |
Location: SBUX | |
Input Device: Gemini PDA + Fellowes Folding Stowaway USB | |
Keyboard | |
Software: nano | |
Audio: SBUX Muzak | |
Visual: Shared Community Table | |
Energy: 75% +10% coffee boost | |
Mental: 80% +10% coffee boost | |
Emotional state: Comfortable, no worries. | |
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NOTE: This entry is an expression of my need to be | |
right...without burning bridges or causing collateral damage. | |
<work rant> | |
Many times I feel like I am ignored intentionally from the | |
people that I help out and by upper management. Sometimes no | |
thank yous or feedback whatsoever. They'll only give kudos | |
to their own "team" even though we are all on the same team. | |
I notice it. Does it bother me? Sometimes. | |
Some of the troubleshooting I do sometimes goes beyond the | |
scope of what we typically do on my team and I provide the | |
resolution to the problem right away. The problem | |
eventually gets resolved, but only after my solution is | |
quickly dismissed, time is wasted on troubleshooting and | |
we revisit my original solution. Afterwards, | |
the whole thing is ignored...not so much ignored, rather, the | |
fix is not talked about, especially since the fix is outside | |
of my responsibilities and my assumed skill set. My job title | |
is basically application support. My skill set encompasses | |
much more. | |
I encountered this again for the nth time and it seems to | |
keep happening. For example, before I left for training at | |
the end of last month, the Oracle database test server for | |
one of our critical applications was not responsive. | |
The affected department reached out to me, I confirmed the | |
issue, and I reached out to our DBA Team who checked it and | |
said that there was something wrong with the server. The | |
server team checked as well and decided to do a reboot. | |
When the system came back up, the file system was mounted and | |
the database was connected. When the users tried to | |
connect with the application, they received an error stating | |
that the database was on the wrong version. We had | |
upgraded the application a few months previously. Shortly | |
after, another related department called up stating that they | |
were receiving a similar error from another test application | |
that ran on the same Oracle server. When I heard this, I had | |
a suspicion that they mounted the wrong database. The DBA | |
Team was adamant that there was only 1 database. The Linux | |
guy said that there were no other volumes to mount. At this | |
point, the day was pretty much done. That was on a Thursday. | |
On Friday, I had a comp day. In the morning, I sent an email | |
to my team (application support) informing them of the issue | |
and had them open up a ticket with the vendor, especially | |
since they outsourced support over to India (ugh) and it | |
would take some time to get the ball rolling. | |
They finally got the right resources on board to troubleshoot | |
the following week. I was away at training and did not get | |
involved. I was back in the office that Friday and the issue | |
was still outstanding. They were at the point of cutting the | |
test environment over to the new Oracle cluster, which had | |
the lastest application versions, but was a copy from a few | |
months ago. I talked to the DBA and he was on the defensive. | |
I basically had to put my foot down and told him to hear me | |
out and that I was not expecting him to fix this. I told him | |
that I have a feeling that the wrong volume was mounted and | |
that we should revisit this. I had him check timestamps on | |
the file system for the database server. He did and found a | |
big discrepancy. The date in the log files jumped from April | |
of last year to February of this year. He saw that this was | |
definitely the wrong file system. He contacted the Server | |
Team and we did a screen sharing session to correct the | |
problem. | |
I had a feeling that the mount points got mixed up with all | |
of the storage migration work they had been doing. Also, when | |
the server was rebooted, it seems as if the running config | |
prior to reboot was not saved in fstab. I have run across | |
similar situations previously with Ciscos and *NIX. I had | |
mentioned this to the Linux guy, but he could not seem to | |
grasp the concept and kept referring to the existing fstab. | |
After all was said and done, the Server Team did not want to | |
acknowledge the error or even say thank you. That team is | |
always like that. It used to bother me quite a bit...these | |
days, I still notice it, but try not to be affected or put | |
much energy into it. Maybe it bugs me because I am like that | |
to some extent. I do know how to say thank you and admit | |
that I am wrong these days. Not so much before...back when | |
the ego dominated my modus operandi. I guess that people do | |
not like to be challenged in that way. I know I didn't...and | |
don't to some degree these days. Maybe they think it makes | |
them feel stupid and their insecurities show. I used to be | |
that way quite a bit...and it takes a lot of internal work to | |
get past those insecurities...maybe to the point of even a | |
paradigm shift. Sometimes you can't or don't have the right | |
tools to move forward and you get stuck. If you are able to | |
learn how to deal with those insecurities, I think that they | |
don't ever totally go away, rather, you work past them, you | |
heal, and are left with scars to remember how things were. | |
And you take that experience and try to be a little more kind | |
and have a little more compassion and understanding for | |
those people struggling who are just like you. They are you. | |
They are me. | |
Here is a fragment of expression of what I just wrote in song. | |
I call this "UMOUNT01." [1] | |
</work rant> | |
[1] UMOUNT01 | |
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