Last week the internet radio site I listen to was blocked at work. I know we can debate whether I have ANY reason or right for listening to streaming audio, but I was very bummed. I listen to drown out my co-workers. My workspace is on a quiet floor and when the idio...my fellow workers start up their three hour conversations about the best cheesecake they ever ate, my choices are to either stick my fingers in my ears and say lalalalalalala, which would make it tough to type, or turn up the metal. I bought a great radio, but I couldn't get good reception and the local radio sucks anyway. I thought of getting XM, but the selection seems limited.* I could bring in CDs, but I like hearing music I don't own. When I first started I was recording CDs at home, and dumping the songs onto my work computer, but I've gotten two new computers since then. I mean, this seems one of the reasons the internet was created. You want to listen to calypso or Georgian chants or the backstreet boys all day long? Trust me, some place has it.
I have an alternate site, which I switched to. The blocked site was very broad, many broadcasters so I'm assuming it wasn't blocked just because of me. The alternate site is only one stream, so hopefully they won't block it.
*Anyone have digital cable? The selections for me are too general. You listen to 80s music channel, you get some good songs, some you say 'wow I haven't thought about that song in a long time', but you also get a lot of 'please shut it off, I never want to hear that song again, ever!' songs. When XM came out, I stood in circuit city, programmed a receiver for six presets that I liked, then stood there for an hour listening, switching channels to see what the stations were playing. There were many, many minutes that went by where I couldn't find anything to listen to. Yes I have no life.
Anyway this week I found out my long awaited promotion/raise, and the many, many, months of backpay, was not going to happen. My immediate bosses were very mad on my behalf, but they can't do anything more. It was squashed by an HR department that has no idea what our department does. They think mainframe programmers aren't important, yet the mainframe systems handles all the data and the PCs systems piggy-back off of them. I've worked on systems that control billions of dollars, effect millions of people, yet I don't have enough responsibility to justify the promotion. I have a few options left, but I feel beat down by the system. I had the chance to switch departments, which would have gotten me the promotion, but I choose to stay out of loyalty and I like what I'm doing. Hindsight is 20/20, but this sucks. I mean, I took a pay cut to start this job, expecting I would get a raise quickly.
One good thing about work: fixing mistakes made by others.** I was modifying a program and it was obvious the original writer took a lot of shortcuts. My modifications were separate from the original program, but I knew they wouldn't be compatible. When I showed these problems to a boss, I was told the current program runs fine and has ran fine for years, whatever I did must be the problem. This is the third time I was told this (on three different programs) and every time it turned out I was right, the original program wasn't as perfect as they thought. After working that nut for two days, I was able to get the original program to fail. When I showed two other bosses the failure, they both said, 'Oh, we've seen that problem but didn't know what was causing it." So I was in a happy mood until I got home.
**I'm not saying I look for problems on purpose, but I like to think any program can be bulletproof and compact. I guess it's my background in PLCs and assembly. I didn't have the luxury of loose code. If there was something I did twice in a program, I would count lines to see if I'd save program space by using a subroutine and weigh that against runtime. So when I work on other peoples' programs, first I have to see what they did to know where I have to make changes or fit my code. And some (most) of these programs seem to have no logic to them. They get the job done, but I wonder if the writer really knew how.
I took a quick bike ride today, only going 15 miles. On the way back I got a flat. Then it started raining. A quick ride turned into two hours. So much for my good mood.
And the cable is out. But I have satellite TV. What's that? Doesn't cable TV advertise that Satellite Tv doesn't work when it rains? HAHAHAHAHA, F***Y** comcast.
Kevin T. - VRWC
Can't wait for Friday (now). Not much to do at work, sunshine for a bike ride after work, no second job tomorrow night, and seeing my cousins' band play blues at the local microbrew.
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