Logan & Amy’s Blog

How you know when your boss has the potential to be a PHB. E-mail I got today at Wells.

From:
PHB

To:
Development Team

Subject:
Who is supposed to be sending the daily Graphs of Delinquency?

Body:
I have not seen any in days?

What’s interesting that this same manager had a programmer take a daily screenshot, yes Alt PrtScrn, and e-mail it to some upper managers. The programmer who was responsible for this mundane and archaic task went on vacation, which was approved by the above sender.

Sigh…

P.S. Never send me an e-mail with the body in the subject; it will be marked as spam. Also this is an excellent candidate for some automation (alt PrtScrn thing).
P.S.S. Sorry if I sound cynical, I know I only have 4 more days!

The winds of change appear to be very active my life. After 8 months of tenure with Wells Fargo I have submitted my resignation and my last day will be December 28th. Starting as of the first of the year I will be working as a Perl programmer for a sexy marketing company in the Pearl district of Portland. The company, PCD Group, offers an array of services for a repertoire of Fortune 100 companies. I will be on a team of 4 other programmers and will be responsible for not just Perl development but making sure the company continues to be very versed in the latest web technologies. I finally feel like a real Portlander and joining the local workforce downtown.

To say the least I am very excited about this new opportunity and am honestly very happy to leave the confines of corporate America. The timing of this opportunity couldn’t be any better. It comes at the apex of my rapidly deteriorating psychological well being. Without snubbing Wells too much, I’m very thankful that I had a job the last 8 months, I mean hey, it paid the bills. The job also enabled me to venture to Portland, and also most of my team members in my group are extremely intelligent a joy to work with, and will honestly miss them. It really is the system that corporate Wells represents that I felt a great amount of oppression under, and moving to a more freer agile environment will be a great relief, one that cultivates creativity.

I really despise e-mails like this, especially when you work in the epitome of dilbertland.

“Hello! I will be your team captain for all of the activities we have
planned for August. I’ve tried to come meet all of you, I know I have
missed a couple people.

Please remember that we have the luxury of extra casual days on: 8/1,
8/2, 8/8 is Hawaiian shirt day, 8/9, 8/15, 8/16 & 8/23. We can wear
shorts and flip flops on these added casual days but tank tops are not
allowed. I hate to be a nag but we wouldn’t want this luxury in August
to be taken away. We also need to make sure that shorts and skirts are
past your longest finger as you stand with your arms straight down.

Some of the fun activities planned are coconut bowling, hoola hoop and
mini golf. I will need 2-3 volunteers for each one, please let me know
what activity you would be interested in so I have an idea. This is not
mandatory, you don’t have to participate if you don’t want.

I’ll be in touch with you all on 8/1!”

Please, haven’t these people seen Office Space??

I don’t like coldfusion. Top reasons include the following:

1. Server must be rebooted at least once a day.
2. It’s an easy scripting language to learn, and a great one to develop really bad habits.
3. It’s proprietary.
4. I despise the cfscript tag, simply because it’s a half ass attempt to look like php/javascript. (Not really sure why it was created.)
5. I despise the cfquery tag, simply because it’s a half ass attempt at SQL and it’s not even SQL-92 compliant. Really what’s the point of a query within a query if you can’t utilize case, multiple inner joins, and left outer join statements.
6. There is no way to make a cfquery tag work within cfscript, hence what’s the point of cfscript (see #4).
7. Syntactically ugly.

Ok, can only think of seven right now…Disclaimer: Reason #1 may not be entirely accurate. It depends really how many large queries are being ran against the server. Also the “quad-xeon” server is running IIS.

Essentially, the metaphorical box of clutter, my(our) life, has been tossed and shook up. Here is a brief synopsis of the happenings, and I promise more details are coming very soon.

I no longer work for Plexis, yes, you heard correctly. I took a job for Wells Fargo as an Operations Analyst 3 (whatever that means), and now have a daily commute from Portland to Beaverton. Yes, I have moved to Portland, the cradle of all that is keen and fancy. And yes, Amy and I are still together. However, Amy is still in Medford (temporarily…) .

After the hellish and emotional move, Amy and I packed our bags and left for central Europe. Visited Austria, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic; oh and Caleb too (my brother).

Anyways, to dispel any rumors that our blog was dead, simply not true. We’re back and are writing with a fury!

Dobredien!

Prepare for a nursey venting session in…3….2….1….. 

If any one of you has ever worked the night shift, you know what I’m talking about.  There’s a reason it’s called “graveyard” - because that’s where you feel like you belong after working a week of it.  You feel dead to the world of the living, otherwise known as the day shift.  We constantly envy these fortunate souls who have a set routine that makes their circadian rhythms  just thrive.  To them, at least the timing of their daily lives seems to make sense.  It’s taken for granted, even, if one doesn’t know any differently.  (I try not to hold it against them.)  On night shift, you sleep during the day before you work to prepare for your shift, and you sleep the day after you work to recuperate.  It adds a day onto your workweek simply to switch back to a somewhat normal lifestyle.  It can become depressing due to the lack of human contact, especially when your days off consist of staying up late into the night.  You miss out on the sunlight that would raise your serotonin levels and improve your mood.    You feel constantly exhausted, regardless of how much you’ve slept.  The rest of the world tends to wonder what your problem is.  It seems as though most of us night-shifters can fall asleep anywhere.  (But for those of you who know me well, this was true of me before I ever worked nights!)

Since I’m risking sounding like a huge complainer, I’d better keep some perspective here.  The positive side is that night shift does pay better, and it tends to have great teamwork and a slightly less hectic pace due to less ringing phones and visitors.  And in a hospital setting, someone has to take care of the patients at night.  It is kind of satisfying to tuck them in and watch them (hopefully) sleep peacefully.  Plus, “I work the night shift” is a great excuse for most anything!

However, in spite of these meager benefits, it is my conjecture that the research community will continue to find reasons why night shift shortens your lifespan, increases your risk for health problems, and is a compelling reason why PMS in night-shift females is much worse.  Do I hear an “amen” out there?

I do try to take responsibility for my own decisions, especially when I’m venting in a public forum.  And while I am obviously unhappily working nights, I admit I chose it because I had a higher priority: I wanted to gain experience in this critical care area.  I have found that I love this area, and I never could have handled days at the start of this job.  Now that I’ve gained some experience, I never give up hope that a day shift position will magically appear under my radar.  In the meantime, it’s great blogging material.

For some interesting articles on the night shift dilemma, check out these sites:

Night Shift Survival Tips (Emergency Nursing World)

http://www.enw.org/NightShift.htm

Scientists have made great strides in figuring out how the body regulates the sleep cycle

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6214314/site/newsweek/

In the Dark: Night-shift workers can feel isolated, hostile — and just plain tired