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Somebody’s got a case of the Mondays
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 06/23/08 at 05:06:15 amI can’t say I haven’t fantasized about doing this, I like how the guy goes absolutely insane.
Dammit Wednesday: Get it done.
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 06/11/08 at 09:06:00 pmWhat a week. I’ve been completely disconnected from most everything to ensure I’m getting stuff done at work. After going on almost 2 years of pushing the need for a new company website I have gotten a full green light on the project. The new website is something I want to work on but because we need it online in such a short amount of time I’ve essentially spent every free moment coding and designing the company’s brand new web presence. Even as I’m typing this on my bed, at 10:45 PM, with my hands falling asleep — I’m flipping back and forth between Word, Photoshop, FTP, and the bombing of IMs I’m getting from the people I haven’t spoke to in a week.
So my work related rant this Dammit Wednesday is projects and their tendency to consume life.
Dammit Wednesday: Your Compliance Is Required
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 05/14/08 at 12:05:40 pm
Is it too much to ask for compliance from our tools? Shouldn’t they work the way they were designed and advertised to work? It’s one thing to be overloaded with things to do but even with the stresses of being overwhelmed aside, when you have the tools (in my case software) to work on a project you should be able to eventually get it done, provided the application works as well as you do.
My day job is in an environment where we often times need to get information very quickly and we need to do things quickly so we can move on to the next task, when stuff is slow or isn’t working it can be very frustrating. Last week was a perfect example of a simple issue causing a ripple effect through our everyday workload. We’re currently in the process of changing partners for our VoIP telephone service and part of that process is getting our existing software integrated with the new system. As of this past winter our billing software is fully integrated with our provisioning system, when a change is made in the billing system it is instantly reflected in the provisioning system eliminating the need for double entry. Last week that synchronization broke and it took a couple days of troubleshooting just to find the problem and a few more days of intermittent BS before everything was back to normal. Ironically the problem was related to the new changes that were done in preparation of the VoIP provider switch.
Where is this rant going? Well if all of our tools magically worked the way they should without a hitch our lives could be so much easier, and uncomprehendable amounts of time would be saved. But unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world. The truth is, often times these software glitches end up being some Monday detail that was missed when the system was created or put in place. Which means because someone didn’t do their job or guaranteed something that isn’t there the end user gets to pay the consequences.
Sure, mistakes are made. But spending additional time installing expensive SNMP cards because every other one is bad, or getting excited about a new feature in an application only to find that it doesn’t work, or experiencing repetitive downtime with a leading web host to the point where they don’t bother apologizing for my inconveniences anymore – it’s all starting to get on my nerves.
Productivity Tip: Grilling At Work (Morale Boosters)
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 05/09/08 at 12:05:41 pm
I haven’t come up with a good productivity tip in a while but I think this one is important. I mentioned grilling at work in the title but it could be any fun thing that you can do to help break up the time at your day job.
Now that Spring has finally hit Minnesota I had purchased a cheap $10 charcoal grill at Wal-Mart. We have this nice cement patio area out back with picnic tables and everything and it’s never used by any of the businesses in our complex. Up until recently we have only used it for storing e-waste and cardboard boxes that we need to get rid of. Over the last few weeks we have been randomly picking days where we will bring in some brats or burgers and our lunch hour will be spent firing up the grill and cooking them to deliciousness.
The best part about grilling at work is you get a level of freedom that makes you feel at home. It’s the same reason that I sometimes walk around in my socks at work and I have a growing collection of desk toys that I can play with, not because I want to just slack off but because I’m in the office for 9+ hours a day and if it were a more strict environment I wouldn’t be able to stand the monotony. I think that alone plays a big part in why I job hopped so much when I was younger, I’ll get bored or I’ll stop liking or even caring about my job and I want to move on to something else. My tasks here are just as stressful if not more then any other place I’ve ever worked at but because of the relaxed environment I’ve been with this company for almost 2 years and I’m just as content with coming into work today as I was when I started.
Some companies will have morale boosters set up for their staff; they will do drawings or have little random perks that will get people excited about doing their work. With my company it’s a little different, everyone has their own work load and we’re so busy that if we want that sort of thing we need to create it ourselves. The sad part is I think there are plenty of other people that are in the same situation and they are too afraid to pin a colorful poster on the wall let alone launch a screaming monkey at a coworker. The point is morale boosters can make all the difference.
Dammit Wednesday: Being Sick at Work.
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/09/08 at 11:04:48 amI’m normally fairly healthy when it comes to illnesses, in a typical year I might get a nasty cold once or twice maybe a stomach bug every once in a while but overall I wouldn’t be considered a sickly person. Right now I’m working on getting over my 3rd cold in about 60 days. The symptoms are essentially the same each time, minor throat irritation in the morning and nasal congestion throughout the day. Naturally, I’m just sick enough to disrupt things at work but I’m not showing any out-of-the-ordinary symptoms that warrant real concern. Some people say it’s just this elusive ‘bug’ that’s going around; others are blaming it on our never-ending 7 month winter. Either way, it sucks.
Being sick at work always sucks, especially being sick with a ‘bug’ that refuses to go away. Like most people, when I’m sick I really don’t want to do anything which means my overall productivity in the workplace is poorer then it could be. In the end I just have more work to do when I’m not sick because I need to get caught up. Also, it’s a pain when you have to talk a lot when you’re sick especially with nasal congestion. It seems like I’m constantly on the phone and people can always tell when I’m sick, they point it out almost immediately. I’m not sure what tips them off either; perhaps it’s when I answer the phone with “Good Afternoon, This is Bark.”
I think we can all agree that having to endure a few days at the workplace with a nasty cold is the worst.
Are we earning enough?
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/04/08 at 10:04:37 amJust a little disclaimer, I don’t mean for this entry to be focused around my job personally. I just so happen to work in the industry that this topic is about.
Every year the big research companies and IT firms will release an annual salary report for the various positions within the industry. While I was at the Microsoft Launch event on Tuesday one of the partner booths I visited was for Robert Half Technology and the item they were giving out to attendees was their 2008 IT salary guide. Another company that recently released salary information is Global Knowledge who is a leader in corporate IT training. Global Knowledge in partnership with TechRepublic recently conducted polls and compiled data to create what they are calling the ‘2008 IT Skills and Salary Report’. While this report can act as a useful comparison tool its main purpose is to show the necessary educational backgrounds needed in today’s market along with an overview of the industry’s history and projections of future growth in the different areas of IT. I would be lying if I didn’t say that it’s actually pretty interesting and the best part is the 2008 IT Salary Survey from Global Knowledge is it’s completely free to download.
Information Technology is different because it is such a dynamic industry so it’s understandable why these annual guides are needed. Every aspect of the market is constantly changing and it’s hard to gauge how much the assets are really worth to their respective companies without a good comparison tool.
Looks like I’ll be going after all.
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 03/25/08 at 08:03:13 pm
I recently blogged about the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Launch Tour and the limited seating the events have this year. I was bummed that it was showing all of the spots as taken or ‘sold out’ for Minneapolis on the tour website and I didn’t think I’d be attending this event, I guess I thought wrong. I randomly checked the website today and to my surprise I had the ability to register for my city but only for a select number of tracks. The track system is essentially the set of workshops and breakout sessions that the attendee prefers but if you manage to get into the event in the first place you’re really free to attend any of the workshops you want. I immediately filled out my registration as a partner and I will be attending the launch event a week from today at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
Aside from the Keynote and loitering in the sponsors pavilion some of the workshops I hope to sit in on include – ‘What’s new in Windows Server 2008‘, ‘Reach End-Users with Next Generation Web Applications’ and ‘Securing your IT Infrastructure with Windows Server 2008’. I’ll try to take some pictures while I’m down there and I’m sure I’ll have plenty to write about.
Health Insurance: Throwing my money away.
Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 03/21/08 at 08:03:48 pm
My big challenge lately has been minimizing my expenses. With the value of my hard earned money dropping near exponentially and the prices of everything around me skyrocketing, I (like many others) feel the need to make sacrifices and cutbacks to keep my budget in check. I figured out that one of my biggest expenses is insurance, my required full coverage vehicle insurance and medical insurance combined costs $363.00 each and every month, that’s essentially 23% of my money being blown on an unused service.
Granted, the health insurance plan that my work is on happens to be one of the best that Medica has to offer but even good insurance shouldn’t cost someone this much. From the research and comparisons that I’ve done for a reasonably healthy person that rarely visits the doctor a $203 premium is just unacceptable. Keep in mind that in reality the actual rate is double what I pay and my employer covers half.
The insurance through my work goes up every year and this year is no exception. The company did consider other slightly more cost effective plans but decided to stick with the current ‘Medica Choice Select’ program. However, I realized that just because my work decided to keep their existing health benefits unchanged I do have other options. In fact I found that if I get a plan through the insurance company directly I can get similar out-of-pocket pricing compared to the other plans the company was considering which gets me thinking - Is it really the consumer that’s being ripped off? Or the small business?
Had I been born just a few hours North of here in Canada! I could be getting all of this for free. It’s irritating, but it also shows the medical coverage crisis our country is going through and the control the insurance companies have over the situation. I could just not have medical coverage altogether but I have no doubt that as soon as I’d drop it something horrible (and horribly expensive) would happen to me. It would have to be ironic too, like getting run over by an ambulance.
I shopped around and I found that by law it doesn’t matter which reseller I went though, my premium would be the same because the rates are actually filed with the state’s Department of Insurance. With that in mind I decided to go through Esurance which is the same company that does my car insurance, because Esurance doesn’t actually sell health insurance they refer customers to ehealthinsurance.com which in turn resells plans for all of the big companies like Health Partners, Medica, Blue Cross/Blue Shield etc. The plan that I picked out is actually one of the programs my work was considering and that’s a Health Savings Account (HSA). Apparently high deductible HSAs have become popular over the years as they offer more flexibility to the consumer’s needs. The premium is low and you have the option of paying towards the deductible out-of-pocket or through a dedicated savings account designed for the service. The money in the tax-deductible savings account can also be used for dental work and over the counter medications. I crunched the numbers and initially I would only be saving maybe $30-40 monthly over my work’s insurance plan but the ability to use the saved money for dental is a big plus and over time I have the potential of saving much more depending on how much I actually end up visiting the clinic.
The online application process I had to go through was easily the longest insurance application I have ever filled out. That includes the initial health insurance paperwork that I completed for the plan through my work which just so happens to be the same insurance company. The website knew I was already an existing Medica customer right away and yet they had me perform an online medical exam in the form of a billion questions, I feel violated. Now that the application is submitted I get to wait 3-4 weeks for approval.
So there’s my rant of the week, health insurance and its ability to crush dreams of buying things that I can actually use.
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