Caraig's Journal

Has it really been almost four years? At the time I bemoaned my being back in desktop support. I thought I was going nowhere, it wasn't really what I wanted to do.

Then something happened. About a year later, there was an opening in the server group. I got taken on half-time with them. And I did okay. Maybe not great, but I made a decent junior sysadmin.

Today that ended. My yearly performance review said 'needs growth.' I didn't do so well, obviously. And I got put back in the desktop support group.

On the one hand, I guess I was asking for it. I'd mentioned several times that I didn't want to do the split-time thing anymore, it was becoming distracting and hard to juggle two different and often competing schedules. Did it have a factor in my being dropped from the server group? I don't know. Maybe. Does it matter anymore?

In a way I'm kind of glad that this split-time thing is over. And working in CRC will be a lot less stressful -- no more on-call hours, no more being responsible for servers that can bring down the campus, no more having to struggle to determine priorities. It's not a crime to be found wanting, nor a dishonor or disgrace. We should all be so lucky as to find our limits.

I don't know. I'm screaming into the void here, aren't I? I've not kept up with Dreamwidth or LiveJournal for four years, after all. Everyone I was used to communicating with there moved on to other pastures.

I keep telling myself -- just as my server group manager told me -- that I still have a future at Stanford. And I don't think he was just saying that. But a part of me is seeing this as the start of the big downward spiral. It happened in the Coast Guard, it happened at Routledge, it happened in Apple, and... well, those are the only jobs I really had any longevity in.

Back in November I celebrated five years at Stanford. That's the longest I've ever worked for anyone since graduating college. What a mess I've made of my life. It's still salvageable, to some extent. But it'll never be what it could have been.

"Soon the world will know the wrath of the LORD OF GOATS!

...

I may have to work on the title a bit."

Summoner's Journal, Diablo III

Okay, didn't work the first time... let's try this....

"The hull has been breached and all the SCIENCE is leaking out!"

Random civilian aboard a soon-to-be-ex-science colony,
Space Pirates and Zombies (and Bounty Hunters)

"So, what do you expect me to do, exactly? Go undercover as a cleaning droid?"
"No, no, nothing like that. Although… no, nevermind."

Agent and Cy Krolo, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Hi, all,

As some of you are aware, there's oddness going on in LJ-land. Apparently the developers have their own vision of what should happen, and to heck with the users. Apparently, too, for this week you can get a free account at Dreamwidth without an invite code. So even though I haven't posted much here (and what I have posted tends to be whiny) I'm also going to maintain a Dreamwidth account for the time being.

If any of you have Dreamwidth accounts yourselves, please let me know! I'd like to follow you there as well. =)

"[Before entering the simulator] you will be given... dummy grenades. Use a live grenade and I turn off every safety feature in this simulator."

Tech Officer Ochren, Mass Effect

Many of you whom I know, and many more whom I do not, are reasonable, responsible drivers. You take care of the vehicle you operate, or ensure that the owner does; you drive sanely; you have no delusions about what it means to share the road with a million other people driving half-ton metal kinetic kill weapons. This letter is not for you.

Some owners out there, however, do NOT take care of their vehicle. They put off maintenance, even simple crap like oil changes. And then they wonder why everyone on the goddamn highway is glaring at them, fit to commit ocular murder, when they are sitting in their Econoline in the middle lane, trying to get it started after it stalled on them. Worse yet, these operators may not be the owners, and so they are getting a thousand tiny glaring needles of haaaaaaate when it's not their fault that the owner of the vehicle decided to skimp on maintenance.

Attention owners of commercial vehicles: I have had quite enough of seeing your vehicles stalled in the middle of the highway during rush hour. Please stop putting your drivers -- or yourselves -- into situations where half of I-280 South wants your vehicle disintegrated into a trillion flaming bits.

There are other owners out there, who, like the rest of us, want to go home quite badly. The realities of today's urban sprawls mean we all have to share the same stretches of asphalt, however. Your vehicle is not the Popemobile. It is not running with lights and sirens, it is not the Chariot of the Gods, it is not the goddamn Batmobile. It is, in fact, much like any other car on the road: Half a ton of metal and plastic whose body is just as delicate as any other vehicle's.

Attention asshats: Stop driving like you own the road and you will stop having accidents that make all traffic on I-280 go at 5 miles per hour, for ten miles behind you. Your fellow drivers will thank you. Your employer will thank you. Your spouse/significant other/children/therapist/dog/cat/bonsai tree will thank you. Your body shop might not thank you, but they will be pleased to know that you aren't trying to kill yourself or your fellow commuters, and for that they will thank you. And now I shall:

Thank you.