Bottleneck.

Among other responsibilities Miles is in charge of scheduling. All dates, seats booked, etc. have to be confirmed by him before they can be confirmed to our customers. Having the availability of rooms, trainers, and euipment double-checked is a good thing, when done in a timely fashion. Lately (for the last few months actually) Miles’ responses haven’t been very timely, though, so this procedure has become a nuisance.

Now Miles is scheduled to go on a two week vacation. This may have two benefits… a) he might be fitter upon his return to work or b) the confirmations might processed quicker while he’s away and the entire might be turned over to his sub.

I’ll be his sub. I don’t yet know which option I prefer.

Let’s grab a quick bite to eat.

Secretgeek has co-workers who take rather lengthy lunch breaks. I have a client where they do the very same. Very annoying. The other day a meeting got shifted from 12pm to 2:30pm and several staff left for lunch immediately (i.e. 11:30am), not to return before 1:30pm. Worst thing of all, I somehow ended up going with them, in one of their cars, thinking they meant quick when they said, “let’s grab a quick bite to eat.” Well was I fooled. And I shall be social nevermore.

Roger.

I have given new guy a name. Around here he’s Roger, now. He’s good. And he’s forgiving.

I don’t quite know what to say. #5

So we hired another new guy. And we’re still looking for more. Luckily I am not Marcus, or this would turn away good candidates for sure:

Poor new guy was locked in on his first day today. I had the rare opportunity to free him when I dropped by the office tonight, unplanned. I don’t yet know who left him alone, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I raised my voice in front of that person on next encounter.

Oh and I didn’t bother give new guy a name or put him on the cast list; wouldn’t be surprised if I never saw him again, either.

AC/DC.

It’s o so hard to connect the right power adaptors to the right devices. Somebody (and I can’t tell who) has connected an AC adaptor to a device that needs DC. The adaptor melted, literally. Luckily the device itself “survived”, and nobody got hurt, and there wasn’t enough heat to start a fire. – Now why do manuals always always always say that you’re supposed to use only certain adaptors… ah, so people who read manuals… well, you get the idea. – One more thing: this must have happened several weeks back, so why didn’t anybody notice that the device in question didn’t function properly? One does wonder.

I can do magic.

Rick: “Marcus, you know all those magic tricks… can you help me with my computer?”

Me: “Why, what’s the matter?”

Rick: “I have this software I need to use to record a short speech sample. It says my microphone isn’t calibrated.”

Me: “Well, have you calibrated the microphone?”

Rick: “Yes. There is a window that says microphone calibration every time I start the software.”

Me: “Alright, let’s see…”

And I saw that indeed there is a dialog titled “microphone calibration”. It reads:

You must calibrate the microphone before recording a speech sample. Click “Calibrate microphone” to calibrate the microphone now or click “Finish” to calibrate the microphone later.

The dialog defaults to “Finish”. Guess which button Rick had chosen. Reading dialogs is for noobs.