Apple Foot

Overdue

It's been a great year in Boston sports. Maybe this is the year the Boston Crusaders finish on top of DCI?

Transitional State

Because of the whole merger "process", our corporate web site is currently in a "transitional state", which is to say that no one's happy with it. The person who had been running it wrote everything in FrontPage; the site had no style sheet, no semantic markup, and a host of other issues. My boss decided to move the site as-is to a new host with a CMS. Trouble is, since there is no style sheet, no semantic markup, etc., the CMS is much more cumbersome to use. So the other staffer longs for FrontPage, and I long to blow the whole site away and start from scratch.  Which doesn't even touch issues like the navigation scheme, or the power struggle between staff factions (by which I mean, me and the staff person who used to run everything in FrontPage).

Oh, and management has hired a graphic design firm to do "really neat stuff", which likely means that the struggle between form and function will tip heavily toward form. So a complete redesign is in the offing, meaning the godforsaken current site will only exist another couple of months. I had told my boss that porting the site to the CMS was making a silk purse of a sow's ear, but she insisted. Now I'm waiting for her to realize that we've gained no value from the move. Also, it's a couple thousand dollars we didn't need to spend.

I feel really sick about the whole fiasco, and I've got lots of other fiascos to deal with right now.

Help Desk

User description of problem:  "My internet's all messed up."

Actual issue: the "use Word as editor" setting in Outlook had been toggled off.

Cancelling RCN

Many, many years ago, I subscribed to a dial-up account at a small, local Internet Service Provider. After a few years, that small provider was absorbed into RCN. I kept the RCN dial-up account for several years. In November I got DSL from Verizon (not, I should point out, because I have even a sliver of love for Verizon). I hung onto the RCN account for a couple months to make sure I was getting all my email, etc. A couple months turned into six months, because I am a loser. Yesterday I finally called RCN to cancel my account.

I worked my way through the usual long phone tree, eventually finding an option that specifically said it was for "canceling dial-up service". Of course, at large, soulless corporations like Verizon and RCN, the number you press on the phone tree does not actually route your call any differently than pressing any other number. It's a useless exercise designed to keep you busy so you won't notice how long it's taking to get a representative on the phone.

So I choose the "cancel dial-up account" option and get "Brian", who makes me give him my home phone number, address, reason for calling, reason for canceling, etc. Then he announces that he can't cancel the account, and he'll have to transfer me to Billing. After 15 minutes on hold, the Billing guy makes me answer all the same questions again, then informs me that Billing doesn't do any cancellations at all, and he's going to have to transfer me to a dial-up technician. At which point I tell him to whom I've spoken already, and point out that this sort of poor customer experience is precisely the reason I'm running from RCN. In transferring me to the dial-up tech, our man in Billing disconnects me.

I go back to the toll free number, work my way through the phone tree, and am sent back to a customer service rep, who makes me give her my phone number, street address, reason for calling, etc. Then she announces that she can't cancel my account, and she'll have to transfer me to Billing. So I tell her my whole customer experience so far today, emphasizing the fact that someone in Billing has already told me that their department absolutely cannot assist me.

Now suddenly she can handle this herself without transferring me any further. This takes several minutes, during which I repeatedly wonder if I've been disconnected again, due to the static on the line and the lack of a speaking voice.

It took almost 45 minutes and considerable aggravation to close an account costing me $21.95 per month. I can't tell you how often I thought, "It might be worth it just to keep paying them," but I'm convinced that their nefarious plan includes making things so difficult that I will do just that, continuing to pay them for the convenience of not having to deal with them.

Employment

I can no longer put it off (although, as evidenced by the existence of this post, I'm trying). Tonight I must apply for my job.

Thanks to the recent merger, everyone in the organization is being asked to re-apply for their jobs. I have not updated my resume in more than five years. Technically, all I have to do is fill out a very basic one page application form, but I'm pretty embarrassed that I don't have a resume to attach, so I'm punishing myself right now, trying to work one up.

It's pretty much a sure thing that I'll be hired for the position, so in a way it's low stress, but I'm making it more stressful on myself. And my head is killing me.

Thoroughbred racing

On Friday, Racing Hall of Fame trainer Frank Whiteley, Jr., died. Whiteley's most famous horse is probably Ruffian, so it seemed appropriate that Saturday's Derby featured a filly (the first in nine years to enter racing's premier three-year-old event) that seemed to capture the hearts and imaginations of many. Souvenir stands sold out of Eight Belles supporter buttons while they still had plenty on hand for other contenders. The filly obliged with a good race and showed placed behind a strong Big Brown.

And that's when the reminder of Whiteley's horse turned horribly specific. While Ruffian, despite her heartbreaking efforts (link includes interview with Whiteley and footage of the match) to run on three legs, never finished the great match race, Eight Belles crossed the wire and was galloping out before she broke down.

Some early commentators questioned whether it was fair to run a filly with colts. These were followed by animal cruelty questions, questions about track surface (a hot topic right now in racing), and finally questions about the industry's breeding practices.

When I was going through my adolescent "horse-y" phase, I followed thoroughbred racing more closely than I do now. A thoroughbred race is a beautiful thing--they're gorgeous animals, with great big hearts, lots of determination. Unfortunately, racing lore is full of gallant horses that tragically broke down.

It's always seemed weird to me that humans take so much credit for the work of horses--trainers and owners lifting the trophy and being honored while the horse goes back to the barn. That contrast was especially evident yesterday, when humans took a lot of credit for Big Brown's win while not taking much responsibility for Eight Belles' death. That's probably not fair of me to say, pending autopsy, but I think as much as I love thoroughbred racing, it's worth asking what place racing has in our modern world.

Recently Misinterpreted

What the database record said: "High Plain Elementary [School]"

What I read: "High Pain Elementary"

Which is silly, since everyone knows that "high pain" is junior high.

New excuse: time crunch

My phone service was restored almost two weeks ago. Turned out the wire outside the building (but past Verizon's demarc) was all broken up and pulled away from the house. Verizon didn't charge me, since it was outside the building and I'd already had them in telling me the problem was fixed, but he could have. This last guy was pleasant, professional, and fixed the problem, all of which was an excellent start to my Saturday.

So now we're back to me not posting for my own reasons. It comes to this: I am utterly crazed at work. We're going through the merger process, which means a lot of merging systems, databases, networks, etc., and there aren't enough IT people to keep all the plates spinning. It's been very difficult to keep up with longer term projects because we have a lot of fires to put out. I keep thinking I'm getting too old for this. I don't know how I would get through if I weren't sleeping so much better than I was last year.

Hello

Just so you know, this latest long blog silence is not the usual kind of long silence, where I can't even come up with anything uninteresting to post. No, this long silence is because my phone service (and therefore my DSL) is hosed. I'm posting this from-- well, not from home.

You may remember I have a history with Verizon. The current outage stretches back several weeks (during most of that time I had my DSL, but not phone service, so I didn't really care), due to a combination of typical Verizon service standards, my neuroses (basically, after an unsuccessful service call, I got so frustrated I couldn't call them to come back), and my heavy work schedule (I already spent one morning sitting around waiting for the service guy, I can't kill another half day this way). So I'm not sure when I'll actually get the problem fixed, although I'm becoming sufficiently aggravated that I will soon work up the energy to call Verizon again.

MBCR: All The Wonderful You've Come To Expect

On Tuesdays, I get on the Stoughton line. I catch the train at 5:20PM at Back Bay, and by 5:32 I'm supposed to be stepping off at Hyde Park.

Tonight I got on the train and, by the time we hit Ruggles, the conductor had announced that due to an emergency ahead of us, we would be traveling slowly. Somewhere just shy of Hyde Park, the conductor announced that due to a medical emergency at Canton Junction, ours was the last train outbound for Stoughton that night, and that our train would either disembark all passengers at Hyde Park for transfer to shuttle buses, or return to South Station to meet up with buses. After twenty minutes or so in a tunnel near Hyde Park (so I couldn't call the person meeting me there to let her know what was going on), the conductor announced that the train would be going back to South Station (no stops at Ruggles or Back Bay) as soon as the driver got back to the car at the other end of the train. Several minutes later, the conductor announced we'd be returning to South Station after a brake test. Several minutes after that, we were moving, and the conductor announced that we would, after all, be stopping at Ruggles and Back Bay (much rejoicing as those of us looking for Orange Line connections thought we'd avoided the South Station vortex). As we got closer to Ruggles, the conductor announced that dispatch had changed their minds again, and that we'd be going straight to South Station.

At about this time, folks started to get cell phone service, and we heard that there was an accident in Canton involving an earlier train and a boxcar.

We pulled into South Station at about 6:26. At this point I'd been on the train for over an hour in order to go back one stop from where I started. As we got out, I recognized the conductor with the train on the other side of our platform: he usually is the conductor for my return from Hyde Park on train 922.

As the crowd was making it's disgruntled way down the platform back toward the station we heard the announcement: "6:30 train to Stoughton now boarding on Track 5."  Chaos ensues, since we just got off the train to Stoughton, and we'd been told there were no more Stoughton trains tonight, and we'd been further told that shuttle buses would be run from South Station. After much shouting, rumormongering, and gesturing reminiscent of traders on the stock exchange floor, it turned out that the 6:30 was only going to 128, then shuttle buses would go to Sharon/Stoughton. This information was not shared over the public address system.

Honest to God--we'd just been on a train that had made it halfway to 128 before being sent back to GO and then were told to get on another train back to 128. Not to mention that now the 6:30 has a double load of people on it, having picked up everybody from train 919.

I realize that when things go wrong, you have to expect a certain amount of inconvenience. There was an emergency, and our train had to be re-routed/re-scheduled. However, the indecision about where exactly we were going and how we were getting home from there, is really disturbing. And stupid.

The MBCR: all the wacky wonderfulness you expect from the MBTA!

P.S. Since my music lesson was well and thoroughly missed, I actually got the Red Line to the Orange Line and went home, wishing the rest of the Stoughton passengers good luck.