Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Sunday, another room service breakfast, more milk for the refrigerator. We had noticed on Saturday that there was an aquarium at the Mall of America, according to the signs, "the world's largest underground aquarium", which had The Man snorting, "Just how many underground aquariums are there in the world?" So, we decided to go back and check it out. We stopped at the airport on the way to the mall, so The Man could check his bag.
The aquarium really wasn't all that big, I've seen larger, but yup, sure 'nough, those others weren't underground.
They seemed to specialize in sharks, swordfish, turtles, and rays, and it was one of those tubes you walk through with the fish swimming over your head. They did have some cool fish I'd never seen before, some really weird shapes. The Man commented that it was proof God had off-days, too.
We rushed out of there at 1:45 to go to the airport. Our flight departure time was 4:27 pm, and he had to return the car and all.
We got to the gate area a hair before 4. Delta. In all my years of travel, I have never seen any airline pull as underhanded a trick as Delta did on Sunday afternoon. It was amazing.
It was a small plane, one of those with 2 seats on each side of the aisle, and all one class. Maybe 80 seats or so? We had assigned seats, right from the moment the reservations had been made. But apparently the flight had been badly oversold. There were about 20 angry people at the gate desk, who apparently had tickets but couldn't get a seat assignment.
The airline started making announcements every few minutes begging people to give up a seat for $200 and a seat on "the next flight to NYC" (note they didn't say JFK). The Man checked his Blackberry. There WAS NO flight, not Delta and not any other airline, until the next morning, AND the next morning's flights were all full anyway, AND they went to La Guardia, not JFK. Good luck getting back to your car. And locating any checked baggage, which would have gone to JFK on this flight. Nope. $200 isn't nearly enough. There were apparently no takers.
At 4:25 I poked The Man and pointed out the window, "Um, notice anything missing?" We're supposed to depart in two minutes, and not only are we not on the plane, there's no plane out there.
At 4:27, Delta announced that the flight would be "delayed two hours. The new departure time is 6:27 pm." No explanation for the delay.
People grumbled. Many gathered up their stuff and left, presumably headed for restrooms, or restaurants, or out where they could smoke. The Man joked that we could go back to the mall. There happened to be a bar right next to our gate, so The Man and I took a table in there, where he had a beer, I had hot tea, and we both had a sandwich.
It turned out to be a very lucky choice. At 5:40, Delta announced that our flight was loading. They rushed everyone who happened to be in the gate area onto the plane, closed the doors, and moved us out away from the gate within minutes.
I was shocked. What about all the people with confirmed assigned seats who were going to show up at 6 pm, and find the plane gone? It's likely that the folks who were still in the gate area were the oversold folks, hanging around hoping for something to crack. A flight that had been oversold by 25% took off with at least 10 empty seats - at least that's how many we could count from our seats in the middle.
This is about the dirtiest trick I've ever seen from an airline. You've got too many people? Well, just get rid of a bunch of them. I can't imagine what Delta had to deal with when all those people showed up and found out the plane had left without them.
It gets weirder.
We arrived at JFK and followed the signs to the baggage carousels. There were only two, both Delta. There was a group of people at one of them collecting their bags, but it wasn't our flight. We waited and waited, all the other people left, the sign never changed to show our flight, and no more bags came out. Apparently nobody else on our flight had checked bags?
By now it was after 10 pm, close to 11. Everything in the terminal was closed. There were no people around. We finally found a man with a employee badge and asked where the bags from our flight were. (He didn't speak English very well, and the ensuing conversation was frustrating.) He told us we were at the wrong terminal. This is terminal 3. That flight landed at terminal 2. The Man said that he just got off the flight, at THIS terminal. The employee insisted no, our flight had landed at terminal 2 two hours ago (the original arrival time). The Man was close to exploding. "The flight was delayed. I know where I landed, and when I landed!" But it was obvious we weren't going to get anywhere with the old man, who continued to insist we had arrived at a different terminal two hours ago.
We supposed that it was possible that although we got off at terminal 3, maybe the bags had been taken to terminal 2. So The Man set off to check. He came back with his bag a half hour later. It had been circling a carousel all by itself. We were lucky it was still there.
Due to bad signs at the train terminal, it took a little over an hour more to get to the car in the long term lot.
We needed gas, but both of us were low on cash, and it took three stops in Queens to figure out that none of the gas stations open at 1:00 am would accept a credit card unless you were willing to leave it in the tender care of the attendant while you were pumping. At the third station I dug out a forgotten $20 bill from the bottom of my purse, and we used that.
I've noticed that when The Man is pressured, he needs to eat. He gets tense. Maybe it's a blood sugar thing, maybe not. But it's a good idea to feed him when he says he's hungry. It was another hour to the hotel parking lot where we'd left my car.
Back when I booked the flights, I had figured that the plane would land before 8, and I'd be home by 11 pm. But now it would be 2:30 am before we got to my car, and that would be without feeding The Man. He was concerned about my driving home so late, so tired, so without consulting me, he called the hotel where my car was waiting, and made a reservation for both of us.
I finally got home at about 11 am Monday.
Somewhere along the line, I picked up a virus. Hot throat, coughing, running nose, aching neck and back muscles.
But, I had a really good time. I can't wait to do it again!
.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
1974 Weekend Escape, Saturday
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Saturday morning we had a late breakfast in the room. I got my usual two eggs sunny-side-up with toast and bacon, etc. He got scrambled eggs, and, this I don't understand, cereal. Two or three boxes of cereal arrived, with three pints of milk. He's lactose intolerant. He didn't eat the cereal. When we left on Sunday, there were six pints of milk left in the refrigerator. Duh? I didn't ask.
Then we went to Mall of America!
I had been hearing about this place for literally years, about how big it is, and how it has water slides and a roller coaster and all kinds of amusement park rides right inside! I was excited to actually be going there.
Well, yeah, it's big. But somehow, when you've built up something in your head for so long, the reality never meets expectations.
Take a big mall near you, a two-story one. Now make it four or five stories. That's one piece. Now copy it three more times, and place them around an open square in the middle, like a fat "+" sign, or a donut made out of rectangles. In that open center, pack an amusement park and throw a roof over it. And that's pretty much it.
What impressed me most was that there were gazillions of stores, and they were all open. No empty slots. The rent there must be astronomical, and most of the people seemed to be just walking around, the stores weren't really all that busy, so I don't know how they manage to survive.
The other thing that impressed me was The Man. There were only two stores he was interested in, one that sold PBS Lake Wobegon stuff, and the other was the "Vikings Locker Room" (or something like that). And I know he hates walking. "Drive to the deli across the street" kind of hate. And he is quintessential man, he doesn't "shop", he "goes and gets it". But he gave me the full walking tour of the mall. We must have put miles on his shoes, and he never once complained. I love when he does stuff like that for me. I guess that's why I fall in love with him all over again every time I see him.
We bought me a Vikings shirt in the Locker Room. A very nice one. Photo tomorrow, I promise.
An early dinner, a change into fan gear, and then we walked the several blocks to the stadium. It's completely enclosed, domed against the Minnesota winters. The game was at 7 pm I think, but he wanted to get there early. I hadn't asked if we had "good" seats. It didn't matter to me. All I knew was that they were season tickets.
Turns out they were two of "the four best seats in the house". Bottom row, centered on the 50-yard line, behind the Vikings bench.
I know absolutely nothing about football, but I enjoyed it anyway. I enjoyed his reactions. And the seat happened to fit me perfectly.
At the end of the fourth quarter, the score was Steelers 9, Vikings 10. The Steelers were pushing down the field, and there were four seconds left on the clock, when suddenly all the Steelers guys ran off the field and another bunch ran on. They were going to try for a field goal.
And then, and then --- the Vikings called a time out.
The Man freaked. Four seconds? Time out? Hey, why not give them time to get organized and set up, hey?
Well, the Steelers made the field goal, and won, 12 to 10. The Man may never recover. For the next 36 hours, about every 15 minutes, he said "Four seconds, and they call a time out? I don't get it." He kept asking me to explain it, like I might have an answer. It was cute, but one didn't dare laugh. Sympathy definitely required.
That evening in the hotel bar, a scout for some other team, a player who has a superbowl ring from a few years ago, The Man knew who he was, was sitting next to The Man at the bar, and they had an interesting conversation. The other guy couldn't figure it out either, except that it was a pre-season game, so it didn't really matter, and maybe they wanted to try something different. Who knows what.
Then end of day. I had huge blisters on my littlest toes from all the walking in the wrong shoes.
.
Saturday morning we had a late breakfast in the room. I got my usual two eggs sunny-side-up with toast and bacon, etc. He got scrambled eggs, and, this I don't understand, cereal. Two or three boxes of cereal arrived, with three pints of milk. He's lactose intolerant. He didn't eat the cereal. When we left on Sunday, there were six pints of milk left in the refrigerator. Duh? I didn't ask.
Then we went to Mall of America!
I had been hearing about this place for literally years, about how big it is, and how it has water slides and a roller coaster and all kinds of amusement park rides right inside! I was excited to actually be going there.
Well, yeah, it's big. But somehow, when you've built up something in your head for so long, the reality never meets expectations.
Take a big mall near you, a two-story one. Now make it four or five stories. That's one piece. Now copy it three more times, and place them around an open square in the middle, like a fat "+" sign, or a donut made out of rectangles. In that open center, pack an amusement park and throw a roof over it. And that's pretty much it.
What impressed me most was that there were gazillions of stores, and they were all open. No empty slots. The rent there must be astronomical, and most of the people seemed to be just walking around, the stores weren't really all that busy, so I don't know how they manage to survive.
The other thing that impressed me was The Man. There were only two stores he was interested in, one that sold PBS Lake Wobegon stuff, and the other was the "Vikings Locker Room" (or something like that). And I know he hates walking. "Drive to the deli across the street" kind of hate. And he is quintessential man, he doesn't "shop", he "goes and gets it". But he gave me the full walking tour of the mall. We must have put miles on his shoes, and he never once complained. I love when he does stuff like that for me. I guess that's why I fall in love with him all over again every time I see him.
We bought me a Vikings shirt in the Locker Room. A very nice one. Photo tomorrow, I promise.
An early dinner, a change into fan gear, and then we walked the several blocks to the stadium. It's completely enclosed, domed against the Minnesota winters. The game was at 7 pm I think, but he wanted to get there early. I hadn't asked if we had "good" seats. It didn't matter to me. All I knew was that they were season tickets.
Turns out they were two of "the four best seats in the house". Bottom row, centered on the 50-yard line, behind the Vikings bench.
I know absolutely nothing about football, but I enjoyed it anyway. I enjoyed his reactions. And the seat happened to fit me perfectly.
At the end of the fourth quarter, the score was Steelers 9, Vikings 10. The Steelers were pushing down the field, and there were four seconds left on the clock, when suddenly all the Steelers guys ran off the field and another bunch ran on. They were going to try for a field goal.
And then, and then --- the Vikings called a time out.
The Man freaked. Four seconds? Time out? Hey, why not give them time to get organized and set up, hey?
Well, the Steelers made the field goal, and won, 12 to 10. The Man may never recover. For the next 36 hours, about every 15 minutes, he said "Four seconds, and they call a time out? I don't get it." He kept asking me to explain it, like I might have an answer. It was cute, but one didn't dare laugh. Sympathy definitely required.
That evening in the hotel bar, a scout for some other team, a player who has a superbowl ring from a few years ago, The Man knew who he was, was sitting next to The Man at the bar, and they had an interesting conversation. The other guy couldn't figure it out either, except that it was a pre-season game, so it didn't really matter, and maybe they wanted to try something different. Who knows what.
Then end of day. I had huge blisters on my littlest toes from all the walking in the wrong shoes.
.
1973 Weekend Escape, Friday
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
We flew to Minneapolis on Friday, arriving in mid-afternoon. The Man had reserved two rental cars, one a sedan and the other a sport convertible. He'd decide which to choose depending on the weather when we arrived. I was a little disappointed when he decided on the sedan (it was a bit cool), because the convertible happened to be one on my "possibilities" list. He didn't know that. Tsk.
He took me on a driving tour of the city, showed me around. Everything seems so new. There are some really nice apartment and condo buildings. I don't much care for apartments, but I could actually see myself living in many of those. (Well, ok, a summer home!)
I'm always impressed with the accommodations The Man provides. This time it wasn't a suite, didn't have a Jacuzzi or a fireplace, or a second bathroom upstairs like other places we've stayed. It was just a large room with the usual sitting area and desk. BUT! It was on the 30th floor, in a wedge that sort of stuck out from the main bulk of the building. The two "wedge" walls were windows, about 30 feet of glass altogether on the two sides, coming to a point, with a wonderful view of the city. Amazing. It included a complete room service breakfast each morning. Photos tomorrow, I promise.
Dinner at the hotel, and then a walk to an NFL-ware store a few blocks from the hotel. It was one of The Man's favorite stores, and he was very disappointed that it was going out of business. He wanted to find something for me to wear to the game on Saturday, but they had very little left, so he just bought a few hats to add to his collection.
Drinks at the hotel bar, then collapse.
.
We flew to Minneapolis on Friday, arriving in mid-afternoon. The Man had reserved two rental cars, one a sedan and the other a sport convertible. He'd decide which to choose depending on the weather when we arrived. I was a little disappointed when he decided on the sedan (it was a bit cool), because the convertible happened to be one on my "possibilities" list. He didn't know that. Tsk.
He took me on a driving tour of the city, showed me around. Everything seems so new. There are some really nice apartment and condo buildings. I don't much care for apartments, but I could actually see myself living in many of those. (Well, ok, a summer home!)
I'm always impressed with the accommodations The Man provides. This time it wasn't a suite, didn't have a Jacuzzi or a fireplace, or a second bathroom upstairs like other places we've stayed. It was just a large room with the usual sitting area and desk. BUT! It was on the 30th floor, in a wedge that sort of stuck out from the main bulk of the building. The two "wedge" walls were windows, about 30 feet of glass altogether on the two sides, coming to a point, with a wonderful view of the city. Amazing. It included a complete room service breakfast each morning. Photos tomorrow, I promise.
Dinner at the hotel, and then a walk to an NFL-ware store a few blocks from the hotel. It was one of The Man's favorite stores, and he was very disappointed that it was going out of business. He wanted to find something for me to wear to the game on Saturday, but they had very little left, so he just bought a few hats to add to his collection.
Drinks at the hotel bar, then collapse.
.
Monday, August 25, 2008
1972 Minneapolis
Monday, August 25, 2008
I was in Minneapolis this past weekend. I drove south Thursday evening to stay closer to JFK airport that night, met The Man Friday morning, and we flew to Minneapolis Friday, arriving before dinnertime. Got home this morning.
I love Minneapolis. The "city" part is small. As you approach it on the highway from the airport, it looks like someone tossed a handful of building seeds into a field, and watered them well after they sprouted. Tall beautiful shining buildings, clean streets, friendly people, plunk in a small cluster in the middle of the flatlands.
The photo above is me, and Mary Tyler Moore tossing her hat. She was on the corner half a block from our hotel. This is a cellphone photo taken by The Man. I had taken a disposable digital camera, so there will be other photos when I take the camera in to the pharmacy and have them put on a disk (you can't download from disposables yourself).
The purpose for the trip was a pre-season Vikings game (Steelers) on Saturday, and a visit to Mall of America.
More in subsequent posts. Right now, thanks to Delta Airlines, I'm dog tired.
.
I was in Minneapolis this past weekend. I drove south Thursday evening to stay closer to JFK airport that night, met The Man Friday morning, and we flew to Minneapolis Friday, arriving before dinnertime. Got home this morning.I love Minneapolis. The "city" part is small. As you approach it on the highway from the airport, it looks like someone tossed a handful of building seeds into a field, and watered them well after they sprouted. Tall beautiful shining buildings, clean streets, friendly people, plunk in a small cluster in the middle of the flatlands.
The photo above is me, and Mary Tyler Moore tossing her hat. She was on the corner half a block from our hotel. This is a cellphone photo taken by The Man. I had taken a disposable digital camera, so there will be other photos when I take the camera in to the pharmacy and have them put on a disk (you can't download from disposables yourself).
The purpose for the trip was a pre-season Vikings game (Steelers) on Saturday, and a visit to Mall of America.
More in subsequent posts. Right now, thanks to Delta Airlines, I'm dog tired.
.
1971 Visibility, Part 7 - the arbitration, Part 2
Monday, August 25, 2008
[Continued from Part 1] So the battle is on.
The problem of externals exposure existed not only in the particular product that had been copied, but throughout The Company's products.
A group was pulled together in White Plains to act as the coordinators and first level interface between the legal eagles and the software labs. They did most of the prep work for the attorneys. Four "Litigation Labs" were set up, northeast (us), southeast, west coast, and the other side of the world. Our jobs were many.
We received code from the competitor, and tore it apart to identify the copied portions. That, actually, was the reason for the high building security. We reviewed every manual for every product, to identify exposed internals and direct the publication departments in removing those references. We reviewed all new design documents to ensure that proper user exits were provided, and no new internals were exposed. We translated "legalese" into terms the lab programmers and design folks could understand, and translated lab concerns into terms the attorneys could understand. We educated pubs people and programmers in the whys and wherefores of the new rules. We had final approval on all new releases, and were very strict - schedules be damned. (I was finally in my element!)
I, personally, had responsibility for compliance of 35 products in 5 programming labs: 3 large operating systems and 32 major applications.
Now, the saying is that if you have a hammer for a tool, everything looks like a nail. The first claim of the competitors was that it was the manuals, the publications, that exposed the internals. So when corporate set up the departments to contain and correct the problem, they recruited pubs people. That whole top layer in White Plains were pubs people. They wanted the manuals cleaned up. All presentations and lab education was aimed toward what should be documented, and what should not. We in the Litigation Labs were not allowed to put together our own presentations or classes - we had to use foils developed by them and approved by the attorneys. At first, the only people we were to work with were the pubs people.
Fine. I agree we had to start sensitizing the publications departments. BUT - the folks in White Plains seemed to think that when the pubs were clean, the job was done.
I was shocked. The problem was not simply in the publications, it was in the design! Internal control blocks were exposed to the customer because no other means for debugging or plugging in had been provided. A few of us in our litigation lab had come from programming and design, and I was able to convince them that unless the design area in particular was sensitized to the issue, the concept of "black box", they were going to continue to design transparent functions. This would put the pubs people in a tough spot - design is going to continue to hand them transparent customer interfaces, which the pubs people would then not be allowed to document.
We HAD to get to design, too.
Well, surprise. Everyone who had come from design understood the problem, but none of them were willing to take it on as an issue. Do the assigned job and get out.
I fought it, all the way. Eventually everyone in White Plains also understood that the problem was larger than initially thought. We still had customers out there plugging right into the code. We had to identify them, and provide proper exits, otherwise we were still exposed to the argument that all that code was an external interface. We had to teach the design departments to provide proper "plugs", and hide everything else.
Everybody understood, that is, but Sue. Sue was one of those people who somehow found herself in rarefied air, and knew deep down that she didn't belong there. She seemed to be deathly afraid of being found out. She constantly "ran scared", freaked out daily. I heard, but don't know as a fact, that her previous department wanted to get rid of her, but she wouldn't accept transfers, so when White Plains was looking for pubs people, they figured that was one job she wouldn't turn down. I also heard, but don't know for fact, that she was hired in because she was Asian, and they needed someone who could read Japanese, and then after she got there, they discovered she could neither read nor speak Japanese. It could be both.
Sue was, of course, my interface in White Plains. I'm lucky that way. She was a complete ass. I had called a meeting with design in Endicott one time, and she decided to attend. The topic was the design for some function whereby they required that the customer know how certain algorithms worked and what bits were set in certain control blocks in order to use the function. This was an obvious violation. I was sitting down with the designers to explain what was wrong with it, and to figure out with them how we could redesign the function so that the internal operation would be hidden. All it required was a front-end, and we were talking about what the front-end could expose.
Well, Sue objected. She insisted that the design was fine as is. All they had to do was NOT document the customer interface. "Just don't say this, and don't say that...." She didn't understand that that would make it completely unusable, and force the customer to reverse engineer the code to use it, which is the worst scenario imaginable.
Because her desk was in White Plains, she decided she outranked me (she didn't), and she thought this meant she could interrupt me and "correct" me at will.
In short, I finally lost it. She and I ended up both standing on opposite sides of the conference room table, leaning on the table with our faces about a foot apart, screaming at each other. The lead designer called a break, and during the break, he said that I'm right, anyone can see that, and, um, how 'bout we end the meeting now, and resume in two hours without telling Sue. Which we did.
I spent four years fighting with her. My coworkers had occasional dealings with her, and they asked me how I could stand it.
In the third year, my manager put me in for promotion. It had to be approved by the director. The director asked the person in White Plains who worked most closely with me whether I deserved promotion. Of course, Sue said no.
In the fourth year, my manager put me in for promotion. It had to be approved by the director. The director asked the person in White Plains who worked most closely with me whether I deserved promotion. Of course, Sue said no. (Sue wasn't getting promotions either. Had I been promoted, I'd have been a higher grade than she.)
And then The Company, who under previous CEOs rarely fired anyone - they'd shift people around until they found the right spot - warned the world that there would be major cuts in personnel. "RIF"s. Reduction in force. The Mid-Hudson Valley was going to lose several thousand jobs. Transfer somewhere else now, or die.
They offered packages to people who were willing to quit or retire. The "easy out" retirement package included lifetime medical, and five years added to your time, and a very healthy severance check (for me, it was a year's salary), and assistance finding another job. If you didn't volunteer and were RIF'd, you got next to nothing. Just fired.
Our litigation lab headcount was under White Plains, not the Mid-Hudson valley labs, so no one in our group was going to lose a job (although I understand two people were strongly advised to take the offer since it would probably be the best they'd ever see). However, since our payroll paperwork was handled in Poughkeepsie, we were eligible for the package anyway. The cuts would be announced on April 1, 1993. Jay and I were planning to get married, so we waited until the end of the day on April 1. If he was RIF'd, I'd keep my job. If he still had a job, I'd volunteer for the retirement package.
More than nine thousand local people lost their jobs that day, but Jay wasn't one of them.** On April 2, I went in to my manager, and told him I was taking the easy out, and he freaked. Six of the ten** in the department planned to take it, including him. He said that he was afraid that if Martha and I left, they wouldn't let him leave.
We all kind of figured that the spotlight was going to turn on headquarters sometime, and since we were under their headcount, we'd all be sacrificed before any of them, and there'd never again be a package as good as this one.
And that's why and when I left the company. In constantly pissing off Sue, I broke rule #10.
------------------------
** The next year, 1994, they did it again - RIF'd a few thousand more people, including Jay and the remainder of the Litigation Lab. From April 1993 to April 1994, about 13,000 local folks were out of work. The real estate market tanked. Job losses rippled throughout the surrounding communities. Thirteen thousand computer professionals were turned loose on a depressed job market, and even if they did manage to find another job, they couldn't sell their house to move.
The second severance package was much much MUCH less attractive. I did really well taking the first one when I did.
Remember Peter, from Visibility Part 4? Uh huh. And Sue? Disappeared. I don't feel at all guilty gloating. For once, I got something good at the right time.
.
[Continued from Part 1] So the battle is on.
The problem of externals exposure existed not only in the particular product that had been copied, but throughout The Company's products.
A group was pulled together in White Plains to act as the coordinators and first level interface between the legal eagles and the software labs. They did most of the prep work for the attorneys. Four "Litigation Labs" were set up, northeast (us), southeast, west coast, and the other side of the world. Our jobs were many.
We received code from the competitor, and tore it apart to identify the copied portions. That, actually, was the reason for the high building security. We reviewed every manual for every product, to identify exposed internals and direct the publication departments in removing those references. We reviewed all new design documents to ensure that proper user exits were provided, and no new internals were exposed. We translated "legalese" into terms the lab programmers and design folks could understand, and translated lab concerns into terms the attorneys could understand. We educated pubs people and programmers in the whys and wherefores of the new rules. We had final approval on all new releases, and were very strict - schedules be damned. (I was finally in my element!)
I, personally, had responsibility for compliance of 35 products in 5 programming labs: 3 large operating systems and 32 major applications.
Now, the saying is that if you have a hammer for a tool, everything looks like a nail. The first claim of the competitors was that it was the manuals, the publications, that exposed the internals. So when corporate set up the departments to contain and correct the problem, they recruited pubs people. That whole top layer in White Plains were pubs people. They wanted the manuals cleaned up. All presentations and lab education was aimed toward what should be documented, and what should not. We in the Litigation Labs were not allowed to put together our own presentations or classes - we had to use foils developed by them and approved by the attorneys. At first, the only people we were to work with were the pubs people.
Fine. I agree we had to start sensitizing the publications departments. BUT - the folks in White Plains seemed to think that when the pubs were clean, the job was done.
I was shocked. The problem was not simply in the publications, it was in the design! Internal control blocks were exposed to the customer because no other means for debugging or plugging in had been provided. A few of us in our litigation lab had come from programming and design, and I was able to convince them that unless the design area in particular was sensitized to the issue, the concept of "black box", they were going to continue to design transparent functions. This would put the pubs people in a tough spot - design is going to continue to hand them transparent customer interfaces, which the pubs people would then not be allowed to document.
We HAD to get to design, too.
Well, surprise. Everyone who had come from design understood the problem, but none of them were willing to take it on as an issue. Do the assigned job and get out.
I fought it, all the way. Eventually everyone in White Plains also understood that the problem was larger than initially thought. We still had customers out there plugging right into the code. We had to identify them, and provide proper exits, otherwise we were still exposed to the argument that all that code was an external interface. We had to teach the design departments to provide proper "plugs", and hide everything else.
Everybody understood, that is, but Sue. Sue was one of those people who somehow found herself in rarefied air, and knew deep down that she didn't belong there. She seemed to be deathly afraid of being found out. She constantly "ran scared", freaked out daily. I heard, but don't know as a fact, that her previous department wanted to get rid of her, but she wouldn't accept transfers, so when White Plains was looking for pubs people, they figured that was one job she wouldn't turn down. I also heard, but don't know for fact, that she was hired in because she was Asian, and they needed someone who could read Japanese, and then after she got there, they discovered she could neither read nor speak Japanese. It could be both.
Sue was, of course, my interface in White Plains. I'm lucky that way. She was a complete ass. I had called a meeting with design in Endicott one time, and she decided to attend. The topic was the design for some function whereby they required that the customer know how certain algorithms worked and what bits were set in certain control blocks in order to use the function. This was an obvious violation. I was sitting down with the designers to explain what was wrong with it, and to figure out with them how we could redesign the function so that the internal operation would be hidden. All it required was a front-end, and we were talking about what the front-end could expose.
Well, Sue objected. She insisted that the design was fine as is. All they had to do was NOT document the customer interface. "Just don't say this, and don't say that...." She didn't understand that that would make it completely unusable, and force the customer to reverse engineer the code to use it, which is the worst scenario imaginable.
Because her desk was in White Plains, she decided she outranked me (she didn't), and she thought this meant she could interrupt me and "correct" me at will.
In short, I finally lost it. She and I ended up both standing on opposite sides of the conference room table, leaning on the table with our faces about a foot apart, screaming at each other. The lead designer called a break, and during the break, he said that I'm right, anyone can see that, and, um, how 'bout we end the meeting now, and resume in two hours without telling Sue. Which we did.
I spent four years fighting with her. My coworkers had occasional dealings with her, and they asked me how I could stand it.
In the third year, my manager put me in for promotion. It had to be approved by the director. The director asked the person in White Plains who worked most closely with me whether I deserved promotion. Of course, Sue said no.
In the fourth year, my manager put me in for promotion. It had to be approved by the director. The director asked the person in White Plains who worked most closely with me whether I deserved promotion. Of course, Sue said no. (Sue wasn't getting promotions either. Had I been promoted, I'd have been a higher grade than she.)
And then The Company, who under previous CEOs rarely fired anyone - they'd shift people around until they found the right spot - warned the world that there would be major cuts in personnel. "RIF"s. Reduction in force. The Mid-Hudson Valley was going to lose several thousand jobs. Transfer somewhere else now, or die.
They offered packages to people who were willing to quit or retire. The "easy out" retirement package included lifetime medical, and five years added to your time, and a very healthy severance check (for me, it was a year's salary), and assistance finding another job. If you didn't volunteer and were RIF'd, you got next to nothing. Just fired.
Our litigation lab headcount was under White Plains, not the Mid-Hudson valley labs, so no one in our group was going to lose a job (although I understand two people were strongly advised to take the offer since it would probably be the best they'd ever see). However, since our payroll paperwork was handled in Poughkeepsie, we were eligible for the package anyway. The cuts would be announced on April 1, 1993. Jay and I were planning to get married, so we waited until the end of the day on April 1. If he was RIF'd, I'd keep my job. If he still had a job, I'd volunteer for the retirement package.
More than nine thousand local people lost their jobs that day, but Jay wasn't one of them.** On April 2, I went in to my manager, and told him I was taking the easy out, and he freaked. Six of the ten** in the department planned to take it, including him. He said that he was afraid that if Martha and I left, they wouldn't let him leave.
We all kind of figured that the spotlight was going to turn on headquarters sometime, and since we were under their headcount, we'd all be sacrificed before any of them, and there'd never again be a package as good as this one.
And that's why and when I left the company. In constantly pissing off Sue, I broke rule #10.
------------------------
** The next year, 1994, they did it again - RIF'd a few thousand more people, including Jay and the remainder of the Litigation Lab. From April 1993 to April 1994, about 13,000 local folks were out of work. The real estate market tanked. Job losses rippled throughout the surrounding communities. Thirteen thousand computer professionals were turned loose on a depressed job market, and even if they did manage to find another job, they couldn't sell their house to move.
The second severance package was much much MUCH less attractive. I did really well taking the first one when I did.
Remember Peter, from Visibility Part 4? Uh huh. And Sue? Disappeared. I don't feel at all guilty gloating. For once, I got something good at the right time.
.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
1970 Visibility, Part 7 - the arbitration, Part 1
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Well, after the events of the previous posts, I'd about had it with that particular product area. I had achieved my goal - I had a lot of technical respect, people listened when I spoke up in meetings, but it looked like nobody was going to give me any credit for anything I did. Fooey on them.
I heard via the grapevine that there was a new group being put together in Poughkeepsie, reporting directly to Corporate in White Plains, and they were looking for people who were good at reviewing documents, and understood external interfaces. I contacted the manager of that group, and he requested my transfer.
What we were working on was highly confidential. We had an entire building to ourselves. No Company programmers or designers would be allowed in our office section of the building. If they had to come for any purpose, we received them in conference rooms in an unused part of the building. We ten had our own raised floor with any hardware we wanted. We had a kitchen. We had huge offices with windows! The external entries were double-locked, and there was an internal work area with more double locks, cameras, and motion detectors. Our manager was on loan from Corporate, and reported directly to a Director.
When I later left The Company, I was enjoined for ten years from even talking about what we had worked on, and if I wanted to apply for a job with any other company in the same business, competitor or not, I had to get the approval of The Company first, as part of the conditions of my retirement.
The ten years are up. I can talk about it. I can't imagine that it could possibly be of any concern at this point.
Imagine a black box with several holes that you can plug things into. Certain information goes into the box, and certain information comes out. If you know exactly what the input should look like, and what the output looks like, and what the box does, then you don't need to know what's inside the box to plug things into it. That's "plug compatible."
It's perfectly acceptable for a competitor to create a box, hardware or software, that does the same thing as your box. They can copy the inputs and outputs, the "plugs", also known as the externals. What they can't copy is what's inside the box, the internals.
A certain non-American competitor had developed a large mainframe very similar to (well, exactly like) ours. They wanted to build an operating system for it also very similar to (well, exactly like) ours, so that they could move customer applications off our hardware and onto theirs with the promise that everything would work exactly the same. "Plug compatible." And that's what they did, and they started shipping it to their customers.
Within weeks of the competitor's first ship, The Company service centers started getting strange calls for assistance. The callers were getting operating system error messages that said, essentially, "If you see this message, call [The Company] service center at [phone number]....", so, of course, they did. The weird thing was that they were not running our hardware or software. Hmmmm.
The halls of the White Plains legal department were filled with the clash of armor being buckled on, the rattle of swords against shields, and the neighs of 747 steeds champing at the bit.
In a distant country halfway around the world, heads were already rolling.
Sounds pretty cut and dried, eh?
Nope. First off, international copyright law, especially as pertains to computer software, wasn't very clear in the late '80s/early '90s. Also, what court had jurisdiction could affect the outcome.
Plus, the competitor had a defense that was difficult to counter.
Their argument was that our customer manuals document everything. We listed every control block down to the byte and bit level. We did not provide convenient exits for customers to add or change function - instead we allowed them to actually change internal code to branch out to their added function, including the ability to manipulate those internal control blocks. In a misguided attempt to satisfy everybody, we had opened the entire operating system to the customer. In a nutshell, since no one was able to determine where and how the customers were manipulating the internals, the internals had become externals, and therefore it was not only permissible to copy them, it was necessary in order to achieve plug compatibility.
They had copied pretty much the entire system. (Many programmers, when they're proud of something they wrote, put their names in the comments. A cursory glance at the competitor's source code, when it was provided during legal discovery, revealed names of The Company programmers. Either the programmers were moonlighting with a competitor, or....)
The parties decided to go to arbitration.
[Continued in #1971 Visibility, Part 7 - the arbitration, Part 2, coming soon to a blog near you.]
.
Well, after the events of the previous posts, I'd about had it with that particular product area. I had achieved my goal - I had a lot of technical respect, people listened when I spoke up in meetings, but it looked like nobody was going to give me any credit for anything I did. Fooey on them.
I heard via the grapevine that there was a new group being put together in Poughkeepsie, reporting directly to Corporate in White Plains, and they were looking for people who were good at reviewing documents, and understood external interfaces. I contacted the manager of that group, and he requested my transfer.
What we were working on was highly confidential. We had an entire building to ourselves. No Company programmers or designers would be allowed in our office section of the building. If they had to come for any purpose, we received them in conference rooms in an unused part of the building. We ten had our own raised floor with any hardware we wanted. We had a kitchen. We had huge offices with windows! The external entries were double-locked, and there was an internal work area with more double locks, cameras, and motion detectors. Our manager was on loan from Corporate, and reported directly to a Director.
When I later left The Company, I was enjoined for ten years from even talking about what we had worked on, and if I wanted to apply for a job with any other company in the same business, competitor or not, I had to get the approval of The Company first, as part of the conditions of my retirement.
The ten years are up. I can talk about it. I can't imagine that it could possibly be of any concern at this point.
Imagine a black box with several holes that you can plug things into. Certain information goes into the box, and certain information comes out. If you know exactly what the input should look like, and what the output looks like, and what the box does, then you don't need to know what's inside the box to plug things into it. That's "plug compatible."
It's perfectly acceptable for a competitor to create a box, hardware or software, that does the same thing as your box. They can copy the inputs and outputs, the "plugs", also known as the externals. What they can't copy is what's inside the box, the internals.
A certain non-American competitor had developed a large mainframe very similar to (well, exactly like) ours. They wanted to build an operating system for it also very similar to (well, exactly like) ours, so that they could move customer applications off our hardware and onto theirs with the promise that everything would work exactly the same. "Plug compatible." And that's what they did, and they started shipping it to their customers.
Within weeks of the competitor's first ship, The Company service centers started getting strange calls for assistance. The callers were getting operating system error messages that said, essentially, "If you see this message, call [The Company] service center at [phone number]....", so, of course, they did. The weird thing was that they were not running our hardware or software. Hmmmm.
The halls of the White Plains legal department were filled with the clash of armor being buckled on, the rattle of swords against shields, and the neighs of 747 steeds champing at the bit.
In a distant country halfway around the world, heads were already rolling.
Sounds pretty cut and dried, eh?
Nope. First off, international copyright law, especially as pertains to computer software, wasn't very clear in the late '80s/early '90s. Also, what court had jurisdiction could affect the outcome.
Plus, the competitor had a defense that was difficult to counter.
Their argument was that our customer manuals document everything. We listed every control block down to the byte and bit level. We did not provide convenient exits for customers to add or change function - instead we allowed them to actually change internal code to branch out to their added function, including the ability to manipulate those internal control blocks. In a misguided attempt to satisfy everybody, we had opened the entire operating system to the customer. In a nutshell, since no one was able to determine where and how the customers were manipulating the internals, the internals had become externals, and therefore it was not only permissible to copy them, it was necessary in order to achieve plug compatibility.
They had copied pretty much the entire system. (Many programmers, when they're proud of something they wrote, put their names in the comments. A cursory glance at the competitor's source code, when it was provided during legal discovery, revealed names of The Company programmers. Either the programmers were moonlighting with a competitor, or....)
The parties decided to go to arbitration.
[Continued in #1971 Visibility, Part 7 - the arbitration, Part 2, coming soon to a blog near you.]
.
1969 Visibility, Part 6 - the search tool
Sunday, August 24, 2008
At the end of the compatibility project (previous post) we had a lot of "design approved" external incompatibilities which may or may not adversely affect customer applications and automated procedures, but no one had any idea which were serious. No one had any idea what the customer actually depended on (which in my opinion they should have known BEFORE deciding which ones would be allowed).
When I took incompatibilities to Peter's group, I wanted to be able to argue for or against them with some idea of the impact. So I wrote a search tool, that would scan applications and procedures for use of those particular commands or response texts. It was slow and cumbersome, and produced reams of output, very little of which was actually useful, but it was sufficient for my needs, because I knew exactly what I was looking for. I obtained actual applications and procedures from other installations within the company, who pretty much replicated customer usage, and got a pretty good idea of an incompatibility's impact.
Peter's design department was charged with writing a guide for customers, so they'd know what to expect, what they'd probably have to watch out for or change when they ported to the new operating system.
Somebody, somewhere, somehow, decided that my scanner should be released to the customers. Somebody came up with the description "automated identification of incompatibilities", and it sounded good.
I argued strongly against it. It's too slow. It's too cumbersome. It puts out too much useless information. It's just for my own use, I never expected anyone else to use it. There's no documentation with it. Hey folks, it's really REALLY bad! I really don't want my name associated with this dog.
It was released anyway, on the recommendation of Peter's group. With my name on it. Because they didn't want to do the work and they thought this was the easy way out.
And then the customer reviews started coming in.
We can't figure out how to use it.
It's too cumbersome.
It's too slow.
There's too much useless information that must be sifted by hand.
There are too many false hits.
This is a piece of garbage.
... and on and on, from every customer who received it.
And my name was on the damn thing. Product-wide visibility.
Sorry, Peter, but this didn't make up for the other thing....
But thanks a lot anyway.
.
At the end of the compatibility project (previous post) we had a lot of "design approved" external incompatibilities which may or may not adversely affect customer applications and automated procedures, but no one had any idea which were serious. No one had any idea what the customer actually depended on (which in my opinion they should have known BEFORE deciding which ones would be allowed).
When I took incompatibilities to Peter's group, I wanted to be able to argue for or against them with some idea of the impact. So I wrote a search tool, that would scan applications and procedures for use of those particular commands or response texts. It was slow and cumbersome, and produced reams of output, very little of which was actually useful, but it was sufficient for my needs, because I knew exactly what I was looking for. I obtained actual applications and procedures from other installations within the company, who pretty much replicated customer usage, and got a pretty good idea of an incompatibility's impact.
Peter's design department was charged with writing a guide for customers, so they'd know what to expect, what they'd probably have to watch out for or change when they ported to the new operating system.
Somebody, somewhere, somehow, decided that my scanner should be released to the customers. Somebody came up with the description "automated identification of incompatibilities", and it sounded good.
I argued strongly against it. It's too slow. It's too cumbersome. It puts out too much useless information. It's just for my own use, I never expected anyone else to use it. There's no documentation with it. Hey folks, it's really REALLY bad! I really don't want my name associated with this dog.
It was released anyway, on the recommendation of Peter's group. With my name on it. Because they didn't want to do the work and they thought this was the easy way out.
And then the customer reviews started coming in.
We can't figure out how to use it.
It's too cumbersome.
It's too slow.
There's too much useless information that must be sifted by hand.
There are too many false hits.
This is a piece of garbage.
... and on and on, from every customer who received it.
And my name was on the damn thing. Product-wide visibility.
Sorry, Peter, but this didn't make up for the other thing....
But thanks a lot anyway.
.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
1968 Visibility, Part 5 - compatibility testing
Saturday, August 23, 2008
So, the line item to change all the externals to make them compatible (previous posts) between the two systems began. Although I was in a design and usability department, because I owned the externals and everyone knew about the test generator I had written, I was asked to do the testing.
(By the way, testers don't get the credit they should. That'll be another post someday.)
There were many line items being added, functions in the old system being ported to the new system and hardware. I would be ensuring not only that all the old externals were compatible, but that all externals for the new would also match. That's every variation and combination of every option on every old and new command, error condition, and operator info situation under every possible condition.
It will mean nothing to anyone but another tester, but in one year, I wrote, ran, verified, and compared results on over 350,000 variations on TWO operating systems.
As new code for new functions was added to the system, I waited until it had been fully functionally tested, and then I ran the compatibility tests for that function.
If I found incompatibilities, I wrote them up and passed them to Peter's group, who then decided whether it had to be changed to be compatible, or whether there were compelling reasons to allow an incompatibility. We had to keep track of those to warn the customer later that if their application depended on this message or return, they'd have to change it.
If I found an actual bug in new code, I'd write a PTM (Program Trouble Memo) which would go to the development group responsible for coding of that function.
If I found a bug in old code, code that had been in the system for ages, I'd write an APAR, which would go to the design group owning that function. (One of these days, I'll do a post on the origin of APARs.)
For that release of the operating system, there were 30-some testers testing new function, and 10 testing old function. Keep in mind that I didn't get the code to do my tests until it had been thoroughly tested and approved by those 40-odd people, and by then the programmers in the development groups had figured their work was done, passed test, and had moved on to other things.
I found bug after bug. Old code, new code. During development and testing of that release, something like 1800 PTMs were written, and of those, over 1,000 were written by ME! After the programmers thought they were finished. Some functions looked like they hadn't been tested at all!
So besides all the testing, simply processing PTMs was a full time job. Plus I wrote about 100 APARs.
By the time I was finished, that system was CLEAN! It had been a superhuman effort.
You'd think I ought to get some kind of recognition. I kinda thought so.
Nope.
By finding so many bugs so late in the cycle, I pissed off the programming groups by messing up their schedules, making them redo what they thought was finished.
By finding so many missed bugs after they had "thoroughly" tested and approved the new code, I pissed off the testing departments. I made them look like crap - and from what I saw, what they'd handed me, they DID do a crappy job.
Everybody hated me. Because I was right? Because I made them do things right? Because I exposed their inadequacies? Whatever. The release slipped schedule, and it was all my fault.
All my fault? Because I did my job well? Because I found a lot of bugs? You didn't have to fix them all, you know. Oh, I forgot, you did have to fix them to keep up the pretense that quality matters.
Yeah, I forgot Quality Rule 1. Schedules are always more important than quality.
Minor "quality" awards had always been given to the tester who found the most bugs. They skipped the award for that release. After all, I wasn't a tester. I was in design.
Lots of visibility, but all the wrong kind.
.
So, the line item to change all the externals to make them compatible (previous posts) between the two systems began. Although I was in a design and usability department, because I owned the externals and everyone knew about the test generator I had written, I was asked to do the testing.
(By the way, testers don't get the credit they should. That'll be another post someday.)
There were many line items being added, functions in the old system being ported to the new system and hardware. I would be ensuring not only that all the old externals were compatible, but that all externals for the new would also match. That's every variation and combination of every option on every old and new command, error condition, and operator info situation under every possible condition.
It will mean nothing to anyone but another tester, but in one year, I wrote, ran, verified, and compared results on over 350,000 variations on TWO operating systems.
As new code for new functions was added to the system, I waited until it had been fully functionally tested, and then I ran the compatibility tests for that function.
If I found incompatibilities, I wrote them up and passed them to Peter's group, who then decided whether it had to be changed to be compatible, or whether there were compelling reasons to allow an incompatibility. We had to keep track of those to warn the customer later that if their application depended on this message or return, they'd have to change it.
If I found an actual bug in new code, I'd write a PTM (Program Trouble Memo) which would go to the development group responsible for coding of that function.
If I found a bug in old code, code that had been in the system for ages, I'd write an APAR, which would go to the design group owning that function. (One of these days, I'll do a post on the origin of APARs.)
For that release of the operating system, there were 30-some testers testing new function, and 10 testing old function. Keep in mind that I didn't get the code to do my tests until it had been thoroughly tested and approved by those 40-odd people, and by then the programmers in the development groups had figured their work was done, passed test, and had moved on to other things.
I found bug after bug. Old code, new code. During development and testing of that release, something like 1800 PTMs were written, and of those, over 1,000 were written by ME! After the programmers thought they were finished. Some functions looked like they hadn't been tested at all!
So besides all the testing, simply processing PTMs was a full time job. Plus I wrote about 100 APARs.
By the time I was finished, that system was CLEAN! It had been a superhuman effort.
You'd think I ought to get some kind of recognition. I kinda thought so.
Nope.
By finding so many bugs so late in the cycle, I pissed off the programming groups by messing up their schedules, making them redo what they thought was finished.
By finding so many missed bugs after they had "thoroughly" tested and approved the new code, I pissed off the testing departments. I made them look like crap - and from what I saw, what they'd handed me, they DID do a crappy job.
Everybody hated me. Because I was right? Because I made them do things right? Because I exposed their inadequacies? Whatever. The release slipped schedule, and it was all my fault.
All my fault? Because I did my job well? Because I found a lot of bugs? You didn't have to fix them all, you know. Oh, I forgot, you did have to fix them to keep up the pretense that quality matters.
Yeah, I forgot Quality Rule 1. Schedules are always more important than quality.
Minor "quality" awards had always been given to the tester who found the most bugs. They skipped the award for that release. After all, I wasn't a tester. I was in design.
Lots of visibility, but all the wrong kind.
.
Friday, August 22, 2008
1967 Visibility, Part 4 - Peter and the foils
Friday, August 22, 2008
The Company had two big-iron operating systems that were very similar, the older one supported in Endicott, NY, and the newer, which took advantage of newer hardware technology, in Kingston, NY. The Company decided to combine them on a base generated from the newer system, and to "transition" all customers to the new combined system. (Partly because they wanted to retire the old hardware.)
It was a major effort. Functions that existed on one system and not the other would have to be combined on the new system, so there were a lot of new line items.
Externals - messages, responses, return codes, command syntax, etc. - would be hit hard. Although I owned the externals, another design department was in charge of identifying what would have to be done, writing the specs, making the projections, planning, etc. There was a team of five, with Peter C. as the team leader.
I went to Peter, and asked what it looked like so far. He confessed that he had no idea how big it was. He was looking at just comparison of text of commands and messages. I pointed out that there are differences in function, too. The same command didn't necessarily work the same on both systems, because they are based on different hardware, and that there are user applications that capture return codes and responses "under the covers" and perform different actions based on those return codes.
He turned green. He didn't know where to start.
The problem interested me. On my own time, I wrote a super-generator that allowed me to execute every variation of every command in both systems, and then it automatically compared the results. It was a super-human effort. In total, going after all options on all commands, and all responses, messages, and return codes, there were over 30,000 variations. Then I obtained some examples of user applications, and scanned them to identify which externals were heavily used, and which had less impact. Major, major effort. No sleep for weeks.
When I had the results, I asked Peter to call a meeting of his team, where I presented foils of my results, identifying all differences between the systems, sorted as to impact, including a recommendation as to which were mainly used by the old-system applications, and which the new, plus an estimate of the man-hours required to consolidate and test them. Peter's manager attended the presentation.
A few months later, Peter got a HUGE monetary award, one of those corporate-level things, PLUS a huge promotion, for his work in identifying and prioritizing the external differences.
It turns out that he had made presentations to the management chain, all the way up to the product owner level.
Although none of us "grunts" had been invited to, or even knew about, the presentations, my friend Edith had somehow seen a copy of his foils. She came to me and asked if I had seen them. I said no, why. She said I should ask Peter for a copy. That's all she said.
I asked him, and he kept putting me off. He'd get them. He'd make a copy. It was a long time ago, he didn't have it anymore. So I found me someone, a manager, who had been at one of the meetings, and whom I was able to bamboozle into locating a copy for me.
It was my foils. Exactly. My name had been removed and replaced by his, and my name was not mentioned anywhere as so much as a contributor. Not a whisper.
I immediately marched straight over to Peter's office. I stood in his doorway until he looked up and noticed me, and I said, "You don't have to keep looking for those foils for me. I got a copy." He turned white and actually literally shook. "They're very interesting," I said, and I turned around and left.
I was furious. Not simply at what Peter had done, but his manager had been at the meeting where I had presented those foils, and she had to have known what Peter had done. His team and department knew what he had done. Within days of the award announcement, most of the several hundred people working on the operating system knew what he had done. Edith was the only person who actually said anything to me. Everybody else just looked at me funny.
That was MY work, and should have been MY award, MY acclaim, MY promotion, and everyone knew it.
I waited a while to see if he would confess. He didn't. I knew there would be no benefit to me in raising a stink. But for the next year and a half, every time he saw me in the hall, or in a conference room, he shook. He couldn't follow a thought if I was around. He stuttered. He dropped things.
Me? I smiled at him. I was pleasant. I looked him straight in the eye, as his eyes shifted off. And because I owned those externals, I had a natural interest in the activities of his team, so I made it a point to attend every meeting he called, every presentation he gave, for the rest of my time in that lab.
You know, it would not have occurred to me to have taken the presentation up the line. It wasn't necessary. No management approval was necessary to act on that material. They didn't even need to know about it, and I'd have seen it as wasting their time. There was no other reason for Peter to do those presentations except to draw attention to what a wonderful job he'd done. Too bad he didn't do it. I did. And it wasn't even my job - it was his job, but he was incapable. Of everything but taking the credit, I guess.
Heh heh - he lives near me. Twenty years later I still run into him in the pharmacy or grocery store, and he still quakes when he sees me, and I am still pleasant. I'm almost (but not fully) content with that. He knows what he did and he's suffering his own hell.
------------------------------------
Phooey - I'm gonna put his name here. It's all true, and I've got witnesses who will back me up so I can't get in trouble for it. Hi, Peter Chenevert! Yeah, I'm still pissed.
.
The Company had two big-iron operating systems that were very similar, the older one supported in Endicott, NY, and the newer, which took advantage of newer hardware technology, in Kingston, NY. The Company decided to combine them on a base generated from the newer system, and to "transition" all customers to the new combined system. (Partly because they wanted to retire the old hardware.)
It was a major effort. Functions that existed on one system and not the other would have to be combined on the new system, so there were a lot of new line items.
Externals - messages, responses, return codes, command syntax, etc. - would be hit hard. Although I owned the externals, another design department was in charge of identifying what would have to be done, writing the specs, making the projections, planning, etc. There was a team of five, with Peter C. as the team leader.
I went to Peter, and asked what it looked like so far. He confessed that he had no idea how big it was. He was looking at just comparison of text of commands and messages. I pointed out that there are differences in function, too. The same command didn't necessarily work the same on both systems, because they are based on different hardware, and that there are user applications that capture return codes and responses "under the covers" and perform different actions based on those return codes.
He turned green. He didn't know where to start.
The problem interested me. On my own time, I wrote a super-generator that allowed me to execute every variation of every command in both systems, and then it automatically compared the results. It was a super-human effort. In total, going after all options on all commands, and all responses, messages, and return codes, there were over 30,000 variations. Then I obtained some examples of user applications, and scanned them to identify which externals were heavily used, and which had less impact. Major, major effort. No sleep for weeks.
When I had the results, I asked Peter to call a meeting of his team, where I presented foils of my results, identifying all differences between the systems, sorted as to impact, including a recommendation as to which were mainly used by the old-system applications, and which the new, plus an estimate of the man-hours required to consolidate and test them. Peter's manager attended the presentation.
A few months later, Peter got a HUGE monetary award, one of those corporate-level things, PLUS a huge promotion, for his work in identifying and prioritizing the external differences.
It turns out that he had made presentations to the management chain, all the way up to the product owner level.
Although none of us "grunts" had been invited to, or even knew about, the presentations, my friend Edith had somehow seen a copy of his foils. She came to me and asked if I had seen them. I said no, why. She said I should ask Peter for a copy. That's all she said.
I asked him, and he kept putting me off. He'd get them. He'd make a copy. It was a long time ago, he didn't have it anymore. So I found me someone, a manager, who had been at one of the meetings, and whom I was able to bamboozle into locating a copy for me.
It was my foils. Exactly. My name had been removed and replaced by his, and my name was not mentioned anywhere as so much as a contributor. Not a whisper.
I immediately marched straight over to Peter's office. I stood in his doorway until he looked up and noticed me, and I said, "You don't have to keep looking for those foils for me. I got a copy." He turned white and actually literally shook. "They're very interesting," I said, and I turned around and left.
I was furious. Not simply at what Peter had done, but his manager had been at the meeting where I had presented those foils, and she had to have known what Peter had done. His team and department knew what he had done. Within days of the award announcement, most of the several hundred people working on the operating system knew what he had done. Edith was the only person who actually said anything to me. Everybody else just looked at me funny.
That was MY work, and should have been MY award, MY acclaim, MY promotion, and everyone knew it.
I waited a while to see if he would confess. He didn't. I knew there would be no benefit to me in raising a stink. But for the next year and a half, every time he saw me in the hall, or in a conference room, he shook. He couldn't follow a thought if I was around. He stuttered. He dropped things.
Me? I smiled at him. I was pleasant. I looked him straight in the eye, as his eyes shifted off. And because I owned those externals, I had a natural interest in the activities of his team, so I made it a point to attend every meeting he called, every presentation he gave, for the rest of my time in that lab.
You know, it would not have occurred to me to have taken the presentation up the line. It wasn't necessary. No management approval was necessary to act on that material. They didn't even need to know about it, and I'd have seen it as wasting their time. There was no other reason for Peter to do those presentations except to draw attention to what a wonderful job he'd done. Too bad he didn't do it. I did. And it wasn't even my job - it was his job, but he was incapable. Of everything but taking the credit, I guess.
Heh heh - he lives near me. Twenty years later I still run into him in the pharmacy or grocery store, and he still quakes when he sees me, and I am still pleasant. I'm almost (but not fully) content with that. He knows what he did and he's suffering his own hell.
------------------------------------
Phooey - I'm gonna put his name here. It's all true, and I've got witnesses who will back me up so I can't get in trouble for it. Hi, Peter Chenevert! Yeah, I'm still pissed.
.
1966 Visibility, Part 3 - translation
Friday, August 22, 2008
In the late '80s I was in a design department. I owned all the externals - commands, messages, responses, return codes, everything that the user saw - for one of The Company's big iron operating systems. At that time, I wrote a guide to translation that was so well received that it became a part of The Company-wide operating system standards. (It's possible to write interfaces that cannot be translated.) The Company was expanding into other countries, and translation was important.
I didn't follow my own advice on that one. I don't think anyone in management was at all aware of the guide.
I noticed that many of the existing interfaces were not translatable. They needed to be rewritten. I couldn't do it, because my plate was full, so I went to a few people in the usability design departments, and asked if they could help. Several of them were enthusiastic and wanted to do it. So I met with them and their managers, to get permission for three of them (from three different departments) to work on it, and a fourth person from programming to make the code updates. I marked the externals that needed fixing, including what they should be changed to. While we were at it, it was a good time to fix grammar and punctuation, too, and I marked those up.
Some months later, the rewritten materials went to Japan for translation, and the Japanese translators were wildly enthusiastic about our externals.
Then, one day, there was a multi-department meeting of the design area. The umpty-high manager got up and talked about how happy the translators were with our externals, and announced that the people who'd done this "on their own" were getting awards. They each got a bunch of money, and a ticky in their personnel folders.
Yup, those four. Not me. Even though it was I who recognized the need, and identified all the externals needing improvement, and wrote what they should be changed to. That was more work than simply making the changes, which was essentially a clerical job.
I was stunned. The other four kept glancing at me and shrugging, like "don't blame me!"
To their credit, the four went to my manager, and pointed out that I should also have gotten an award, since I was the one who recognized the need, did all the design work, and negotiated the resources to accomplish it. It would never have happened without me.
A few days later, my manager called me into his office, alone, no witnesses, and handed me a steel ball point pen with "Outstanding Contribution" stamped on. He said that was the best he could do, and that I should keep it quiet, or people would think all they had to get an award was complain and drum up support.
That was like a slap. I was ready to ask for a transfer.
And then something worse happened which pretty much steeled my resolve to get out of there.
.
In the late '80s I was in a design department. I owned all the externals - commands, messages, responses, return codes, everything that the user saw - for one of The Company's big iron operating systems. At that time, I wrote a guide to translation that was so well received that it became a part of The Company-wide operating system standards. (It's possible to write interfaces that cannot be translated.) The Company was expanding into other countries, and translation was important.
I didn't follow my own advice on that one. I don't think anyone in management was at all aware of the guide.
I noticed that many of the existing interfaces were not translatable. They needed to be rewritten. I couldn't do it, because my plate was full, so I went to a few people in the usability design departments, and asked if they could help. Several of them were enthusiastic and wanted to do it. So I met with them and their managers, to get permission for three of them (from three different departments) to work on it, and a fourth person from programming to make the code updates. I marked the externals that needed fixing, including what they should be changed to. While we were at it, it was a good time to fix grammar and punctuation, too, and I marked those up.
Some months later, the rewritten materials went to Japan for translation, and the Japanese translators were wildly enthusiastic about our externals.
Then, one day, there was a multi-department meeting of the design area. The umpty-high manager got up and talked about how happy the translators were with our externals, and announced that the people who'd done this "on their own" were getting awards. They each got a bunch of money, and a ticky in their personnel folders.
Yup, those four. Not me. Even though it was I who recognized the need, and identified all the externals needing improvement, and wrote what they should be changed to. That was more work than simply making the changes, which was essentially a clerical job.
I was stunned. The other four kept glancing at me and shrugging, like "don't blame me!"
To their credit, the four went to my manager, and pointed out that I should also have gotten an award, since I was the one who recognized the need, did all the design work, and negotiated the resources to accomplish it. It would never have happened without me.
A few days later, my manager called me into his office, alone, no witnesses, and handed me a steel ball point pen with "Outstanding Contribution" stamped on. He said that was the best he could do, and that I should keep it quiet, or people would think all they had to get an award was complain and drum up support.
That was like a slap. I was ready to ask for a transfer.
And then something worse happened which pretty much steeled my resolve to get out of there.
.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
1965 Visibility, Part 2 - the pig joke
Thursday, August 21, 2008
I have several examples of occasions when I lost credit (or more accurately, credit was stolen) because I was too quiet.
This one is small, but even though it was like 15 years ago, it still rankles.
The local Mensa group has a camping weekend every fall. I don't camp, but I'll go for the day Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday nights, they used to have a bonfire, and a sing-along, finishing up with a joke-off.
There are two of our male members who always have a stock of jokes, and they study up for the joke-off, and it usually ends up with the two of them trying to outdo each other.
I can never remember jokes. Don't know why, I just can't remember short jokes. I do marginally better with long jokes or "shaggy dog" stories. But this one year I had a terrific new joke - it was new then, but old now. You've probably heard some version of it. It's called "The Wonderful Pig". There are a few versions of it out there on the web, but it's been shortened. It loses effect shortened. When I had it, it was new, full, and punchy. And I'm durn good at telling a story.
So, that night, the joke-off had been going a while, and the two guys were starting to slow down. It looked sort of like Bill was winning. And then I raised my hand and told "The Wonderful Pig". No one had heard it before, and it got a very good reception.
Then I went home for the night.
The next morning at breakfast, they had the vote for best joke told the night before. I don't know what the ballots looked like, whether they had the name of the teller on them, whether it was a show of hands or a secret vote, because I hadn't arrived yet. Shortly after I arrived, they announced the winner for the best joke told the night before.
It was unaminous. The winner for the best joke, "The Wonderful Pig", was Bill. Everybody cheeered and clapped, Bill got up to collect his prize.
I sat there stunned. I turned to NJ and said, "Bill didn't tell that joke, I did." She said, "No, Bill did. I remember." She had been sitting right next to me when I told it. Later I went to Bill, and I reminded him that the The Wonderful Pig was my contribution. He said no, it was his.
I suspect that whoever made up the ballot put him as the teller, because it was most likely, and after that it became fact in everyone's mind.
After all, I never tell jokes.
I'm still angry. Still. Angry. Still.
I told you it was a little thing....
------------------------------------
One day a salesman stops in a bar in a small country town. While he's sitting there, a farmer enters, accompanied by a three-legged pig. The farmer sits at the bar, and the bartender, without being asked, draws a beer for the farmer, and a bowl of beer which he sets on the floor in front of the pig.
After the farmer and pig finish their beers and leave, the salesman calls the bartender over and asks him, frowning, if he usually serves farm animals in his establishment.
The bartender says "No, just that one. He's special. That's one wonderful pig", and goes on to tell the salesman the story.
Last spring the farmer and his wife were visiting neighbors for the evening, leaving their new baby boy in the care of their 12-year-old daughter. Somehow, a fire started in the basement. The daughter had been asleep on the couch, and had fallen unconscious from the smoke.
The pig, in his sty, must have seen the fire or smelled the smoke, and he broke out of his sty and ran to the house. He kicked in the door, grabbed the daughter by her collar, and dragged her out to the porch, where she regained consciousness.
By now, the flames were in the living room. The pig, undeterred, ran through the flames and up the stairs to the baby's room. He picked up the baby and carried him outside, depositing him far from the house.
The flames were now starting to spread to the barn. The pig ran to the barn, and threw himself against the door until it burst open. He opened all the stalls, and bit and nipped and kicked until he forced all the panicked livestock outside.
He then ran a mile to the neighbor's house, where the farmer and his wife were visiting. He set up such a ruckus that the farmer, his wife, and the neighbors came outside. They saw the glow in the west, and knew exactly what it meant, and they headed for the farm. The neighbors did not have a telephone, so the pig ran another mile to the town, where he set up a ruckus at the fire hall, pulling the rope to ring the bell. The townsfolk looked out to see what the problem was, saw the glow, and knew what it meant.
The pig ran the two miles back home, leading the fire truck. He dragged his food trough out of the sty to a safe distance. Then he sat down and licked his burns.
The farmer's family was safe, the cows and horses were all saved. The house was half burned, but the barn was only slightly damaged.
"Yup," said the bartender, nodding, "that's one wonderful pig, and he can have a beer here any time he wants."
The salesman was impressed. "He did all of that on three legs?"
"Oh, no, he had four legs then."
Salesman: "What happened? Did he lose a leg to the fire?"
Bartender, shaking his head, "Oh, no. It's just that, well, when you have a wonderful pig like that, you don't eat him all at once."
.
I have several examples of occasions when I lost credit (or more accurately, credit was stolen) because I was too quiet.
This one is small, but even though it was like 15 years ago, it still rankles.
The local Mensa group has a camping weekend every fall. I don't camp, but I'll go for the day Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday nights, they used to have a bonfire, and a sing-along, finishing up with a joke-off.
There are two of our male members who always have a stock of jokes, and they study up for the joke-off, and it usually ends up with the two of them trying to outdo each other.
I can never remember jokes. Don't know why, I just can't remember short jokes. I do marginally better with long jokes or "shaggy dog" stories. But this one year I had a terrific new joke - it was new then, but old now. You've probably heard some version of it. It's called "The Wonderful Pig". There are a few versions of it out there on the web, but it's been shortened. It loses effect shortened. When I had it, it was new, full, and punchy. And I'm durn good at telling a story.
So, that night, the joke-off had been going a while, and the two guys were starting to slow down. It looked sort of like Bill was winning. And then I raised my hand and told "The Wonderful Pig". No one had heard it before, and it got a very good reception.
Then I went home for the night.
The next morning at breakfast, they had the vote for best joke told the night before. I don't know what the ballots looked like, whether they had the name of the teller on them, whether it was a show of hands or a secret vote, because I hadn't arrived yet. Shortly after I arrived, they announced the winner for the best joke told the night before.
It was unaminous. The winner for the best joke, "The Wonderful Pig", was Bill. Everybody cheeered and clapped, Bill got up to collect his prize.
I sat there stunned. I turned to NJ and said, "Bill didn't tell that joke, I did." She said, "No, Bill did. I remember." She had been sitting right next to me when I told it. Later I went to Bill, and I reminded him that the The Wonderful Pig was my contribution. He said no, it was his.
I suspect that whoever made up the ballot put him as the teller, because it was most likely, and after that it became fact in everyone's mind.
After all, I never tell jokes.
I'm still angry. Still. Angry. Still.
I told you it was a little thing....
------------------------------------
The Wonderful Pig
One day a salesman stops in a bar in a small country town. While he's sitting there, a farmer enters, accompanied by a three-legged pig. The farmer sits at the bar, and the bartender, without being asked, draws a beer for the farmer, and a bowl of beer which he sets on the floor in front of the pig.
After the farmer and pig finish their beers and leave, the salesman calls the bartender over and asks him, frowning, if he usually serves farm animals in his establishment.
The bartender says "No, just that one. He's special. That's one wonderful pig", and goes on to tell the salesman the story.
Last spring the farmer and his wife were visiting neighbors for the evening, leaving their new baby boy in the care of their 12-year-old daughter. Somehow, a fire started in the basement. The daughter had been asleep on the couch, and had fallen unconscious from the smoke.
The pig, in his sty, must have seen the fire or smelled the smoke, and he broke out of his sty and ran to the house. He kicked in the door, grabbed the daughter by her collar, and dragged her out to the porch, where she regained consciousness.
By now, the flames were in the living room. The pig, undeterred, ran through the flames and up the stairs to the baby's room. He picked up the baby and carried him outside, depositing him far from the house.
The flames were now starting to spread to the barn. The pig ran to the barn, and threw himself against the door until it burst open. He opened all the stalls, and bit and nipped and kicked until he forced all the panicked livestock outside.
He then ran a mile to the neighbor's house, where the farmer and his wife were visiting. He set up such a ruckus that the farmer, his wife, and the neighbors came outside. They saw the glow in the west, and knew exactly what it meant, and they headed for the farm. The neighbors did not have a telephone, so the pig ran another mile to the town, where he set up a ruckus at the fire hall, pulling the rope to ring the bell. The townsfolk looked out to see what the problem was, saw the glow, and knew what it meant.
The pig ran the two miles back home, leading the fire truck. He dragged his food trough out of the sty to a safe distance. Then he sat down and licked his burns.
The farmer's family was safe, the cows and horses were all saved. The house was half burned, but the barn was only slightly damaged.
"Yup," said the bartender, nodding, "that's one wonderful pig, and he can have a beer here any time he wants."
The salesman was impressed. "He did all of that on three legs?"
"Oh, no, he had four legs then."
Salesman: "What happened? Did he lose a leg to the fire?"
Bartender, shaking his head, "Oh, no. It's just that, well, when you have a wonderful pig like that, you don't eat him all at once."
.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
1964 Visibility, Part 1 - an unwritten book
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
I was cleaning out the den file cabinet, and found some notes I had made on a book I'd planned to someday write. I have no memory of my impetus. It must have been a very long time ago, because the topic was apparently important to me then, but is nothing but a passing interest now.
The topic was how to get ahead at work. You don't get promotions and raises from doing a good job, or by making a contribution. If I learned nothing else during my years with the company, I learned that. You can do a mediocre job, and still get rewarded primarily for being visible.
I know this is true. I did ok with The Company, but if I'd been more visible, or more accurately, more visible in more generally approved ways, I'd have done better. Poor Jay was a superstar among his coworkers, highly respected, he was the source of all knowledge, the person to go to for answers and assistance. His own work was almost perfect ("almost" only because he would always stubbornly sacrifice schedules to quality). But he was otherwise completely invisible, and constantly passed over.
Ok. From my notes, these are the things you have to do to get the rewards:
(I'm not saying I was so wonderful. I did ok. I could have done a lot better had I taken my own advice, but a lot of this stuff requires a cynicism I don't have. I respected myself too much. I did 2, 5, 7, 8, and 9.)
Of the things you could be assigned to or volunteer for, some are higher visibility than others, and therefore get you more goodies than others. In order of decreasing visiblity:
Visible
If everything you're doing is in the bottom six, you're stuck.
You might say, "Hey, I'm in a customer relations department! I'm very visible to my immediate management chain." Fine. But in a large US corporation, sales is highest on the budget and passing-out-goodies ladder, and customer service is the lowest. You might be the biggest frog, but you're in the smallest pond.
Copyright mine. If you want to write the book, I'll be happy to consult.
.
I was cleaning out the den file cabinet, and found some notes I had made on a book I'd planned to someday write. I have no memory of my impetus. It must have been a very long time ago, because the topic was apparently important to me then, but is nothing but a passing interest now.
The topic was how to get ahead at work. You don't get promotions and raises from doing a good job, or by making a contribution. If I learned nothing else during my years with the company, I learned that. You can do a mediocre job, and still get rewarded primarily for being visible.
I know this is true. I did ok with The Company, but if I'd been more visible, or more accurately, more visible in more generally approved ways, I'd have done better. Poor Jay was a superstar among his coworkers, highly respected, he was the source of all knowledge, the person to go to for answers and assistance. His own work was almost perfect ("almost" only because he would always stubbornly sacrifice schedules to quality). But he was otherwise completely invisible, and constantly passed over.
Ok. From my notes, these are the things you have to do to get the rewards:
- Be visible.
- Be indispensable to management.
- Take credit for everything you reasonably can, blow your own horn.
- Get on the right projects, avoid the dogs. All you need is one important project that you can then use to avoid dogs, because "...it will impact this big important, blah blah...".
- Stay educated, take classes whenever they're offered.
- Stay aware of everything around you - future projects, office politics, etc. Be the one in the know.
- Produce weekly accomplishment (not activity) reports, and request frequent 1-1s with management. A few months before an evaluation, request an interim (how am I doing so far, and how can I improve?) evaluation.
- Notice areas for improvement, and make formal suggestions.
- Do not work overtime, ever!, except in rare cases when management has requested it for a specific purpose. Then volunteer. Constant overtime, accepting more work than you can complete in a workday, smacks of poor time-management, and leaves you unavailable in a crisis.
- Don't step on the toes of loud equally-visible people. Be diplomatic.
- Arrive every morning at the earliest "start time", but don't come in earlier than that. The people who make decisions are often early, and will notice you, but coming in too early means either you're working overtime (see #9), or you will be perceived as leaving early. Try to walk in from the parking lot with, or a few feet ahead of, your manager.
(I'm not saying I was so wonderful. I did ok. I could have done a lot better had I taken my own advice, but a lot of this stuff requires a cynicism I don't have. I respected myself too much. I did 2, 5, 7, 8, and 9.)
Of the things you could be assigned to or volunteer for, some are higher visibility than others, and therefore get you more goodies than others. In order of decreasing visiblity:
Visible
- Presenting
- Reporting
- Tracking (planning, scheduling, resource management)
- Innovation
- Problem solving
- Productivity
- Contributing to quality-ensuring procedures
- Teamwork
- Teaching
- Enabling others
- Customer relations
If everything you're doing is in the bottom six, you're stuck.
You might say, "Hey, I'm in a customer relations department! I'm very visible to my immediate management chain." Fine. But in a large US corporation, sales is highest on the budget and passing-out-goodies ladder, and customer service is the lowest. You might be the biggest frog, but you're in the smallest pond.
Copyright mine. If you want to write the book, I'll be happy to consult.
.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
1963 County Fair
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
I went to the county fair today. I went to every barn, every building, looked at every stand, every animal, every display. I considered riding on the carousel, but it needed three ride tickets, and when I finally found a ticket booth it was at some distance from the carousel, and tickets were $1 each. Yeouch!
I bought french fries (small size, with lots of salt and malt vinegar), a $15 ring that I thought was unusual, five packages of dry soup mix (each of which makes 2 quarts!), a frozen custard sundae with hot fudge and peanut butter sauce, and clip-on sunglasses that fit my frames perfectly.
I walked a few miles, I think.
And then I came home.
That's officially the end of summer.
.
I went to the county fair today. I went to every barn, every building, looked at every stand, every animal, every display. I considered riding on the carousel, but it needed three ride tickets, and when I finally found a ticket booth it was at some distance from the carousel, and tickets were $1 each. Yeouch!
I bought french fries (small size, with lots of salt and malt vinegar), a $15 ring that I thought was unusual, five packages of dry soup mix (each of which makes 2 quarts!), a frozen custard sundae with hot fudge and peanut butter sauce, and clip-on sunglasses that fit my frames perfectly.
I walked a few miles, I think.
And then I came home.
That's officially the end of summer.
.
Monday, August 18, 2008
1962 Fiberglass, Back Help, etc.
Monday, August 18, 2008
"Disappointment is the distance between expectations and reality."
-----------------------
Remember when I think I came into contact with fiberglass dust last spring, and was sprouting what looked like glass slivers for days? Shreve at The Daily Coyote says bathing in vinegar dissolves the stuff. She says it feels weird. I almost can't wait to test it.
-----------------------
Saturday, when I was wearing the tight boned laced bodice, when I got in the car, the mirror was too low. It was showing back seat and a sliver out the back window. I had to adjust it up. Yesterday, wearing a loose dress, the mirror was too high, showing the roof and a sliver out the back window. Even sitting as straight up as I could it was too high. I had to adjust it down.
Conclusion - the bodice made me taller. My posture is usually pretty good. If I slump, my back goes out. So it wasn't just posture. I really think the bodice lifted my ribs and lengthened my spine.
I'm glad I found that site a while ago with all the different lacing. I'm going to need a lacing that doesn't self-adjust. By the end of the day Saturday, the laces had widened at the bustal area on the front and sides and down the tummy point in front, and had cinched very narrow at the waist all around. My lace gaps took on an extreme hourglass shape, and so did I.
.
"Disappointment is the distance between expectations and reality."
-----------------------
Remember when I think I came into contact with fiberglass dust last spring, and was sprouting what looked like glass slivers for days? Shreve at The Daily Coyote says bathing in vinegar dissolves the stuff. She says it feels weird. I almost can't wait to test it.
-----------------------
Saturday, when I was wearing the tight boned laced bodice, when I got in the car, the mirror was too low. It was showing back seat and a sliver out the back window. I had to adjust it up. Yesterday, wearing a loose dress, the mirror was too high, showing the roof and a sliver out the back window. Even sitting as straight up as I could it was too high. I had to adjust it down.
Conclusion - the bodice made me taller. My posture is usually pretty good. If I slump, my back goes out. So it wasn't just posture. I really think the bodice lifted my ribs and lengthened my spine.
I'm glad I found that site a while ago with all the different lacing. I'm going to need a lacing that doesn't self-adjust. By the end of the day Saturday, the laces had widened at the bustal area on the front and sides and down the tummy point in front, and had cinched very narrow at the waist all around. My lace gaps took on an extreme hourglass shape, and so did I.
.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
1961 Olympic Rowing
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Women, pairs, rowing. A boat passed the camera, and it says "Kunstwerk" on the side. I misread it, switched the "s" and the "t", and thought, "That's terrible! But yeah, they are, working, that is."
.
Women, pairs, rowing. A boat passed the camera, and it says "Kunstwerk" on the side. I misread it, switched the "s" and the "t", and thought, "That's terrible! But yeah, they are, working, that is."
.
1960 Olympic Fencing
Sunday, August 17, 2008
The horses are finished, and now it's fencing. I'm sitting here frowning. I haven't watched fencing since the '70s, when I fenced a bit myself. (I quit when I realized I was building enormous thighs.)
Man, has the form changed! It's no longer a graceful and balanced dance. These guys are facing each other square on, presenting a huge target. Their free arms are dangling, waving around, often in front - and hey guys, I've noticed that about half the touches are on that arm. They're jumping around and frequently crashing into each other. It seems a touch needn't be with the point - they're flailing and whacking at each other, and scoring with the side. I thought that was allowed in saber only.
It's ugly. I am unhappy.
.
The horses are finished, and now it's fencing. I'm sitting here frowning. I haven't watched fencing since the '70s, when I fenced a bit myself. (I quit when I realized I was building enormous thighs.)
Man, has the form changed! It's no longer a graceful and balanced dance. These guys are facing each other square on, presenting a huge target. Their free arms are dangling, waving around, often in front - and hey guys, I've noticed that about half the touches are on that arm. They're jumping around and frequently crashing into each other. It seems a touch needn't be with the point - they're flailing and whacking at each other, and scoring with the side. I thought that was allowed in saber only.
It's ugly. I am unhappy.
.
1959 Olympic Horses
Sunday, August 17, 2008
I'm watching the Olympic equestrian events, jumping this afternoon. I'm not particularly interested in anything else but the equestrian stuff. I like the announcers today - they give some credit to the horse. I get annoyed when the commentators act like the rider is running around and jumping all alone.
.
I'm watching the Olympic equestrian events, jumping this afternoon. I'm not particularly interested in anything else but the equestrian stuff. I like the announcers today - they give some credit to the horse. I get annoyed when the commentators act like the rider is running around and jumping all alone.
.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
1958 Faire, Tarot, and other bits
Saturday, August 16, 2008
I went to the big Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo today. It's the first time I've gone in several years. It has changed.
I don't know if they're still doing the running play. In the past, it was all over the place, constantly, hard to miss. And there was music, and jousting, and duels, and all kinds of performances, everywhere, including Robin and his merrie band waylaying passersby in the woods. All the performers and shop keepers spoke "Olde English", with carefully cultivated accents and vocabulary.
Not so this year. There were at least three times the retail booths, and the only performances I happened to catch were bellydancers (two - I watched one dance and left embarrassed for her), and a story teller. The Olde English consisted of "M'Lady...", and that was about it. I bought a carving of a frog emerging from a polished knot of wood root, and a shredded pork sandwich, and a Tarot reading. I stayed four hours, and left.
I'm glad I went, because I'd be sad if I missed it again this year after so long, but now it will be easier to miss it next year.
I dressed for it this year - a long bias cut black dress with long laced-up sleeves with long wrist points that flutter, with a tight pewter and pale green brocade boned & laced bodice over it (a cheap one I bought on eBay - first time out in a bodice, I wanted to wear one I wouldn't mind splitting). Many of the shops and booths were selling bodices, and the shop owners all complimented mine. Nicer, men of a certain age lengthened their glances to a stare, with a smile at the end. Rather nice. Certainly appreciated. A wench needs a boost every so often.
--------------------------------
The Tarot reading: current and 12 month future.
She began by saying that this does not mean these things will happen, because I can influence the future by taking action. But if I take no action, this is the default.
Life: Health is good, life is comfortable, I'm mostly happy, etc etc. She used a lot of words and qualifiers, and when she was finished, I asked "Does that all net out to 'content'?" And she enthusiastically agreed. Not a perfect life, but a contented life. Yes. And it will be so.
Finances: She saw some problem there, that something will happen, a reversal, or expected money won't appear, ... she had difficulty defining it, so she jumped down to Work/Career", which seemed to be connected.
Work/Career: I will change jobs, with a reduction in salary, or I will retire and not get the benefits I expect, something like that, but it will not be devastating, just very irritating. She asked then what I do, and I said I was fully retired. She frowned, and said there will be some kind of financial disappointment, connected with work, actually with retirement, or leaving a job. Maybe I will start a job or business and then leave it? I said "Highly unlikely." She frowned. It bothered her. [Hmmm. I just remembered I got the annual Company retiree benefits signup package about two weeks ago. In prior years, if you didn't change anything, you didn't have to reply, and everything continued as per the prior year - so I haven't looked at the package yet. Maybe I'd better check it. I wouldn't put it past them to lull us into complacency, and then this year say that if you don't respond, you lose everything!]
House/Home: Major improvement will be made soon. Could be work on my current home, renovations or changes, or moving to another home. [I wonder if replacing A/C fits this?]
Communications: There's a blockage. There's someone close that I need to talk with, but the information isn't flowing. Possibly a child who isn't telling me something, or a relationship that needs discussion, and it isn't happening. There's an elephant in the living room that we're ignoring. [Yup. On both fronts.]
Social/Friends: "Don't get me wrong, you have a good heart, but..." she says my friends and acquaintances tend to see me as someone who stirs the pot, causes controversy.
Love: There are two men, one current, one future. The current man is leaving my sphere, actually, I am drifting away from his sphere. There is darkness surrounding him, he is dimming. There is another man on the horizon, who is cultured, artistic, creative, possibly involved with a band, that sort of thing, travels a lot for fun, he's a fun and exciting person whom I will enjoy enormously. Light surrounds him. I will become connected with him in October, no, (frown), not that soon, March. Yes, March. [I don't think I'm exactly pleased to hear this. March is the two-year anniversary with The Man.]
So, we'll see how it goes.
-------------------------------
I forgot to mention this two weeks ago, but I don't want to forget it altogether, it was so cool.
At the tournaments, people who are with the bowlers are supposed to be quiet, for two reasons - to lessen distraction, and to prevent coaching. Think golf. At a tournament, five strikes in a row is not unusual. People start to pay attention when it gets to six.
At the Pa. tournament, a guy bowling on the pair next to The Man's pair got six strikes in the first six frames, and the whispered word passed through the spectators. Then he got the seventh. Another strike in the eighth frame, and people started wandering over to watch. Ninth frame. He rolled a
.
.
... hard to say this
.
.
... it's awful
.
.
... gutter ball.
Thud rumble rumble rumble.
.
.
Gasps from the 80 people behind him. Sheepish look from him.
He got up there to go for the spare, and GOT THE SPARE! As far as everyone was concerned, it was the ninth strike. Gotta admire his cool. The entire building broke into cheers.
He then went on to finish with three more strikes. If not for that gutter ball, it would have been a perfect game, but for everyone who watched him, it WAS a perfect game.
.
I went to the big Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo today. It's the first time I've gone in several years. It has changed.
I don't know if they're still doing the running play. In the past, it was all over the place, constantly, hard to miss. And there was music, and jousting, and duels, and all kinds of performances, everywhere, including Robin and his merrie band waylaying passersby in the woods. All the performers and shop keepers spoke "Olde English", with carefully cultivated accents and vocabulary.
Not so this year. There were at least three times the retail booths, and the only performances I happened to catch were bellydancers (two - I watched one dance and left embarrassed for her), and a story teller. The Olde English consisted of "M'Lady...", and that was about it. I bought a carving of a frog emerging from a polished knot of wood root, and a shredded pork sandwich, and a Tarot reading. I stayed four hours, and left.
I'm glad I went, because I'd be sad if I missed it again this year after so long, but now it will be easier to miss it next year.
I dressed for it this year - a long bias cut black dress with long laced-up sleeves with long wrist points that flutter, with a tight pewter and pale green brocade boned & laced bodice over it (a cheap one I bought on eBay - first time out in a bodice, I wanted to wear one I wouldn't mind splitting). Many of the shops and booths were selling bodices, and the shop owners all complimented mine. Nicer, men of a certain age lengthened their glances to a stare, with a smile at the end. Rather nice. Certainly appreciated. A wench needs a boost every so often.
--------------------------------
The Tarot reading: current and 12 month future.
She began by saying that this does not mean these things will happen, because I can influence the future by taking action. But if I take no action, this is the default.
Life: Health is good, life is comfortable, I'm mostly happy, etc etc. She used a lot of words and qualifiers, and when she was finished, I asked "Does that all net out to 'content'?" And she enthusiastically agreed. Not a perfect life, but a contented life. Yes. And it will be so.
Finances: She saw some problem there, that something will happen, a reversal, or expected money won't appear, ... she had difficulty defining it, so she jumped down to Work/Career", which seemed to be connected.
Work/Career: I will change jobs, with a reduction in salary, or I will retire and not get the benefits I expect, something like that, but it will not be devastating, just very irritating. She asked then what I do, and I said I was fully retired. She frowned, and said there will be some kind of financial disappointment, connected with work, actually with retirement, or leaving a job. Maybe I will start a job or business and then leave it? I said "Highly unlikely." She frowned. It bothered her. [Hmmm. I just remembered I got the annual Company retiree benefits signup package about two weeks ago. In prior years, if you didn't change anything, you didn't have to reply, and everything continued as per the prior year - so I haven't looked at the package yet. Maybe I'd better check it. I wouldn't put it past them to lull us into complacency, and then this year say that if you don't respond, you lose everything!]
House/Home: Major improvement will be made soon. Could be work on my current home, renovations or changes, or moving to another home. [I wonder if replacing A/C fits this?]
Communications: There's a blockage. There's someone close that I need to talk with, but the information isn't flowing. Possibly a child who isn't telling me something, or a relationship that needs discussion, and it isn't happening. There's an elephant in the living room that we're ignoring. [Yup. On both fronts.]
Social/Friends: "Don't get me wrong, you have a good heart, but..." she says my friends and acquaintances tend to see me as someone who stirs the pot, causes controversy.
Love: There are two men, one current, one future. The current man is leaving my sphere, actually, I am drifting away from his sphere. There is darkness surrounding him, he is dimming. There is another man on the horizon, who is cultured, artistic, creative, possibly involved with a band, that sort of thing, travels a lot for fun, he's a fun and exciting person whom I will enjoy enormously. Light surrounds him. I will become connected with him in October, no, (frown), not that soon, March. Yes, March. [I don't think I'm exactly pleased to hear this. March is the two-year anniversary with The Man.]
So, we'll see how it goes.
-------------------------------
I forgot to mention this two weeks ago, but I don't want to forget it altogether, it was so cool.
At the tournaments, people who are with the bowlers are supposed to be quiet, for two reasons - to lessen distraction, and to prevent coaching. Think golf. At a tournament, five strikes in a row is not unusual. People start to pay attention when it gets to six.
At the Pa. tournament, a guy bowling on the pair next to The Man's pair got six strikes in the first six frames, and the whispered word passed through the spectators. Then he got the seventh. Another strike in the eighth frame, and people started wandering over to watch. Ninth frame. He rolled a
.
.
... hard to say this
.
.
... it's awful
.
.
... gutter ball.
Thud rumble rumble rumble.
.
.
Gasps from the 80 people behind him. Sheepish look from him.
He got up there to go for the spare, and GOT THE SPARE! As far as everyone was concerned, it was the ninth strike. Gotta admire his cool. The entire building broke into cheers.
He then went on to finish with three more strikes. If not for that gutter ball, it would have been a perfect game, but for everyone who watched him, it WAS a perfect game.
.
Friday, August 15, 2008
1957 Wow! Another car
Friday, August 15, 2008
Christine found a car for me:
It's a Tesla. I love the design, love the way it looks! Wow! It turns out the body was designed by Lotus. Too bad Lotus couldn't do as good a job on their own cars.
Unfortunately, there are a few problems. I'll have to do more digging to be sure, but it looks like right now it's available only in California. That's pretty far to go for service.
It's 100% electric, with a range of 220 to 250 miles between charges (various websites differ on the range), so I wouldn't count on more than 200. I sorta doubt I'd be able to pull into a gas station and ask if I could plug in. And I'm not sure how long it takes to recharge.
If one were looking for a second car, it would be the perfect "pot around town and shopping" car.
Thanks, Christine.
Hey, anyone else have recommendations? Find Silk a car!
.
Christine found a car for me:
It's a Tesla. I love the design, love the way it looks! Wow! It turns out the body was designed by Lotus. Too bad Lotus couldn't do as good a job on their own cars.
Unfortunately, there are a few problems. I'll have to do more digging to be sure, but it looks like right now it's available only in California. That's pretty far to go for service.
It's 100% electric, with a range of 220 to 250 miles between charges (various websites differ on the range), so I wouldn't count on more than 200. I sorta doubt I'd be able to pull into a gas station and ask if I could plug in. And I'm not sure how long it takes to recharge.
If one were looking for a second car, it would be the perfect "pot around town and shopping" car.
Thanks, Christine.
Hey, anyone else have recommendations? Find Silk a car!
.
1956 Unbelievable eBay Bid
Friday, August 15, 2008
There's an empty condom package and a photo of panties, and the story of why they're up for auction. at http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250280309940.
Ok, fun.
But it has gone beyond fun. As of right now, there have been 93 bids from 53 bidders, and a bidder with a feedback score of 1012 (which means they actually buy or sell stuff, and probably don't want to jeopardize their reputation by not paying) has bid $25,500.00. The auction ends in two days, so it could go higher.
A bid is a contract to pay. It's not just fun - you can't say you were just joking, and anyone with a score over two digits will know that. You don't pay, you could get sued, and you will lose.
The seller is actually going to get over $20,000 for an empty condom packet, a photo of panties (it was originally the actual panties, but eBay doesn't allow the sale of used underwear), and a story! The story isn't even well written, and there's no guarantee that it's true.
How much does a professional writer get for a published short story?
I don't have a very good imagination. If someone reading this would like to try coming up with an amazing story, I'll provide the items to go with the story and list it on eBay (my feedback is close to 3000, all positive), and we'll split the take 50-50.
What a scam! It's perfectly legal, and you're being up front with the volunteer marks. They're just stupid. Consider it a service to mankind.
.
There's an empty condom package and a photo of panties, and the story of why they're up for auction. at http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250280309940.
Ok, fun.
But it has gone beyond fun. As of right now, there have been 93 bids from 53 bidders, and a bidder with a feedback score of 1012 (which means they actually buy or sell stuff, and probably don't want to jeopardize their reputation by not paying) has bid $25,500.00. The auction ends in two days, so it could go higher.
A bid is a contract to pay. It's not just fun - you can't say you were just joking, and anyone with a score over two digits will know that. You don't pay, you could get sued, and you will lose.
The seller is actually going to get over $20,000 for an empty condom packet, a photo of panties (it was originally the actual panties, but eBay doesn't allow the sale of used underwear), and a story! The story isn't even well written, and there's no guarantee that it's true.
How much does a professional writer get for a published short story?
I don't have a very good imagination. If someone reading this would like to try coming up with an amazing story, I'll provide the items to go with the story and list it on eBay (my feedback is close to 3000, all positive), and we'll split the take 50-50.
What a scam! It's perfectly legal, and you're being up front with the volunteer marks. They're just stupid. Consider it a service to mankind.
.
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