Satire Warning!
I was bored after 5 months "out of action" (well, actually only 3 months, not counting 2 months I was out on vacation), so when a friend of mine emailed and asked whether I wanted to take over a short-term contract job, supporting the same company that let me go just few months ago. Of course, I jumped in with both feet and thanking my friend for that.
Little that I knew, instead of telecommute, working from my comfort pajama at home, spend only few hours, no stress and well paying... you know, a dream job. I end up having to drive 27-28 miles each way, working in a fortress Data Center with no window but security cameras was every where (in other word, no place to hide to scratch my itching butt, except in the restroom - but even then, who knows there might be a tiny camera lens hidden somewhere), and worse - sharing the same work space with a bunch of crazy IT guys with a fancy title like "System Admin", "Network Engineer", "Backup Specialist", to name a few. Honestly, before this, I thought these IT people was actually a virtual person, invented by IBM, NOVEL, or Microsoft, etc... who running around in the background fixing and working on user's request then goes back to sleep inside a database until the next request...Well, I was wrong, but not very wrong, because in life, they don't look like a typical professional DBA (Do Blame Anybody) like me...because they talking to each other with many weird and strange acronym terms like: ARC, SST, "triage", "scream test" (which I thought they used a pin to poke on someone - users, developers, application owners - to see whether they're still alive or not, etc...even their work schedule is weird too! for one guy, a Thursday is his Friday, when Tues is another Monday, etc...
Heh!Heh!Heh!
Except for the first paragraph, everything else was my wild imagination , weird "creativity", and sense of humor. After my first day at work, my impression with this group was like in the "Band of Brothers" movie. The first guy greeted me and took me into their "dungeon" was Bob, which I fondly called him "uncle Bob", because his joyfully, easy going and willing to help attitude. Then "Fin", a very, very cautious guy in everything he does - and a funny guy too. I don't know how many years these guys know Fin, but he often bring up the phrase "my wife is going to kill me!" that often made us laugh. I once told him that "Hey, you've just been married only 14-15 years; look at me - I have been marrying for 35+ years and still alive! women are pretty smart...they wouldn't want to kill a "golden goose" like us!". The third person that I met on my first day was our group leader, Rick - which I am always respected and care for him. I often compared and teased him as our Sergeant - whom with plenty of technical experience and courage to lead and protect his band of brothers - so to speak. Later I was told that just less than a decade ago, he was an electrician and now a leader of a group of IT geek, a pretty smart & fast learner, eh?
Then there are Pat, the tape backup guy - who occupied his own little "dungeon" with hundred of tapes and disk drive stacks, and always he first person come in to work. In my 25 years of working, Pat was the only one show up earlier than me. Another interesting and funny person is Mike, a young dude - perhaps the youngest in our group, love to play soccer and could be one of the smartest geek. Mike 's cubicle is between Rick and mine, so each day I moved my divider panel a inch closer to his, and next day I came in early also to move Rick's divider panel extended over Mike's cubicle - just to see whether Mike noticed or not. On the 3rd day, Mike walked in and just a quick glance, he yelled "Hey, what the heck is going on?". I laugh, watching Mike pushed back the dividers.
On my first week at the dungeon called EDC2, we have 2 fire alarms happened during one morning. We gathered outside on a corner of the building. In the picture below (click on the image for a larger view), from left is Pat, Fin, uncle Bob, Patrick, Todd, Ryan, Mike (partially cover) and Rick.
Heh!Heh!Heh!
Except for the first paragraph, everything else was my wild imagination , weird "creativity", and sense of humor. After my first day at work, my impression with this group was like in the "Band of Brothers" movie. The first guy greeted me and took me into their "dungeon" was Bob, which I fondly called him "uncle Bob", because his joyfully, easy going and willing to help attitude. Then "Fin", a very, very cautious guy in everything he does - and a funny guy too. I don't know how many years these guys know Fin, but he often bring up the phrase "my wife is going to kill me!" that often made us laugh. I once told him that "Hey, you've just been married only 14-15 years; look at me - I have been marrying for 35+ years and still alive! women are pretty smart...they wouldn't want to kill a "golden goose" like us!". The third person that I met on my first day was our group leader, Rick - which I am always respected and care for him. I often compared and teased him as our Sergeant - whom with plenty of technical experience and courage to lead and protect his band of brothers - so to speak. Later I was told that just less than a decade ago, he was an electrician and now a leader of a group of IT geek, a pretty smart & fast learner, eh?
Then there are Pat, the tape backup guy - who occupied his own little "dungeon" with hundred of tapes and disk drive stacks, and always he first person come in to work. In my 25 years of working, Pat was the only one show up earlier than me. Another interesting and funny person is Mike, a young dude - perhaps the youngest in our group, love to play soccer and could be one of the smartest geek. Mike 's cubicle is between Rick and mine, so each day I moved my divider panel a inch closer to his, and next day I came in early also to move Rick's divider panel extended over Mike's cubicle - just to see whether Mike noticed or not. On the 3rd day, Mike walked in and just a quick glance, he yelled "Hey, what the heck is going on?". I laugh, watching Mike pushed back the dividers.
On my first week at the dungeon called EDC2, we have 2 fire alarms happened during one morning. We gathered outside on a corner of the building. In the picture below (click on the image for a larger view), from left is Pat, Fin, uncle Bob, Patrick, Todd, Ryan, Mike (partially cover) and Rick.
Every now & then, we often perform the "check the weather" exercise, a term they used for taking a break by going outside for fresh air and get away for few minutes from a place with heavy magnetic field generated by thousand of servers, network racks and hundred miles of cables, electricity.
I always carry a small digital camera with me so when a situation arise, like in the picture below, Pat - the tape backup guy - has an exist interview with our boss. They went into an empty cubicle to go over the paper work, since Pat was kind of working for hours to finish his last assignment and tired of sitting, so he on his knees while talking to Mike. I could not resisted to take a snapshot, then used the Photoshop to edit and add special lighting effect, as if there was heavenly spot light on Pat's moment of confession, which it seems appropriate enough, because those remained will never know when we'll have another job offer that get us out of this "purgatory" place
Pat's last confession
Working hard or hardly working? hard to tell without being there...
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| Working on the Monster.com Research project.... :) |
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| lunch at Benihana - Me, Fin and Patrick |
Scott & Bob
Another "VIP" in the Data Center is Scott, the manager of the DC for Chase, who migrated from the Mid-West, and I didn't know how or when I impressed him but more than a month after I arrived, one day during our conversation, I told them that I couldn't hardly wait for my house to be sold, to get out of this "communist" state and move to Texas. Scott heard that and said to everybody "Hey! I like this guy more and more everyday!". It turn out that, like many people with some common sense and decency, Scott and I totally against the way of our country is currently governed. We - as a nation - slowly turn into a hand out society, and government will take care of everyone needs, along with no responsibilities for the future generations. A few days later, I also found out that he loves the Vietnamese's "combat sandwitches" , which Fin & I drive to downtown Seattle and pick up about 10 of those for lunch. Soon after that, he offered to drive with me, to buy the same BBQ sandwitches - in order to know where the store and perhaps, a place to order dinner to go for him while he stayed in the hotel. Another guy also get hook on Vietnamese's sandwitchesis Jim (which I called him "Jimmy The Greek", because of his dark & wit sense of humor, wise guy indeed). He also love to eat McDonald's foods, and buy it's breakfast almost every morning. I jokingly tell others that just what Jim eats, we can tell whether Mac's stock price will goes up or down every day...lol
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| Jimmy the Greek |
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| Rick & Jared in text messaging contest... |
When my job contract term was almost expired in three weeks, I posted my resume on Craigslist, just in case that Chase won't extend my contract. Fate happened that I got a job offer & accepted it (another contracting position) at a local company that I used to work for them almost 8 years ago, and later on the same day - during our staff meeting, Mike - our boss - received an email to confirm that they extended my job contract. The new job is closer to home and pay more (29% more), plus overtime for any extra hour. I was touched as when Mike gave me a thumbs up while we're in a conference call, and almost everybody seems happy for me, knowing this crazy "James Bond" would stay with them for a few more months, adding to the office madness. However, I know soon or later, we would be depart on many different directions, after Chase shutdown the data center on the West coast, and I hoped that some of us might be working together again someday.
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| lunch at a local Mexican restaurant. |
On my last day, they took me out for my free "last meal" at a restaurant down in South Center area , Fin took the picture for us as Jared with a big smile, Bob is hiding in the corner, Ryan in the middle between Bob and Jimmy the Geek. In the picture Jim hold his hand as if he was praying for me :)
and now, below is one of the souvenir-crazy gifts from "uncle" Bob, I will use it to disguide my true identity at my new job:
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| James Bond in cover. |
Farewell my friends and boss. Life is too short and even we only worked with each other just over 3 months, but I have too much fun and memories to carry with me for the rest of my life. I prayed and know that God will take cares of you, give you all more peace, health and happiness than I can ever could. We never know, that we might end up in a same 'cage' again in the future, and when that happened, we'll sing the "Happy Days" tune all over again. For now, good bye comrades... (you'll lose the title "comrade" only when the state of WA changed its "wealth distribution" policy or move to Texas like I will be - soon).
Cheers,
Sam
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