The No Redundancy and Sore Throat Blues

This last week at work a new computer system was rolled out at work that was supposed to make our job simpler. It was supposed to consolidate about 5 different applications we use into one in order to make everything a lot more seamless - It looked great in theory, but in practice - it was DOA. Monday morning I signed on to my computer, and instead of simplicity, I'm greeted by a mess of javascript errors, and the realization that the 5 applications this new one was supposed to replace had been completely killed off - so for the short while I worked Monday (being a holiday I got the option to go home early and heartily took it) - my job mainly consisted of telling people I couldn't do my job.

Tuesday I come in, and am assured the new application is up and fully operational. I begin working on my first case, and for the first 5 minutes I'm thinking "wow... I think they actually got it right...." - and then I get a whole new mess of javascript errors. So Tuesday (a much busier day being right after a long weekend) was also spent mostly telling people that I couldn't do my job - and every 30 minutes management would come around with updates on the new tool "it's up - it's down, it's up - it's down..." Until the third time I finally blew up and told them "Fuck that, it's down, and if it just happens to be up, I know damn well it's going to go back down while I'm in the middle of something".

I just couldn't believe they would roll out something this crucial to our job, without making damn sure it worked before locking us out of the tools we had available earlier - even if they were a bit clumsy at least they worked - ok, not all the time but at least 4 days a week. Why did they not keep them as backups until the new system mproved it's worth? Was it because they were afraid we were just goint to stick to what we knew and wouldn't use it? But the whole point of it was to make our lives simpler!

Redundancy can be a very good thing, especially during an experimental stage!

Anyways, this actually went on until at least Thursday believe it or not - going to work mainly to tell people I could not do my job. I saw at least one person get up and walk out because they found it too stressful.

Friday morning, I wake up with an incredibly sore throat, which REALLY sucks since my stats are being monitored in anticipation of a new contract next week, but I simply couldn't work like that, so I called in. It's actually the second time I've been (legitimately) sick enough not to come in in a few months, and both were due to throat infections, maybe it's just me but I think it tells me something about the air quality at work.

Being sick and it being so cold outside, I also forewent my weekly Friday night binge/jam session in Hull, but I did find this amazing website http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/guitar_scales.phpAnd I spent the evening learning part of the Blues Scale in E - I then started messing around with it and actually came up with my first own guitar riff. I don't have anything to record it with, but I did tab it in Guitar Pro (one of the few reasons I still have Windows installed on my computer). But anyways, here is a screenshot of my first "masterpiece".