Useless Conversation

[IainC]

Office is sending me to E3 as part of game pimping operations. Woot!

[Lantyssa]

You're going to be a booth babe?

Interesting link.  Sort of.

What's sad is that it's 10/10 without needing technicalities.

[Yegolev]

Interesting link.  Sort of.

What's sad is that it's 10/10 without needing technicalities.

I wanted to think of it as amusing, but a day later it is just depressing.  I'm tolerating (very well, actually) several of those so I can keep 20 vacation days.

[Sky]

The main reason I try not to bitch too much about work/low pay/etc is the 20 VAC days, with 2 floating holidays (require a week's notice) and 3 personal days (can be split into half days or hours); and the 9-5 work day. I'm technically on-call (by my own volunteering), but they almost never call me (which is why I volunteer it!).

I view 20 vacation days as a bare minimum, we blow half of them just to drive to see concerts, so I'd guess that in a cultural center we'd only need 10.

[IainC]

You're going to be a booth babe?

Yeah, Ghambit's hooking me up with these chicks he knows.

[Bzalthek]

You're going to be a booth babe?

Yeah, Ghambit's hooking me up with these chicks he knows.

That's ranks right up there with the plot for a Harold and Kumar movie.  Hint: check for penises.

[Ragnoros]

You're going to be a booth babe?

Yeah, Ghambit's hooking me up with these chicks he knows.

Bravo Sir. Bravo.

[Chimpy]

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday when we got to Edinburgh it was sunny, warm, only a bit breezy. Today we took a tour of the highlands and it was cold, raining, and ridiculously windy.

Did see an Italian guy go take a dump in the middle of the moor south of Glencoe as two busses full of people, a dozen firefighters and about 40 cars watched on during a thirty minute wait while they cleared a flipped camper trailer off the road. I just hope the next couple of days are less windy for plunking around Edinburgh as I can deal with rain or chilly but the combination of all three is really shitty.

[Cyrrex]

I spent a whole month in Edinburgh a decade or so ago, and I think I had to walk at about a 60 degree angle the whole time.  It is so windy there that it is stupid.  Surely they don't need all that wind.

[Ironwood]

If you haven't hit Aberdeen you ain't seen shit.  The wind there will take you off your feet.

That said, you chose a shit time to visit us.  Weather was glorious last week and is utterly awful just now.  Currently pissing it in Hillington and I ain't happy.

[Xanthippe]

Sounds like a good place for wind energy. Is it?

[Ironwood]

You'd have to ask Donald Trump.

 

[RhyssaFireheart]

Fuck you, SAP.  Die in a fire.

[Bzalthek]

Yeah SAP, just sitting there in the tree and shit.

[RhyssaFireheart]

 

[Minvaren]

Given my limited exposure to SAP, I'd generally agree with Rhyssa. 

But then, what would all of the $100K+/year SAP consultants do?   

[Chimpy]

That said, you chose a shit time to visit us.  Weather was glorious last week and is utterly awful just now.  Currently pissing it in Hillington and I ain't happy.

Today was pretty good. Wind made standing in the roof of Melrose Abbey to take some pics a bit dicey but otherwise it was nice and clear and not too chilly.

[Yegolev]

It's not a trip to Scotland without some amount of fear for your safety.

[Ironwood]

Aye, it's living the life.

[Merusk]

*sigh*

Tomorrow everyone will be playing D3 on their hookey/ sick days.

I, on the other hand, have a lunchtime phone call, immediately followed by a 2-hour meeting about restaurant operations and equipment coordination. I really only need to be involved in that call for about 10 minutes, however since I'm the project lead I have to sit there the whole time.

You're all bastards.

[Rasix]

Jet lag is worse than I remember it being.  Maybe it's the additional timezones involved this time.

I would totally take tomorrow off for D3, if I already hadn't been away from the office for the last 2 weeks. 

[Yegolev]

How old were you when you last had jet lag?

[ghost]

I find that having kids has made jet lag worse because their schedules never change.  It's tough to get an extra hour of sleep to catch up.

[Xanthippe]

*sigh*

Tomorrow everyone will be playing D3 on their hookey/ sick days.

I, on the other hand, have a lunchtime phone call, immediately followed by a 2-hour meeting about restaurant operations and equipment coordination. I really only need to be involved in that call for about 10 minutes, however since I'm the project lead I have to sit there the whole time.

You're all bastards.

I will receive D3 tomorrow (probably in the afternoon). Wednesday I spend the day not playing D3 but being the parent in charge of the boy getting a physical along with all the other kids at the high school getting physicals en masse in the gym. Want to trade?

[Ingmar]

Turn your head and cough, Merusk.

[Merusk]

En Masse physical? That's a new one to me.

But yes, if you want to sit in my meeting with corporate ops folks in exchange I'll happily trade.  I'll even take a prostate exam over the meeting, at least that would be a useful expenditure of my time.

[RhyssaFireheart]

So apparently the SAP SRM help desk team believes that a critical ticket means an email response a few hours later and then... nothing after I reply with the requested information.  Fucking IBM Bangalore call center.  I guess I'll have to implement the "solution" I was given last time this happened and create an entirely new shopping cart to get this PO processed.   

[Yegolev]

I know India is all the rage in outsourcing, but I find that lately the Indian support is awful compared to other places that white people don't want to live.  Best of the lot, in my experience, is Manilla.

[Ingmar]

I've had good luck with Canadian call centers. 

[Paelos]

I've had good luck with Canadian call centers. 

The understand what customer service is all aboot.

[Bzalthek]

I have it under Good Authority that it's just a ruse. 

[Zetor]

What about Hungarian call centers? 

(there's one taking up 2 floors in our office building... they are also responsible for keeping the super-shitty cafeteria on the ground floor afloat, so /scorn)

[Sky]

I've had a wonderful experience with an Indian (not native american) guy from Georgia. Watching him remotely open security holes on my win7 box acting as a server for a few apps and services made me glad I had witnesses to prevent me from jumping on the next train smokin'. Apparently not having learned how to share securely means you just start flinging noodles at the wall. With the client watching.

Then he was out of town and we had some regular joe american helping out and it went fucking awesome, very attentive and knowledgable. I'm no racist, but holy cow man.

Following up on the meeting with Mr. Competent, with the Indian back in the office, I haven't heard from him in 3 business days.

[RhyssaFireheart]

So I finally got a response to my reply to the email about my critical ticket I put in yesterday morning (because you know critical tickets need to be replied to by email several hours later) in which I said:

Hi *,

The issue with the cart is that Project Accounting rejected it (project funding should have been capital instead of expense).  I then went into my Work Overview to find the cart, accepted it, and then went to view the shopping cart itself.  It's telling me I have no tasks to complete and I'm unable to edit the cart to change the funding type.  This has happened previously (ticket xxxxxxx) and the "solution" was to create an entirely new shopping cart and submit that, which is not an optimal solution at all.

I've attached a screencap showing the status of the shopping cart.

Thanks,
Lori

That netted me this response in my email this morning:

Hi

In case the WBS number has been entered incorrectly , it can be changed as per the steps mentioned in the attachement .

In the attachement  , the Shopping cart taken contains cost centre as Account Assignment .

Please follow the attachement and try to change the WBS number  as required .

Regards

So after me telling the help desk worker that I was unable to edit the cart, the response was to try... editing the cart?  WTF?  My reply was admittedly testy:

Good morning.

I'll be glad to try this option as soon as the application actually gives me an edit button.  As I said in my initial email, I am unable to edit the shopping cart.  This would be because there is no edit option available due to the cart being locked. Once again, I've attached a screencap of what I'm actually seeing and there is plainly no edit button showing. Is it possible to unlock this cart so it can be edited and resubmitted for approvals or is this not possible?

Thanks,

That got me a call from the locally based tech who was being copied on the emails and we figured out the problem in less than 5 minutes.  Problem was - I'd been told something incorrectly by a previous helpless tech and that meant the cart was locked/closed and I'd have to make a new one.  Now I know the correct process but holy fuck it should not have taken this long.

[Xanthippe]

I do not have to attend the physical with my son tomorrow after all. D3 all day!

Still waiting for it to arrive, however.