Saturday, Not In The Park

I realize this post may bore the hell out of anyone reading this. However, I had a frustrating weekend at work and again, why have a blog if you cannot vent on it once in a while. For those not interested in reading one man’s petty complaints please check back later this week for a more pertinent post. For every one else with nothing better to surf, enjoy.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had to work this Saturday. We were doing DR testing. DR is short for disaster recovery. Meaning that if there is a disaster in say Chicago, we have all of our information stored in an offsite location. The Banks DR site is in Elgin, IL. I was informed to be downtown from 10 to noon for the first test and to be back at 5:30 for the second test. I planned on leaving at noon, driving home and then heading back to be here for post testing.

I show up at 10 and I had three applications to test. They all failed. Meaning that if Chicago burned down all three of these vital bank applications would not work and we would have a lot of pissed off customers. So, we work all morning and finally around 2:00 we get all three working on the DR box. I then figure well, since I am already down here and the post testing begins at 5:30 I might as well stay downtown. So, I grab a bite to eat and do some surfing on the web. Around 3:30 I get a call telling me the post testing won’t be starting until 7:30.

So, I say screw it and head home. I am not going to twiddle myself for four more hours. I get in the car and head home. I get downtown at 7:15 and I call in to get a status of the testing and am told it is now on hold until 8:00. At 8 I am told there will be another half hour delay. Finally at 8:30 we test and I get my first break of the day as all the applications pass the tests. So, I can go home.

I guess I have a problem when I have to depend on others to get things done. I have issues with trusting others to do a good job. This is not to toot my own horn or anything but, I have been burned so many times expecting others to be competent when in fact they are not. If others who were involved in the testing would have simply followed directions and been prepared, none of the problems would have occurred. I guess the old adage is true if you want something done right do it yourself.