I Need to Vent

I am not a patient man. I have tried working at it but, as they say it is hard to teach old dog new tricks. An extension of that is I am not very good waiting around for other people to do their work so, that I can finish mine. One reason I am good at what I do (at least in my opinion) is that I work quickly. I don’t like having things hanging over my head. If I know I have something to do, I don’t procrastinate and wait until the last minute to do it. I want to finish my task as soon as possible and clear my head.

Some would call this a type of disorder. But, I cannot get comfortable if I know I have some huge task waiting for me. I want to get it done and then I can relax. The problem hits home when I am no longer in control of the situation. Meaning that in order for me to complete my work, I need someone else to complete theirs.

Recently, I have been traveling for work doing circuit upgrades. I don’t want to bore those out there who could care less about backend computer and networking tasks. Most people just want their computer to turn on and be able to surf porn on the internet in peace. They don’t want to know what makes it work and I get that. So, I will make this short, sweet and generic. I need to go to a site and replace their old equipment with new equipment that will make things not only run faster but allow them to replace their phone systems with new, exciting voice over internet phones, which is much cheaper.

I cannot replace the equipment until a vendor we use configures one piece. I won’t name them but let’s just say the company in question rhymes with horizon. Now, if I am going to a site I usually have to travel to it. Also, since I have to take the site down for awhile, I need to make sure ahead of time what date and time is kosher for me to do so. I always make sure to plan this well in advance to give the site, our network engineer guy, and the vendor plenty of time to get their work done.

Sadly, often times even with the advance planning I am often left waiting around for someone else to get their crap done. Now, I don’t want to knock the vendor because I have also worked with some excellent techs from the company. But, I have also dealt with pure incompetence. If everyone has done their job properly it should take me no more than an hour to swap out all the hardware. The last site I did took almost four hours to complete. The person who was supposed to configure a piece of hardware that in the past I have seen done in minutes took hours. The sad part is the guy would not ask for help.

Because of this the site is down and I am left sitting there with nothing better to do then diddle myself while he tries to figure out how to do his job. Fumes were coming out of my ears as I sat there waiting while he kept failing. There was nothing I could do. At long last he calls another tech and that guy saw the problem and fixed it in like 10 minutes. I was beyond pissed at that point.

This is why I have always lived by the old adage if you want something done right do it yourself. I know myself and I will know who to blame should something not work. Maybe I just have an issue where I need to be in control. Whatever the root of the issue is, at my age I way too old to change. I know that no matter what, that in the future situations like this will arise again. I just have to accept it and hope that there are no delays.

Lastly, I don’t want it to sound like I have a problem working with others or as part of a team because I truly don’t. Also, I realize I am far from perfect. But, when I know others are depending on me to do my job so they can do theirs I do everything in my power to make sure my shit is taken care of. It is simple common courtesy. Okay, I vented, I’m better.