the chancers rebuilt a production database server. unfortunately they rebuilt the wrong one and blew away all the work that had been done to configure the databases and application settings. the database administrators were not very happy at all. luckily it had no data on it yet but it was going to be used next week and had it happened then, it would have been time to hand in your door pass and be escorted from the premises.
part of me is really glad it didnt happen when it was in use, because that would have been a huge disaster. it would have had data for one of the main trading applications and the fall out from it would have hit everyone including people not involved at all with it. but there is a part of me that does think it would have got rid of the chancers once and for all. i got the impression that they are not going to be let go and we are going to be stuck with them for the rest of the year judging by conversations and planning for the rest of the year.
anyways i had another run in with the chancers over this database server today, and again it was like talking to obtuse, stubborn idiots. worse of all, they showed no contrition at all. i wasnt even involved in the project this database is used for, but i was merely asked by the database admins to check out why they couldnt connect to their new production server, and i was just helping them out.
we all make fuckups and shit happens. no one is perfect of infallible, but when you do make a fuck up you tend to shut your mouth and take responsibility. what you dont do is start saying random names of other people and start blaming them for your fuckups especially when there are emails proving they sent you the right server names to rebuild and it was you that then made a mistake and ended up doing the wrong ones. its crystal clear in black and white. no one was expecting apologies or anything, but i certainly wasn't expecting the agressive confrontational arguments expunging them of any responsibility whatsoever and just naming other people to blame.
this has gone from one of the best contracts i have ever had to one of the worst and its all because of these idiots we have to work with. had a dicussion with the senior project manager and i told him of some of the issues. he said he knew it was not working and the project is not organised in the right way, but its too late in the day to re-organise it and we just have to get through it. he also said that all the work was coming to me and my team lead to install applications, finish off and check because the chancers did not have the "right skillset", to do the work and were not as familiar with the systems. i told him i had been there 3 months and was a newbie whilst they had all been there over a year. if there is supposed to be someone who isn't familiar with the systems its supposed to me. shit, it is me and there are still lots of things i am finding my way around.
i felt like saying didn't he think it was odd that the guys that earn the least are the ones that are more able. am not pleading poverty because i get paid very well, but its not as well as those chumps.
at one point, i did say that installing most of the applications was not rocket science and that i could teach the cleaning lady how to do it in about 10 minutes. i bet she barely earns 11 grand a year and would be delighted to get 11 grand a month.
my team leader is back tomorrow as he had a day off today, hence today, me having to deal with blown out producion servers and being left to explain to the database guys how a server they had spent days configuring and testing needs to be done all over again because of some chancers. i should have got the chancers to speak to the DBA's. why did the senior PM lumber me with this shit in a tacit acknowledgement he didnt want trust or want the chancers clearing up their own shit. am turning into the janitor. my teamleader can deal with the fall out tomorrow. i had enough of that shit today. by being wheeled out to deal with this, it looks like i am so how responsible for the chancers, when actually i want nothing to do with them, i dont work WITH them, and i barely speak to them.
anyways, i have almost finished reading 'dancing in the glory of monsters' a book about central africa, particularly the Congo. its an incredible account of events that happened over the last decade that was completely ignored by the news channels and mainstream press. 4 million people died between 1998 and 2004 mainly in eastern Congo through conflict and disease in the midst of a massive humanitarian crisis which was completely ignored by all western governments.
its a shameful account and proves that our politicians are just paying lip service and choosing causes that fit their own agendas and national and economic interests and that the media are complicit in following the political and economic agenda. i can not recommend reading it highly enough. its utterly profound and sad but it makes you think long and hard about life and justice and equality and humanity and how these things are not just missing amongst some despots, dictators and warlords in central africa, but by our own prime ministers and presidents who ignore such great suffering so easily. read it and if nothing else, at least you will be informed.
today i have mostly been listening to nine inch nails - bite the hand that feeds.
US president at the beginning of the last decade was Bush II and we had Blair. both could have saved millions of lives in central africsa. instead they chose to let them die whilst they pursued their own personal econmic and strategic agendas in the middle east and south asia resulting in the deaths of thousands of their own troops, trillions of dollars and hundred of thousands of afghans and iraqis. both are now multi millionaires. quite an achievement for people that have been public servants for most of their lives. they could and would never bite the hand that feeds.
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