My afternoon was kind of one of those dotted-line Family Circus adventures.

I went to lunch. I looked around for Purple's table. I concluded it must be outside. I got waylaid by Non-Boring Manager, Madam Standards, Dogesitter, and the Stage Manager, so I pulled up a chair. They headed back in; I went back over to Purple's table. (Madam Standards and Dogesitter apologized for kidnapping me, as they hadn't seen that "my little friends" were over at the other table. They suggested a playdate.)

On the way out from dropping off our dishes, I gave a bit further detail on the Encounter With Cop last night (technically, I don't even think it counted as a warning), but failed to mention the little red sports car which was going an unsafe speed down 35 and nearly creamed me before hanging up on the median at the Skyline turnoff.

1:1 with my manager, which is now biweekly due to her shiny new workload. She mentioned some missing context from that meeting with lb's Overlady.

I was for a milkshake, and determined to head for lb's office to possibly solicit him for such a walk. I figured that while I was there, I might as well check in with lb's Overlady on the way, so I packed a little cup of espresso beans. Then I packed two more, one with a little vodka chocolate intended for the PM of one of the higher-ups, and one intended for radius (since I don't think I've be-chocolated him much). I dropped the thing on the one PM's desk, and then I saw the singing PM who used to sit a few cubes down from me, so I gave one of the other espresso bean cups to her, and dropped some knowledge about the helldesk program. lb's Overlady wasn't at her desk, but her bike was there, and chocolate-covered espresso beans are generally well-received in any event. So I dropped those there.

I popped in on lb, who was happy to chat and strategize a bit, but was mostly face-down in stuff for an upcoming conference submission season. I had 7 minutes to make it back downstairs to the cafe for ice cream.

Naturally, on my way back out I passed by lb's Overlady's desk again. She was back, and had put the correct person with the candy, and had hidden the cup's siren song beneath a basket so they would disappear more slowly. I relayed greetings from my manager, and there was further strategy.

As that had taken far more than 7 minutes, I then popped in on radius, without chocolate, but interested to know what the news was (as lb's Overlady had implicated radius as the go-to guy on some various Email Woes, and newly hooked up with some form of hopefully-sensible IT contact). radius confirmed that he'd come into contact, and that there were good signs as she had nigh unto fallen out of her chair laughing at one of the various terrible things.

Both of those guys are in the same building as Purple, so on my way back to my own office, I swung through his kitchen, grabbed some ice for me and his usual type of soda for him, and said hi.

So in order to further some of my troubleshooting adventures, the Stage Manager has added me to one of the tickets yet to be triaged. It is in a department which is invisible. None of the user-available views show you un-triaged stuff which you are cc:-ed on. I submitted that this was a Problem, and should happen.

Within the last couple months, the Expensive Helpdesk Godview Privs have been removed from R&D users, as we "ought to" be able to use the new stuff. Apparently something in my short but vehement rant convinced the helpdesk tech that I ought to be appeased, so he asked me to send him my "group" so he could bless the accounts of me and mine. lb summed up the two paragraphs of tact I'd spent the past fifteen minutes growling over in one word:

lb: ENOTSCALABLE

Furthermore, accepting this might actually compromise my ability to troubleshoot the day-to-day usability problems caused by lack of access.

I was yelling on this front when the Other Guy and Purple descended on my cube and we started brainstorming dinner places. Constraints: I was bored of Mexican, and wanted meat. Purple was not currently up for Korean, and not up for fish. After some time, we decided on Five Guys, mostly because I'd never been. (And now I have.)

I got a titch stuck in traffic on my way older, mostly because I lack the will to be pushy. Dinner was tasty. Conversation was great, and in part included some slightly yelly debate over terrible things in classic f/sf.

Places to hug your Purple goodnight: not behind the Other Guy's car. (He yelled at us to get on our own sides; he was outside of the car at the time.)

I am home. Perhaps it will be an early night. I said that last night.


... aaaaand now I am yelling at the next helpdesk tech, who is assuring me that the lack of insight into Facilities tickets filed by others is intentional and because I am not blessed with Helpdesk Godview, I surely have no need of such insight.

"Second, the general [department] view is that the use of a system should be as simple and intuitive as possible, and should also, whenever possible, not rely on the operator’s education to prevent that person from doing the Wrong Thing. If there is no way to ensure that the Wrong Thing doesn’t happen, this is an excessively delicate system which should only be handled by highly trained professionals, and is in no wise a system which is ready for enterprise use."

*seethes gently*

If I go with them to dinner, it is collusion, not kidnapping.
I am NOT allowed to submit a ransom request for myself.
I may not request a ransom of two million dollars in lollipops.