A couple of days later Im still not too happy about having to go to another company for 2 days per week, but time will tell. Aside from the downsides, Im starting to see some positive things too in the whole situation.
First of all, Im glad that Ill still have a job. If you watch the news (yes, I watch the news) or read a newspaper (yes, I even read newspapers) you read a lot about company X having to fire hundreds of people to survive. The job market is horrible at the moment (lots of stiff competition), so if you can hold on to your job, its best to do it.
Secondly, it will be a nice learning experience. The other company is a completely different environment than my current workplace, with new features and new unique challenges to tame. It will be good for my personal development.
So yea... of course its a bit of a turn-off that my boss is decided to rent me out to another company, rather than look for other means to save money; but well see how it all evolves. Maybe Ill look differently at the situation after a few weeks. I just hope theyre as open minded about my gender issues as my current employee is. :S
The credit crisis hits us all, thats a known fact. Some people, however, are hit harder than others. Every day you read about people losing their jobs, mandatory days off, lowered salaries, etc. Initially my employer seemed to be unaffected by it all, until now.
Yesterday around 15:00, my boss asked if he could talk to me in private for a few minutes. He told me that the revenues are going down, and that they have to find some way to save money. The company can go on like this for another 2 years, before it would get into trouble, but the management wants to prevent that. To save some money, my boss wants to rent me out for two days per week to another company that is owned by his brother.
The company Im being rented out to is quite nice; theyre sort of an online video store. You pay them a fixed amount, and can watch the latest movies on streaming video. From what I understand from my co-workers, the people at the other company are cool, but thats not the problem. The problem is that its yet another environment with new coworkers, new servers, new problems, etc... The upside is that I still have my job, and that my salary wont change. So Im still lucky I guess... but some things really bug me.
First of all, Im halfway the project of upgrading all the workstations, and am way behind schedule as it is. If Im being cut from work for 2 days per week, it means the migration will go behind schedule even more. That doesnt make me very happy.
Secondly... as far as I understand, Im the only employee in the company that is being cut. The management wont be receiving as much bonus as they used to, the boss will cut his own salary by 30%, and some social events are scrapped. The sales people, however, will still get their monthly bonus. Yes, bonus. That is an extra payment on top of their normal salary. Apparently its more important to the company to give a little perk/tip to sales people, than having the system administrator around for 5 days per week. If you ask 100 system administrators what they think is important in a job, 99 will say appreciation. Right now, Im feeling highly unappreciated, and I feel rather insulted. 
Though I should be thankful that I still have -a- job, I guess... :S
One of our distributors organizes an annual exhibit for its customers. On this exhibit they offer various manufacturers to show their new products, and do some social networking with the customers. My apprentice Jack and I also attended the exhibit. It was fun, the entrance was free, and the food was free and abundant; so it was a good exhibit as far as Im concerned.
- 2 Baseball caps from Symantec
- 4 pens from Trend Micro, In focus, Lexmark and Kensington
- 4 condoms (dont ask...
) and a red plush dog from G-data
- 2 lollypops from some random girl that was walking around.
- 2 thermos coffee mugs from Trend Micro
- a toy walkie-talkie set from Microsoft
- 4 golf balls from Cisco/Linksys
- a keychain from Plextor
- a can of peppermints from Fujitsu Siemens
- 5 cookies from Lexmark
- a plush scarf from Kensington
- a keychain from Kensington
- a cloth bag from Gigabyte
Almost half a year ago, I wrote about the horrible mess in the server rack. I also made a promise that it would change. I talked to my Boss, laid down some Ajira-style bitching © about the state of the network, and got the green light for a major overhaul of the whole IT infrastructure.
My biggest peeve were the cables, And something had to be done about them. So, I would like to present to you:
Almost December, almost Christmas; but Santa is in town already 
A part of the migration project was a complete remake of the backup procedures. The old tape unit is too small for our current needs, hence new hardware was needed.
Mmm, I love new toys to play with 
Last week I told about an old Cisco PIX 515 that we found under a big layer of dust in the warehouse. The firewall works like a charm, no comments there. The only problem is that it has only 2 network interfaces, and I actually need 3. Fortunately, it has 2 empty PCI slots, so putting in an extra network card shouldnt be an issue.
And so the search for an extra network card began. A bit of searching in the Internet told me that the Cisco PIX 515 only supports network cards with specific Intel i8255x chipsets. These cards are sold as the Cisco PIX-1FE. Unfortunately, this card isnt available anymore from Cisco or retailers.
After a lot of searching I found a website that sells the Cisco PIX-1FE. Unfortunately this website charges $ 240,- for shipping to Europe, regardless of the size of the package that needs to be sent. So I would end up paying $ 240.- to send one single network card (that weighs maybe 100 grams at most) from the United States to Europe. That is quite retarded, and so I make the bold statement that usedcisco.com is useless for customers outside of the United States.
This is quite messed up The Cisco PIX 515 works fine the network card works fine but together they dont work at all! I need to find either another PIX-1FE, and pray that it will work; or find another solution. Needless to say: Ajira is not amused.
A week ago, I wrote about a new server that will be placed off-site. The server will be accessible via a transit line from our main location and via a site-to-site VPN connection over the Internet. For this internet part, it obviously needs a firewall.
The hosting company could provide firewalling, but the costs were a bit ridiculous: € 300,- for the initial setup, € 75,- per month for rent of the firewall (since it would get full support) and another € 75,- per month for the hosting (rack space) of the firewall. Both me and my boss agreed thats a bit ridiculous, since all the firewall has to do is block all inbound traffic minus 2 or 3 ports. Placing our own firewall would cost us just the € 75,- a month for the hosting and the initial purchase fee of the firewall, which we can get with a firm discount anyway, because we are a reseller.
The configuration is slightly different from the Cisco 1841 that we use in the office, but Im sure I can get it working. Theres plenty of information to be found on the internet, and a bit of logic also gets you quite far.
A while back, I wrote about the server rack at work being such a mess. I discussed the issue with my boss, and he said Ok, make a plan to upgrade our IT infrastructure and well see what we can do. I made a plan, my boss approved it, and so were in the process of upgrading the whole system at the moment. Part of the plan is to have an off-site server for redundancy/backup of some specific data. Today the server arrived
The server looks sweet n sexy, but holy shit... that thing sure makes a lot of noise 
As I was checking the videofeed for the security cameras, I ran across this funny scene. Imagine this... a co-worker is late for work and the door to the warehouse, still bruised and battered from the break-in the day before, is closing... what does the co-worker do?
Uhuh.. think again
When I arrived at work this morning, I noticed something awkward at the door that leads to the warehouse. Something just wasnt right... maybe it was the 1x1m hole, that wasnt there before?
The burglars didnt have much time to do some late night weekend shopping, since the police arrived within a few minutes, but the thieves had already left.
Those guys were either really pro, or really desperate most likely both. Of course its all a matter of insurance work, and weve got plenty of giggles about it at work, but it still sucks.