It's... the Final Countdown!

My long, storied career with Microwize Technology is coming to an end. You won't believe what happens next! Well, OK, maybe you will. I can't really say, because I don't yet know what happens next.

21 Years at Microwize

I've been with my current employer almost as long as some of my colleagues have been alive. Not an exaggeration. I started with Microwize in January 2004, several weeks after losing my job when my then-current employer (of over ten years) was acquired by another company and my role made redundant. The owner of that company knew the owner of this one—as did I, since he'd worked there previously, too—and asked about getting me hired there. Robert agreed to give me a shot, and so I went from MIS manager at AA World Class, an embroidery maker, to software/hardware specialist at Microwize Technology, a healthcare technology consulting firm.

Over the last two decades, my title has changed a few times: technical support supervisor, IT specialist, data services manager, and marketing manager (with a heaping side of data services manager). A lot of people have come and gone in that time, and I count myself lucky to have met most of them. I've absorbed a lot of knowledge, and my work in, and with, various teams led a colleague to claim that I've been "translating across departments since 2004." Personally, I like to think that one of my most important unofficial roles in the company (besides proofreader) has been facilitator, asking the right questions or providing the right answers or getting the right people in touch with each other to reduce the confusion and friction that so often crops up in business.

The Final Countdown

No one is irreplaceable. We've all heard that at some point or another, and most of us hopefully understand it to be true. In my case, while it seemed likely that I'd stay at Microwize until I retired, in point of fact, that's not how it's going down. Robert informed me recently that he was letting me go, not for performance or personal reasons but due to changes in the industry and the need to realign internal resources. As a result, this will be my last week with the company.

Did the news gast my flabber? Absolutely. I'd sensed change was afoot, but neither my colleagues nor I had anticipated this outcome. I understand that the decision was a business decision, however, and not an easy one to make; Robert and I have known each other for over 30 years. And no, artificial intelligence isn't taking my job. I may not agree with how he's handling it, but it's his business. I'm taking it all with a grain of salt, some lime, and copious amounts of tequila. After all, you know what they say: when one door closes, the air pressure builds until Windows crashes. Or something like that. But still, it's farewell...

@andersen_silva It's the final countdown! #keyboards #guitar #finalcountdown ♬ original sound - Andersen Silva

Open to Work

As a result, yes, I am open to work. I'm in the process of putting all my affairs in order (sure, it's the wrong choice of words, but...) during this last week, and then I need to get my résumé and my LinkedIn profile updated, and test the wind and determine in which direction my adventures will take me next. If you've got ideas or recommendations or offers, I'd love to hear them! And maybe I'll come back to Earth... who can tell?

2018-01-23

Gah. What a day. The plan was for me to spend most of the day (though probably not all of it) cleaning up after a data import that ran into some issues. While two other items, a data table copy and a conference call regarding another potential data extraction, were also on my calendar, each should've only eaten 30 minutes of my day, leaving me plenty of time and focus for the bigger task.

Only the data table copy took longer than it should have because users were logged in to the database we were copying to, defying all common sense. After getting them out and successfully completing the transfer, I was asked about another table they were supposedly expecting to be copied, too. It turned out that not only had no one mentioned this table before, but the client didn't have a support contract in place to cover this second table. So, goodbye: sales' problem now.

This left me irritated, but at least the conference call went fairly smoothly and quickly. Afterwards, though, I found myself having to take an incoming phone call for IT, with a client who was suddenly unable to access the EMR software we host for them "in the cloud" (read: virtualized servers located in a secure Network Operations Center). In troubleshooting the issue (which of course took my focus away from the data import), I soon learned that it was being caused by a troublesome firewall at the NOC, and therefore impacted many more clients than just this one. The techs that went to the NOC ultimately had to replace the firewall, and naturally that process knocked the rest of our hosted clients offline as well.

Much of the rest of my day was spent fielding more of these calls, and then returning them later once everything had been addressed and the clients were able to connect again. No one's fault, but it was very frustrating that the one thing I'd intended to finish today was the one thing on which I couldn't concentrate for more than half an hour at a time. Well, tomorrow's another day.

Wait, was that supposed to sound optimistic?