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?

Whoa... It's August?

Time flies when you're doing whatever it is I do.  Actually, what I'm doing (professionally) these days is different from what I was doing six months ago.  Back then, I was managing a technical support team; nowadays, I'm immersed in data, from both clients (repairing and exporting/importing medical billing software and electronic medical records software databases) and from us (I update Microwize Technology's 'blog and maintain its Web site and user forum), and I do a bit of marketing work on the side as well.

While I need to get crackin' on creating some more of my own music, I was inspired to record a cover of Willie Nile's "One Guitar" this past weekend.  I'd already learned the song three months ago when I marched with the Occupy Guitarmy on May Day, and then last week I heard about the One Guitar Collaborative Charity Initiative, which hopes to both raise money for the TJ Martell Foundation and break the Guinness Book World Record for the most recorded song in history.  Sounded good to me, so I plugged in one guitar (the Danelectro) and came up with my own quick version; I even convinced Laura to help out with backing vocals!

On Monday morning, as I was approaching the office, I encountered a bird sleeping in front of the garage entrance!  I bent down and ruffled the feathers on the top of its head, and it opened an eye to look at me, then buried its head under a wing and went back to sleep.  Since it obviously wasn't interested in moving on its own, I elected to pick it up, carry it in my palm a few feet, and put it down in some bushes, where it wouldn't run the risk of being run over.  The bird didn't seem injured or sick, just sleepy.  Heh...  When I checked back a few hours later, it was gone, so hopefully that means it eventually woke up and realized it had an angry spouse waiting for it at home.

Within the past few weeks, I've joined the Internet Defense League ("Protecting the Free Internet Since 2012"), RebelMouse ("your social front page"), and Vizify ("one definitive, multidimensional, graphical biography").  I didn't have nearly enough of a social presence on the Web before. I mean, I was making do with only Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, MySpace (yeah, still got that), MyOuterSpace (something else entirely), YouTube, Orkut, and the music-related sites like ReverbNation and Google Play and SoundCloud and Bandcamp and... Anyway, the latter two new sites, RebelMouse and Vizify, basically take content you've already posted to social networks and make them more visually appealing; Vizify is more about turning that content into a visual bio, and it has a lot of potential, I think, but I've already run into a bug with the locations (I do not live in Nutley anymore). The first one, the IDL, is so my Web site (well, one of them, anyway) can automatically join in broadcasting a message when the open Web is threatened again, by SOPA or PIPA or CISPA or DOMA or whatever ridiculous act Congress cooks up next. If they're really interested in protecting copyright holders and content creators, let them do so with legislation that's as narrowly focused as possible and can't be used to shut down Web sites willy-nilly. I'll give you my site when you pry it from my cold, dead hands! If you come for mine, you better bring yours. Web sites don't kill people, people with guns kill people. Et cetera, et cetera...

"Free Pussy Riot!" sounds like an advertisement for a really bangin' party (pun unreservedly intended), but it's actually a movement to try to obtain some justice for three young women arrested in Russia and charged with hooliganism for protesting in a Moscow cathedral against Russian president Vladimir Putin and the relationship he seems to have with the Russian Orthodox Church's leadership.  Pussy Riot is a punk band / feminist performance art group that has given voices to the anti-Putin movement, and the arrest of three of their members in March resulted from a one-minute "punk prayer" ("Virgin Mary, Send Putin Away") at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and could result in seven-year sentences.  It seems that Vlad the Repealer is trying to unravel Russia's already fragile democracy and make an example of these girls.

Laura, a punk girl much closer to my heart, is getting ready to run another 5K, this time in Asbury Park in two and a half weeks. There's a 10K in September she's got her eye on, too, and she's been training; in fact, the poor girl got soaked this morning by a sudden, powerful downpour (which I mostly avoided on my way to work twenty minutes later).  We've recently celebrated a milestone by completing our 26th weekly installment of Slime, the Web comic (half a year's worth, and none of them have been published late).  Slime merchandise is a very real possibility; anything you'd like to see/purchase? No, there probably won't be any Slime knitwear.  I'm just not very good at knitting yet.

In addition to the race, our plans for this month including seeing the glorious gals of Goli again at Caffe Vivaldi (Friday the 17th, if you're interested), going to the Renaissance Faire in Sterling Forest, weather permitting, and visiting the Grange Fair in Centre Hall, PA. Perhaps we can sneak in another visit to the Met, as well. What are you up to this month, voiceless anonymous readers?