Transferring servers
If you think this place is a bit unstable right now it’s because last week we transferred servers to try a new place out. And that worked pretty well although their services and support was a bit lacking so we managed to press the price of the old place and get a virtual server running there so hopefully this’ll be stable enough. Talk more when I have a chance…
Impressions So Far
I’ve worked for 4 days here now and time for to write down some first impressions.
So far it’s the professional IT team that I wanted our IT department at Vinge to be and the crew at Carema almost was. Here they share alot of my views that my work is to give service back to the organisation. It’s not to sit on a throne and use my power and deflect every issue that’s not specifically on my table, it’s to listen to what the organization wants and needs and do my best to service them. And it has the clear lines of first, second and third line that was severely hampering is at Vinge and where a bit grey at Carema. And it’s the only placed I’ve been employed at where I wasn’t given Domain Admin access to the network, here I get the access I need to do my job. Which may sometimes get in the way of doing things but it’s a good sign that they really do believe in high security and live up to it!
Those were the pros. As for the cons, the only one I have is that I’m sitting in the middle of a very open office with alot of people. That’s not a bad thing, at Vinge we were three in one room and later we got that down to two and that was pretty sweet. At Carema it was an open office aswell but we atleast had some screens that separated things. And I had a screen wall behind me so I didn’t have alot of people that could see my monitor, here there are atleast 6 people who at any given time can check what I’m doing on my monitor. That has the effect that I can’t do much private stuff here which again goes back to being the professional place I want. Ask me again in 6 months if that’s a good thing or not cause I don’t know yet.
I’m The New Guy. Again.
When I started my career back in 1996 at Min Dator I was the new guy for a while but grew out of it so quickly I don’t even remember it. Then when they merged with Pulsen it was a merger and it was to completely new offices so I wasn’t the new guy much, since I knew half the crew already and noone else knew where to get the best lunches either. And when I worked as a consultant you never really had the problem of being the new guy since you worked there for a few days or weeks and you got a new assignment. And when I started working for Vinge I had already been there as a consultant on and off for a few years so I wasn’t the new guy there either. In fact I’d worked there longer than most of the other people I worked with.
But then I changed jobs and started working at Carema and I was totally the noob around there. I didn’t know anyting about their IT platform, I didn’t know servernames, logins, I didn’t know where the printers was, where the bathroom was or where to get lunches. But my ace was the fact that I was working next to my cousin so he gave me alot and forgave all the gazillion questions about stuff. But after a few months there I got into it and knew the place pretty well.
Then I changed job again and started working at Thomas Cook. And already again I’m the new guy! And I hate it, feel like such a noob! I mean I’m all for learning new things, experience different things and stuff but I do wanna know what server to login to atleast to do my job! Although I’m confident I’ll learn this place just as well as Vinge in a few months, I just don’t wanna take that ride again this soon.
Sam Getting Cranky
As I posted the other day Sam have been ill for a few days but on Saturday he was getting better and didn’t have any fever or throw up or nothing. But we saw already on Friday that he was getting more and more cranky and needy. Maybe it was for all the extra attention he got when he was ill and the fact that he got anything he pointed at for those 3 days, but he’s has been annoying as hell all weekend. Or maybe it’s a phase, we don’t know, but no matter how or who we ask the answer is always “that’s normal”. So I took him to kindergarten today to see if they can straighten him out and 2 hours in and they still haven’t called. But it’s hard to be home with home just because he’s cranky and bitching about wanted to be carried around all the time just because he can’t be arsed to walk himself.
And it’s particularly hard for Helena. I don’t know if it’s the maternal instinct or if it’s the fact that 9 times out of 10 it’s her that he goes to but she gets really stressed out with all this. Or maybe I’m just better at ignoring it but if this is the way he’s gonna be from now on I don’t know how we’re gonna get through it. But as always people adapt so hopefully he or we will.
Sam Sick. Again.
I’ve been working at Thomas Cook now for three days and I can’t really say I’ve been all that focused. Because kindergarten called my wife during lunch on wednesday that our son Sam had a 40 degree fever and we should come and pick him up. Which she did.
And he’s spent 2 nights throwing up (we ran out of clean sheets at about 3 am this morning) and a fever that we give him some pills up his ass for and he’s almost normal again for a while. But basically he’s back in the soffa watching TV with that “I’m too tired for this shit”-look. And it’s really painful for us to go through this again, it wasn’t that long ago.
But when you go online and you read about shit like this and you’re reminded that we’re pretty lucky it’s only a fever and some vomiting, it could be a helluvalot worse.
Just Me And My Girl
Today my sister and mother are gonna pick up Sam at kindergarten and gonna take care of him for a few days. It’s not the first time they’re doing that so hopefully there won’t be any issues this time either.
So tonight me and Helena are gonna have a mini bbq, uncork a bottle of wine, open a beer and just be us and taking care of our relationship which has suffered a bit in the past weeks. Mostly because of me and my focus on getting a new job, but also Sams changing behavior (lately he’s been demanding we sit next to him while he’s trying to go to sleep and goes bananas if we leave him there) even the weather has been against us in the past weeks. So we’re just gonna have a few days to focus one each other. We’re picking him up again on Sunday so we have a few days just us 
Not even Formula 1 weekend or Star Trek or anything!
Have a Good Feeling About This
I know I’ve said this a few times but one more time won’t hurt I guess. I have a really good feeling about this job that I’m starting on Wednesday at Thomas Cook!!
When I first read the ad for the job it really felt like an ad written for me. Every checkbox was ticked with ease. Everything they wanted I can offer. And the fact that I applied for it twice (once with a recruitment firm that never forwarded it to them and then again directly to them when I hadn’t heard anything from the recruitment firm) kinda underlines how badly I wanted that job. At the time I didn’t know how it was gonna go here at Carema so this was a job I applied for because I needed another job, this was because I wanted the job. When it was decided that I wasn’t gonna stay at Carema I applied for tons of jobs but forunately this was settled before any of those got beyond the first interview.
And when I finally got there for the first interview I was firstly really impressed with their lounge area they had which looked like someone tried to do a Japanese garden, a really nice play to sit down at for a coffee or something. And then I met my future boss and she was combined niceness and professionalism like I’d never seen. And she went through her slide about the IT department and on every slide I was thinking (and sometimes saying) “yep” “damn right” “I totally agree”. Even when she started talking about “practicing disaster scenarios” I was totally into it. And she could tell. Then I met my future teamleader and he was nice and friendly and seemed like a cool guy. So I left that place feeling I wanted it even more. So much more than I wanted to rush it as much as possible. Did the EQ test and met with a rep from HR to go through it and after she ok:d everything I was finally offered the job. And at the same time I was offered the most safe and secure job in the world, but I chose this anyway because it felt so good.
And so I went back to sign the papers and we went through all the practical things and signed the deal (which as I’ve said earlier doesn’t mean much, they can tell me I’ve outstayed my welcome as much as I can say “nah this sucked”). And I hope I can live with having an iPhone but I will really disagree with their iTunes license agreement so I hope I won’t have to accept that.
But I’m really looking forward to starting my job there. As always ask me again in a year from now if it was a good choice.
Deja Vu
Oh shit it’s happening again!!
About one month before I started working for Carema there was alot of reporting about how Carema was making so much money on the expense of the little guy. I didn’t really care that much about it at the time but it kept growing in November and December and I can safely say I wasn’t bragging about working for Carema then.
Well now it’s exactly one week until I’ll start working at Thomas Cook here in Sweden. Which owns the Swedish travel agency called “Ving”. And ofcourse the media is starting to write bad things about them now as well! Already last week I saw a small little article but today they have another article and how people travelling on their dream vacation only to be disappointed and ripped off.
What are the odds that AGAIN exactly when I’m supposed to start a job that company is having bad things written about them in the media!? I don’t know the truth about all the stories but I just don’t wanna be embarrassed that I work for Ving the same way as with Carema! But judging from what their PR rep is saying in the media, unlike Carema that mostly didn’t say anything about nothing, it’s not gonna be bad. Because I am really excited about starting my work there. And I’m not just saying that, I actually am!!
Getting Over the Pacifier
Sam has managed to get over it, it’s been two weeks without a pacifier now and he’s doing pretty good. However, the staff at the kindergarten noticed that he had trouble going to sleep after lunch so they ended up sitting next to him so he could feel calm enough to go to sleep. And unfortunately that has resulted in him demanding we sit next to him while he’s going to sleep at night. And that’s just not gonna work so we’re now trying to be harsh and just leave the room even though he’s having a fit. It’s tough and we’re not sure it’s the right thing to do but we really don’t want to sit there for 30 minutes holding his hand. I mean I could do it now and again but we can’t make it a habit for him so he can’t fall asleep if we’re not sitting right there with him.
But it’s just hard to say no to him cause we love him so much and he sounds so very needy 
Let’s Talk Geek
Last friday to celebrate me signing on to a new job I bought a NAS (Netgear ReadyNAS DUO V2). A NAS is just a black box with harddrives that share them over your network so you can access them fro wherever in your network. It’s really geeky to have one but I thought I needed one. I used to have everything on a server but decided that wasn’t working anymore now that I’ve upgraded to a Windows 2008 server complete with an active directory and stuff, all of a sudden we noticed some lag when playing stuff off it. So off I went and bought this toy.
Function-wise it lives up to expectations. It does what I want it to do and it does it well and smoothly. But Netgear really should have take a page from Apples book and asked the question “how would the end consumer want the interface to work”. Because their interface is a giant mess with gigantic problems. For example, if I attach a USB drive to it there’s no way to tell the NAS to copy a file from the USB to the NAS – you have to have a computer to copy it through. So Say you have a 10 gig file on your USB drive and want to copy it. Instead of copying it straight away on the NAS, you copy it through the PC meaning alot of network being used for nothing! You have to enable the SSH through their site saying “you’ll lose warranty if you install this” and copy it through Linux commands! What’s upp with that!? Ok bad example since the bottleneck is still the USB port, but if you want to copy a file from one drive to another, you still have to copy it through your PC and all of a sudden the network is the bottleneck. And it shouldn’t need to be!
And you can’t create a directory on a drive that isn’t defaulted to the root and automatically shared to “everyone” with full rights. And you can’t manage the “admin” user access in any way either…
So if you can learn to live with a crappy “it made sense to us” interface, than yeah, go buy it.