HD911.com
because the 90's paled in comparison to this...

Just a small rant today (nothing new), I’ve been top shelved today by certain management types in Marketing. It was our go-live day for my project at work, and a few of the things that were working perfectly in my testing have subsequently broken when introduced in the live environment, which in itself is not the most uncommon occurance.

The thing that got me about the whole process was that due to a couple of unforseen errors with our payment merchant (who handles all the incoming money from client credit cards), we had to remove a few of our protections to make sure we could still release before Christmas. The worst thing is, we’re now not covered by illegal/fraudulent credit card use, even though that was the one goal since the start of the project.

Thankyou Initech, with your wonderful customer service and documentation.

* Initech is the company from the move Office Space, but the sentiment still stays.

Well Monday morning I was greeted at the front door of the office by my manager, only to be directed straight to other office (the snazzy above ground office about 500m away just near St James Palace) for an urgent heads up meeting regarding recent project work.  This was no issue, as rather unusually for a Monday morning I was feeling especially spritely, so I went along and sat down in the board room.

I should provide a little more information here about just how nice the other office is compared to the one the plebs (IT) work in.  Our office is an open plan with no offices or cubicles, its below ground with very little natural light apart from that which gets in from the street above and its incredibly noisy due to the mass of computer equipment in a rack about 10 metres behind where I sit.  It (thankfully) is carpeted, and there is no dress code, which is of course a good thing.  The other office is set out like a ritzy 5-star hotel with a large lobby area with waiting couches and a snazzy desk.  Everyone dresses up really nice, and its eerily quiet, and upon my first visit I was shown around each of about five board rooms with a £10,000-£20,000 table and 5-20 £1,000 leather chairs.  Naturally, I feel rather out of place at an office like this, in my nikes, worn blue jeans and Jack Daniels t-shirt (everything except for the t-shirt is true).

So back to the meeting, I sat down spoke my mind for an hour, gave some insightful commentary and told management and marketing everything they wanted/needed to hear and went on my merry way two hours later.  During the meeting, I noticed a couple of weird glances and odd looks, and although it was off-putting, I assumed they were admiring the manly adonis sitting at the head of the table, that being me.

It wasn’t until I got back to the office and went to the toilet a little later on, that I noticed (whilst admiring said adonis in the mirror) that I had a rather odd looking and very noticeable milk stain  all the way down the front of my grey t-shirt.  Grubby bastard strikes again!

And then came more shabbiness, not nearly as much my fault this time though.

My recruitment company (the hawks that they are), scheduled a meet and greet a few weeks ago, where they were going to come to the office and take myself and my manager out to lunch under the guise of finally putting a face to the voice on the end of the phone after such a long period.  I say this because really it had nothing to do with meeting me, or my boss, but securing a lucrative contract out of the company where at slightly lower cost they would provide us with all contractors/workers in a way that we could now exclusively use them.

Anyway, I’m sure they said it would be a quick meal at the pub with a couple of drinks so turned up in my usual IT getup.  Upon arriving at said pub, it was a very upmarket, and snooty restaurant.  Once again, I was very out of place, like a morman at a sex show.  Yes, just like that.

I might find a cupboard here at the office and keep a suit in there for these “special” occasions.