Thursday April 28, 2005

I Never Could Get The Hang of Thursdays

I saw The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy today. I think I've been waiting since about 1998 when I first heard rumours of it. Oh what a bumpy ride. I have to say, I was overall pleased. I don't like the way the point of the story seemed entirely different, as well as the conclusion. But I can cope and I might go and see it again. Certain bits were VERY fun, excellent stuff turned up randomly, e.g. Marvin from the original TV series, and Arthur too. I won't tell you where, look out for them. I must admit, the beginning was superbly done, and the good old original theme tune brought a tear to my eye. Nostalgic stuff, even for me. It holds a dear place in my heart, as the beginning of my geek days. It is good old British irony at it's best. As is the new series of Dr Who, which started slowly, but the episodes about the aliens taking over the British Government were an excellent parody of UK politics right now. "They have Massive Weapons of Destruction capable of reaching us within 45 seconds!"

It's Friday! (In New Zealand anyway) That means it's the weekend soon, and for me personally it means a week off. I have many things planned (A party or three, and a gig). While I am gone, I challenge you to a puzzle. It is supposedly very easy, but only 2% of people who try can solve it because their brain prevents them from being able to when they know it was created by Einstein. It took me about an hour in total to figure out on pen and paper, but I got a bit frustrated after half an hour and came back to it after a day =) See if any of you Sun big wigs are worth your pay cheques eh :P

1) There are 5 houses of different colours.
2) In each house lives a person of a different country.
3) No one of them has the same animal, smokes the same cigarrete or drinks the same thing.
4) The english guy lives in the red house.
5) The swedish one has dogs.
6) The one from Denmark drinks tea.
7) The green house is to the left of the white one.
8) The man living in the green house drinks coffee.
9) The man that smokes Malboro has birds.
10) The man in the yellow house smmokes Hollywood.
11) The man in the third house drinks milk.
12) The guy from Norway lives in the first house.
13) The man that smokes Carlton lives beside the one that has cats.
14) The man that has horses lives beside the one that smokes Hollywood.
15) The guy that smokes Free drinks beer.
16) The german guy smokes Camel.
17) The guy from Norway lives beside the blue house
18) The guy that smokes Carlton lives beside the one that drinks water.

Who has a fish?

Maybe it's best you refrain from giving away the answer in comments so it doesn't spoil it for any latecomers. I will give you the solution on my return next Monday! At which time I shall be on a weeks training to study Solaris 10 on x86 systems.

No cheating!

Thursday April 21, 2005

Blog 2 : Super Support Girl Vs Fibre Channel Offline Error

Today's been very quiet. Not much of Australia appears to be broken, which is good of course. My only customer isn't answering the phone, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to write.

I have eagerly awaited the new Coldplay album, though somewhat guiltily. Poor Chris Martin must be feeling so stressed out, and I don't want to cause him any further headaches. How can he possibly beat Rush of Blood to the Head? The new single sounds good, so it seems he had nothing to worry about. I did notice a significant similarity to Clocks, though. But I feel too worried for the guy to judge.

I imagine he feels similar to me, upon writing this entry. My first entry was a hit, and it was written straight from the heart, as all good blogs should be. But having such high level critics respond to me already may leave me tainted by the industry. How can I compete with that? What if all this attention has changed me? Should I ignore it and try to carry on with some false projection of innocence, or do I acknowledge it, inciting the wrath of my fellow blog artists who have never had any recognition and are plotting to throw eggs at me when I leave tonight? How can one cope with such pressure?

Write the damn entry and get on with it, stupid. Ok, sorry.

I've found after a year I finally understand the dynamics of the support team here. It really does take a while to settle, at least on the APAC team, because every country has different processes and varying 'customs', if you will. I find I talk to them in different ways. I don't think it's a kind of prejudice, more that I am trying to adapt to their ways and make them feel more comfortable. I have found my interest in the rest of the world has certainly increased now I speak to people from here there and everywhere. I no longer feel I'm caged in on this tiny island. I am aware of other cultures and languages other than European ones. I still find it amusing that India has to call the UK for their Sun support though.

The shift patterns changed me as a person in a major way. There is no such thing as breakfast and lunch to me anymore. There's not really any such thing as a day... instead I see time as a constant stream of 9am starts across the globe. I will shamefully admit, the Tsunami disaster at Christmas would not have been overly important to me had it happened a couple of years ago. But now I support that part of the world, and talk to people who live there every day, I realise these places aren't made up fiction I see on the news that might as well be on another planet. There are real people there, just like us, having problems with their backups and their RAID mirrors and now, unfortunately, their everyday lives.

I guess I see Sun in the same light. I sit here in this room, in a relatively unimportant geographical location, and make phone calls. I never see anyone else from Sun, don't really know what's going on at Sun, and can't see how it affects me in the grand scheme of things anyway. It's this huge entity I can't really contemplate. Or so it was until yesterday, when I saw blogs from all different types of people, about their weddings, Open Source, Java, Blogging, Sesame Street... Sun is full of actual real life people. Wow. I guess that was the point they were trying to make when they started up this blogging thing.

Wednesday April 20, 2005

From Kebab Van to CEO of Sun Microsystems

My name is Emma, I live and work in Northampton, UK, and am probably at the bottom end of all Sun employees. Think of me as the kebab van at 2am, while Mr Schwartz is a 'McDonalds Extra' at lunchtime.

In other words, I am a Sun Support Engineer. Anyone in New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand or Indonesia (APAC!), who have a problem with Sun kit or software, gets to speak to the lovely me on the phone while sorting it out.

I'm sure I have many satisfied customers, who will praise me to the heavens. I've recently decided to work a permanent night shift (the 5am starts for the India shift did not agree with me) and since then I have felt a lot more settled into the job. I've been here a year now and find it quite a fun, friendly environment to work in. There's always some weird or whacky fix some customer's managed to get themselves into, so it tends to never get boring.

Okay, so I'm not actually creating anything, I'm not working on a big project and pretty much every day I start again with a fresh slate. But I kind of like it, it's nice to be so stress-free and to feel like it's a job I can go home and forget about. I also get periods of free time where I can research my plans for global domination. Some day I'm sure I'll move on and up to more responsibility, but meanwhile I shall sit patiently, watching, contemplating my next move. ;)

I have blogged for many years now, but thought I would start up a Sun one, for reasons I would not like to fathom at this moment in time. My brain is very complex (aren't most females') and I wouldn't want to be here all day picking apart my irrational desire to do certain things. However I believe that one day it will be important to look back on my career. Who knows, I might be gone next week if I write something bad here (I read all the rules and quite frankly, I am petrified), but there's always the chance that some day, I'll be CEO of this marvellous company and everyone will be able to see that I started out at the very, very bottom of the pile. And won't that be cool?

So, hello there, hopefully I'll think of something interesting to say one of these days that will wow and amaze you. In the meantime I have a customer in New Zealand who would like a new power supply, please. Emma to the rescue!