Wednesday October 12, 2005

SSG : Endgame

There's been a rather epic gap since my last post. I have been busy doing many things. Job interviews, life, the universe, working, wondering how long I have left, everything.

- I have not yet secured a job, though I have a couple of potentials from interviews still. I'll find something.

- Life is going not badly, you know - can't complain really despite impending unemployment doom.

- The Universe can cope very well on it's own without any help from me thank you very much.

- Work has been alright, getting to know a few more of the US team and worrying about when my last day will be.

- How long do I have left? 2 days. :-) My last day will be Thursday 13th October 2005. Tomorrow! I am relieved to finally know (I found out on Monday) but I am sad too. I liked it here. It's good to move onwards and upwards, but I feel somewhat disappointed I can't do that within the same company. I think perhaps that being in a job for longer than 2 years is becoming a rarity with companies going bust and contracts going overseas and people just not wanting to stick around and be loyal anymore. Same as marriages ;-)

- And everything? I'll let you know.

So in my very last Sun Blog I would like to say cheers - it's been short but sweet. Thank you for the time and attention and I'm glad you enjoyed my ramblings. I shall certainly be browsing the blogs site still and you can still read my outside blogs. Maybe our paths shall cross again one day. If anyone wants to reach me it's no longer emma@sun.com. (Oh how sad I am to be losing that awesome e-mail address!) You can get me on techling@gmail.com. I do hope you all keep in touch.

It's been nice knowing you. Supper Support Girl is hanging up her cape.

Tuesday August 30, 2005

Move Over Wonder Woman

I'm working for the US support desk now. I was pretty sad to be leaving APAC after all this time. I do miss my Australian and New Zealand customers. This US bunch seem alright though. They seem very keen to get stuff sorted, less laid back than the Aussies (in that they sound less drunk on a Friday afternoon) and I have to say, what the hell are they doing to their poor Sun servers?!? I have never encountered so many weird and difficult problems. The case load is a lot higher on this team, but I don't think I've had a single simple case since I started last week. Either the Americans are a rather experimental lot, or the air over there makes LEDs start to blink.

I'm really enjoying it so far actually. I had a small claim to fame when I took a case for a couple of servers that has been at JavaOne. I felt quite left out of that event being stuck on the wrong side of the Atlantic, but since I got to fix a couple of problems in the aftermath, I feel much better about it ;-)

Job searching is so far not happening. I have this one potential job for a really excellent company in central London, but they haven't given me an answer yet. I thought the interview went really well, and I absolutely loved the place. I am desperate to work there and wish I knew how to make it so. It is exactly the perfect job I am looking for. I will burst if I don't get it! But it is likely I will need to go back for a technical test on network security and firewalls. This worries me. I am quite technically sound, but I am rusty on networking, and without knowing what kind of test it's going to be, I might mess it all up. Well, I can do nothing but my best, I just hope it's good enough.

Trouble is, once I find a job I really, really want I give up searching. I don't want to have too many fingers in too many pies. I put all my eggs in one basket. It's very foolish of me. But I like to hold out some kind of hope and confidence that I'll get it. If I look for something else now, it feels like I'm giving up. Very foolish, as it looks like I have less than two months left here. No official notice has been given, but they have given us a warning to be prepared for that outcome. If I don't find a job I need a rich husband, or to contemplate moving back in with the parents. Neither seem very appealing right now ;D

Monday July 11, 2005

Super Support Girl -Vs- 100 Other People Applying for the Same Joblash

It's been a while since I have had to endure interviews. Luckily the last time I was searching it only took two interviews to find my perfect job (this one) and also be given a better salary than I was on before. That was fantastic, as I was rather desperate to move on and was willing to take a pay cut. The interview I remember was excellent, one of the pleasantest experiences of my life (I know that sounds strange). The two guys really put me at my ease, and we had quite a laugh. There was a test involved then a bit of a chat followed by some support call roleplay, which I quite enjoyed. After that good experience, I feel quite positive for the interviews ahead. All you need to do is relax and be yourself! Of course, this whole theory is going to come crashing right down when I get some evil pointy-haired boss interviewing me next week. Well, we shall see. It's all good practice. I must point out how incredibly weird it is to be not hiding my 'looking' status from my employers. I can't imagine many circumstances where that will ever happen, so I am making the most of it and will document my progress.

I haven't really been looking very hard, as I will still potentially be working here until February, but if I can find something good before then so be it, but I would rather stay on as long as possible as, well, I like it here. Currently most of the options appear to be UNIX admin, or Windows support. Don't really want to do either. I am not a fan of Windows, certainly not supporting it, and I actually think I would be a bit wasted in an admin role. I like helping people. I do not want to be stuck behind a screen writing perl scripts to automate all my work so I don't have to do anything while the unsuspecting boss thinks I'm worth all that money. Well, that's probably an exaggeration. What I'm getting at is, one of my favourite things about this job was the interaction with customers. Some of them are mean, but mostly they are lovely and I enjoy fixing stuff for them. I am trying to look into other fields to get in to, but I am caught up in the tech world now and I find it a hard place to get out of.

I was reading this earlier, which seems to have sparked off a bit of a debate about support in general, specifically Sun's. I'd say I was an authorative voice on how it actually works, and a lot of the speculation here is incorrect. Yes, I am first line support, and yes, if the issue is too complex for us to resolve it gets passed upwards. How else would you manage it? A highly qualified well paid engineer taking memory error calls along with complex kernel issues? And the call routing IS actually quite efficient, certain departments only deal with certain things.

The thing is, if your issue is very complex, you can't expect the call logger to be able to get it all down and understand what you say well enough to pass on to a high-level engineer. Therefore it makes sense it comes to us, as we know enough to be able to at least understand what you are talking about and get all the details needed from a technical perspective so that when we pass it over to the escalation engineer, he doesn't have to waste his time making further calls to the customer asking for basic information. He can just look at the stuff I give him and make a diagnosis. Well, in a simple world. If it were all that simple we wouldn't need support centres.

I just get a little tired of customers who get uptight when I've spoken to them for about 5 minutes and have been perfectly nice and helpful, and certainly not dumb. A lot of the time they seem to assume that I know nothing before I even say anything. Well, after my name that is. It can be frustrating but then that's what we deal with every day, it's not like it bothers us. Getting angry will get you nowhere guys, being nice will make us work on your call a lot more efficiently ;)

That argument was not very succinct but I can't be here all day trying to change the minds of /. nerds. Support! It is a great world. Frowned apon by most it seems, well, looking at the comments in that article. It's a shame. It's not so bad. If everyone has such a negative view of the job, how do they expect anyone good to want to work in it? So, when they call us up, how can they expect an expert on everything? Round and round we go. Treat us with a bit more respect and maybe you will not have so much cause for anger.

The fact it's all now moving to India (well, not ALL, but a lot of companies are doing it) is interesting. I don't know if I'm for or against it. In thoery, I see the point here, it's cheaper. It's a no-brainer. If they can do the job (and I am assuming being Indian, or indeed any race other than American or British, does not make you stupid), then why shouldn't they be allowed to? Let's hope they can, I trust in Sun's decision, I am sure they looked into it in great detail before making it. At the same time I think I may be slapped by a few of my colleagues, afterall we are losing our jobs. The business world is an unfair place, if you choose to work within it you can't be suprised by such things really.

I for one am looking forward to the future. I am sure Sun's support will fare just as well, and if it doesn't, maybe they will call the SSG hotline to come sort things out. I shall be crossing my fingers for them. I feel sad I won't be working for Sun anymore, it seems such a great community to belong to. Even if I didn't strictly belong to it, I feel very welcomed by everyone and all I've done is write a few silly words. I feel as if I will be losing something quite special. Still, there is no point worrying about such things, I am sure good stuff is in store for me. I have interesting future plans, I am thinking of starting up my own business, which is a daunting task but I will not be held back! I would be grateful for any advice my readers can give on that front. Or capital ;) I am researching my need for hardware currently, and I've logged a request with Sun Sales to help me out with some specs. So if a Support Engineer trusts Sun stuff, even when they see nothing but it breaking all the time, then it must be good eh ;)

Friday July 08, 2005

For Rent

One human being, female, willing.

Available for parties, gigs, decoration and sometimes Real Work(TM).

Soon to be no longer working for Sun Support, thus seeking pimp and/or regular wage packet.

Looking for a break of some kind, as The Register will not give a discount on their 'My Job's Gone to India' T-Shirts. Gutted.

Very low mileage, references on request.

Interest free credit option available.

Buy now get 99 free!

Don't miss out on this amazing offer!

Tuesday June 21, 2005

Better Late Than Never

Well, I missed the OpenSolaris launch by a week or so. I could go into all sorts of humorous lies about my plans to make this an ironic but bold statement about "vapourblogs" and oh, wouldn't that be funny? But no, I'm afraid I'm not clever enough for that. My excuse is, I picked a really bad week to take a week off, and yet another bad week to become sick (the week before my holiday). Us lowly support engineers don't get access to SWAN unless we drag ourselves into the office, so unfortunately I missed various e-mails and notifications and blah blah blah until I returned yesterday.

When I studied at the University of Essex the Computer Science department had a very strict rule about deadlines. If you were late, by even 15 minutes, you got a big fat zero for your work. Now, I'm the kind of person who disagrees wholeheartedly with this kind of system. The amount of times that one more day could have made a significant improvement in my overall work, just because I made an amazing breakthrough hours before the deadline, were numerous. In the real world I am sure I would have been given an extension or a bit of a chance. Surely I would not be given the sack for being slightly late. That's why I like Douglas Adams so much. He knew the score about this sort of thing. I don't know if OpenSolaris was late or not - I am sure there are mixed opinions. In my world nothing's really late, so long as what eventually comes is good.

Well that's enough of that. I was originally going to blog about something really profound, and amaze you all with a spectacularly intelligent insight into the world of open source software. It's too late for all that now though, so I've drawn you a pretty picture instead.

"Hoorah, The Solaris Code has been freed! All in a days work for Super Support Girl!!"*

*SSG more than likely had absolutely nothing to do with any actual 'freeing' of the Solaris code and accepts no liability for anything ever.

Monday May 23, 2005

Very busy this week, but not too busy for....

Damn.

Great fun. Thanks Mary and Roumen

But wait!! YES.

Wednesday May 18, 2005

Job Satisfaction

Sometimes, I get a case assigned to me, I call the customer up, I have the exact answer he needs, the webpage I find has everything I need to tell him, contact numbers are correct, it all just flows and the customer says, "Thank you so much for your help, yes you can close this call." all in the space of 10 minutes.

That is what I call job satisfaction. It makes the 99% of other cases with explorer analysis and core dump analysis and messages files and outputs and networking problems and disk problems and memory problems much more bearable. When I think about it, it's actually very rare I see a case through to closure, because a lot of the time I deal with failed hardware which then gets the case sent off to Australia for one of our lovely FEs to deal with.

There's a much greater sense of satisfaction from dealing with a customer from start to end though, and being able to utter those wonderful words, 'Is it ok to close this case?'.

It's crazily busy here, please stop logging cases!! :)

Tuesday May 10, 2005

Jumping on the Bandwagon

I copied this from all in a day's blog who copied it from alan coopersmith. See the cynical look on my face, the scruffy hair and the sexy super outfit. Spitting image of me, though since I started working nights I have not been required to wear the uniform.

Create Your Own South Park Character

SP is clearly one of the best shows ever made. I would love to meet those two guys, they seem to have infinite levels of funniness. I have recently watched them all from series 1-7, now I need to catch up on 8. It's turned me into a foul mouthed crazy loon though, I wouldn't recommend it. I am weening myself off it slowly.

Super Support Girl's Level 5 Nemesis - The Wrath of 3am

Sleep attack plus ten knocks SSG out for next 3 stages. Survival now pinned on Base to provide remote support. Request S to ship me in some hi-tech matchstick eye-open supports, or all hope lost.

Fascinating as Administering Packages From the Command Line is, it is not handsome enough to tempt me. A 6 hour long battle and the aftermath is not pretty. Still, now I know how to install Solaris 10, which I think should help me defeat the boss in endgame!

Monday May 09, 2005

Solaris 10 for x86: A New Hope

Well, I am back. I had a lovely week off and really made the most of my precious time off (we just don't get enough of it in this country) and have seen many of my friends which is good as I rarely get the chance to, what with them living a couple of hundred miles away. I attended a party or two and a gig in Northampton as well (The band was called A, they are actually well known which is a novelty for this town).

I am now allocated some training on Solaris 10 on x86 systems, which is web based. I relish the opportunity for all training here (we don't get enough, Sun, give us more!) as I have found the Sun training to be the best I have ever experienced. It is nice that I do not have to pay for it, but if I had the money, I certainly would. Worth every penny. Those guys down at Guillemont Park really are great and deserve oddles of praise. Unfortunately web based training means I get to sit in my usual office, no all expenses paid hotel break in Surrey. Damn!

I am finding it very hard going so far, I am making notes to keep my brain active but reading stuff for hours is pretty mind-numbing. Plus it's only been the basics so far, about file systems and disk slices and whatnot. Occasionally something funky crops up about SMF or Zones, but it's teasing me. I want to get to the real meat on that, however I am a completist and will soldier on. It is actually very nice of my Team Leader to allocate me some time off from the normal work to do this training. It's good to get opportunities like this.

I've been thinking a lot over the past week, about what I would like to do with my life. I have been in a bit of a rut lately, but I feel quite positive now. I would like to get into some kind of technical management role I think. I would also like to move to Sweden one day, after a discussion with a friend of mine. The lifestyle appears to be so much better over there. I have always been quite blindly patriotic, but there's a lot of things I have taken for granted that happen which really don't need to. Any Sun jobs going in Sweden? :)

The answer to my little quiz was, of course, the German Guy. One free voucher for a rescue from a perilous situation* for all who got it right.



* Not to be used in conjunction with any other type of hero work, subject to availability and status. Underwear worn outside of clothes on request.

( May 09 2005, 11:52:25 PM GMT ) Permalink Comments [13]

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!