Ever Had One Of Those Weeks?

Have you ever had one of those weeks where everything just goes from ok, to good, to better, to bestest (I am aware that's not really a word, but you get what I mean).

Like you'll find $1 on the ground, put it in a pokie machine and win $20. So you buy a softdrink and under the cap is another free softdrink prize. So you reclaim that at the newsagency, which just happened to have the latest edition of your favourite magazine which you buy, and realise it's a special edition with a free book and all the articles are awesome. But, before you leave you spend the rest of the $20 on scratchies, and you find that you win $250.00. Not a big win, but you're faaaaar better off then you were before you bent down to pick up that $1 coin 5 hours ago.

In fact, you're now two drinks, $250, and 2 hours of good reading time richer then you were.

Then you go out for a drink and you end up catching up with everyone you've wanted to catch up with recently, and bump into that special someone you've seen around but never talked to. To hell with it, things have been going well, why not say hello. And things progress well, however gorgeous they were prior to this meeting (causing you to forget your name when they were in the room) its now like you've known each other for years, and even though you didn't think it's possible they appear even more attractive to you now. And so it continues, good thing, after good thing and so on.......

Well this week was the exact opposite.

What a shitty shitty week.

One bad thing after another.

Last year I managed a relatively large project at work which changed the way that we looked after our hard copy and electronic records (word doc's, spreadsheets, maps etc).

We moved from using a regular file share system into and Electronic Document Management System, EDMS.

This changed the way that our Corporation delt with documents and affected over 700 staff. Anyway, the project finished in December of last year, completed, successfully rolled out.

Now, literally in the last 3 weeks, when you open a document, make changes, then save and close it, it doesn't necessarily put the changes back into the EDMS.

Now this would be fine if it happened every time (not fine, but understandable), or if it happened when you followed a specific series of events..... but no. Why make it easy to diagnose. Why not just let it happen randomly.

And it is seriously random, except for one similarity.

Over the past month we've also been rolling out Active Directory. This has been as smooth as silk.

The best packaged rollout that anyone has seen. In fact, the rest of the departments had attempted this with some varied results (ie, nothing worked).

Of course, this silky smooth rollout now has a flaw, as it is the similarity between the issues I'm having with the EDMS. However random the "no save" issue is, it happens only at AD sites.

So now a silky smooth, perfectly engineered system rollout needs to be put on hold because of issues with a system which I managed the implementation of 12 months ago.

To make it simple to understand, can you imagine writing this blog, getting to this point, then saving as a draft, the writing the rest of what is below, saving as a draft again, coming back and finding that you were back to this part? Would you be annoyed? I certainly would be.

Unfortunately it's not just work that's going wrong.

This morning it was raining so I decided to drive to work. The car is having clutch problems so I had to put clutch fluid in it before I left. So I opened the passenger side door and got the fluid out and put it on the roof. The I went around to the other side of the car and realised that I was parked up against a bunch of bushes, which were obviously wet.
So back to the passenger side to lean across to pop the bonnet. I did that, then decided that I'd push the car back while there so when I was ready to go I wouldn't get wet with the bushes.
So as I was pushing the car back the car suddenly stopped. The clutch fluid had fallen off the top and was now jammed under the tire (thank god it didn't pop). So I pushed it forward a little, took out the fluid, and raised the bonnet.

Have you ever tried to raise the bonnet of a car while holding an umbrella and a bottle of clutch fluid? That's pretty tough.

Have you ever tried to raise the bonnet of a car while holding an umbrella and a bottle of clutch fluid while the car is still in neutral and the hand brake is off?

That's a lot harder.

So I went back to the car and put on the handbrake, then went back and popped the bonnet, then poured in the clutch fluid and closed it all back up again.

Now I was ready to go, and I'm dry still.

Ever tried to get an umbrella into a small car?

Now the umbrella's in the car, and I'm ready to go, albeit I now find that I'm wet.

Luckily the drive in was uneventful, however there were people going straight when they should turn and visa versa.

When I arrived I parked and grabbed the $3 needed for an all day park. First coin got stuck, but I was able to push it through with the second, which suprise suprise, got stuck. In goes the 3rd dollar to push in the second, but now there's nothing left to push this through. So the ticket machine gives me a ticket for $2 up until 1pm, instead of $3 for all day. AND the other dollar is still stuck in the machine!

That's fine, I'm okay, I'm just going to get some breaky at the cafe and then head to work. But hang on, I've only got $10, that won't be enough. So I stopped off at the ATM to get some cash out for the rest of the day.

"Please remove card" *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep*

The card didn't eject all the way out...... So I pushed it back in with another card.

"Please remove card" *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep*

Again the card didn't eject out enough to get a grip (if only I carried tweezers someone would later point out to me today)

"Card Confiscated, cancelling transaction"

And that was that. I was left with my $10, and no bank card for 5 working days on friday morning.

And this was all before I got into work to hit the EDMS issues (have a look at how much work you could lose when it doesn't recognise you saves)

I'm sure someone came along to find that extra $1 in parking machine, and they proabably put that into a pokie..........

Next time you're on that winning streak, spare a thought for the person that's doing it rough to keep the balance in the Universe.