Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Music - A quiz thing

So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button

Opening Credits:
Toxic - Britney Spears

Waking up:
Call Me - Deborah Cox

First Day at School:
Mean Girls - Sugarland

Falling in Love:
Modern Day Drifter - Dierks Bentley

Fight Song:
Lay Down Your Love - 4 P.M. (For Positive Music)

Breaking Up:
How To Deal - Frankie J

Prom:
1999 - Prince

College Life:
Feel Good Inc - Gorillaz

Mental Breakdown:
In a Small Town - Kenny Chesney

Getting Back Together:
Can't Help Falling in Love - Andrea Bocelli

Wedding:
Cold Hands (Warm Heart) - Brendan Benson

Birth of a Child:
Don't Cry Out Loud - Diana DeGarmo

Final Battle:
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

Funeral Song:
Speed of Life - Sugarland

Ending credit:
Come a Little Closer - Dierks Bentley

Monday, May 28, 2007

Much needed getaway!

Rob and I are planning a much-needed getaway this upcoming weekend. We're not going far (just to Anaheim to spend the weekend at Disneyland and possibly California Adventure.) Anyway, I think all the stresses of me being unemployed and everything else going on have really gotten to me. I need the chance to unwind, and just try to spend as much time as I possibly can with Rob. Since I've started working again, I hardly get to just "spend time" with Rob these days. I miss the sleeping in time... the just having the whole day with him. It seems and feels "different" seeing him after we both get off work. I consider that my "me" time. So, I don't know... Weekend will be great just to have each other all to ourselves, I guess! Come back in a couple of days to hear about our trip and see the pics!

Friday, May 18, 2007

EVERYTHING’S GOING DOWN … Well, the servers at least


Wednesday was interesting enough… We spent our day just going through the everyday processes of dealing with our company’s contract administrators being completely stupid. I mean, for an everyday thing that seems somewhat repetitive, how is it that every single one of them seems to be so clueless in what is mandatory in submitting a project? I cannot recall a time when Elaine isn’t on the phone or emailing one of these idiotic CAs reminding them of the things that they do in an everyday basis. I can admit that I am not quite the perfect person when it comes to remembering a task (and I’m new at this position), but many of these CAs have been there for so many years! How is it that you can forget to upload a contract backup into the system when you know that it is required? Who is it that they’re going to blame when a certain project goes through the audit process? The CAs will be the ones, not the contract assistants who are setting up these projects. We cannot create or update contracts in Oracle until we verify the correct information. How do we know that the correct revenue budget is in the proper project? Sometimes $1 goes along way, especially if it’s a $6 million project for the U.S. Air Force!

I just had to get that off my chest considering that it’s a day-to-day thing. Anyway, projects are coming along. Approximately 11:00 A.M., everyone in our department is trying to process our contracts. If you’re saving information, the little status bars on the bottom right of the screen kind of does what I call a “ping pong” status (the bars just go back and forth with nothing happening). The system did not let you sign back on if you happened to sign off Oracle because the screen went blank. Apparently, the servers were down, and no one in the Tech Support department decided to give us a heads up! (They’re useless sometimes)

I am at my desk twiddling my thumbs away (literally). I literally cannot recall what I exactly did to let the time pass by. I think I might have organized my desk, read a little email, walked around the building a few times, ate a little snack, and waited until lunchtime. What did I do for lunch? Hmm… Can you tell how bored I was?

Luckily, the servers were back up shortly before two o’clock. Despite the server going down, we still managed to finish all of our projects. It definitely must have been a slow day if we managed to do that!

Thursday, May 17, 2007

ALL BY MYSELF (and no, I’m not singing)


 


Like I stated on my Monday posting, my co-worker, Elaine, was having "one of those days. " So, she decided to call out sick on Tuesday morning. So guess what happened? I had to solve, fix, etc. all by myself in terms of every single person's problems -- well, so I thought… I didn't really have too many problems to try to resolve.

Problem #1 -- I received an email from a contract administrator. It says that her employees have been able to put charges into a particular project, and asked me to fix it. Don't you just love how these CAs say to "fix it," and never "Can you see what the problem is? " No appreciation at all! Anyway, I went to look at the project, and found that when I had set it up, I didn't change the status from "Unapproved" to "Approved." That was simple enough!

Problem #2 -- Another email from a CA. This one saying that her project manager wanted to place charges on two of the project's task, and asked me again to "fix it." I again reviewed the project, and found that all the tasks had open-end dates -- meaning doing charges and funds to these particular tasks. I email her back, and she tells me, "OK, I was just checking." Why couldn't she take the time to look it up herself? The time it took me to read that email, look at the project, ask the assistant manager to look at it (2nd opinion), go back to my desk to email her, and wait for her response, the CA could have done it herself! My goodness! Do these CAs have any brains? I'd get into it, but that should be another blog. Not really worth blogging about it!

Anyway, since I was by myself to create and update contracts, I just kind of jumped around. By the time I left work at 5:00 P.M., there was no open tickets remaining. I have to say that I did pretty well myself!

OH, SUCH A SLOW DAY (well, for me anyway)…


Monday was a major contrast to the hectic day of last Friday. Monday morning started out pretty much how a normal morning would start. Monday mornings are catch up for whatever projects and updates were leftover from last Friday. I think that my Friday disarray mirrored my fellow co-worker's Monday chaos.


I just went on with my routine… I completed one ticket after another… Having my minor little detail questions answered here and there. Everything bombarded my poor co-worker left and right. If it was not a project she was having problems with, there was something going on in our department. If it was not coming from our department, she was getting phone calls from someone in our company's different divisions/organizations. Poor Elaine… It was one of those days where you think that your day will be easy (like I did last Friday), and everything and everyone becomes a problem that you have to drop everything to fix it! Every time she attempted to sit at her desk to start working on a project Elaine was taken away to do something else.


All that said… There really isn't much else to say. It definitely was a slow day! The sign was when I returned shortly after lunch, I had a total of 10 projects completed by 2:00 PM. I spent a remainder of that time walking around the building, sitting at my desk hitting the "Refresh" button on the browser in hopes of something coming in, and organizing my desk to my liking!


Can you tell I get bored easily?

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Friday Mayhem


How is it that one simple little task that a person does every single day cause so much trouble? Well, let me tell you one thing… If you were a fly on the wall that day, you definitely would be able to answer that question.

My day -- actually, my morning -- started out pretty well. I drove to work with ease… It was payday *cha-ching*… In addition, I was planning to go with the flow of things. THEN I WALKED INTO WORK! I went through my usual morning routine -- turned on my computer, got my desk ready for work, put my personal things away, and got my breakfast and morning coffee. Once I got settled, I logged onto Outlook to read my e-mail, which I always do to see if there were any project updates that I needed to do right away. My attitude was, “Why bother considering no one would be sending me anything to work with?” I set aside that thought, and of course, I definitely found something in the email!

Email:
SUBJECT: Project # (whatever it was - you wouldn’t understand it)
BODY: Project such and such had its ticket closed out, and not in Oracle (our projects and contracts database). Please fix it!

So, I was thinking that this should be easy enough considering that it does not take that long to create a new project and contract into a database. Geez, I was definitely wrong about that! Everything that you could possibly think that could go wrong definitely did… Prior to setting up a project, I normally go through all the information, and highlight “key” items that needs inputting into Oracle. Well, going through my “highlighting” process, I found that there was a little mix up with the prime and end clients. Considering that this project was an “Intercompany” contract (a project funded by our own company), I had to make sure that everything was done carefully. The contract administrator had placed our company’s name in the end client. The norm is when dealing with an Intercompany contract, we are always the prime client. [Let me explain prime and end clients -- the prime client is the company that holds the contract, and funds the services provided; the end client is the company who receives the services provided for the particular project.] The CA and I agreed with the definition of the prime and end clients, but which category the client should be in became a disagreement. So, I discussed it with one of our CAs in our department. She clarified what I had stated above, but told me to discuss it with the head of our billing department. I emailed her, with a copy of the contract attached, and she clarified my thought. Anyway, I was right… He was wrong… He made the correction… Easy enough, right? WRONG!!!!

Another problem (same project) comes along. My thought process was to set up the project, and close out the ticket once he made the corrections. Here is where my mistake came along… As I was setting up the project, I did not realize that I had setup everything with the old information. So, everything that I had tried to make clear for an hour and half all went to waste! Because of this blunder, I had to close out the project, and recreate a new one since Oracle is not friendly to those who make little mistakes like that.

Anyway, as I was starting over (for the second time), I came to realize that the customer database contained 225 different addresses for our company. To find out the address, I went back to the contract to figure out which client numbers to choose. I could not find the address at all! So, I called the CA to see if he could help me out… He was of no help at all! I just picked the closest thing I could get, and compared the numbers to the listing that we have for reference.

Overall,… this project took me FOUR HOURS to work on! Oh, so frustrating…

To compensate for such a hectic morning, though, the day went on slow. We did not really get that many projects to update or create. The Contracts Assistant that I work with leaves at 3:00 every Friday afternoon. So, she told me to go home early since there was not anything left to do. Me like it!

Rob and I went out for dinner, and played pool at 4th Dimensions (kind of like a belated “We met a year ago” kind of anniversary outing / “I had a bad day, and need a drink” kind of fun.) It was an end to a very interesting and overwhelming day (and week).

So far behind...

I've got stories to tell about my experiences at work over the last few days, but I've gotten very overwhelmed in other things that I haven't had the chance to sit down to share my thoughts. I'm working on it, though... I should have last Friday's (5/11/07) experience posted in a little bit, with more on the rest of this week to follow...

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

A year gone by...

...and I never imagined that my life would be so filled with the love I have had from my boyfriend this past year. Rob and I met a year ago last Saturday, and I cannot express how much Rob has meant to me. One year ago, we had an instant attraction that I never could have imagined that would have gone beyond that first meeting. At the time, my life was filled with lots of insecurity, low self-esteem, and a fear of letting someone know who I truly am. I was also "letting go" of someone who felt like dead weight to me.

In the year, it has been up & down. Rob has been there for me no matter how tough it got (read previous posts). I never imagined that I could find someone that I could spend my life with forever. Today, I really wouldn't know what I would do if Rob wasn't in my life. He is my rock... my soul... my love...

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Another week completed...

I am beginning to get into my own thing at work... I've managed to survive doing this job with out being overwhelmed with the responsibilities that come with the job. I'm actually enjoying myself. My fellow co-workers in the department have been excellent to work with, and very helpful when it seems like I've asked them the same questions 100 times in 5 minutes. I have not quite ventured out in terms of getting to know others at work (it seems there that each section of cubicles is a new realm that only those inside live in). The commute to and from work still hasn't gotten to me, but I'm still trying to figure out alternative routes. I think I may have figured one out going in one direction, but still playing around with the other direction.

Other than the little scare I had yesterday afternoon ... I was working on creating a new project. It was around 3:30 in the afternoon, so I was getting tired. As I was typing up the project, I was not quite paying attention as to how I was working on the project. I kept thinking to myself that I had already created it, so I closed out what I was working on to search for it. Didn't realize that I had already saved the work. So when I went back to search for the template I needed, the already saved project came up. It scared the heck out of me because I thought I erased the template. Asked one of the girls to see if she could help me fix it, and we came to realize that I had changed the project name to the title of the template.... I am doing well. I have adjusted... I have found a job that has made me happy -- and a lot of money ;)