So a few weeks ago there was a weekend trip to the data center we have, which we needed to do some work in. Have needed to do it for some time. Things worked, but were... not really optimal. And by that I mean "they worked because I know my shit and if I'm not around shit breaks, and sometimes I'm not around."

So that went ... poorly. As a result various communication things I run thru there ... were bouncing. Which was due not to my stuff, but due to a change in the physical switch. Which used a thing which, I understand, the Swedes call "Exciting Tree." (It's close to spanning, which is the English term.) It... well basically, it should not have been on, was, and as a result my machines were RUNNING but NOT ALLOWED TO TALK.

I don't have access to the switches so it went all pearshaped.

I'm back online, but I haven't actually connected to the slack instance for everyweeks because slack is absolute fucking shit. Honestly, it isn't best in class even for web-based chat. We tested some at my last job and it did NOT win, because it was not best in class. Sadly, the one we chose got gobbled up by CA (computer ASSociates) so it likely will never become big outside the corporate CA structure. But it is superior.

I digress for a minute:

The problem will all of these web-based things is - the majority of us who have been at this a while have established channels of net communication that work for our workflows. The reason we're willing to compromise these is the promise that management, sales, marketing, and the general non-technical structure will be more communicative and information will flow.

This works in organizations where management is willing to do this.

It does NOT solve the problem in cases where management is NOT willing to do this.

When management flat out tells you "I don't have time to read all this, fill in the summaries in our established workflow despite it being 3 hours out of every day and you still are expected to do your 8 hours, and what do you mean 8+3 = 11 no we're only paying you for 8, also stop using your tool" well, you can see where this is going.

Slack does NOT solve that problem. It only increases the problems (as you are giving up an established workflow in trade for something promised, which never arrives.)

Our choice of tool didn't solve that either, it's a basic issue of Management needing to be willing to put forth an effort to bring everyon together. And if THAT is not there, the problem will NOT go away.

I have worked in organizations where the CEO was willing to do this, and when that happened, shit worked. The COO wasn't willing, but the CEO was, so the COO adjusted. Others didn't want to, but the CEO was doing it - so - you know. LEADERSHIP.

And I obviously have worked in organizations where management was NOT willing to do this, and it didn't work. And morale declined and things were stuck in ruts.

You can't "code around" this behavior. Oh, I've tried, but it's an excercise in futility. (Mind you, like all coding, you learn from it and extract bits - so it is not wasted time - but it does not solve the problem presented. So from an Engineering standpoint, it's not optimal.

So anyway, I don't care for Slack, or the tendency to push Slack type solutions as the 'best thing for everything' because they aren't. They are tools, with good and bad points, and the good is taken with the bad when there is a payout that is beneficial.

Right now, the slack thing isn't beneficial for me as much as not being on slack is.

So, what have I gotten done?

Not much, sadly, outside of work. I've done quite a bit of work with Ansible scripting and some with vpn access, and found a TON of stuff at work that just needs to be ... redone.

Outside of that, at home, I've been sort of preparing for Revision, but due to a rather nasty bout of stress over getting TO revision, which is now required as Ziphoid cannot go (No no, that's not the way to put that - it makes it sound like Ziphoid is to blame. I was ALWAYS going. But this is the "no really there is no way, period" straw that caused me internally to stress a bit more. And I was always stressing about it, since December, really.)

I am learning to manage stress this year.

Why haven't I learned before?

BECAUSE I DID NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THAT I HAD A PROBLEM WITH STRESS.

So that's what I've been doing, trying to manage stress. And I suck at it. I fall back on patterns that aren't getting me places.

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Petscii: Evilpaul doesn't have a library that does Petscii dumps, it shows Petscii animations. Not what we want. I am building a quick tool that extracts the color data and the character data, and will put that in a file format. Apparently, Marq has a 'SEQ' file format that does that, but that ... there were SEQ files on c64 and those were sequentially written files, which needed to be written a certain way, and if you didn't close them properly you got splat files. Same as Random Access files, but these were accessed sequentially... and I don't think that's the same thing.

Anyway that will get put into Sahli before Revision. There was research done on that this past week.

The picture is, well, apt. I didn't draw it.