the boredom of ramfree17

[Lifted from an old email I sent to my previous project mates.]

This is an email to remind about wantonly tweaking configuration settings in the Oracle Fusion Middleware stack to make the code work. Wantonly in this case means it did not go through the official change management process as the members in question wanted to quickly solve an issue that was first encountered in the UAT environment.

E2 is supposed to mirror the E3 environment to catch any problem that could happen in E3, or replicate an ongoing issue.

Our goal is not to make our deliverables pass UAT, but to provide deliverables that will not malfunction in production.

Any setting that needs to be changed needs to be evaluated properly to ensure it doesn’t affect the other applications in the environment. Each setting change is always a compromise between two conflicting scenarios (e.g. performance vs scalability, traceability vs resource management, etc.). We need to understand what we are exchanging for each setting update. The E2 settings change needs to be propagated to E3 afterwards.

For the nomenclature:

• E2 is the User Acceptance environment, and
• E3 is the Production environment.

You probably have heard of “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade” or “you cannot make omelette without cracking eggs” but company business optimism is taking this a bit further. They are thinking ahead and in what I would assume to be pursuit of cost cutting the powers that be has shifted to “why bother making lemonades and omelette in the first place? let us take away the lemons and eggs so you wont have that problem” mentality.

Ingenious, yes.
Devilish, yes.
Practical? It depends on whose perspective.

I like lemonade and omelette. I also like having the choice whether I will or I will not have them.

ciao!

I am cleaning up my work inbox to free up some space and came across an email from the “enthusiastic” events committee of the UPEM team. This was about the awards they give out during the year-end party. Guess which one is perennially mine. 🙂

• Banksy Award – lives up freedom of expression via whiteboard graffiti
• Bleep Award – for having the most “colorful” vocabulary in the team
• Bully Award – do we even have to define this?
• Caffeine Addict Award – for someone who drinks the most coffee in a day even if not collecting stickers for a Starbucks Planner
• Call of Duty: Ghost Ops – for the one who stays longer than our core hours to fulfill duties
• Could Have Been Sweethearts – their chemistry is palpable that in another time, place, and lifetime they could have been… We can rename this to Popoy and Basha Award? May second chance! =))
• Duct Tape Award – for being able to fix issues, resourcefully
• Early Bird Award – for consistently being early in the office
• Fitness First Award – for someone who hits the gym regularly
• Food Basket Award – for being a saint in providing nutrition to the team
• Human Vulture Award – for eating anything found lying around
• Iron Chef Award – for the person who always packs a delicious looking lunch while everyone else gets Ministop’s Nuclear Chicken
• Keep Calm and Carry On Award – for being calm, cool, and collected on the highest severity of issues
• Man of Steel Award – for being thoroughly dedicated to his work that no disaster can stop him . This is given to the teammate who had no or the least number of SL’s/EL’s for the year.
• Megaphone Award – for actively voicing out (sometimes louder than necessary) his opinions to the team
• Most Bromantic Couple – for living up The Bro Code
• Mr./Ms.Seenzone Award – for someone who turns the Lync taskbar icon into a blinking light, and prefers the old fashioned way of one on one interaction
• Neatest Nook Award – for having the cleanest cube in the office
• One More Thing Award – most likely to extend meetings
• Papa/Mama Bear Award – for someone who takes care of the team
• Pig Pen Award – for someone who has the messiest cube in the office
• Six-pack Award – for someone so funny, he can give you a six-pack just by laughing
• Social Butterfly Award – for someone you are always up to date with due to his/her social media posts
• Stuck Thread King/Queen – for consistently causing downtime in any of our environments
• TMNT Award – for the one who demonstrates proficiency and skill in the art of stealth
• UPEM Fashionista (female) – for consistently dressing extraordinary in an ordinary day in the office
• UPEM Fashionisto (male) – for consistently dressing extraordinary in an ordinary day in the office

Quoting Robert: “Good Times!”

ciao!

SLA – the maximum amount of time that a task can be put off that the requester cannot contest except to raise the cost by involving higher-paid individuals to increase the imaginary priority shown to external users.

Sometimes misunderstood to be the time needed to require work to be completed.

Imagine an environment where standards are strictly enforced.
Where security is of paramount importance.

Now imagine that at the expense of productivity or rational reasoning.
Where compliance is dictated by the contents of a clipboard checklist.

Welcome to Hotel California.