Irony of technology

I had a phone/web conference this morning and had to make two separate requests to pc help and was surprised by their reactions to both request.

Request #1: The wireless mouse requires 2AA batteries. Do you have any batteries in the worst case scenario that the batteries die and are unable to use the mouse?
Response: No batteries. If the batteries, which they shouldn't, then oh well.

Request #2: Some of the participants for the web/phone conference are in Austria and unable to call in. Do you have a spare laptop so that we can chat with them as we have the web conference running on the computer.
Response: Spare batteries we don't have, but spare laptops we do. Here, take one of these!

Tales from the Cube

I love my job, but I sometimes can't help but to laugh when I think about the databases I've been assigned to. I won't name the databases, but here are some ways that a few of them have been described.

Database #1: "It's a funky database that we've done funky things to."

Database#2: "The worst database that we host on our platform." and "Do they know how bad this data is? I mean, it can't be structured this way for a reason, can it?"

Database #3: Conversation during project status meeting
Me: China was complaining about this database not being updated for two years on their server and I did some research and discovered that it has not been updated any place.
Project manager: Do we have customers that are subscribed to this database?
VP of electronic publishing: Yes
Project manager: (with a tone of shock that customers have a subscription to this database) They're not paying customers are they?
VP: (in her best office space tone of voice)Um, yeah.

Humility vs. sharpness

I had this funny exchange with my boss this morning. It was at 8:20 and he walks by and he asks me and my cubemate if we remember about 9:00. I thought about it, but nothing came to mind about 9:00, so I started to assume that maybe he was only talking to my cubemate. It didn’t take my cubemate long to think about it and reply, “they’re having breakfast for us in the conference room.” Being the type that gets excited about food I stated, “I totally forgot about that.” My boss being quick on his feet said, “Here is a lesson in sharpness, although at the cost of dishonesty. When I ask a question and one of you doesn’t know the answer, but the other one does, act as if you knew it all along. That way I am not standing here thinking, ‘Gosh, does this guy not read his e-mail?’”