No football today - not in person anyway. Michigan State is on the road at Notre Dame. But! The drag racing that got rained out is rescheduled for today, so there will be sports(!) again(!) in my Saturday.

….I’d rather sleep right now, but y’know there’s always tomorrow, I tell myself a la Scarlett O’Hara…..

My flight home yesterday was (are you ready for this?) delayed. Nah! you say. Couldn’t be! you say. Well, I say.

I got a call from American Airlines at 11 a.m. telling me that my 2:15 flight that afternoon had been delayed until 3:45.

My flight actually hit the air at 5:45. The plane that we were supposed to have never left Miami yesterday morning because of the tropical depression hovering over their state. We, (according to the airline), got the ONLY extra plane that was coming to O’Horror. And only 3 1/2 hours late. They called the crew in from home.

I ended up camping out in the Admiral’s club with free wireless and blog-reading for the entire time. Oh, and wine. Lots of nice white wine.

—- My maple tree out front is already changing colors. What the hell happened to summer? —-

An Email Haiku
Email can be great
But when you hit the send key
Be sure “To” is right

My company offshored it’s application development and support a few years back to an Indian firm. (Although I know offshoring is a politically charged topic, that will not be the point of this post, so do not go there with me! I’m a life-long Democrat, so just hush up.) I worked on the offshoring project, went to India, and helped plan the entire offshoring strategy with a terrific team of Americans and Indians who worked together very well.

Since then, some of us have worked successfully with our Indian partners. Some? Not so much. Prior to the sale of my division, I was one of the success stories. I had a counterpart who worked for the offshore firm, but who was located in Ann Arbor. (We worked on a 70/30 mix -70% were in India, 30% in the U.S.) We had a shared vision of what we could accomplish and were working very closely to make certain that our goals were met.

When Raj was asked to move to New Jersey to work with another group, I was assured that the person replacing him was every bit as committed. “You see no degrading of the services. We continue to perform to what you want.”

Uh, may I say? Yea, right. Fuck.

The degrading of the services? Happened nearly immediately. The continue to perform? Sure, if that’s what you call playing internet chess after coming into the office at 10 a.m. And I know that chess is a tiring game. So, of course, leave at 4. Make sure you take a break for lunch. I mean, an hour or 90-minute break is expected - you have to get enough nourishment to play that last match.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I had a meeting with my new partner’s (and I really use that term loosely) manager. I outlined (with appropriate documentation) exactly what issues I was facing. I let him know that the performance of the onshore part of the offshore team was, to say the least, shitty.

He assured me that checks would be put in place and that he would work with me to assure that we got back to the high level of performance that we had enjoyed with Raj.

That was then. This was yesterday:

Email from Offshore Partner counterpart:

Hotfessional,

I wanted to bring to your notice that XXXXXX support team got to know about the projects ProjectShutDown and ProjectStartUp through John Smith, the XXXXXX Enhancement Manager. He informed the PM to invite me into the meetings. As per my understanding support representation needs to be requested by the PM for any project where XXXXXXX provides support to the applications(as per process). By having formal representation support can get involved into these projects, provide the required inputs for the project and be aware of the impact to the applications.

Request you if proper support representation be requested and support teams get involved in the projects.

My response:

Of course.

Hotfessional

I then sent this to the PM (project manager) and copied my ‘counterpart’:

I think you’ve got his now, but can you make sure that there is an XXXXXXX Support Rep (email MyPartner) on ANY teardown or startup meetings you’re running?

MyPartner, Project Shutdown has no application support ramifications because we do not support anything in DatacenterA.

thanks!
Hotfessional

A few minutes later, MyPartner’s manager, who had assured me, a mere two weeks ago, that he understood my frustration and would do anything in his power to make certain that we continued to work well together, came running into my office. In Chicago, because that’s where he sits.

ManagerXXXX: “Hotfessional, I just sent you an email. You delete please.”
Hotfessional: “Um, sure. I’ll delete it. [click, click, hit delete]. Okay, it’s deleted.”
ManagerXXXX: “Thank you.” [leaves]
Hotfessional: [Clicks into trash folder, finds email, and reads this:

Hi MyPartner,

“Of course” is fine. What next steps is she planning to take?

Can you ask her to write all her PPM group an email stressing on this and laying out the steps that they need to follow when initiating a project? Request her to mark a copy to you such that you know that the communication has gone out.

Even after that if projects do not involve you then escalation is warranted

You might want to give the steps as stated in support representation process

Um, oops.

I don’t know if I should be more pissed off about the fact that he didn’t believe me when I said “Of course” and have faith that I would actually do what I said …or… that he doesn’t know enough about our email system to know that delete doesn’t actually delete, it just moves it over to a holding folder until you empty the trash.

At any rate, I’m betting that he checks to make sure he no longer selects “Reply to All” instead of “Forward”. Dickhead.

—- And for those of you who are wondering - those are direct cut/pastes from the actual emails. Only the names of people, companies, and projects have been changed. So, yes, for all of you cringing English Majors? This is what email has done to our language. —-

Oh Mah Gawd y’all. One-Hundred freakin’ posts. Is this an auspicious occasion or what?

I’ll tell you, putting together this list hurt my head. (So, okay, maybe the damn vodka/lemonades and kamikaze shots had something to do with it, too….)

Anyway - here you go. Everything you wanted to know about the Hotfessional and were afraid to ask.

1. I have green eyes and gray hair
2. I had a pet skunk named Blossom
3. Until she bit me when I tried to put a collar on her.
4. I taught horseback riding for two summers.
5. I had a Quarterhorse/Arabian buckskin mare.
6. I sold her to buy my first car.
7. My first car was a 1974 Mustang
8. It had a silver vinyl interior
9. I went to 3 different universities
10. I graduated from 2
11. All three universities had green and white as their colors
12. I have a lot of green and white sweatshirts
13. My favorite food is gnocchi
14. I don’t eat red meat
15. Grilled salmon is my favorite fish
16. I have birthmark shaped like New Jersey
17. On my back
18. My favorite TV shows are Entourage and Dream Team
19. My favorite movie is The Wizard of Oz
20. I must have coffee every day
21. Black. No sugar.
22. I could easily sleep 12 hours/day
23. I have inhaled
24. I’d rather have champagne than beer
25. I’d rather drink vodka than rum
26. I’m a Taurus – and every bit as stubborn as a bull
27. I am the oldest of three children
28. I have 1 brother and 1 sister
29. I have Platinum frequent flyer status on American Airlines
30. I have Silver status on Northwest
31. I was conceived in (on?) Top Sail Island, NC
32. I have 1 child of my own and 2 step kids
33. I loved being pregnant
34. I hated giving birth
35. I am very clumsy and break things easily
36. Except I’ve never broken a bone
37. I love rings and earrings
38. I do not wear necklaces or bracelets
39. I had 20 pet rats at one time
40. I grew up with a 120 lb Great Dane
41. My High School aptitude test recommended FBI Agent as a career
42. My Dad was a cop for 32 years
43. Fireballs and Smarties are my favorite candy
44. Milky Way (preferably dark chocolate) NOT Snickers
45. I will not drink milk
46. I was once in a fashion show and did not fall down while walking!
47. I consider this a major accomplishment
48. I was diagnosed with alopecia areata in 1997
49. It makes trying new hairstyles very interesting.
50. My anniversary is September 28
51. My birthday is May 6
52. I love tuna salad, egg salad and chicken salad
53. I hate mayonnaise and salad dressing
54. My mom and I have the same middle name.
55. I love to fly
56. I have been skydiving.
57. My sense of direction sucks.
58. I am an excellent map reader.
59. I am 5′9″ tall
60. I wear heels 95% of the time
61. Which makes me 6′ tall
62. I have travelled to India
63. I have travelled to Holland
64. I have never been to Texas, Arizona, New Mexico or Colorado
65. My high school football team won 4 games in the 4 years I attended.
66. In 2005 they came in 2nd in the State Finals.
67. I try not to take that personally
68. I have visited 19 states
69. I live 25 miles from where I was born
70. I won the spelling bee in 4th grade
71. My prize was a Parker pen
72. My brother once shoved me through a window
73. It was at my grandmother’s house
74. My grandmother raised me for the first 6 months of my life
75. My first brand-new car was a Chrysler LeBaron
76. It was bright red
77. And had a standard transmission
78. I hate talking on the phone
79. I like to write letters
80. I don’t write to my friends often enough
81. Breyer’s Natural Vanilla is my favorite ice cream
82. Hot fudge, not caramel or fruit
83. I don’t like cake
84. I have banana pudding for my birthday
85. I would love to be a professional student
86. I’ve read every Stephen King book written
87. Including those by Richard Bachman
88. I am Lebanese, Polish, and Slovak
89. I am married to a German/English/Irish/American Indian
90. I want to live in Europe
91. I am a 34C
92. I have sunbathed topless
93. I got a really bad sunburn
94. My first pet was a Siamese Cat
95. I got him when I was 12 for my birthday
96. My first boyfriend’s name was Michael
97. Our first date was a football game
98. I lost my virginity when I was 16
99. I’m not a fan of diamonds
100. My favorite gem is garnet

You guys? That was hard to do.

Here’s to the next 100 posts. Thanks for coming along with me.

…for which I came to Chicago, so, between that (getting up at 4-freakin’-a.m.) and the fact that tomorrow is my 100th post (!!!!!!) and therefore I want to finish my 100 Things About Me list (stay tuned!), I want to just show you all a quick something (I know you love that run-on sentence):

MomandDad made this:

which, y’all?

Looks an awful lot like this:

Doesn’t it? (Well, without the flippin’, suck-ass snow….that I hate with the fury of a thousand brilliant suns…..).

How cool is that? The birds get to live in a house that looks almost exactly like mine! I hope they like their hardwood floors as much as I like mine and that they never have exploding lightbulbs in their bathroom. (Ooooh, another story to tell you someday soon.)

—- The management team is going out tonight -stories involving shots on the Chicago River at a later date I’m sure. —-

*For those of you who have teenagers….remember Ah! Real Monsters?

Some day, I’ll maybe, possibly, have a single subject post. Um. That day would probably not be today, however.

---

Since tomorrow I leave for Chicago again (wondering if I still get my closet, and if it’ll rain), Mr. Hot and I are taking Shortman out to dinner tonight to Joe’s Crab Shack. Not exactly my type of 4-star seafood meal, but … all you can eat popcorn shrimp (yes, Shortman’s idea of seafood) for $9.99. Since I’ll be in brown-food-fried-heaven later on, I decided to have a nice bowl styrofoam container of soup for lunch.

Excuse me, but aren’t you supposed to take the bay leaf OUT of the soup before you serve it?

And of course, the leaving for Chicago always opens up the possibilities for some travel exploit posts in the next couple of days, right?

---

Last weekend, we did an extraction of 1.6M account records from one of our largest data systems. Those of us with some experience in this process suggested to our buyer that they consider smaller chunks over a longer period of time (i.e. ~500k accounts each over 3 weekends). They told us to eat shit and die disagreed with our analysis.

During the days leading up to this extraction, we met regularly with the buyer, our subject matter experts, and the business people to discuss the ramifications of moving forward in this half-assed manner.

Primarily, our concerns centered around the days immediately following the extraction. Putting the history of 1.6M accounts on tapes (75 of them suckers), hand delivering them to a local airport (accompanied by appropriate security), putting them on a private jet and whisking them away was the easy part. But. First business day after that happened? (Um, that was yesterday for those of you keeping track.) All hell could break loose. Because each one of those 1.6M accounts? Had to be updated to show that they no longer belonged to this bank. Now they belong to that bank.

At 2 a.m., we ran out of swap space for the updates. The job crashed, burned, and generally crapped out. We freed up some space. It sucked it up again three hours later. Like a freakin’ Dyson. Finally, at 11:30 this morning, it finished successfully.

Now, if the buyer would have gotten their heads out of their asses listened to us when we said that smaller groups made more sense, this wouldn’t have happened because? We would not have been trying to update 1.6M records. Therefore, we would not have run out of swap space 3 times. Hmmmmmmm.

And what did the morons have to say during our status update? Because we were off by 40 minutes in estimating when this would be done after it blew up 3 fucking times? And we’d NEVER done more than 400k records before?

“Well, I guess our culture is just different. We don’t give the clients a resolution estimate and then change it 30 minutes later.”

Don’t you know that it was a damned good thing - probably the most insanely smart thing I’ve done since this takeover was announced in fact - that my phone was muted. That asshole would have heard things come out of this mouth that would shame a career Navy man.

---

Thanks to Thora for this:

What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day? One issue. One day. Thousands of voices.

This year’s Blog Action Day is October 15th. This year’s subject is the environment. “Posts do not need to have any specific agenda, they simply need to relate to the larger issue in whatever way suits the blogger and readership. Our aim is not to promote one particular viewpoint, only to push the issue to the table for discussion. “

I love this idea. Your views and my views may be different, but if we get people talking, think about what we can do. Join us!

---

Do you guys remember “3rd Rock from the Sun”? One of the top 5 funniest shows ever. Ev-Er.(Hey, this is my blog, I can make sweeping statements like that. It’s allowed. Shut up.)

I was reading the NYTimes Style section and ran across this article. What? Hey, part of being the Hotfessional is to keep up on today’s styles. Especially in light of the fact that I, once again, looked in my closet this morning and about puked. Black pants anyone? How about a black skirt for somethnig different? Yea, right.

Aaaaaannnyway, this little cutie Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who is so going on my list) was in Angels in the Outfield (Shortman’s favorite movie ever), and a whole bunch of other stuff. And seeing him got me thinking about the show. And how we still haven’t managed to get through the entire first 2 seasons of DVDs that we bought. And then one thing led to another (which it tends to do in my crazy random posts), and here we are:

—- And they had the awesomest theme song, too. —-

…with Google Reader. Comments please?

I can’t decide if I trust it yet. I feel like I’m missing some of y’all’s posts. And that? would.kill.me.

9:45 a.m. Ring, Ring, Ring
Mr. Hot: “Are you busy?”
Hotfessional: “Um, never too busy to talk to you honey, what’s up?”
Mr. Hot: “Do you know Shortman’s Level 1 driver’s license number?”
Hotfessional: “? Uh, No, it’s probably on his permit - in his wallet, in his backpack, at school.”
Mr. Hot: “Fuck. I need it to make the appointment for his road test.”

……10 minutes of conversation about nothing - including his plans to go running (make me feel guilty for the box of animal crackers I just ate, eh?) and the Lions coach’s news conference - later……

Hotfessional: “Okay, bye, I’ll talk to you later. I love you.”

Recap: Why would I know Shortman’s driver’s permit #? I barely know my own social security number. I got a new cell phone 3 months ago and have no idea what the number is. I have to look it up ON THE PHONE in order to give it to anyone. (Which, by itself, is pretty amazing that I figured out how to do that…..and I can usually do it without hanging up on the caller!)

But, okay, so maybe I had some reason to memorize Shortman’s permit number. I guess it could have happened. Also, I could have discovered a cure for the common cold and made millions of dollars and been on my way to the private island that I bought in the South Pacific.

---

11:00 a.m. Ring, Ring, Ring
Mr. Hot: “Are you busy?”
Hotfessional: “Not really, just hung up from a security meeting. What’s up?”
Mr. Hot: “Going to take the dog for a walk.”
Hotfessional: “Okay. Don’t forget Shortman’s doctor’s appointment today. “
Mr. Hot: “Oh, that’s right. Okay.”

…….10 minutes of conversation about nothing - including the dog next door that comes over and pees on my rhododenron bushes (it’s her grandson’s dog, he’s staying there, and she refuses to let it in the house) and the birdhouse that my dad built and brought over yesterday - later ……

Hotfessional: “Okay, bye, I’ll talk to you later. I love you”

Recap: He’s taking the dog for a walk. He takes the dog for a walk every day. Honest. But y’know, in case I call him (always on his cell, we got rid of our landline), I’ll know he’s walking the dog. Because, it’s important that I know that he’ll be walking the dog in case I call. For what? No clue. To talk about the birdhouse some more I guess.

---

12:37 p.m. Ring, Ring, Ring
Mr. Hot: “Are you busy?”
Hotfessional: “Writing a report and getting ready for another meeting in 20 minutes.”
Mr. Hot: “Oh, okay, so did you talk to Robert?” (Robert = stockbroker brother in law)
Hotfessional: “Yes, and he wants to know if we’re coming down to West-by-gawd-Virginia any time soon. I told him NYO wants us to come to a game, but I didn’t know if it was going to fit in the schedule.”
Mr. Hot: “Yea, that’s a pretty long ride for a weekend.”
Hotfessional: “Anyway, I told him you’d call him later. I have his cell number.”
Mr. Hot: “Awwwww, I HATE talking on the phone.”

Hotfessional: “……………………………….”

---

Um, people? My darling readers? This man called me 3 times in the 5 hours after I left for work this morning. Three times. And he hates talking on the phone? WTF?

What do we talk about? Nothing. Nada. Zip-oh-la. Apparently he calls just to hear my dulcet tones. (snort)

—- Remember this? I use up all my words before Noon. Just being on the phone with my husband. I love this man. I really do - more than life itself. But if we were to measure just who hates talking on the phone more? PWNED.—-