Helpdesk Priorities

Confused on how to manage your priorites? Consult my handy guide!

P5.

Ignore this call at all costs. It isn't important and probably never will be. It was a waste of company resources actually typing this into the system in the first place. Decrease the loggers annual bonus by 1% and close the call automatically citing "User Error"

P4.

Shuffle this call to the bottom of the pile. User may have a valid point but nobody cares enough to fix it. It is assumed that if a call is logged as a P4 that the user isn't important enough to get his problem prioritised. Leave open until the user leaves the company.

P3.

You probably have to fix this sometime. 99% of calls are 3s. Use the following equation to decide how to resolve the call and consult chart:

Rank of User (1-5) * Rank of problem (1-5) * Time to fix (Hours).

<5 Demote to priority P5
<10 Demote to priority P4
<20 Do call
<40 Do call first, someone that matters is looking for it
>40 Query length of time call will take, Transfer to project list for resource allocation

P2.

Worry, there may actually be a problem. More likely is that somebody is throwing their weight around looking for call priority, if this is the case downgrade to P4. If there is a genuine problem, stop what you are working on and fix it. By stopping work on your P3s to fix a P2, the fix expectation needs to be adjusted on all your other calls.

P1.

Panic. If a P1 call is logged, try to avoid the entire issue by getting it transferred to one of your colleagues as soon as possible, this directly affects you and more importantly your bonus. If unable to pass the buck, start thinking of convenient lies on why the infrastructure under your control has failed. Start spreading the blame and roping other people into the issue so you can deflect the focus from yourself. It is a good idea to bring in external contractors and point the finger at them when unable to find a resolution. If there is a disaster recovery situation, or your building is on fire, make sure to leave the country as soon as possible. All calls from your boss, MD or CEO are P1.

Jane Eyre Leaving Cert Notes

Jane Eyre. Romance. Auth. Charlotte Bronte. Published 1847

Jane Eyre is an orphan sent to live with her aunt. Her Aunt Mrs. Reed and her cousins all hate her so she is sent off to a boarding school for young girls. It is here that Jane has her first lesbian experience with her only friend Helen. Helen dies of Typhoid soon after and Jane becomes a teacher.

Jane gets a job as a governess outside of the school at Thornfield Hall, owned by Mr.Rochester. Rochester is obviously incredibly heterosexual, and has a ward named Adele from a previous liaison. Rochester is being courted by a tramp called Blanche Ingram. Ingram is an air-headed bitch who must like it rough to put up with the treatment she receives from the nut-job Rochester. It turns out Rochester is only leading Blanche on to make Jane jealous.

Jane learning of his deception decides to marry him. The wedding gets to the “Does anybody know of any just cause…” bit, and a lawyer (who might as well be called Mr.McGuffin) declares Rochester is already married. This turns out to be true, and he is keeping his mad wife in the attic. Rochester rationalises this behaviour by saying he could of have had her killed by having her locked up in a damp house up north, but thought the attic would be more humane.

Rochester only got married to Antoinette in the first place because he thought he was going to be disinherited by his father and brother. The father and brother then had the temerity to die and leave him rich with a mad wife.

Rochester asks Jane to run off with him to somewhere hot, where they will live a brother and sister-like arrangement with the odd chaste peck on the cheek before elevenses. Jane, not being a complete moron, thinks perhaps Rochester would like a bit more than this and flees Thornfield Hall to wander the moors.

She wanders the moors for a few days until she is picked up by a local Vicar St. John Rivers. Rivers is an obvious homosexual, who is completely dysfunctional around women. The story loses a bit of its dynamic here, as we are expected to believe that women (especially the churches patron’s daughter) are chasing after this sad-sack of shit. St. John finds out that Jane is actually his cousin and that she is rich, so he asks her to marry him and go to the west-indies to be a missionary. He also says he doesn’t love her. Jane, never having seen Last Tango in Paris, still went to an all girls boarding school so has a pretty good idea what may happen if she becomes the wife of a missionary fag, and refuses. She does give him the money to go to India though.

Then, in the barmy way of Bronte novels, she hears Rochester’s voice calling to her on the wind. She sets off to Thornfield to find him. Once there, she finds the Hall burnt to the ground. It turns out that Rochester’s mad bitch wife burnt the place down and he lost an eye and a hand trying to save her. After ruining his life, you’d have thought he’d let her burn, but there you go.

Jane finds Rochester, tortured and blind, in his country estate. Here they reconcile, marry, have good, rough, straight sex and have children. The book ends with the Death of St. John in India, most likely representing the dangers of being a weak homosexual in a Bronte book.

My First Police Interview

I had my first police interview yesterday evening @ 5:15pm

Drive Time

A few hints for some dummies out there who still haven't learnt how to drive safely in Fog:
a) Headlights are required you're invisible without them.
b) Half headlights are not sufficient, you're still invisible you idiot!

Observations taken on my drive into work today in the Waterford/Ardkeen area.

Lost Lost Girls

I haven't talked about this for a while. Why haven't I bought it yet you ask? Where is the porn review I promised? Yes, it's porn, but is it art?

Well, blame the children. Great Ormond Street hospital own the rights to Peter Pan. They don't want it published in Europe, so it hasn't been. Now the law is a little vague on how all this works considering Peter Pan is out of copyright. It's being sold in the US alright, but topshelf won't ship to Europe. Apparently the whole mess is being sorted out amicably, and will be available in the new year.

Fair enough, who wants to be sued by a children's hospital?

Birthdays

I find myself slightly depressed on my birthday. I am thirty-one. That this depression has chosen to manifest itself as a diarised blog is bewildering to me.

I imagine that my malaise is less due to my birthday (the zero cranks would have you believe that I am only now joining my third decade), and more to do with the staggering amount of alcohol that I consumed this weekend. This must be where people go and drink more to lift the gloom, it’s a dangerous precipice.

That said though, I had a good weekend. I went to restaurant Patrick Guilbaud with Sinéad on Saturday night, on which I’ll right a review on Eating Out Ireland. It was Sin's treat and was nice. I drank, among other things, a bottle of Chateau Lafleur de Bouard, not feeling rich or stupid enough to buy the Petrus. I don’t think that I would a good restaurant critic, you have to be a bit, well, wanky to carry it off. If I am going to write reviews on the web I am going to editorialise more (if possible). Still, it’s a fun place to go and eat.

On Sunday we went down to John and Karel, with whom I shall be abandoning the boy next weekend, while we step out to a wedding in Cork. My liver abuse continued there. Lunch was great too, but a review shall not be appearing on the web unless J&K decide to open their house to strangers, which, all things considered, is unlikely.

We went home, put the boy to bed, and finished the Chardonnay in the fridge.

Sinéad woke me up this morning (not true, I was already awake) to open my presents. She selflessly got me two tickets for the Flaming Lips in Vicar Street. Selfless, because she will a week away from having the new baby so won’t be able to go. She also got me Jay Rubin's biography of Haruki Murakami "The music of words." I read a chapter this morning, out of sequence, from the middle of the book. I don't think this is as odd as it sounds. She also got me Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell in three books, so I can read them on the train. The big book was never going to happen. These gifts are from a person that knows me very well.

I decided to read a book of short stories that I got Sinéad for her birthday on the train: "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman" again by Murakami. I am enjoying it immediately, even though I have read a few of the stories before. Out of the four stories I read this morning three had gratuitous ear mentions, and one was about birthdays. The birthday story also had some ear pornography, but that's not important right now.

The birthday story, which I had read before, was about a waitress who brings the reclusive restaurant manager a meal in his room. He grants her a wish for her birthday; just one, as a present.

The story doesn't tell us what the wish is for, it’s not important. Say it's your birthday, what would you wish for?

Chinese Name

In the spirit of being a five year old, Richie in work wrote my name for me in Chinese.

Richie, real name Zhuo (pronouced jhu-ah) is a student working for us, who is setting me straight on a couple of things about China:

Western Chinese food is definitely not Chinese.

You can get authentic Chinese food in Dublin, we are going to eat there next week.

Only Koreans eat dog. They breed a special type solely for this purpose.

Mandarin Chinese is the mostly commonly spoken dialect because it what you are thought through in school.

Gambling, except for the national lottery and football pools is illegal in China.

Not everybody plays MahJongg. Many people don't know the rules.

Jackie Chan and Jet Li are from inland China, but made their names in Hong Kong.

The symbol 中 means middle and not Red Dragon.

China is commenly written 國, or 中國 meaning "The Middle Kingdom"

If you are in China for a while, you do not 'get given' a Chinese name, even in rural villages. You can choose one for yourself if you like.

Surnames come before forenames in China, but you probably knew this.

Phonetically spelt Conor means "Health That" it looks something like this:

Ugh.

I wrote this in a document today:

"Integrating into a scalable design solution is key to project implementation"

I deserve the electric chair.

You know its time to:

Some Wisdom I've accumulated over the last month I taught I'd share.

You know it's time to buy a stira when you fall off the step ladder getting out of the attic and hurt yourself. (it's getting installed on Wednesday)

You know it's time to get a new car with air con given the current climate change and also if you plan to take you car on holidays to France and drive 1100 miles in a heat wave.

You know its time to get a new camcorder when you discover swimming pools and camcorders don't mix very well.

Any pearls of wisdom you'd like to share?

Tramore City ?

According to the latest prelimary report from the CSO for the 2006 Census Tramore now has a population greater than Kilkenny City, so I beg the question should it now be Tramore City?

With such a population explosion in Tramore over the last decade its high time there was some serious investment into Tramore. OK we got our ring road eventually, but where are all the shops we were promised and also the cimena that was granted planning permission 3-4 years ago hasn't materialised and on the basis of an outstanding planning permission for that cinema a more recent planning permission for a cinema was turned down in the town, its bloody disgraceful I say!

Another great decision is to relocate the Race Course outside Tramore down by the back strand and develop the current race course into housing. I'd hate to be those people in Ard na Groi who paid big money about 6 years ago to have a nice big house with an upstairs sitting room and balcony overlooking the race course, overlooking your neighbours garden will be more like it!

One more final point, lets get rid of those bloody amusements!