Wait, you are going back to the pit of evil?
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That evil is preferred above the current one Iām stuck with.
Grass is not always greener at the other side etc etc
Learned a new word from an old book on bad movies: adumbrate.
Weekend! Yay!
It was a roller coaster of emotions for the entire team on Saturday. We only won 1 of our 5 qualification matches due to some bad luck/lousy pairings and finished the qualification matches on the day ranked 23rd out of 24 teams. The entire team was crushed. That being said the top 4 teams get to pick 2 teams to be alliance partners since the game is played pitting 2 teams against 2 other teams (see video below for game animation).
We ended up getting picked as the 3rd alliance member of the 2nd ranked team due to our strong ability to cap the ball at the end of the match (scouting other teams is huge in robotics). This lifted the spirits of the entire team since it automatically put us in the semi-finals, which is a best 2 out of 3 format to get us into the finals. Each alliance partner also must play in at least 1 match in the semis and the finals if they get there.
The semis were some epic hard-fought matches that our alliance ended winning in 3 matches to get us into the finals. We ended up losing the finals in 3 hard-fought and epic matches (they usually are), but I couldnāt be prouder of this team considering this is only a 2nd-year team and is not as well-funded or organized as some of the better teams out there. Although we didnāt get to advance to the super-regional and beyond, we all left the competition happy and ready to go for next season. We basically went from 23rd place to 2nd place in a couple of hours.
I also get to look forward to my 10-grade sonās FRC Robotics season, which is still in the stages of design/build and that Iām involved as a safety mentor.
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Well done!
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So.
Last year I applied for, and got a new job. Resigned in good standing, and went to work at the new shiny.
The longer I worked, the more some issues started to creep out. Until the final straw.
Issues - Owner of biz is perfectly happy to buy new trucks and cars for the biz, but balks at new IT equipment, and always want to go for the cheaper option, or refurbished stuff. And doesnt want to spend too much on proper hardware.
Also the preasure here is unbelievable. If you dont perform up to scratch, you will most probably not get a bonus.
People have to do the work of more than one person.
One lady could not handle the bullying and pressure any more, shame. She resigned effectively and immediately, and also indicated why on her exit email for all of us to see. That should be sending a clear warning signal to the top brass.
Top brass also love it to āmaximize profitā by having one person work at two jobs.
The final straw was when he suspended a tech for driving a company car without due authorization (tech was on sick leave at the time) and also for improper claiming of expenses. He then proceeded to dump all of said techās sites into my lap, telling me that it is my bebbeh now.
Now pressure is fine, but dumping a shit ton of stuff onto me and downgrading me in effect to a pc technician just is not on.
Pressure plus that prompted me into action. Posted my resumƩ once again, and sent out a feeler to my previous company. They wanted me back.
Went in for a discussion, and got told that yes, please do come back.
The paperwork is ready to be finalized, once I can hand in notice, Iām outta that hell-hole. (7 day notice time during first 6 months). Light! Freeeeeedoooooom!
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Sent in my trusty Corolla in November last year due to piss-poor performance.
Got it back recently, and all (if not most) issues has been fixxited. It goes like a dream again, now you can pull away without licking its a$$ and it cruises nicely at speed now. Love it!
Notice handed in. Monday next week is my last day.
Tuesday is just to be with family and Wednesday it is back to work again.
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Where did you send it in that it took 2-3 months to fix?
Sounds like it could have been cheaper to get a new-to-you used car?
Chatting with my family. My 4G hotspot from Amazon arrived and I got a data plan (15GB/month for about $15), so I can communicate with the world at will again. I havenāt had good RELIABLE internet since I left home, and although the cell network does get saturated here from time to time, itās still a vast improvement. Once my work schedule settles some, I should be able to be involved with Team Rubicon stuff again, too.
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Was lots of things that needed fixing. I could not afford to fix it preciously, but after I got an increase in salary, was able to get somebody to fix it.
Lots of borked things and oil seals that was leakingā¦
Fixing it worked out cheaper than another car, actually.
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Pretty cool that they can do good things at undisclosed location. 
EDIT: They being Team Rubicon
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Similar to @Ook, I finally got the little questions answered and signed the offer letter today. There were just a few things that werenāt really laid out. During the interview, we both had a hard stop and went over it a bit. It needed to be another 30 mins really. So in 2+ weeks, I go back to the real world. No more working from home (probably) but that was going away anyways. I go back to being a Systems Admin/Engineer and stop being a software developer which is basically what I do now. Oh sorryā¦ what I did. Thereās a nice bump in pay and a change in security clearance too.
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Nice! Good luck and all of the best!
Shoulder to the wheel from 0830 to 1720
And I liked it
Tested two laptops, one can be refurbished, the other one is wonky with its keyboard, issue does not go away even with a new keyboard, but USB keyboard works. Maybe I can use it for something elseā¦ Havenāt had time to test a 3rd one
Started initial building on a NAS - plopped 5x 4Tb NAS HDDās into a NAS chassis and added a 10Gb NIC, tomorrow Iāll install the OS, and set the NAS up for RAID, and play around with it prior to moving it to production.
Two users had printer issues, sorted them out quickly.
During the four months in which I was gone to the other work, the Boss inadvertently wiped the Ubiquiti Unifi setup from a PC. Luckily I made a backup before I left (for supposedly greener pastures*). At first I downloaded the Unifi controller software, but then had an āuh-ohā moment when I discovered that when adopting any Unifi APās from another system, the config gets zeroed. Which meant we lost the hotspot feature and the SSID names and other configuration. I started to set up the SSIDās when I decided to have one more shufty at my external HDD, and was overjoyed to find that I did have a Last Known Good Backup after allā¦ everything got sorted out super quick after that.
I also got an i7 desktop to play around with until such time a laptop can be sorted out for me. Think Iāll keep this desktop rather, as I rarely do any work after hours, and a laptop just is begging to be stolen. Or broken.
Boss lost an IP range spreadsheet, which he frantically was looking for - and I saved the day yet again, had the same document on my external HDDā¦
Installed hyper-v on my desktop PC (it is running win10), downloaded linux mint and will create a VM with my private stuff (firefox bookmarks etc) on it. Quicker and easier to delete a VM than trying to get rid of all youe bookmarks etc.
Things are looking good.
*Which was not greener after allā¦
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Chatted to CTO this morning before I started work. Seems they want to send me for training etc. Yay.
Downside is documentation. Need to document. Every. Single. Thing.
Bet it is much better than micromanagementā¦
So basically you acted as the unofficial off-site backups?
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Hehehe, did not get a chance to purge it from my mediaā¦
Today: Peach-flavored, hot buttered whiskey. NOM.
Yesterday: My boys discovered brushing my hair. Itās the BEST. 
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