Chris Meller

Well, I get back from lunch just now and almost instinctively have to compulsively check my server stats. This has really become way too big of an obsession. If it weren’t for the horrid coffee addiction that pales everything else in comparison, I’d really be worried…

So anyway, I notice that several new hits have come in on my blog since I checked yesterday evening, and I dive into referrer hunt mode. I quickly find that the new source of hits comes from a blog entry posted by my neighbor, whom we’ll call “Bill”, over at his House O Insomnia. I start reading, and the first line kinda catches me off guard:

By now, virtually every blog reader has heard about someone who’s gotten fired for blogging. Well, one of my Feedmap neighbors just just posted this. I don’t think anyone will ever accuse him of not having b4lls ;-).

This caught me off guard for two reasons. First, even though I mentioned getting fired, it never actually occurred to me that I might really. I’ve been careful to keep a very specific division of “church and state”, if you will. There’s always been work, and then everything else in my life. Sometimes work spilled over into the rest (as it is apt to do from time to time), but I was always very careful to guarantee that the rest never spilled over into work (aside from taking time off to do something here and there, of course). Bill’s comment made me realize that yeah, it is very possible that I could get fired for so harshly criticizing our Marketing Department, should someone from work (god forbid someone actually in the Marketing Department) stumble upon my blog post.

Secondly, his comment hit very close to home, since I just today started re-examining my career path. There have been some things going on at this company since I started working here 5 years ago that I haven’t liked, and which have yet to change. Their priorities are definitely not in the right order. They spend money on useless things, generally because the Marketing Department thinks the existing solution isn’t “pretty” or “fluffy” enough (and Marketing supposedly makes money, so they get whatever they want), and in the process they ignore the growing needs of the Systems department to effectively do their jobs and develop the infrastructure that is going to maintain the company in the coming years (how many corporations do you know that run intranet servers off IT workstations?). In addition, while I like the majority of the people I work with overall on a personal level, having to deal with them in a work environment is sometimes much more trouble than it should be. It’s common for them to refuse otherwise simple changes simply because they’re in a bad mood, and code-hoarding is a definite problem. Oftentimes, you will ask a very simple question, but rather than having the simple answer spit back at you, you’re told a round-about method to find it, doubling if not tripling your work load.

Additionally, there is absolutely zero communication. The entire Systems department reports directly to the President of the company, and since he’s rarely around, and never tells us anything when he is, we never have a clue what’s going on. Anyone and everyone is free to come over and disturb us with anything and everything they want whenever they want, because we don’t actually need to get any development done, and nothing is done when a user is browsing “those sites” and gets loaded up with spyware and virii (like today for example). We won’t even get in to how I make 1/3 less a year than what even the average *starting* salary is for an entry-level computer technician (a lack of degree only counts for so much. I know my stuff.).

Now, I won’t deny that there are some incredible benefits to working for this company. Not only am I free to come and go virtually whenever I please (with the understanding that everything gets done in a timely manner, of course), but I also get 40 days of PTO (Paid Time Off) every year (you know where you can stick your typical 2 weeks buddy?). Let’s be honest though, if you’re miserable the rest of the year, is it really worth it?

Why did I suddenly start thinking today that I might not be where I belong? Well, on top of everything I’ve listed, I dealt with an old woman who got THE biggest spyware infestation I’ve ever seen. I spent 3 hours cleaning her computer, and I’m still not 100% sure it’s all gone. During all this, we’re hiring a new DBA (big mistake, we don’t need one, despite what our current DBA says). Well, I hear 3rd hand that I’m being moved down the aisle to be shoved into the cube on the end, because she needs to be closer to our current DBA, and while we’re at it, we might as well move our web guy down closer to him too (I’m going in his cube).

Nevermind that I still haven’t heard it from our boss, and that I don’t want to move down there, they’re always talking about minimizing the amount of work. Just look at all the shit stacked up in my desk and tell me it’s logical for me to move… Until now, I had no intention (and really don’t have any intention yet) of moving my stuff until it was time for me to clean out my desk and move on.

I guess the part I really don’t like about this is that no one seems to want to tell me directly. I’ve heard it 3rd hand, and it feels like I’m quietly being slid out of the picture. Not to mention I’d be sitting down on the end, across from our printer cube, alone.

Ah well, I guess if I’m out of the picture, it won’t be a problem when I just stop showing up every day… Perhaps it’s time to take another week off so everyone appreciates me again. Who am I kidding? No one appreciates me around there…

So remind me… why do I work here, again?

I’ve started to realize lately, mainly through links of Mark Jen and Scoble, that most of the tech stuff definitely takes place in the Silicon Valley area. Not just the conferences and conventions, either. There are all kinds of geek dinners and blog lunches taking place. And while there are cases where certain people are invited, a common theme here is “open to the public”. It doesn’t matter who you are, if you want to show up and talk geek with them, they’re happy to share a few drinks with you.

So my question is: when was the last time you heard about something like this going on in other cities? People are driving hours to be to these things along the west coast, yet the phenomenon seems to be totally contained to it. I don’t have any blogs in my RSS aggregator that are written by people in Atlanta or New York or Miami, and I’ve never heard of a blog lunch or dinner taking place in these places, much less smaller cities along the east coast.

This brings up the question: Is it really Silicon Valley or Nowhere?

Of course there are programmers and network engineers and administrators making bushels of money just about everywhere, but is everything still so self-contained in sunny California that you have to migrate west to really accomplish anything or become part of the bigger picture? Microsoft has branch-offices all over the country, but when was the last time you heard about one in North Carolina doing something revolutionary? Everything comes out of Redmond, just like everything for the rest of the computer industry comes out of Silicon Valley.

Is it just me, or have others noticed this trend? Am I wrong? Do you know of gatherings like this that take part elsewhere? Anyone know of ones going on in the Atlanta area, or better yet, South Carolina? Yeah, I didn’t think so…

I’d like to thank Derek Balling, who brought this issue to my attention through a blog rant he made. If you think my rants are something, please, check out my mentor… Derek is incredible!

In his post, he references a Sun Sentinel article about the legal battle over the domain Froogles.com. Apparently, Google is suing Richard Wolfe, owner of the domain, saying that it infringes upon their legal trademark, as their company is the “senior user of marks that incorporate the formative ‘ — OOGLE’ for Internet search services.”

Personally, I don’t think Google has a leggle to stand on, as Derek points out. Here’s why:

• The domain Froogles.com was registered on December 2, 2000. Froogle.com was not registered until September 11, 2001.
• The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) saw fit to award Mr. Wolfe a service mark for Froogles on September 8, 2003, almost a full year after Google was awarded one for Froogle on November 22, 2002.
• The Internet Corporation for Assigning Names and Numbers (ICANN), which regulates domain names, ruled in Wolfe’s favor when Google filed a complaint with the organization, noting that it took the company four years to mind the existence of Froogles.com.
• The owners of the domain oogle.com have yet to receive a complaint from the company, despite the claims that it’s really the “oogle” they want control of.

Now, let’s put aside the fact that the Froogles.com owner is at least partially disabled due to work-related injuries, and look at the facts here…

The fact that Froogles.com was registered a year prior to that of Froogle.com should in and of itself give Mr. Wolfe permission to use the name, if not the rights to Froogle.com. When you add to that the fact that the USPTO (despite the laughing stock patents and trademarks have become as of late, thanks to them) saw fit to accept the registration, and that ICANN allowed Wolfe to keep the domain, I think we have a clear case of right vs. wrong here.

Sadly, the US legal system doesn’t really seem to care what is right and what is wrong these days. The entire system is based on who has the deepest pockets. Perhaps Mr. Wolfe can solicit help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation too.

I’ve been watching web server stats like a hawk, mainly for the lyrics site I previously mentioned, but also for my blog itself. I decided to start doing updates on the 15th and 30th of the month, just to let people know how things are growing (my blog’s seen a big jump).

• Incoherent Babble - 118 Unique Visitors (screenshot)
• Lyrics at Dacnomm - 875 Unique Visitors (screenshot)

I’m still absolutely blown away by the number of people who check out my Lyrics site. As I expected, the logs indicate that there’s not a whole lot of repeat traffic, but that’s not really the point there. The raw numbers are still so amazing…

And my blog… Frankly, I’m even more surprised at it than I am at the Lyrics stats. I know I don’t have 118 friends reading it (I might have 20, tops). Thanks to a couple links (that came about after my trackbacks) from Webfeed Central and Mark Jen (the Plaxo-ish incarnation), it appears that my readership has grown a good deal more than I expected. I still never expect to get too many dedicated readers, but it’s somewhat satisfying knowing that there are a few people who come back time and time again to read the random crap I spout… Thanks to all of you!

I was walking out of the building the other day after work. As you come out of our break room, there’s a bulletin board in front of you that they post various pointless and meaningless company notices on from time to time. One of these notices, which has been on the bulletin board in one spot or anther for about… 8 months now, is about our company’s Employee Incentive Program.

Basically, you refer someone to use for claims processing (or various other) services, and you get an x% bonus (depending on which services and the number of employees, etc.). The whole system is really a ripoff. You get them $30,000 a month in income and you get $1,000 right off the top… once. Hell, for $30,000 a month, I’ll quit my job, hire a few data entry clerks, and start paying claims myself. After all, how hard could it be?

Anyway, as I walked out of the building, I got to thinking… This Incentive Program… How does it compensate the people we’re referring? They’re the ones that are going to suffer greatly. Good god, I wouldn’t inflict OUR Marketing department on even my worst enemy! And believe me, the only reason I refer to them as our Marketing department is that they’re the closest half-assed attempt at one we’ve got…

As much as I hate stupidity and incompetence, if I were in charge, they would be the first ones to go. The entire department. Starting with the VP of Marketing, who actually owns 1/4 of the company, and ending with his disgustingly happy brainless little graphic design artist lap-dog. I mean, for god’s sake, they have 4 people in that department. They spend 4x the amount of any other department in the company in annual expenses, AND we’ve not only not gotten any new clients in the 4 years that I’ve worked there, but we’ve lost 3 that we previously had. It’s obvious that they’re not accomplishing their purpose.

I was reading a blog entry / rant about how a guy got a bad grade on his excellent debate for pro-capitol punishment. One of his shining points was that it’s an excellent method of demonstrating the consequences for capitol offenses. I think the same concept should be applied towards our Marketing department. Not only have they not gained any ground in the past 4 years, but they’ve lost some we previously held. They’ve hired 3 new members, and still notta… Obviously they’re not properly motivated (particularly since all they ever do is sit around and look at Power Point presentations… which aren’t going to help if you don’t get out and actually SHOW THEM TO POTENTIAL CLIENTS!).

Alright, enough’s enough… If someone I work with reads this, I’ll probably already get fired. No need to add insult to injury by continuing with personal attacks…