« The One Thing That's Constant | Main | Cleaning Up Around the Station »

May 10, 2004

Leaving me alone = Me getting work done

I've had one of the best Monday's in recent memory today. It's been about a year or so since I can remember having a Monday like today. I was able to get so much work done that I can hardly believe what I was able to accomplish. In addition, Kyle called in because he had to take his dad to the doctor, and I was left to do all of the work myself.

First, I should probably catch everyone up as to what's been going on as of late. We're done with two of the three big events projects of the year. The first being Thunder, followed two weeks later by the Kentucky Derby. We still have the final leg of the trifecta, which is just weeks away: the Crusade for Children. Since we don't have any major events coming up until the Crusade, this gives us time to several things:

1. Play catch-up with the things that have fallen behind as a result of Thunder and Derby.
2. Clean up the basement for Crusade.
3. Prep all IT stuff for the Crusade.

Now, we've done the catch-up part ... and we're doing good in regards to support requests. We still get a regular flow of the daily "I blew up my machine" calls, but at least we're not back-logged like we were. Now, we're on step two, cleaning up the basement. This year, we have a shitload of things in the basement as a result of our renovation from last year. Old furnature from the 2nd floor renovation and other things that have just piled up over a year or so since last years cleanup effort.

For the IT department, it has been our task to get rid of the mountain of PC junk that we have collected in the past year and a half. And believe me, there's a TON of shit ... and worst yet ... it all needed to be written off of the books, as most of it was WAY over 3 years old. So, beginning last week, Kyle and I got down and dirty and started going through all of the crap, sorting the good from the bad. We made two piles and an isle in between them allowing us to walk. We got asset info, make/model, and serial numbers from every piece of hardware and turned it in to accounting for write off.

Today, I continued the effort, making my way into the IT storage room and actually trying to organize the damn thing. You see, we've been so busy over the past 8 months that when we were done with something, we put it in the storage room. We didn't care where we put it or if it was in any kind of order ... we just put it in the closet and shut the door. Well, today I went through the heap that had build up in there... and damn was there a mess to sort through. Thankfully, I had no one calling me throughout the day, which allowed me to stay focused on the task at hand. Before I knew it, I had the room sorted out and PCs ready to be taken out and put into the pile. Best of all... there was more stuff to write off and get out of my way.

I took all of the monitors and PCs out of the storage room and put next to the pile. I counted them to see how many machines I had brought out ... 26 total from today. I didn't realize that we had that many old machines in the storage room, no wonder it was such a mess. I stood back and took a look at the pile that I had formed down in the basement, and was amazed by the amount of crap that I've let accumulate over the past year and a half. Then I got to thinking ... most of the equipment here should've been replaced years ago. There were things that were older than 10 years that had been left around for no good reason. I realized then that the problem wasn't as much my fault as it was the people that came before me. These machines should've been gone a long time ago. But since I've been the one to actually make some kind of effort to bring the station to the 21st century of computing, it all fell to me.

Go figure.

Now that I had room in the storage area, I collected all of our old weather equipment and organized them in an open corner. Now, some might ask why I would even bother keeping these machines since they've already been replaced. The simple truth is that I dare not get rid of these machines in case of a failure with our current equipment. We need some kind of backup that can get us up and going in a pinch, and regardless of how old these machines are ... they are that backup for the time being. Granted, when 3 years rolls around we'll be looking to upgrade our weather system again ... then I can get rid of these units and put the current Dells in their place.

So before this gets too long, I want to explain what will be happening with the old PCs that are now written off and hanging around in the basement. A couple of things will be happening in the very near future that will allow us to get rid of these machines:

1. The Crusade is bringing in a non-profit to look over the PCs and find what they would like to have. They find what they want and we format the system and give it to them.
2. When Jerry is ready, we will be sending out an e-mail to all employees, telling them that there is furnature and equipment down in the basement that they can have. People will come down, put their names on the things that they want and when it's all said and done, they'll take them home.
3. With everything that's left over, the Crusade will be contacting another non-profit group that will come and collect the machines for spare parts. Apparently, they strip down the systems and take all the parts to make a decent machine to give to a needy family. Whatever is left over, they dispose of it.

Okay, I'm done now.

Posted by ed at May 10, 2004 08:39 PM

Comments

Post a comment