In 2013, a large client, which we'll call Companie S., will be moving 3,000+ users into a new office; and one major part of that is what they're doing with their data processing facilities. In general, their server crap will move from this New York office to a third party location around about the same time that the people will go from one office to another. This company is an investment bank, which means that a large chunk of the employees actually buy and sell stocks on the major markets (e.g. NYSE).
One of the truly cool technology things right now is "thin client," which means that the monitors/keyboards/etc employed by each user are connected to a low power device which goes through the network to more serious hardware. Normal users can accept a longer delay in screen refresh (e.g.) than trading users. The hardware for trading users' thin clients will stay in the new office in New York while the hardware for the non-traders will go to one of the off-site data centers. In addition to that equipment, there's a small amount of servers which have to stay with the people.
They also have a data center in New Jersey which may or not (but really will) move to a different location.
This is a huge undertaking. In addition to building the office and moving the people there are a ton of technology changes which are critical to making this happen. Moving to thin client requires a lot of work; and servers will be consolidated onto blades and virtualized; and then there's the whole trading piece. Oh, yeah, and they have to move the two data centers.
PTS was hired to explainify what I wrote in the first two paragraphs (i.e. "define the Core Processing Relocation Strategy") and to help Companie S. pick the two data centers. I am the project manager, and I need to wow the pants off of these people so we can win the rest of the work. (Winning the work looks good for me professionally regardless of the fact that I can't wait to find a new job.) There are two directors involved: an account manager and a project director. These gentlemen, whom I adore, are my management support. In addition to numerous employees and subcontractors who are providing me with different types of assistance, the leaders of five "stakeholder" teams at Companie S. report to me as it pertains to the project.
The first deliverable for this project, the strategy document, details the server-pertinent requirements for the new NY office and the two data centers. It has to talk in detail about what's moving, how much power it needs, and how much space it needs. It has to talk about technology trends over various spans of time and it has to account for those trends as they relate to the space and power required to make it happen. There are a lot of moving parts. The presentation-grade sheet in my Excel file has three or four levels of dependencies. The bottom two levels are based on information from the client, my people, and numerous manufacturer companies such as Cisco and HP; while the top two levels are based on my analysis and professional opinion. Those tables go into a 30-page opus.
When building something like this, there are multiple stages of review. In my internal project schedule and resource allocation plan, I called for two points of quality assurance by the two directors. The first one was two weeks ago; and while one of them submitted some notes they were entirely surface-level. The other guy barely even gave me a read receipt. But I dealt with it and my primary client contact had the first draft at the top of his inbox when he got back from his two weeks of coincidental post-baby time. He and I ran it past some of the stakeholders before his boss came back from their headquarters office.
We scheduled a meeting with his boss and I couldn't attend in person because that was the day of my rear windshield explosion. I was on the phone while the two directors were in the room with the two client guys. At more than one point it was a little too evident that they hadn't actually read the thing because they were questioning basic assumptions made by both PTS and Companie S. That frustrated me, but I held my tongue, and the meeting yielded a good number of changes, some of which were superfluous but most of which were substantive. I spent the rest of the day making those changes and the thing went back into review by the next tier of stakeholders.
Near the end of those reviews I noticed a mistake in one of my formulas which changed some of the space requirements. Since it was only in draft this wasn't a very big deal, but I handled it well: I identified it, got in front of it, and corrected it. However, while I wouldn't expect anybody in the QA chain to give me pause by calling it out as a point of concern. A comment like, "Have you validated these footages?" would have been perfect. That's the point of QA.
As the process neared its end, we prepared to go to the last stakeholder group: Facilities. These are the people who will manage the construction portion; and the head of that group is tightly connected to the executive board in the country where Comapnie S. is based. This is showtime. This is a meeting with two C-level people in a major international financial institution, and as I continued to polish the document I continued to seek input from my bosses. I sent the final draft of the report to them in an email which's subject included, "PLEASE ACTUALLY READ AND RESPOND." In that mail I asked them to each read the PDF extremely critically to be prepared to role play a worst case scenario of the reactions in the meeting. This would help me to be fully prepared; and it would also familiarize each of them with the material, thus allowing anybody to speak to the report. One of the guys read the first half on Wednesday and he was in the office Thursday. The meeting was at 3 and we were leaving at 2:15. He finished reading the second half (the half with the actual conclusions) at 1. The other guy decided to go out to lunch (granted, with a customer) and not read the thing at all.
Those two items spurred my Facebook post about a lack of support from above.
HOWEVER, after the first guy finished reading the thing he had no criticisms. I pushed him and I pushed him and he wouldn't budge: He said it was a very strong document and incredulously asked me if I thought he'd bring a weaker document in to this guy. My cynical brain said, "Yes. You've done that to me before," but my mouth said nothing. The other guy just came along essentially to glad-hand, because as much as I love him (and I truly do) he just can't be bothered with details. Brimming with cautious optimism, I entered the conference room.
And I was a hit. I answered every question and could back up each answer. The facilities guys had brought the engineers who are working on test fits of the building and my numbers matched theirs, even though they were based on a drastically different set of variables. The tone was genial, I didn't let myself get too far into things, and at the end of the hour we weren't finished reviewing the whole document; but it was deemed unnecessary. This facilities guy, known by people both inside and out of his organization to be a tough nut to crack, thanked me specifically and praised the report. My guy and his boss thanked me more profusely because they were worried about this guy's reaction. And one of the engineers, who works for a company with which we compete in many ways, went out of his way to tell me that the report seemed daunting at first but once he started reading it he found it to be quite easy to follow.
This was the best possible outcome, and I am proud. The strategy goes into my portfolio. Here is a link, in case you're interested; and I hope that at least a few of you will read through this thing because in addition to it being a great document it might give you some more insight into what I actually do for a living.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Monday, March 15, 2010
An Interesting Day (less proofreading than I'd like on this)
So, today was an interesting day. First, the work stuff. I started out with Barclays, taking a look at the revised bids and lining up the references to call later in the day. The bidder who's going to win, NetPlanner, had one of two references call me back. The other bidder whose references needed checking was Alison Smith; but I didn't have those. A mail to the guy yielded a response by lunchtime, and I left a message for each of his three references. Later in the day, I was on the OAC (owner, architect, contractor) call for Barclays; and this is the call where the real things. I raised some problems with the schedule, and I'm waiting to see how the GC responds. Also, as was explained to me last week, the low-voltage vendor whose bids I'm currently leveling will fall under the GC, so we talked a bit about the logistics of that.
Through the day, there was more nonsense coordination with the copiers and printers for TNS, with one woman (the office manager of something like 15 people) making a big stink about not being included, when it was she who should have let us know these requirements... three months ago. The same could be said for the other Kantar OpCos (operating companies), but those guys were also stupidly behind. I spent some time on the phone with Stephen, the overall PM for this project, and he shares my frustration. But that doesn't do anybody any good right now, so I issued a sheet with the info I have; and we'll see how it changes in the next two weeks before the move.
Then there's the Barclays Mexico project, which we just won last week. I spent some time on the phone with this new guy, Chris W. (not to be confused with Chris G., who's the lead for the Atlanta job). He gave me some more info on the project, specifically about schedule and a few other things, and he asked me to update our written proposal to match the spreadsheet which he requested last week. I did this, and I also spent a fair amount of time working out my travel for this trip. I was smart enough to update (and BarCap was stupid enough to approve) my travel budget to include business class airfare, so that's the one benefit. But other than that, this trip will be a huge pain in the ass. I had wanted to fly down Thursday morning, spend a couple of hours there Thursday afternoon, and be on a relatively early (9:30 AM) flight home so I could have dinner with my family. My site contact, however, doesn't want me there until Friday morning. So now I have a late flight Thursday, in the office before that to run my TNS call and do some other things, and my flight home Friday doesn't leave until like 2:30, which puts me home at 1 in the morning.
I also started work on a new project today, VSS, which is some kind of media or media investment company. They're taking over space from another company, so the cabling portion is pretty light; but the AV portion is more significant, and again we have to deal with security (on which I could write about 3,000 words; but since I've been such a slacker on this blog you'll just have to take my word for it). The call lasted the full hour, but I have my marching orders. All in all, I should be able to deliver this one; but since I had no input to the bid there might be some budgetary issues down the line.
Now, onto the other stuff. I learned today about the departure from PTS of two people. The first is Scott Gomez, but I don't have a lot to do with him. The other is Charlie, who is the closest thing I have to an equivalent, although he's got a pretty sweet deal where he draws a fulltime salary but gets to pick and choose his projects (which he usually completes from his house). That said, he's pretty sharp and he's also pretty good at the interpersonal stuff (with which I'd been struggling but am now very much on track). So, we will be looking for people but realistically this puts me in a good position to show these motherfuckers how valuable I am. My "portfolio" right now is pretty big, with all of the above projects as well as the new College Board job coming in and possibly another South American job for Barclays. I need to keep kicking ass at this and keep my billable hours high so I can really make a stink if they try to screw me at the end of the year. The other part of this is that if people with similar skill sets to mine are getting other jobs that means the market is opening up, so it's time to get my shit together and start looking around. At the very least this will give me some good leverage with the people at PTS, but it could lead to a better position for (of course) better money. But I need to get off my ass, so we'll see about this. Maybe I can work on my resume and CV while I'm sitting in ten hours of plane rides.
Something else to talk about another time is the nonsense with the American Express cards. But now that my computer is connected and my mail has been downloaded I need to get back to work.
Through the day, there was more nonsense coordination with the copiers and printers for TNS, with one woman (the office manager of something like 15 people) making a big stink about not being included, when it was she who should have let us know these requirements... three months ago. The same could be said for the other Kantar OpCos (operating companies), but those guys were also stupidly behind. I spent some time on the phone with Stephen, the overall PM for this project, and he shares my frustration. But that doesn't do anybody any good right now, so I issued a sheet with the info I have; and we'll see how it changes in the next two weeks before the move.
Then there's the Barclays Mexico project, which we just won last week. I spent some time on the phone with this new guy, Chris W. (not to be confused with Chris G., who's the lead for the Atlanta job). He gave me some more info on the project, specifically about schedule and a few other things, and he asked me to update our written proposal to match the spreadsheet which he requested last week. I did this, and I also spent a fair amount of time working out my travel for this trip. I was smart enough to update (and BarCap was stupid enough to approve) my travel budget to include business class airfare, so that's the one benefit. But other than that, this trip will be a huge pain in the ass. I had wanted to fly down Thursday morning, spend a couple of hours there Thursday afternoon, and be on a relatively early (9:30 AM) flight home so I could have dinner with my family. My site contact, however, doesn't want me there until Friday morning. So now I have a late flight Thursday, in the office before that to run my TNS call and do some other things, and my flight home Friday doesn't leave until like 2:30, which puts me home at 1 in the morning.
I also started work on a new project today, VSS, which is some kind of media or media investment company. They're taking over space from another company, so the cabling portion is pretty light; but the AV portion is more significant, and again we have to deal with security (on which I could write about 3,000 words; but since I've been such a slacker on this blog you'll just have to take my word for it). The call lasted the full hour, but I have my marching orders. All in all, I should be able to deliver this one; but since I had no input to the bid there might be some budgetary issues down the line.
Now, onto the other stuff. I learned today about the departure from PTS of two people. The first is Scott Gomez, but I don't have a lot to do with him. The other is Charlie, who is the closest thing I have to an equivalent, although he's got a pretty sweet deal where he draws a fulltime salary but gets to pick and choose his projects (which he usually completes from his house). That said, he's pretty sharp and he's also pretty good at the interpersonal stuff (with which I'd been struggling but am now very much on track). So, we will be looking for people but realistically this puts me in a good position to show these motherfuckers how valuable I am. My "portfolio" right now is pretty big, with all of the above projects as well as the new College Board job coming in and possibly another South American job for Barclays. I need to keep kicking ass at this and keep my billable hours high so I can really make a stink if they try to screw me at the end of the year. The other part of this is that if people with similar skill sets to mine are getting other jobs that means the market is opening up, so it's time to get my shit together and start looking around. At the very least this will give me some good leverage with the people at PTS, but it could lead to a better position for (of course) better money. But I need to get off my ass, so we'll see about this. Maybe I can work on my resume and CV while I'm sitting in ten hours of plane rides.
Something else to talk about another time is the nonsense with the American Express cards. But now that my computer is connected and my mail has been downloaded I need to get back to work.
Monday, November 30, 2009
11/30/09
Not a very interesting day today. Poor sleep in the train, again, led me to only do the 1-mile walk. I need to stop with the excuses for that.
Office at 7:30, and my first order of business was to try to get Eric for the Blackberry server install on Wednesday. I found out later that he can't do it until next week; and I'm not that sad about disappointing Steve. Also on the IT front, I downloaded and installed AutoCAD, thus completing the W7 installation on my desktop. I'm very happy with that so far. I also spent intermittent time over the first few hours wrangling printer troubles.
Then I moved into Calyon, getting ready for my 10:00 meeting. After taking the time (and energy and paper) to print copies of what I thought were the final documents, I arrived at the meeting (Mike in tow, for once) to be handed newer revisions. The only interesting thing to come from that meeting is that I will be allowed to turn the French translations into better English. This was not something that Isabelle wanted me to do when it was one-on-one, but Philippe agreed that it was a good idea and she went along. Subway rides in both directions were spent discussing prospects and upcoming meals with Mike.
Back at the office, my first order was to nail down the site visits for tomorrow. Now I'm going to NJ tomorrow, but it should be a slightly shorter day; so that's not too bad. Equinix in the morning and NetAccess in the afternoon.
Then I spent some time on H&K, approving some submittals (and requiring still more clarification) and also nailing down a future bulletin. The final thing for them was a proposal for additional services in the telecom arena. Always a good thing to get more money.
The hour after that was not terribly productive, full of distractions and annoyances. But that's really OK.
Then I went down to 200 5th for the C&W meeting where I spent a lot of time dealing with other H&K bullshit on my phone. This guy is pulling an email from July against an in person meeting in September. But I did the political thing and we'll make it right. My ears were open enough to answer intelligently all questions put to me.
Now I'm in the train, and I'm not done working. I have to at least start writing a Barclays proposal for Atlanta, and I've been writing this while waiting for the VPN to link up. The first pain in the ass of this will be finding a good document on which to base the proposal.
Office at 7:30, and my first order of business was to try to get Eric for the Blackberry server install on Wednesday. I found out later that he can't do it until next week; and I'm not that sad about disappointing Steve. Also on the IT front, I downloaded and installed AutoCAD, thus completing the W7 installation on my desktop. I'm very happy with that so far. I also spent intermittent time over the first few hours wrangling printer troubles.
Then I moved into Calyon, getting ready for my 10:00 meeting. After taking the time (and energy and paper) to print copies of what I thought were the final documents, I arrived at the meeting (Mike in tow, for once) to be handed newer revisions. The only interesting thing to come from that meeting is that I will be allowed to turn the French translations into better English. This was not something that Isabelle wanted me to do when it was one-on-one, but Philippe agreed that it was a good idea and she went along. Subway rides in both directions were spent discussing prospects and upcoming meals with Mike.
Back at the office, my first order was to nail down the site visits for tomorrow. Now I'm going to NJ tomorrow, but it should be a slightly shorter day; so that's not too bad. Equinix in the morning and NetAccess in the afternoon.
Then I spent some time on H&K, approving some submittals (and requiring still more clarification) and also nailing down a future bulletin. The final thing for them was a proposal for additional services in the telecom arena. Always a good thing to get more money.
The hour after that was not terribly productive, full of distractions and annoyances. But that's really OK.
Then I went down to 200 5th for the C&W meeting where I spent a lot of time dealing with other H&K bullshit on my phone. This guy is pulling an email from July against an in person meeting in September. But I did the political thing and we'll make it right. My ears were open enough to answer intelligently all questions put to me.
Now I'm in the train, and I'm not done working. I have to at least start writing a Barclays proposal for Atlanta, and I've been writing this while waiting for the VPN to link up. The first pain in the ass of this will be finding a good document on which to base the proposal.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
11/24/09
Today was a good way to end a short week.
I got in at 7:30 and started getting ready to wipe my computer and install 7. I spent some time speaking with Joerg, who is a weird dude with a weird name and weird lineage. Then Mike came in and we chatted for a while; and then I had my 8:30 call. It wasn't bad, but I was trying to not stick our nose into things which Mike kept on expanding.
That took me to 9:00, and I spent some time on H&K figuring out their carrier stuff, while also continuing to install enough software on my laptop that I could wipe my desktop. I got that ready and the install on my desktop went quite smoothly.
Then I had my 11:00 call with Isabelle, who wanted to go line by line through a 20 page document and a 200-row Excel file. But we got through it in an hour and I was able to keep up with the not doing too much. I kept going on my desktop, struggling with Firefox for a while, and generally dicking around. Then I finished what I needed to for Calyon and got some C&W and TNS mails done.
That's actually about it. I said goodbye to people for about 20 minutes, and now I'm done until Monday. Seriously, hooray.
I got in at 7:30 and started getting ready to wipe my computer and install 7. I spent some time speaking with Joerg, who is a weird dude with a weird name and weird lineage. Then Mike came in and we chatted for a while; and then I had my 8:30 call. It wasn't bad, but I was trying to not stick our nose into things which Mike kept on expanding.
That took me to 9:00, and I spent some time on H&K figuring out their carrier stuff, while also continuing to install enough software on my laptop that I could wipe my desktop. I got that ready and the install on my desktop went quite smoothly.
Then I had my 11:00 call with Isabelle, who wanted to go line by line through a 20 page document and a 200-row Excel file. But we got through it in an hour and I was able to keep up with the not doing too much. I kept going on my desktop, struggling with Firefox for a while, and generally dicking around. Then I finished what I needed to for Calyon and got some C&W and TNS mails done.
That's actually about it. I said goodbye to people for about 20 minutes, and now I'm done until Monday. Seriously, hooray.
Monday, November 23, 2009
11/23
Today was a pretty average day. On site, following up on the last move for Grey, I was told by the client that everything went fine over the weekend; and that Craig performed admirably. While the latter part of that sentence appears to be correct, the former could have been adjusted: They kept the guys on site three hours late on Saturday and four hours late on Sunday. Aside from the fact that that's over a grand of additional cost, it makes me look bad to not have known about it in the first place.
I stole a bagel from there, and then left around 8:45 (got there at 7:30). Craig begged off of covering for me because of work, and that's true enough. Again, I was told that it would be no problem and that they'd call the office with issues. Instead, seven more corrections were made in the field. It's unlikely that I'll see anything about them; but at this point, with these people I just don't care.
Another interesting thing that happened at Grey this morning was one of the other client guys, Richard, complaining about the lack of preparedness of one of the other companies who will be sharing the office and LAN. For anyone in that organization to have anything negative to say about another person's homework completion is just so ridiculous I don't even know what to do. That said, I am extremely proud of myself for keeping my face straight and appearing to commiserate without saying anything like, "Sorry... aren't you the company who's known about the move for two years and yet I get server move information THREE DAYS BEFORE?" So good job, me.
When I got back uptown I got some housekeeping done and answered questions that Craig should have been able to figure out on his own. I also made further changes to a C&W debacle where STUDIOS didn't give us a bubbled background, and changes from sketches to full sheets. Then Ed Jaram called to talk about TNS, which is now, "WPP TNS, Kantar Health, The Futures Company, and Lightspeed." After some back-and-forth about the requirements ("Are you *sure* you've gathered things from every IT group?" "No, but I'm as confident as I can be.") Ed gave me another person to call and then proceeded to go through our latest scope document in some detail.
Aside from the name change (which ended up being changed to "the clients" for the sake of brevity) he got into some details which were silly, and some which were substantial. The reason for his fastidious commentary is Jesus (yes, an actual person). Jesus was a big problem the last time we had to deal with him, going so far as to point out typos and say how that makes us unprepared to deal with him. Ed wanted me to break out more about what was going to be left by the current tenant vs. what was being bought, and to set deliverables with dates for the client so that he can hold them to something as well. This is a very good thing.
Then he gave me some (fairly good-natured) crap about some of the qualifications that I built in to the document. Specifically, I want to limit the number of bulletins and patch schedules so I have some justification for an extra on our end; and he's questioning if that conflicts with the master agreement between PTS and WPP. John is supposed to investigate that; and I hope to get an answer in the next to minutes, but I'm not holding my breath. This whole thing with the qualifications comes from a general need for us to improve our proposals to protect against going over budget. On Grey there were 22 bulletins and we're fighting to get more money.
Shortly after that, I made my way up to Calyon to discuss their RFP. I met the new Calyon PM, Isabelle, who is nice but certainly has the potential to be a pain in my ass if I don't stay in front of her desires. We talked at length about the power and space requirements for their data center and then we discussed the language of the RFP. She wants to pull a lot of our questions out into a matrix-type format, giving each bidder the exact same format to follow. I have no problem with that; but I don't know that they'll actually do it. We then spent a few minutes one-on-one to get our acts together. I have a bunch of crap to review before calling her at 11 tomorrow.
Back to the office around noon. I got lunch from a different hallal truck, with a slightly different (and slightly less-sodium-y tasting) product. I ate half, so that $5 lunch will get me through two days. As I was sitting down Craig sent Chris from Barclays' call over to my phone, and we spent about 20 minutes on the phone discussing Atlanta and how his deal is changing. (Then I got a mail from him later, so I'm not sure if it actually did; but I also really don't care.) I pulled out an old CAD file for the TNS project to give the engineers an idea of the state of the equipment room; and I read something on the AV club that had caught my eye since when I couldn't sleep in the train this morning. I was sure to get everything lined up for C&W to start printing their security badges before leaving at 2 for their project meeting. ADT has been a real pain in the ass about this, so it was a good thing to be able to report.
I got to spend a nice few minutes before the meeting chatting with Lindsey, who I'm glad to say I didn't offend when she, Dervla, and I went out for drinks last week. I spent most of the next hour trying not to look like I was trying to stay awake, contributing to maybe 10 minutes of the actual discussion. Then I gave Lindsey my personal email address, and she was able to decipher my handwriting. After that, 15 minutes with Eric talking about a security camera and an outlet that will be a bitch of a pull; but I'm confident that he can convince can't-do-Larry to make it happen.
Walk back to Grand Central, and my phone is not connecting to the Internet. That's why I've had 20 minutes to do this; and yes I would like to be doing them more regularly. Hopefully it will behave better when we're out of the tunnel.
I stole a bagel from there, and then left around 8:45 (got there at 7:30). Craig begged off of covering for me because of work, and that's true enough. Again, I was told that it would be no problem and that they'd call the office with issues. Instead, seven more corrections were made in the field. It's unlikely that I'll see anything about them; but at this point, with these people I just don't care.
Another interesting thing that happened at Grey this morning was one of the other client guys, Richard, complaining about the lack of preparedness of one of the other companies who will be sharing the office and LAN. For anyone in that organization to have anything negative to say about another person's homework completion is just so ridiculous I don't even know what to do. That said, I am extremely proud of myself for keeping my face straight and appearing to commiserate without saying anything like, "Sorry... aren't you the company who's known about the move for two years and yet I get server move information THREE DAYS BEFORE?" So good job, me.
When I got back uptown I got some housekeeping done and answered questions that Craig should have been able to figure out on his own. I also made further changes to a C&W debacle where STUDIOS didn't give us a bubbled background, and changes from sketches to full sheets. Then Ed Jaram called to talk about TNS, which is now, "WPP TNS, Kantar Health, The Futures Company, and Lightspeed." After some back-and-forth about the requirements ("Are you *sure* you've gathered things from every IT group?" "No, but I'm as confident as I can be.") Ed gave me another person to call and then proceeded to go through our latest scope document in some detail.
Aside from the name change (which ended up being changed to "the clients" for the sake of brevity) he got into some details which were silly, and some which were substantial. The reason for his fastidious commentary is Jesus (yes, an actual person). Jesus was a big problem the last time we had to deal with him, going so far as to point out typos and say how that makes us unprepared to deal with him. Ed wanted me to break out more about what was going to be left by the current tenant vs. what was being bought, and to set deliverables with dates for the client so that he can hold them to something as well. This is a very good thing.
Then he gave me some (fairly good-natured) crap about some of the qualifications that I built in to the document. Specifically, I want to limit the number of bulletins and patch schedules so I have some justification for an extra on our end; and he's questioning if that conflicts with the master agreement between PTS and WPP. John is supposed to investigate that; and I hope to get an answer in the next to minutes, but I'm not holding my breath. This whole thing with the qualifications comes from a general need for us to improve our proposals to protect against going over budget. On Grey there were 22 bulletins and we're fighting to get more money.
Shortly after that, I made my way up to Calyon to discuss their RFP. I met the new Calyon PM, Isabelle, who is nice but certainly has the potential to be a pain in my ass if I don't stay in front of her desires. We talked at length about the power and space requirements for their data center and then we discussed the language of the RFP. She wants to pull a lot of our questions out into a matrix-type format, giving each bidder the exact same format to follow. I have no problem with that; but I don't know that they'll actually do it. We then spent a few minutes one-on-one to get our acts together. I have a bunch of crap to review before calling her at 11 tomorrow.
Back to the office around noon. I got lunch from a different hallal truck, with a slightly different (and slightly less-sodium-y tasting) product. I ate half, so that $5 lunch will get me through two days. As I was sitting down Craig sent Chris from Barclays' call over to my phone, and we spent about 20 minutes on the phone discussing Atlanta and how his deal is changing. (Then I got a mail from him later, so I'm not sure if it actually did; but I also really don't care.) I pulled out an old CAD file for the TNS project to give the engineers an idea of the state of the equipment room; and I read something on the AV club that had caught my eye since when I couldn't sleep in the train this morning. I was sure to get everything lined up for C&W to start printing their security badges before leaving at 2 for their project meeting. ADT has been a real pain in the ass about this, so it was a good thing to be able to report.
I got to spend a nice few minutes before the meeting chatting with Lindsey, who I'm glad to say I didn't offend when she, Dervla, and I went out for drinks last week. I spent most of the next hour trying not to look like I was trying to stay awake, contributing to maybe 10 minutes of the actual discussion. Then I gave Lindsey my personal email address, and she was able to decipher my handwriting. After that, 15 minutes with Eric talking about a security camera and an outlet that will be a bitch of a pull; but I'm confident that he can convince can't-do-Larry to make it happen.
Walk back to Grand Central, and my phone is not connecting to the Internet. That's why I've had 20 minutes to do this; and yes I would like to be doing them more regularly. Hopefully it will behave better when we're out of the tunnel.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Pretty boring today
So, today started at the office, getting ready to go to Enfatico to fix the fuckup from yesterday where we looked at the wrong conference rooms. I did some emergency Grey work (big surprise) and commented on a bid for the C&W move support. I think for $3K they should give it to Forest and make everybody's life (except for KEC) easier. I also spent way too much time on the phone with Rich.
The trip to Enfatico went fine. I met Wilson, who was polite and confident; and I got to see Todd, who I haven't seen in a while. He's well and it sounds like his son is doing well. The kid is almost exactly a month younger than Oscar.
On the way back from EMA, I went to Home Depot for a hole saw; and to Best Buy for an HDMI cable. Their selection sucked, but I found something for less than $80. The Buy Buy baby store was a bust for the cowboy hat. I got Halal from the cart in front of the office for lunch.
After rushing to put out a new report and placate Ed and Tom from G&T, I actually spoke with Jesus from Kantar. He had been a problem in the past, but getting to him early and treating him nicely seemed to put him squarely in my corner. We'll see how that goes.
Most of the rest of the afternoon was spent wrangling this Maptitude software for Calyon. I appear to be making some reasonable progress on that front.
The trip to Enfatico went fine. I met Wilson, who was polite and confident; and I got to see Todd, who I haven't seen in a while. He's well and it sounds like his son is doing well. The kid is almost exactly a month younger than Oscar.
On the way back from EMA, I went to Home Depot for a hole saw; and to Best Buy for an HDMI cable. Their selection sucked, but I found something for less than $80. The Buy Buy baby store was a bust for the cowboy hat. I got Halal from the cart in front of the office for lunch.
After rushing to put out a new report and placate Ed and Tom from G&T, I actually spoke with Jesus from Kantar. He had been a problem in the past, but getting to him early and treating him nicely seemed to put him squarely in my corner. We'll see how that goes.
Most of the rest of the afternoon was spent wrangling this Maptitude software for Calyon. I appear to be making some reasonable progress on that front.
Parameters
This thing is intended to document my working experiences. We'll see if I keep it up.
The general idea is to talk about what happened during the day, how I applied my Carnegie training, etc. There will be some venting and some naming of names, so it won't be terribly public.
I won't get into personal things on here, and this won't be pop culture or politics. It's highly likely that nobody else will ever read this until I die (and maybe not even then).
The general idea is to talk about what happened during the day, how I applied my Carnegie training, etc. There will be some venting and some naming of names, so it won't be terribly public.
I won't get into personal things on here, and this won't be pop culture or politics. It's highly likely that nobody else will ever read this until I die (and maybe not even then).
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