May 21, 2009
Really?!?!?!

Do you guys remember the blog post related with the turn-off menu of Window Vista? That blog post just describes one of the biggest problems of big companies…. and my current employer has the same exact problem.

We have been working on a consultancy that was going to determine the migration process of the company to a new platform. This process is going to take around 1 year or 2 with the addition that it needs some very smart development (integrate monolithic java applications with SharePoint without re-writting the apps). After working 4 weeks on it, it has been rejected. The reason:

An architect has not approved the design.

Is funny because the authors of the document where:

  • Architect: Francois Chabot (really, really smart guy)
  • Technical Analyst: Manuel de la Pena

Looks like sometimes you have to approve your own documents… meh

12:26am  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/Zn5Hby6cFxg
Filed under: work live 
March 11, 2009
Crazy days

Woa!!! lately I have been working my ass big time…. Everything started when I decided to go to HR and commented that I was “not doing much” and since then I have been pack with work. I recently started to work with a far better and smarter architect than me to write a road-map of how should Electrabels extra-net be migrated from our current mesh of app to share point, and the same time I am fixing some huge problem we have with TeamSite after a terrible upgrade and on top of that the family came to visit :D

Apart from that, yesterday I had to go to Atwerpen to speak and the TexhDays where Electrabel is a partner of Microsoft… I actually did not know what I was meant to do which was good and bad. I got thee at 3.00 and I was rushed in a room through an emergency door. Dammed!!! The other room was filled by 800/900 people and there were cameras recording, I had not clue what the fuck was going on… At the end everything turned out to be quite good and fun, and I’ve got to say,Microsoft does know how to organize things. The video is somewhere in the internetz, I’ll try to post it, or maybe not :P

10:55pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/Zn5Hby56nc2
Filed under: personal life work meetup Microsoft Electrabel 
December 23, 2008
One of the bad things of working in a wanna be international company

I have received 3 emails for a very “important” presentation. All of the written in French, Flemish and English, and in all of the three languages they told us to go to one of the presentations which are only held in French and Flemish… Well this is my reply email:

Dear Marie,

I have received the updated calendar of the performance management process presentation and I have notice that once again there is no English version. I do understand that there are going to be more presentations in Fr and NL that in English but I am astonished that there are none in English.

Since I believe that I am not the only person currently working in the company that does not speak any of the national languages (I am on my way to learn French, but my level is useless if I want to have a meaningful conversation) could we get an English presentation for us? Otherwise I will have to attend one of the other languages and it will be a waste of money and resources because I won’t be able to understand most of it.

I hope I do not come across as an ignorant pig, but I just moved from the UK here and I’m not such a fast learner.

Kind regards,

Manuel de le Pena

In my defence, when I got the job I did state several times that I just spoke English and Spanish (two of the most spoken languages) and the state over an over that there was no problem… Well there are :P

I like the irony of them wanting me to learn about performance management and resource management and then they do this things…

1:13pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/Zn5Hby3zJzs
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: life work languages belgium 
November 4, 2008
First day at work

Today was my first day at work and I’ve got to say, I am the geek. I am the only one in the group that uses Linux, the only one who talks about algorithms, VM improvements, using Java within .Net etc…

I’ve got to say that I love it, every time I start speaking and I use an acronym my manager says: “I’m lost again”. I am sure he knows far more than I do about Web servers and HTTP, but I am clearly the weird guy who worries about memory management, and all the rest. Well we’ll see how does this evolve.

7:02pm  |   URL: http://tumblr.com/Zn5Hby3T65m
Filed under: work development 
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