San Angelo Ho!

Who are you calling a ho?!

Do you know, at my old job, I wasn't really expected to show up on time. I still get quite a bit of slack at the new one. The general rule in workplaces seems to be that, if you really get your job done and you're efficient, proactive, and productive, a few minutes here and there is no big deal. If you're a useless schlub who can't produce your way out of the bathroom, you damn well better be there by 8 o'clock sharp.

Why is this? It doesn't really make sense. If you don't actually do anything, what difference does it make what time you show up to not do it by?

Those are musings for another day. Today's pearl of wisdom is merely this: if you're going to ride your bike to work in the rain, bring a change of clothes. And bring a change of clothes if your usual coffee flask is dirty, and you've been forced to carry a rather less waterproof one in the water-bottle pouch on the side of your backpack as a substitute. Mud splatters all over your oft-reprimanded, protruding upper female parts are unprofessional. So is a stream of coffee all down one side of your shirt and around the back of your leg.

Anyway, conference is next week, and as far as I can tell we're ready; every single tiny niggling detail is squared away, though I still have to figure out a way to plan out the group photo shoot (89 people) so it takes under 25 minutes. One of the things I find exhilarating about my job is that I have to figure out how to do things where, honestly. I have NO idea. It's fun!

Using an elephant gun would probably be quicker... however, it might not be a good idea for me to suggest this.

A former coworker, likewise, has been working on the planning of a different conference I helped with about a year and a half ago. I complained, at the time, of having to sit through planning committee meetings once a week for six months. Never mind that we didn't have to plan offsite trips, timing of tours, catering, meeting venues, audiovisual needs, transportation, sleeping rooms, registration fees, or any of the other things that generally make planning a conference complicated. This year, my former coworker told me, they're hoping to cover a great deal of the subject matter via videoconference.

This is amusing. Before I left, I took a crash course in using our videoconference equipment for this purpose. It turned out that using the videoconference equipment to transmit the image of the green-screen, DOS mainframe application my former division uses to perform most of its functions doesn't work. The videoconference trainer's explanation was that the screen resolution didn't transmit well; mine was that mixing mainframe and videoconference technology, if unchecked, will probably cause the universe to explode.

All well and good, except that our mainframe happens to be housed at the University of San Angelo - where I'll be all next week. So wish me luck!

Get in the Car. Now.

If you really need to see somebody that badly, just go there.

This was not the intended message of the "How to conduct meetings via video teleconference" class I was in today, a class I've been enrolled in for the better part of a year. The panicmonger signed my former lead worker and me up for it. The idea was that we could use the most cutting-edge technology available to train our satellite offices on maintaining our database - a mainframe application that was implemented in 1995.

The software is gradually gaining in acceptance among older employees, which is kind of a pity, seeing as how it's been hopelessly obsolete for several years.

Nonetheless, the class was fairly instructive, once the teachers figured out how to get the equipment working. The first section of the course covered the multitude of reasons why you should conduct meetings via video teleconference. You don't have to travel anywhere, for one. And the face-to-face experience is just as real using our equipment as it is in person! Assuming that the person you're meeting with has a habit of breaking down into pixels without warning, and really enjoys doing the robot.

This isn't intended as a slam on video conferencing in general. A big part of the problem is that our equipment is (surprise!) a little bit out of date. The main camera, mounted on the back wall, comes with a tracking collar that the presenter can wear so that the camera can follow him as he walks around the room.

"Never use this," stressed the instructors repeatedly.

Why not? It sounds cool enough. But there are several good reasons (and I am not making these up, these are the actual reasons they gave):

1. You have to move very, very, very, very slowly, and not have long hair, or the camera won't be able to track you, and your conference might freeze up.
2. Your conference will freeze up after an hour or so anyway.
3. The tracking collar must be charged up before each use, but you have to watch it carefully while you are charging it, and remove it from the base as soon as the light comes on, because it doesn't shut itself off when the charge is complete and will be destroyed; and it can't be replaced because
4. the manufacturer no longer makes it, and although you can find a replacement on eBay,
5. eBay is not a state-contracted vendor.
6. Also, you'll probably forget and wear it to the bathroom.

Still, for the general purpose of a stationary, wall-mounted camera, it does fine, and the only difficulty we had was that our remote instructor couldn't demonstrate it properly because it broke when she tried to turn it on. "Hmm. Smells like smoke," she said, using the smaller, supplemental camera. "Here's the part you shouldn't touch!" She pointed to the power button.

The most entertaining part of any course is the universal frustration that students experience when dealing with unfamiliar equipment. Have you ever noticed how huffy people get? It never fails. "Here, hold down the 2 button for a little longe -" "I AM!!!!!!!!!"

And of course it always turns out they were doing it wrong.

Here are a few actual student questions from today's session.

"How slowly do you have to move to use the tracking collar? Would you show us?"

"Does the gray remote go with the gray monitor and the black remote go with the black monitor?"

"Which way do you turn the volume knob to make it louder?"

Me, I'm spending the rest of August on the road.

Christmas Is Cancelled

Well, maybe not, but the Lufkin trip is definitely off. Also we're now undergoing a hiring freeze. "If somebody leaves," said our section director in an emergency staff meeting Friday, "for the time being, that just means everybody else's workload gets a bit heavier."

Um, what if, say, four people leave? Within a month or so of each other? No reason. Just curious.

I really did want to go to Lufkin, though, so that's a bit of a bummer. Instead, my boss wants to send me to a class (presumably here in Austin) on how to conduct training via videoconference.

This does not sound like nearly as much fun.

What the section director did not know on Friday is whether we still get to hire a replacement for Robbie, since his vacant job was already posted, and closed the day the hiring freeze was announced. Do we just not get to post any new requisitions, or are the existing ones cancelled?

I asked this question in our staff meeting, and of course what I was really wanting to get at was, what happens to the four internal job postings I've applied for in the last few weeks? I thought it might be better not to ask this directly. But, continuing that train of thought, does a hiring freeze mean you can't post any new jobs at all, or can you just not bring new people into the agency? I mean, if they want to encourage people to be happy in their work, they can't tell them (can they?) that the only possible way up is out? Until whatever indefinite date that the hiring freeze is over? Shouldn't you still be able to hire internally?

If the only way up is out, then only people who can't get up stay in.

Oh wait. I think maybe that already happened.

Long Distance Relationships

I bet you don't remember TeleSuites. I can't find any very recent google results for them, but this article has a picture.

We had one of these installed at a company where I used to work. Conceptually it was really cool. You appeared to be sitting across a regular conference table from the other videoconferencing participants. (The ones who weren't actually there, I mean. Wouldn't make a lot of sense for them to tout how you'd appear to be in the same room with people who actually were in the same room, now, would it?)

But it was really expensive, the technology wasn't well-supported, and it often just didn't work; and you couldn't get the cool effect unless the people on the other end had the same equipment. A few fancy conference hotels around the country had suites installed, but not so many that participants wouldn't still end up having to travel to get to them. For any meeting larger than 10 or 15 people, you needed a larger suite with attendees in stadium seats, and you'd lose most of the effect of being in the same room. And of course if you had more than two sites participating, you had split screens; plus you had that awkward time delay and all the normal stuff that makes videoconferencing suck.

It's a pity, because it occurred to me today that we really need something like that for break now. Fortunately we have a fairly limited number of sites to conference in, because Billy and Sara are both in Colorado (which is just a big square, so I'm sure there's no appreciable travel time involved); Tony, Andrew, and Bryan are at Camp H; Thomas and Greg and Robbie (and me, if I get that job I applied for yesterday!) will be able to conference in from South Dallas; and that of course just leaves those of us at Riverside. Justin's the odd man out in College Station, so he only gets to participate by speakerphone.

That way each of us will just need a four-sided suite with an artificial metal pavilion roof and half an artificial picnic table up against each wall. There should be some artificial cigarette butts strewn about on the artificial concrete floor, for a touch of realism. And if we really wanted to go all out we could also have some CGI break spot intruders sitting at the tables when we turn on the equipment. They'd be programmed to look startled, cut their break short and slink guiltily away when we came swaggering in like we owned the place, which of course we would.

I suppose this seems a bit fanciful coming from someone who works for such a financially strapped organization she might end up having to barter her charms for office supplies. But hey. If nobody ever dreamed big, we'd never have companies like TeleSuite!