Of bad backs and ickyness

Yerch.

I didn't think it was possible, but my back is feeling worse than it did on Monday and it was Really Bad on Monday. The worst part was reaching into my back for the faithful co-codamol to discover that I'd forgotten to replenish my stocks so I only had one dose. Taken that dose and I will have to rely on regular paracetamol for any top-ups until I get home. I'm feeling pretty disgusted with myself.

And I'm starting to think that it may be time to check with the doc as this flare-up has lasted nearly two weeks now, much longer than even an overdoing-it flare usually lasts. Yay.

To make today even more exciting, the data warehouse upgrade that was supposed to happen has been cancelled. Original plan was that everything would be down today, tomorrow and over the weekend and then ready for us to use again on Monday. Due to a hardware failure, it was decided to postpone it at midday yesterday. Unfortunately, they made changes over the preceding 24 hours that have crippled large sections of the data warehouse. And the off-shore DBAs did not roll back those changes.

Grrr.

In addition to the crippled bits, one of the off-shore DBAs today triggered a system rollback that locked everyone out for two hours due to "doing something they shouldn't have".

Why do we still off-shore so much stuff when this seems to be the typical result?

Is it time to go home yet?

I had a long post in my mind about gender identity and Tom Tackles the Chalet School but I may leave it until the weekend. My brain is at the "Fire bad, tree pretty" stage.

Home working - finally

Last year, Da Boss vehemently shut down any suggestion of me working from home even to facilitate treatments that I really needed.

Next week I have a rheumatology appointment and Da Boss has decided that it's finally time to give in and let me work from home when I have these things. So I'm having half a day sick and half a day of home working.

I have spent the last week having multiple pointless conversations to IT while trying to get them to set up my office PC for remote access. Da Boss has leant me his gadget for getting past the security screen so that I can log into the company remote working system, but that only gives limited access. We've found that it's possible to take control of our own PCs remotely, if IT can get them set up correctly.

Hence the hours of pointless phone calls.

During the course of that, my co-workers took bets on how many times I would get asked whether I'm a laptop user.

IT managed to add that limited form of office apps to my profile, so I no longer need to log on as Da Boss past the first screen (I don't think they were supposed to do that...) but finally today I managed to get someone to change the settings. I just spent ten minutes playing around with my emails, accessing the data warehouse and running a small tracker to prove that it all works correctly. Hooray! I can now work from home when needed :-)

Can't believe that it took fourteen months and so many phone calls to finally get the authorisation and tech to do this.

The IT failures today were horrible and stressful. The worst part is that I am apparently the expert in the office and the only one who understands it all and can speak to the data warehouse guys. So everyone who had things break (including Da Director) was reporting the bugs to me. Kind of flattering, but also rather stressful. My co-workers have vowed never to be experts in anything after watching today's "fun".

It's such a relief to be home. I am going to write (Sensible Man and I've got some Teyla/Weir stuff in my head too) and then veg out in front of the TV.