Insomniac Theatre Proudly Presents...

My Nightmare. A moving story of corruption, scandal and nekkedness in the IT Department. Well, maybe not nekkedness, but sex sells baby!!!

So... There I was. Long ago, in a facility far, far away, very near here. Just a peon. A tiny cog in the great wheel that is the American Automotive Industry. One step up from entry level. Yet, a peon with a dream and a hackneyed IT Degree. As the years passed at the giganto-multi-national corporation, certain patterns developed. The IT Department, the bane of all existence, the Gate Keepers and the Holders of Keys, who were supposed to be the pinnacle of customer service, alas, failed miserably to deliver. Ok, enough build up crap, let's get down to my nightmare right quick like. LOL

Our plant was on the list for a major software implementation/integration project that performs the following function: When properly installed, you can pull up a web browser and watch the equipment in our plant run from any computer on the corporate networked computer in the world. You could be sitting in Detroit, lovely downtown Detroit and see what's going on here in Missouri. It would let you run reports on what equipment is running slowest, had the most faults or even which one was bypassed when broken. All manner of things can be recorded, reported, monitored in real time or just plain charted in beautiful technicolor. It's a truly awesome system.

Enter me, peon extraordinaire. Eyes wide with wonder at all the amazing operations of the entire facility, soaking in all the info I can. I know the networks, the servers, the applications, phone extensions, where computer terminals are by computer name, everything. LOL. I can rule the world... When I get tasked to be the new administrator of this awesome system, I'm ecstatic. Not only do I get to go to Canada for training, but I get to be there for the entire project and look over everyones shoulders. Oh HELL yeah... <hip pumping motion> Can you feel that? MmmmHmmm... Of course, when the training was moved to downtown Detroit, I should have had a premonition of what was to come...

The Project. It was like watching the woman of your dreams taking off her clothes, only to find yourself in the middle of your own personal Crying Game. The Corporate IT people sent down this cluster-fied thing that in no way resembled the beautiful, magnificent piece of software that I had been educated on. Holy crap, Batman! What had they done? Reports are locked down and there are like ten. The data tags are put in 180 degrees out from the way they are supposed to be programmed. I mean, I was literally sick. I had worked my ass off to learn the ins and outs of the entire plant floor equipment, the data concentrators, their setup, programming... The whole memory map for the entire department resides in my head. Noooooooo...

Yeah, so, I'm nerdy and awesome like that. Shut up. When this crap was loaded on MY servers, that's right, MINE I tell you, I was slightly pissed. Oh, hell. I was ready to tear someone's head off and crap down the hole as a warning to the others. I fought, literally fought, with Corporate IT from day one of the project. I went all the way up the Corporate.ladder, as is the politically correct way to do that sort of thing, then I called out the big hammer. Let's just say that I know, errr, knew some big names up North and when I call, they know to hit and hit hard. LOL. I may be a peon, but I'm kind of the Super-Peon... LOL. Yeah, Super Nerd.. Shut up already. Again.

So, fast forward tot he big showdown scene. Tumbleweeds blwoing across the conference room floor, that odd whistling monkey sound... There we are, in the Plant Manager's office, him to my right, our Assistant Plant Manager to my left and every upper manager in my department around the table and we are doing a conference call to the IT Director in Detroit. The guy who hired the guy who runs the North American IT Department. LOL. The Head IT Cheese. Big Daddy IT. On the phone are the many members of the install, programming and development team. They are peppering me left and right regarding "What seems to be the problem?"...  Hardly a word was said on our end by anyone at the table but me. Here's the sooooo funny part of this whole story...

I detail, from memory mind you, cause I'm all kinds of Nerdy goodness in a big package, step by step how piss poor the whole project went. From the problems at every piece of equipment, the programming, the reports, even the crappy database setups that left us with a data black hole from where we cannot retrieve data once it has gone. I explain how basically they had spent $2 million dollars on this failed, piss poor, miserable dog-ass thing and they should, all of them, be praying to whatever God they believed in that I was not the IT Director. I said that if I was the Director over a project of that magnitude that was as horrible an implementation as this one, I would walk next door and FIRE every single person who touched that program. I then exlained detail by detail why I would fire every one of them and what my next course of action would be to try and salvage something out of this investment.

It wasn't two months later and it happened... They went through and cleaned house in Corporate IT, essentially firing all those who were involved with that project. Normally I would have felt guilty at having been the reason why people got fired. Normally I might even have been happy that they had been fired because they were all crapheads who deserved every bit and then some of what they got. But, I'm left with this massive headache that I have been fighting for the last few years. Researching thousands of lines of code from the floor level to the data concentrators to the servers, trying, in my head, to put a plan together to salvage something out of this wreckage.

• Good news. After these few years, I think I have it all put together.
• Better news, it will only cost roughly $350,000.
• Best news, I got Corporate Ok to go ahead with it this week.

• Bad news: The Corporate guy I'm dealing with was one of the few who didn't get fired in the fiasco, evidently he knows where enough skeletons are buried to escape the butcher's knife.
• Worse news: he's already trying to tell me what to do and how to do it.
• Worst news: He's trying to drag backing for his viewpoint into the picture from the Corporate guy who approved the check.

So, how does this soap opera end? Like any soap opera... I have some surprises in store for this guy. Say hello to my little friend... LOL. Actually, I have everything I need to keep this guy on a tight leash and remind him oh-so gently that I control this project and I WILL see him walked out of the plant before I let him compromise this project at any time.Again. Cause I'm all badass like that. LOL. Actually, he has received his warning shot today, while trying to flex his muscles at me. Postured emails are a poor medium to do that with. LOL. I simply corrected his mistaken assumptions and ideas, explained the correct ones, MINE, and sent kindest regards to him and a major player in the food chain who can, and will, yank his leash any time I need it yanked.

It's good to be the King. It's even better to be the guy behind the King. Usually, when the revolt comes, that guy doesn't get his head lopped off. LOL. SO, that's my little nightmare story about Corporate IT and how I may just be able to pull this sinking ship out of the one way no return zone. Awesomeness on so many levels. I feel like I'm in The Revenge of the Nerds right now, with We Are the Champions playing in the background... Me with my cape flapping slowly in the wind... LOL.

Have a great day peoples. I better go hit the showers and then bed soon...