Since my new job is going to require me to commute roughly 30 miles to work every day, we’ve been looking at getting a second car.  Initially we thought we’d pick up something used and cheap…  But my father wanted us to get something solidly reliable.  So he’s giving us a chunk of cash to help pay for a new car.

I’m not real familiar with the whole “shopping for a new car” process…  We’ve only ever owned used cars and we’ve never had to do much bargaining or financing.  So I was kind of surprised.

We looked at a number of cars that claimed to “start at” $14,000 or so…  But once you’d added automatic transmission, cruise control, and air conditioning they were closer to $18,000.  And then we’d talk with a salesman and discover that the price on the manufacturer’s website was not what they were being sold for.

Very confusing.

Eventually we settled on the Kia Soul.  It’s got decent gas mileage, good safety rating, a couple consumer awards…  It comes with cruise control and power windows and all that good stuff…  It looks nice…  And it’s right around $16,000.

So then we started trying to make a purchase, and things got a little weird.  I didn’t realize just how quickly a dealer would sell you something that costs that much.  It seems to me that there should be more deliberation or something…

But they just took my information over the phone, ran some numbers, gave me a price, and they’re driving it over to me as I type this.  I should be signing papers and taking possession of our new car in just a couple hours.

So weird…

Counting today, only two days left at my current job…

The last week or so of work has been very weird.

It’s so strange showing up to work every day…  But not really feeling very committed to the job.

I’ve been trying not to get too involved in anything.  Anything significant that comes in just gets forwarded to my co-workers.  So I’m back to doing the simple calls…  Quick fixes, cleaning viruses, things like that.

I’m wrapping up a few projects here and there…  Putting together some documentation…

But, really, I don’t have all that much to do with myself.

And I’m not feeling any pressure to keep busy either.  I normally try to find work to do if I run out of projects.  I don’t like to be bored.  I like to feel like I’m being productive.  And I’m always worried about keeping my job.

But the last week or so I just haven’t cared.  I’ve been content to sit and surf the web when I’ve run out of things to do.  And I’m certainly not stressing about getting fired.

It’s just truly bizarre…

It seems to me that there are certain things every IT department ought to have on hand…

A few spare HDDs, an assortment of boot discs for various operating systems, a couple power supplies, a power supply tester, a multimeter…  Stuff like that seems pretty basic to me.

I’d also recommend that pretty much any IT department keep some duck tape and super glue on hand…  Maybe a soldering iron…  Some superglue…  A Dremel is always useful…

One of the major frustrations I’ve had with my current employer is that we never have the tools I need to get my job done.  I’m constantly improvising, or waiting for somebody to go buy something, or making-do without something.

Our backup server is a cruddy old system that’s been cobbled together from spare parts.  It’s got a cheap little SiI SATA controller in it…  An old Pentium processor…  512 MB RAM…  An old PSU with a bunch of molex-to-SATA converters…  And a pile of 1.5 TB SATA HDDs.

Over the weekend the RAID array died and didn’t want to come back up.

Initially I thought it was a couple failed disks, and I told my boss that.  Generally speaking, you’re supposed to keep a couple spare disks on-hand for just such an occasion…  But, of course, we didn’t have any spare disks.  Nor was my boss willing to go out and buy a couple 1.5 TB HDDs at our local Best Buy or Staples.  So, instead, I had to wait while they got in touch with Seagate and got an RMA issued.

In the mean time, I’ve changed my mind.  I’m now thinking that the problem may simply be how all these cables and adapters are crammed into the case.

I’ve noticed that the molex-to-SATA power adapters are a little touchy…  If I just bump the case it’s possible for one of them to come loose and take its pair of disks offline.  And, to be honest, the SATA cables themselves aren’t holding on very tightly either.

So I thought I might superglue the molex-to-SATA adapters in place, so that they couldn’t go anywhere…  And I thought that I might secure the SATA plugs with hot glue, which would be more secure, but ultimately removable…  Except that we have neither superglue nor hot glue here at the shop.

So I am once again waiting for parts to show up.

Which really isn’t as frustrating as it could be since I’m still waiting for the array to sync and the partition to fsck, so I couldn’t really shut everything down and glue it all together right now anyway.

But it’s still kind of galling.

My job has been to fix things that are broken, and I’m constantly stymied in that because I don’t have the tools I need.  Can you imagine calling a plumber to fix your broken sink…  Only to have him stand around, twiddling his thumbs while his buddy runs out to buy a wrench?

Obviously, that does happen from time to time…  You might have some weird fitting that isn’t very common, or they may have broken their wrench, or whatever…  But around here it is a weekly occurrence.  And not because we’re constantly running into strange fittings – but because we simply do not have very basic and common tools that we should have.

Counting today, only three days left at my current job…