Saturday, July 02, 2005

And today, a star again....

Late on Friday, one of the mainframe programmers came to my cubicle and asked me if I could populate a file in the DB2 databases. This was a totally unexpected event. The request was from the same woman who’d made the breakthrough in ‘data-matching’ I mentioned yesterday.

This was just one further testament (in my eyes) to her commitment to being a team player. There are far too few, truly team players, in the corporate world today. Most folks, especially those from the mainframe vs. PC side of things would rather die than admit it might be simpler to ask someone from the ‘other side’ to help out.

Then again, this organization, and especially this team in particular, are all about being a team. I credit a lot of this to the manager, but a good degree of credit has also got to go to the members of the team as well. The ‘we are a team’ mentality is certainly fostered, and supported, in the way our manager involves all of us in projects. As the saying goes though, “you can lead a horse to water”… What happens next is up to the horse!!

I’m going to spend a few minutes on Monday, getting a mainframe connection from home and writing a short little procedure to populate this database, so that, on Tuesday morning, she’ll just be able to go back to work on her portion of the project. It’ll probably take most of the day to run it over the internet though… so I’ll let you all know how it turns out!

That’s it for now… I’m headed outside, into the heat and humidity, to get back to work on the truck. The goals for today are to finish disassembling the truck bed, move the ‘truck’ outside, and then move the bed and doors back into the garage so I can work inside (out of the sun) on them. When they’re done, I’ll move them all back outside, and drag the truck back in to pull the motor and transmission out for the ‘overhaul’.

If the weather holds out, and my friends show up to help, I’ll post some pics later of the process.

4 comments:

Kim said...

erm.... yeah, I can't comment on all the tech stuff, as you know I am a tech moron, however, I can be a cheerleader! Yay team!

Good luck with the truck project! I know how much it means to you to get it done.
**crosses fingers and waits for the pics

Patrick M. Tracy said...

Bill,

Good, cohesive teams are rare in all venues. A team made of cooperative people who'll do what they have to will always prevail over a collection of inflexible but talented individuals.

It's always good to come home from a day when you felt like you really earned your keep and got things done.

Sounds like you're going to be working from home for a while once your connection is set up. It'll give you time to run out and bang on a fender while big uploads run. Can't kick that!

Unknown said...

That's great, Bill. I love it when people from different IT sub-disciplines can respect each other and work together. Unfortunately, this seems more the exception that the rule.

Bill said...

Kim - We all need a cheerleader, so thanks! As soon as I locate my camera (I set it down somewhere) I'll snap some pics and post them!

Firehawk - You're 100% correct, and it's one of the reasons I've enjoyed this gig so much! I spent some time yesterday on the truck, mostly breaking down the bed the rest of the way and preparing to move stuff inside.

Comfort Addict - Yeah, it's sad, so much more get's done when folks work together, rather than as 'islands'. It's great to see you back, I hope all is as well as can be!