Life Analogies

Forrest Gump's Mom says life is like a box of chocolates and that is a great analogy for a while but after a while a person gets tired of chocolates and yet life still goes on so we have to find something else to compare with life.

There are many existing cliché's where life is like an elevator always going up and down or like a roller coaster and we can’t wait to get off. Life is like a coin, don’t spend it flipping out. Life is like a bad movie, or a good movie whichever fits the situation. Life is just an excuse for paying taxes. Life is like a cakewalk, or a grindstone depending on our mood or the weather.

Life could be like a reality show on TV called Needle In A Haystack. Each contestant will approach the problem with a different strategy and energy level. Some would use the Gorilla logic where they roll around until they get poked while the magnet men will fish for success and the less energetic will whittle away by nibbling one straw at a time.

My favorite analogy for life is a sandcastle building contest. A sandcastle requires constant attention and even then it will fall apart at the slightest whim of the elements. The wind, the high tide and even time alone will tear down the strongest sandcastle and the players must rebuild and refine their skill in the process.

Each person’s sand castle represents their philosophy in life. Some people just turn the bucket over and wait to see how long it takes to turn flat again. Others go for height at any cost and end up wasting their efforts with inevitable avalanches. Then there are those who build in the ranch style and want to overtake as much beach as they can reach.

In the end it is not the castle that matters, it’s the not the actual structure that we remember as much as the fun we had building it and the feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day that tells the story of how we feel about life.

Even if we are sick and tired of building castles in the sand we must still find a way to make life fun. Of course real life is not always like a day at the beach, that's why we need handy life analogies so we can compare the bad times to something better.

Railroad Series: Chapter 12 - In The Clear

One of the few important duties that might fall on the Assistant Foreman was getting time on the radio. This involves calling the Central Dispatcher to request permission to place our Maintenance locks on the two switches at either end of our worksite. The Foreman usually does this but he asked me to do it since the Dispatcher was still mad from yesterday when we were 25 minutes late due the spike driver breaking down and we had to finish by hand.

The Dispatcher gave us two hours to finish and made it known that we wouldn’t get any time tomorrow if we were late again today. I promised to be in the clear on time. According to the official Book of Rules we are supposed to use the full phrase "Clear of the right of way" when the work is complete but after several Official hearings on the matter it was decided that all that’s required is the word "Clear".

I had fifteen minutes to get from the far end of the job site back to the nearest switch, remove the lock and make it back before calling the Dispatcher. The Foreman had the small pickup heading in the opposite direction which left me with the big 20 Man Gang Truck to go the mile and half and back again. It was a narrow steep road with sharp curves and the old gang truck had trouble making it around those corners at anything over minimum speed. Everyone else on the gang knew that critical fact except the new Assistant Foreman. As I careened along the roller coaster road at full speed I was checking the radio, finishing my lunch and planning even further ahead when I hit the sharpest corner and the old clunker bounced up once and froze in mid-air with the trailer hitch high centered on the dirt bank.

The back wheels were dangling in the air and I was busy calculating how long I had to get unstuck and still make it in time. I was already giving up on returning to the job site and decided I would call the dispatcher from the siding as soon as I remove the lock from the switch. Several solutions ran through my mind, call for help, try running on foot, call the Dispatcher and tell him I'm late, give up and have a cigarette...but first I must try my best to make it through unassisted.

I took a track jack out of the back of the truck and managed to move the bumper just enough to make the wheels touch the road again but every time I would get in the cab to drive away the jack would slip and the truck would end up stuck again. With one last look at my watch I decided I would be just as guilty if I was stuck on the other side of the road as this one.

Then I threw all caution to the wind like a young 21 year old might do and I put that old beater in 2nd gear and went back behind to start work with the track jack while the wheels were humming along in mid-air and as soon as those wheels hit the road away went the truck and the jack and me all together heading sideways back down the hill but at the last moment a well-placed stump stepped in and held the jack still which finally forced the truck out in the road where it slowly started chugging up the hill.

I hobbled over and got in the cab just in time to barely miss another truck coming around the corner looking for me but it was too late and the world would never know of my near mistake. I made it to the switch and removed the lock with barely a minute to spare before calling the Dispatcher to let him know we were "In The Clear". I spent the next three days with a sore knee from bob sledding with that track jack which is probably still imbedded in that stump to this day.

Systems Analyst Series – Chapter 4: How to be a Systems Analyst

Here are the tricks of the trade for the Systems Analyst.

Be The Machine

Seriously, get in the server room and touch those servers. Listen to them for whining fans or clicking drives. Smell for the lingering odor of the telltale burnt component. See that red light on Rack #5? That could mean something… Take the temperature in the server room, check the humidity and overall weather conditions to prevent runaway heat or loss of AC.

Monitor and Alert

There are a number of free monitoring and alert tools that will send an email, text message, phone call or turn a web page red to let you know there is a problem with any piece of equipment. In the old days we would get a page when a server was down but now we use smart phones instead. My favorite alerting software is called bigbrother which morphed into hobbit which had to change its name to xymon:http://sourceforge.net/projects/xymon/ At least this one is free and just as good as the expensive solutions.

Be Flexible

Sometimes you have to be physically flexible while working in tight spots behind the racks in the server room or sorting out cables under the user’s desk but the most common flexibility is interacting with other users. You have to open your calendar to accommodate any time, open you heart to engage with any user and open your mind to facilitate any scenario. Like the chameleon who matches the background the Analyst must fit in with all groups from the temps, to the execs or anyone in between. It helps to know a little about every group.

Be There

My cube is on the corner of First and Main and people always say I should move to a corner cube but my location says I am open for business and stop in any time. I could demand my own time and space but it seems like a cliché to be the grouchy old computer guy and this is not the season for being hard to work with, especially for us baby boomers.

Mess around with Stuff

It might seem counterintuitive but you need to break things on purpose so you get exposed to the error messages and solutions. If you are afraid of breaking things then you are a bad analyst. Anyone can break things and not feel bad about it; they are called regular users. The only thing that separates an Analyst from a regular user is the Analyst feels bad about it and wants to fix it as fast as possible. The regular user rarely realizes just how bad it's broken to begin with.

Be Picky

It's only natural for an Analyst to be a picky person. They can't help looking for faults and vulnerabilities. In everything. But don't get the idea that they are omnipotent or all observing because they are selective about what they scrutinize. What do you expect from a picky bastard?

Ignore Things

The other primary instinct of the average Analyst is knowing when to ignore things. You can't look at everything so it's really a matter of looking past most things to find the real rub. No sense chasing after wild geese when the cooked goose will come home to roost soon enough. So the next time you see a Systems Analyst looking all spaced out it might be their best work of the day.

Be Real

You might think an analyst would be clever and sharp but if they had those qualities they would get a better job. Instead you have those people who couldn't quite concentrate hard enough to be a real engineer. Like a Minor League player who never makes it to the Big League, they love to play, but not the pay, which is never enough.

The Hands of a Clown

When I was in the 9^th grade I broke my leg because I thought I could do a back flip off the bleachers in the Gym. I was supposed to be warming up for the first day of Wrestling practice and I was full of myself after I had already proven my skills in regular PE class and the coach assured me I would win a spot on the team if I tried out. I ended up on crutches with a full leg cast for 3 months and that was the end of my sporting career.

One of the projects during my recovery was an oversized paint-by-number of a sad clown with his hands clasped in his lap. It took a long time to finish and as I proceeded I got better so the edges were rough but by the time I got to the middle it started to look good. Everyone who saw the finished painting remarked how lifelike the hands were and even I had to admit they had a spooky quality that far exceeded the rest of the painting. I remember working with particular detail on that part of the picture but not because of my skill but rather the genius that drew the lines for me to follow.

The rest of the painting was unremarkable if not below average, maybe that's what made the hands stand out as being so good but only compared to the rest of the story. Isn't that the way with most of our accomplishments? We may get one part perfect but that fact gets lost in the mess when the rest of the project is only mediocre and disguising all our best efforts. A true artist is gifted from beginning to end but the rest of us have to work our way up to greatness and that means we are just ordinary for most of the journey.

Even Sherlock Holmes was never as interested in the content of the character as he was in the character’s contents. He would get more information from an inspection of the suspects hands than the interrigation. You can tell more about a clown by his real hands than by his real face. Just like a Hollywood actor, you won't find the truth in their face after the Doctors finish lifting but you can still find the real age by looking at their feet, or hands. The next time you wonder why someone won’t look you in the eye, be careful they aren’t looking at your hands instead.