'Cause They are Hosts of My Blogs!
And I Sure Hope They Laugh at This...Else I'll Cry!
I really planned to hopefully finish my latest book so I could go back to talking about a book instead of myself... But I saw another video on YouTube, also owned by the same counpany... Frankly these are my favorite sites to visit... Sigh...
Anyway, it had TikTok as a possible share, so I clicked over to see, once again, whether I had the nerve to open an account on still another social site... Somehow or other up popped a new screen that said You and Google... Oh, yeah, I now remember, I wanted to try TikTok on my desktop, cause I need larger print, ya' know... So Chrome would be the host for this new site...
So, of course, I started checking out about me and Google rather than worrying about using another social site...
And I click on safety... I was told I had a problem with one of my passwords... Happened 30 days ago...Nobody told me? Anyway, I need to get to passwords so I had to sign in again, even though I was already signed in to another Google site. And I attempted to change my password like I've done at least 100 or more times... It didn't work.
What was worse, there was a password there that I knew I didn't create!
But it had my year of birth as part of the password. I WOULD NEVER DO THAT, I knew... So I sought help...
Yeah, you already knew... It was NOT a human... Furthermore, that computer could not help me and sent me some place else! Which really irritated me...
BTW, I think it was when I told that bot that I didn't understand when it told me to use Zoom and there was no way I knew how to do that on the screen... You know, of course, by now, I do not use a cell phone for the Internet... I figure it was telling me to zoom the screen... I reckon it could not imagine anybody who was not talking to it via a small little itty bitty piece of a box that is impossible to even type on or read...at least for me...
But hey, I've accommodated! I have both. My phone is for phoning somebody. My desktop is for all my stuff I want to do on the Internet...
Anyway, after it told me to go somewhere else and leave it alone, I got the message. And I kinda talked back and said that I ranked Google at 0 for communication because it wouldn't talk to me...without techietalk... and other insults... Well, let's face it, a computer is not a human. It has no empathy so why should I feel like I have to be nice to a machine?
So... I stopped a little bit and had lunch watching a video movie because my Direct TV hasn't worked for about 2 weeks... At least I was able to stop the movie in the middle since it was a recording previously saved...
And come back and talk about just why any machine problem sets me into PTSD... The longer version...
I was 18 when I started working in Personnel as a records clerk, introducing new employees to all the lovely paperwork you must fill out when you are hired... That began my interaction with the mainframe. I did all the work got it to the right department and it went on from there to get those people paid... Lots of different activities that I won't bother boring you with... But then after working for two VPs, I was asked to apply for a new position in a new department... You know all that by now, so I'm just going to deal with the computerization...
I've mentioned that I had dual different VPs to report directly to. One was for the Instructional program of the University. As soon as I was promoted, he was working to get classroom scheduling computerized. I, of course, would be the one involved in creating and ensuring what was needed in any system.... I ultimately confirmed that Schedule 25 would work for us... No Money... That VP left. He called me... Alaska now has Schedule 25, and as far as I am aware, WVU may never had computerized that important function...
Our office was also responsible for creating and maintaining an inventory of all facilities we owned or used... We had to create spreadsheets, using a mandated classification as defined federally. Those sheets were sent to Keypunching services, keyed, and a printout was provided. Any manipulation or actual use of that information was done by hand... I had to know the how, whys, and potential use of millions of pieces of data...
Even though our office was part of the administrative services, we didn't report to the money group. That was a different VP. Money services usually got priority to get people paid, take care of the income from students paying to come to school, and then to pay all our bills... Somehow, facilities never got priority... Let's face it, if we couldn't get classroom scheduling computerized, then a facilities inventory of each room on campus was even lower priority... Still we had to accomplish the tasks... By hand...
Soon bosses started to talk small computers... and my staff actually had to learn about ADABASE, NOMAD, TIF and various others who somebody had heard of... We were forced to train in one or two of these software languages, even though, ultimately none of those were actually selected by the power group, of course--all computer people. All who already had priority systems that had were already computerized.
Fortunately my job got more interesting when I became responsible for Space Allocation/reallocation. All to be done manually, however. I really loved my job, except for never gaining money for computers...
Finally some money was found and we got a small computer using dBase. We loaded our facilities inventory and was able to do some simple manipulation and sorting activities. I had designed a facilities management system which iwould nclude all of the administrative departments as well as access for deans/directors. I had even met with the directors of those units, preparatory to expanding the database. This is the paper I presented at a Facilities Management Seminar of nearby universities, where I found that WVU was far behind with regard to computerization...
And then it happened. My boss/director was promoted by the new Asst VP, who brought in his own loyalists 2 of them. I was being assigned more and more work...that previously had been handled by the director. This director never bothered to even get an overview of what I did.
But, as Associate Director by that time, he assigned me the responsibility of creating a capital construction financial system, which I did, losing my secretary to become an accountant. It had taken me a year of my life to handle a complete audit of the capital budget for West Virginia University. This included working with Board of Regents staff, relevant institutional financial staff, as well as internal new staff who had never been responsible for the financial management of a small or large project. I got it done and, although we didn't get the total amount that we should have received, because of the mistakes being made by the director's staff who were double allocating funds, I did get somewhat over $1M for my year-long audit.
During that time I lost funding for one of my own classroom project renovations for Eiesland a former music theatre which was to be upgraded as the largest lecture hall we had on campus, seating over 300... It was to cost about $1M which had been taken to also cover mistakes in allocation...
Things were being changed too quickly due to new administrators (sound familiar) and before long a reorganization had occurred. That was brought about by our hiring a group of consultants to complete a campus facilities utilization plan--something we should have been able to do with computers. Worse, the people who had been hired by others were not prepared to do the facilities analysis part which would have been done by my Facilities Analysts, if they had not been now supervised by a man who the new AVP had brought in, who did nothing to prepare him for his actual job, while I was doing my auditing... None of the ongoing facilities analyses were routinely completed. The office manager had been hired--who should have been trained to do the capital planning financial work... Instead, as I said, I lost my secretary so had no right-hand assistance.
Further, the systems staff I had just hired preparatory to building an internal system, was left hanging without any guidance due to the staff reshuffling with which I had no knowledge. In other words, I was back years before when I was managing one half of the office. Nothing major had occurred in my absence.
To make matters worse, those people who were in the planning section did not know how to interact with the consultants who had been hired. I was the ONLY one who knew the nomenclature of facilities planning and analysis. And it was I who had to stay and work with them while the architect went home. You see, architectural teckie talk is different from faciilties techtalk - nomenclature... I at least had worked to learn how to read drawings, etc, as we wanted to go into graphics facilities inventory and planning... So was prepared to direct all aspects of the office.
Unfortunately I went into Burnout and was told to take a medical leave by my personal doctor. When I returned, I was again put on Schedule 25 and, of course, nothing was done to proceed.
Staff changes started occurring, a reorganization occurred and I was transferred into the Department of Physical Plant. Under the two-faced director I mentioned earlier. Now seems to be the time to explain just what he did. We were, supposedly, scheduling and meeting with him on an ongoing basis about coordination between the departments. What we would be doing first before they could begin construction... All the stuff that Trump also ignored and brought into the construction crew without any planning and approval.
NOTHING WAS EVER PASSED ON TO THE PHYSICAL PLANT DEPARTMENT construction staff who would be working together with mine!
One of my facilities planners was told when they scheduled a meeting to start working as agreed upon, that the director had NEVER PASSED UPON THE AGREED PLAN OF ACTION!
That Director also left and the new director told me he didn't know what to do with me. I was an Associate Director, which was higher in rank for many of his present people. None of my staff were maintained, the former office was deleted. I had no idea whether those consultants ever finished their work and provided a report... If not, then the allocation and utilization of space on that campus has not been reviewed campus-wide for over 20 years...
The new Director did come in with what he'd wanted to do. He assigned me the job. I was to create a Deferred Maintenance inventory and funding proposal. Again it took about a year and many manhours from Plant supervisory staff to do the legwork for such a system, including cost estimating for every single item, such as replacing a tree, which should be replaced... I completed the project. The Director accepted it as accurate and scheduled a meeting with the VP/Pres... He came back from that meeting with his head down, ashamed to face me. The money people had shelved the report. They wanted to build a new building to make more of an impression, it seemed... That's my assumption. I learned that the new Director had made it a condition of his taking the job. He had been lied to...
Oh, yeah, to add insult to injury... My entire system was taken into the new Asst VP Office who knew nothing about computers nor, I imagine, bothered to learn... That individual placed a security block on that inventory which prevented me from access...
I literally had nothing to do. That Physical Plan director also left. I was invited to work with the ADA office. She immediately started talking about merging accessibility for the disabled into the facilities inventory. I said something like, I'm sorry, I have no access to that system anymore. Her mouth dropped. And gave me the only words that I understood of the whole mess that led to Job Burnout...
YOU HAVE BEEN USED AND ABUSED AND THROWN OUT...
So, if I have an attack of PTSD of failure to be able to easily use a new change of some new computer system about which nobody has even the courtesy to tell us about human to human, I hope I can be forgiven for every time, it seems like daily, that I face a screen or cell phone which has been "updated" by some techie or AI or whatever, who knows? It could even be trained highschool students for all we know...who play with whatever comes into their minds day or night with the thought "What If..."
Now you know what led to Job burnout. I consider myself Emotionally Damaged from that abuse by WVU. For having leaders who refused to see the bigger picture than what they wanted done... Yet still required employees to complete the job assignments of creating work that required an effective, well-built computer system...
Think about the following Story about many things, including the ways the computer is used to have the criminal issues done--as well as the story...
We have a lot to learn, but we must be sure that those using computers are working to help the citizens of the United States... not as a competition among software corporations!
Be humble enough to know that computers need to hear from those who actually have the knowledge and vision of what is needed, not the other way around. I believe in computers. I don't trust those who shove changes without contact or expect us to hunt our the tech jargon and try to figure out what/how to understand the latest change, which often and has been documented by me that actually created mistakes within my articles... Can you blame me for fighting back?
Gabby
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