I'll get right on that!

We have a department here at work that I won't mention by name, but let's just say it rhymes with Shmurveillance. Now this is a department you would expect to be on the ball. On top of things. They are technically one of the 'watchdogs'. They should be aware of whats going on and be proactive and all that jazz. Right?!?

Due to regulations here, we are not allowed to replicate certain data to our hot site unless there is a camera there that is monitored by said department here. It can't be monitored by security at the remote site, it HAS to be monitored from here to be in compliance. So this presented a bit of new situation for the department and so we have been working with them to come up with a viable solution to this problem.

Now, this situation first came up close to 2 years ago.. and we have been working/fighting with them since. We finally got some equipment onsite in January of this year. When they brought it up, I questioned the purchase and if they actually had everything they needed. They bought the camera and one signal converter. I asked them "Don't you need another signal converter on this end to get it back to what you use in your system?" Queue up the quizzical looks and head scratching. /sigh

So they agreed to go back and research it with the company. Apparently 'research it' meant 'forget about it for an extended period of time and hopefully it will go away'. This phrase, 'research it', was much like an old supervisor of mine using the phrase 'let's tag-team this' which really meant 'you do it and I'll take credit'. It's all about knowing the language I guess.

Anyway, in this extended time period that we have been waiting for this camera install, that same department insists on sending EVERY work request up to us with "URGENT" or "ASAP" or "EXPEDITE" all over it. Oh the irony. It's that whole scratch-my-back-i'll-scratch-yours thing. Only they seem to want a back scratch, then a massage, and even a happy ending to boot and are not willing to even look at our backs in return.

In this vein, I stumbled across some new office words that I found helpful to know the definition of:

Blamestorming - A group discussion of why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.

Glazing - Corporate-speak for sleeping with your eyes open; a popular pastime at conferences and early-morning meetings. “Didn’t he notice that by the second session half the room was glazing?”

Percussive Maintenance - The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

Salmon Day - The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end. “God, today was a total salmon day!”