Overglorified Office Administrator

So my colleagues and friends like to say that I'm the super admin at the company, and while I'm grateful for the vote of confidence from everyone, I also think they are exaggerating. There are loads more super-admins around and I know for a fact that I don't compare to them, but I think my colleagues think that I am because of my work attitude of "if I want to get things done, better do it myself and not rely on others."

So I managed to twist the IT department to loan a spare laptop for the conference room with full video-conference set up, as I'm anticipating my Boss leaving town for some other business for a while. That conference room is a shared conference room so the practice was, whoever needs to present anything, they bring their own laptops and hook it up to the projector, so there was never a "conference room computer" people to use.

Well, because of what I asked IT to do, now there is.

Today, after much confusion (my Boss cancelling on people and then suddenly reinstating the meetings again with 3 minutes to spare), the other people came up to me and asked if they could relocate to another conference room because the laptop wasn't working.

I raised an eyebrow. "How do you mean not working?"

"You can't log in!"

I thought that weird. IT set that up just yesterday, so I didn't have the chance to check it out just yet. So I went to the conference room to have a look. Laptop sitting on the conference table, nice, compact. With the anti-theft thing keyed in and tied into a hidden part of the table (where you can hide all the cables, etc). Without thinking, I tried to log in and indeed, it didn't work out.

So I looked at it again. I noticed one thing. The table was very clean. And then it clicked. The LAN line isn't connected, there was no internet, of course it couldn't get logged into the company domain. Then the VGA cable was not connected, so the projector wasn't showing anything.

But I did a boo-boo. When I noticed the LAN line wasn't connected, I made an off-hand comment (totally no malicious intent) of "ah the genius forgot to connect the LAN line" LOL and immediately I realized I said something wrong, coz the guy that complained that the laptop wasn't working was standing just next to me. I had to backtrack and keep putting myself down by saying, "ah, look how clever I am, I've forgotten about the VGA line, of course it won't display on the projector," and after some more cold minutes "geez, am I being such a klutz, the power's not connected!" (Despite it having no effect on whether the laptop would work or not LOL)

The computer worked immediately as soon as I connected the LAN line, but logging into a new computer takes forever, and now the guy was saying "how will you project MY presentation then?" With an accusatory tone that, now I've wasted time getting the laptop to set up to my account. Geez. So why didn't you log in when I said the LAN line was connected? I didn't want to cause a fight, so I just told him to email that to me. And he was trying to be a smartass by saying "oh but if you log in into Outlook it will take forever to download the emails from the server as well!"

Again, I said something not-that-good without the intention of causing harm. "Easy, I'll just log in by Webmail then."

Well, they were stunned. Those colleagues that had been working for a while commented "But Webmail has been deactivated!!!" And those colleagues that are newer went "We don't have Webmail in this company!"

I calmly typed in the webmail address and said "Webmail only works when you are within the company domain. You can't log in at home, but you can log in at work. The only thing is it doesn't allow you to actually download anything, so you'll have to stream your presentation. But it's still faster than waiting for Outlook to download my entire mailbox onto a new computer."

So, for something that the others would request a change of the meeting venue, or to actually call IT field services, I managed to troubleshoot all that for them. I'm not trying to make fun of the people who don't know how to work computers, but come on, they are from the younger generation, they supposedly have a lot of work experience, they supposedly have experience in technology. It's not an attempt to write code. It was just putting the cables together. I mean, if you look at a USB cable, you would not try to stuff it into the VGA slot right?

Friday Five 30-April-2021 #2

Questions from thefridayfive

1) What's the furthest place you've traveled to in the last 12 months?
I'm stuck in Macau and Macau is not a country in and of itself, it's just a city comprised of a peninsula (the main city), 2 outlying islands, and now a tiny bit of land (I don't know if it's rented or gifted or sectioned or what) from China to hold the University. With a total land area of around 33km.sq (12.7sq.mi), there really isn't much of anywhere to go. It's claimed to be "part of China" but you need to have valid travel documents to cross the border into China, so come on, it's technically not China. A Citizen of Macau who is not of Chinese Nationality (e.g. Me!) and holds a foreign-country passport will still require a visa to go to China.

So, since the pandemic and all the travel restrictions, I haven't been able to go anywhere. So the furthest away I've gone is Coloane island.

2) What's the most interesting small town within driving distance?
This IS the small town and EVERYWHERE is driving distance LOL. But I guess if it's interesting you are looking for, then I guess the Coloane Village in Coloane island is picturesque.

3) What's the coolest tourist attraction in your city?
As I've been immersed here everyday, I don't have an opinion of what is cool or not. But I suppose, for thrill seekers, the coolest would be the Macau Tower, where you can do the Bungee Jump (free fall) or the Sky Jump (controlled fall).

4) What was your favorite road trip you took as a kid?
The Taipa and Coloane islands LOL. Before the whole Casino and economic boom, Coloane was very hard to get to, you could only go if you had a car, or you walked. Bus service was limited. My Dad had a restaurant there, and I liked going with him to his restaurant on the weekends, coz then I got to bike around and explore the backyard. The backyard led directly to the "forest" (really just some trees) that would lead to the nature trail, but as a kid everything looked bigger so it was like looking into the forest LOL.

5) How often do you feel like you've got to get away?
Oh, any time the travel restrictions are lifted and I'll scram. As I got my 2 vaccinations already, technically I could go request for a China visa to go to China, but none of my friends (Chinese or otherwise) are willing to go anyway, and China is a place I would not go to alone.

Harry Potter Fandom and a smattering of other things

First off, this is showing off. Ooops I did it again! I said no toys, but LOL

Draco Malfoy!!!!! My pretty boy!!

What happened was, I was out window shopping with my Sis, walking around when I toy store was having a sale on their Qposket dolls. And it was cheeeaaapppppp. I grabbed a Sailor Jupiter, and my Sis joked that "now you have to collect them all!", but I said no, coz, I have no space for that, so I would only buy the characters I like.
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And THAT, is the extent of my Harry Potter craze. LOL