Working on a Saturday sucks

[JDLush]

Just some ramblings while I throw out the 5th bring in bet in a row on an FTP razz table.

I had to work today. I'm still there (here) actually. It's 5:20 on a Saturday, I've been here since 8:15. Might not be a big deal to y'all, but I am the I.T. Officer at a community bank. I work at a bank for one reason - no late nights, and weekends off. Ok, that's 2 reasons, sue me. The pay sucks, at some time in the not too distant future we will be taken over by some crappy big bank, and the girls here all have fat asses. But I have weekends off.

Except for today.

Today was (is) 'upgrade the operating system on the AS/400 day'. For those of you that don't have AS/400s to take care of (ok, that's 99.5% of you), the AS/400 is the place that all your money is kept (in a virtual way). It's basically a small mainframe. IBM calls it an 'iSeries' now, but anyone and everyone that deals with them still calls them AS/400s. Well, they usually refer to them as 'the 400'. Humonguous banks will usually have a full blown mainframe, but almost every small bank on the planet has (or is outsourced on) a 400. The things are bulletproof. They run forever, can handle a gazillion jobs at once, and look cool (if you're like TightWad and think that large, shiny, black things are cool).

Upgrading the OS on one of these is not the same as on your typical Windows PC. There is no 'file/run/setup.exe' option. You need to speak 400, and have the patience to load about 30 CDs with the occasional cryptic command here and there. There is no mouse on an AS/400. Compound that with a backup before and after, plus 2 reboots (they call them IPLs - short for Initial Program Load) which take 45 minutes each, and you're looking at a 10 hour day minimum. And that's assuming you have a fast box to begin with.

Anyway, while I'm waiting for the first backup to finish I signed on to UB to kill some time. Jump on a $50 NL table and get QQ about 8 hands in. Raise it up to $2. Flop comes QK6, nice. I bet about 1/3 the pot, get one caller who has a remaining stack of maybe $4. 10 comes on the turn, I push him in and he promptly shows J9 for the str8. Ahhh, so it's gonna be one of THOSE kinda days.

2 minutes later, my tape drive burps and tells me my tape is no good. This would be the next to last tape I have available. Since I still need to do a post upgrade backup, that means I'm going out to look for a replacement. On Saturday. Do you know how many office supply stores that are open on a Saturday in the Poughkeepsie, NY area carry 8mm 20GB data cartridges ? Yeah, that's right, none.

So now I have to finish the install and cross my fingers and hope that the 'slightly used' tape I grabbed will hold out till Monday when I can get some new tapes delivered.

Of course, that means I have to work late on Monday. Dammit!!

[TightWad]

...

What the hell did he just say?

Eh, probably wasn't important.

-TW

[Felonius_Monk]

[Rhound50]

You know what else sucks, spending my whole sunday studying. Than next weekend is memorial day, so we get monday off, good stuff. Other than the fact that I only have optional CS lab hours on monday, and my program is due on tuesday, so I cant get help if I need it since the damn lab is closed.

[sammax71]

What really sucks is that I have to work EVERY Saturday AND Sunday.

[kingsalami]

We have an as400 accounting box at work. I stay as far away from it as possible!!!!