In late August of ‘07, I moved to a new position out there in the World o’ Work ™. As many of the denizens at my new job will soon be making their appearances within these hallowed cyberhalls, I thought it might be useful to have a brief thumbnail sketch of them to guide you along, Constant Reader. To-wit, then, those with whom I spend many waking hours. (NB: this will encompass three separate posts)

Babbage: Our senior Unix admin. Babs is one of the few individuals with whom I’ve ever worked that knows the significance of the IBM 701. This can either be described as reassuring or frightening as hell, depending on one’s point of view. Besides being a top-notch Unix guy, he’s also a bit of a philosopher-king; in addition to having 30 years under his belt as a geek, he’s taken classes at the University of Heidelburg. In German. Key attribute: Sangfroid.

Sarge: Develops and maintains all server and security monitoring services for the company. In his prior life (geek for the Air Force) he handled sensitive communication for various departments, so he’s already well-versed in such machinations, although he’s oftimes hamstrung by the goofy lack of hierarchy our company has. (it’s flat as a pre-Magellanic worldview) Takes no shit from no body, and therefore occasionally finds himself gently at odds with his more mossbacked or less accomplished colleagues. To date, no blood has been shed. Key attribute: Whoop-ass.

Lore: PHP developer. Named not, as might assume for the Lore of Star Trek fame, but rather after the talented Lore Sjöberg of Brunching Shuttlecocks and Bad Gods fame. Not because he’s in any way like him, but because he looks like him. Lore is tremendously skilled, but has no safety valve. If he were a locomotive, he would go from “standing immovable on the siding” to “hurtling down the track at 240 mph with no deadman’s brake” almost instantaneously. Good man to know, especially in a crisis situation, but don’t…stand…in…front…of…him. Key attribute: Attaque à outrance.

Roebling: Our resident software engineer. He serves in the necessary “prophet on the rock,” preaching the gospel of good software design to those who have yet to accept the Good News into their hearts. In many cases, the ultimate doom of some of our more crack-brained hastily thrown together crisis management hacks work has been correctly ascertained by Roebling as being destined to fall apart under its own weight. Basically stated, from a good-design point of view, he’s almost always right. Conversely, however, we don’t have anything better to replace any of the crappy software yet, either. Can’t stop the business, don’t you know. Key attribute: Loathing.

Doodlebug: Big D is our boss. He’s been in technology for about has long as I have, but much more of his time has been spent as a manager and executive than have I. Smart guy, basically a good guy, but as they said in the Victorian era, a deep old file. Quotable quotes: “It is what it is.” (Used to close a topic.) “Take it offline” (shut the fuck up and fix it) and while not quotable, his cherubic, unsettling, and vaguely Pope-like grin. Dress him in red with a little hat, and he’s Richelieu. Key attribute: Management by fractal mathematics.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 12:06 am and is filed under Life, the Universe, and Everything, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.