Incredible India: We lost power to internet (sic)

To the higher ups

There must come a day when I will have nothing to moan about but give effusive praise and I expect it to come soon.

I took the liberty of sending links to my last two blogs to the main contacts I had before I visited India. I received a short and a lengthy response but the long and short of it all was my concerns were acknowledged and passed up to those that matter, then some advice as to how to manage the situation and the clear support to be calm, insistent and acquire whatever remediation I require even if it involves escalation to whoever has the ways and means to right the situation.

I am well advised and will take heed to that view.

Books, lights and global disconnect

The day started early as we were picked and drove straight to the training centre. I arrived before my trainer and saw that the systems had been changed to cater to the next course on my schedule.

Soon afterwards, the manuals for that course arrived, all probably weighing 5 kilogrammes and constituting a spot of bother as to how one will cart them home without ending up in the cargo bay.

Just after 11:00AM the lights went out, there was a power cut but the systems in central uninterrupted power supply kept running; within 5 minutes the lights were restored with generator power. I cannot remember when last I experienced a power cut like that but it was interesting.

However, with the power cut went our internet connection, we could connect to the access point but not beyond the router. I patiently waited for this to be resolved and it was two hours before I went to reception to ask about the issue.

If it’s free, I ain’t paying more

Meanwhile, I had considered getting a mobile data card but the costs of acquiring one compared to the locals was basically a rip-off apart from the fact that there was no reason for me to seek alternative internet access, you could not miss the fact that free wireless access was touted to distraction on every page that that concerned the training centres, it was a service to be expected, period.

The less complimentary side to this matter was once again, no one thought it proper to inform us of the problem and the estimated time to recovery of the service. Besides, this is an organisation that specialises in training that pertains to networks and connectivity, one’s confidence is not helped if an internet outrage suddenly extends beyond the competence of the personnel to fix within a reasonable time frame.

Respite yes, solution, not yet

Four hours and fifteen minutes after the internet outrage and long after mains power was restored we still had excuses with no resolution in sight. The receptionist then kindly offered me a mobile data dongle that I got to use for about 25 minutes before I had to give it back.

For the sake of all that is good and wholesome, it is expected that this essential service will have been restored when we return to the centre tomorrow morning – here is to wishing and hoping that tomorrow brings contentment, praise and worthy accolades, but honestly, I will not be holding my breath.

By the way, I really enjoyed training today, it seems to be the only mercy of comfort left to praise.

On Facebook, they are not easily found

There not to be seen

I was chatting to my sister this afternoon and was informed that many of my siblings and cousins were on Facebook; that ultimate global connector to a life you once lived and allowed to drift away with the encumbrance of other events and issues.

Having the smarts to ask, I wondered if everyone was there with their common names, somehow we had certain names as children but those names seem to have changed from the nicknames to fully spelt out names in some instances and in others the spelling was just not the commonly accepted arrangement of letters.

As it happened none of the names were exactly what I would call low hanging fruit, easy to pluck with a basic search – I tried every permutation except for the probably obvious and they were still lost in the Facebook quagmire.

CSI Facebook

In the end, it took the search for a cousin with a deduction about a possible birth-date and a scan of the Facebook Wall to find the first connection and from there I was exposed to new realities of people I once knew quite well.

There is this common view of meeting long lost relatives where one surmises having passed by a close relation and having treated that person as a common stranger.

With uncommon identities on Facebook that risk was almost too self-evident if one were to be utterly, utterly cross to the point of using rather unfriendly expression with a stranger who just happens to be your close relation because the interaction does not reveal what should be the obvious.

English, but not as I know it

I have asked myself if I was ready for Facebook [1] but even more I wonder if I am even readier for an expression of English that would give me headaches – writing in SMS-speak and it basically leaves a purist and “oldie” as I completely flummoxed.

I once had my mother help convert the text message of a sibling to something I could digest, this time, because mum is not yet on Facebook, I would either have to learn or be left behind in the wake of communication that is far above my head.

What my conservative mien would call sloppy is entirely acceptable to another generation of writers but I really do pray that this is not what ends up on formal communication as in examinations or reports.

This is really no more facing the book, the book is being thrown in your face and he who has eyes had better begin to read and write – as for me, let’s just say this is the prequel to Die Hard VI.

Source

[1] Are you ready for Facebook? [akin.blog-city.com]

Tapping my network for work

Tapping my network

Over 20 years of work experience, I have done many things and worked with people. Today, I decided to tap on the network of people I have met in my working life and ask for their assistance in finding a job.

Some of them I have not spoken to in a very long time, but somehow, I felt seeing my message might remind them of their experiences of my expertise, work ethic and abilities and hopefully, they might just rekindle that with offering me a job or recommending me to other recruiters in their network.

The text of the letter follows and I just thought, if I could not use my professional contacts, my blog, my social networks and any other connections to find work too, what are those networks for if they are not also part of life itself?

The letter

I have overcome adversity and now I seek opportunity, opportunities I hope and believe you all as ex-colleagues at work or at school, who I have worked for, worked with or helped at work can offer – I address you all.

I do have an extensive curriculum vitae but that only contains some basic truths of my work experience and maybe what I have achieved before, I definitely cannot put in another section talking about how I fought cancer or how you liked or hated working with me, those are life experiences of a different significance.

However, having come out of that situation, I need to get back to work and want to get back to work – I am speculating and hoping that with the recall of experiences you have had working with me you can help me with assignments or know people who have assignments that you believe I can tackle with the ability, expertise and professionalism you remember me for.

I know this is an unusual message to send to you all but if I cannot tap on the wonderful experiences and network I have had in the last 20 years in this critical but necessary time, then I might have failed to have any impact in all the workplaces where I have been given the opportunity to work, serve and maybe change for the better, all with your help.

I have attached my resume [My LinkedIn Profile here] for your perusal and hope that very soon occasion will warrant being at your service again, I can also be contacted on number provided.

Thank you and the very kindest of regards,

Yours faithfully,

Akin Akintayo

So, all I have to do now is wait and I will keep you posted as to how it all turned out.

Are you ready for Facebook?

Afraid to suck

For years, I had a public presence on the Internet in professional forums and through a blog that has been running for over 6 years.

In fact, I dabbled at creating a personal homepage which went online with Compuserve in 1994 but in the process of designing the page I came across a website which was titled “Web pages that suck” with the byline of teaching you good page design from looking at bad examples.

It did not take long for me to realise that I was not some quintessential artist and my dabbling was on for a great mockery – I pulled down everything despite my long acquaintance with professional desktop publishing.

Facing the book

In all that time, I heard of the social networking sites as they evolved, but never thought much of those connections, I dared to join Twitter early last year as a micro-blogging forum but Facebook was off my radar.

It was one of my ex-colleagues who persuaded me to look into Facebook in December and since then it has been an experience.

Memories are recalled, histories replayed and long lost contacts and relationships are getting restored, some too sudden and others just about comfortable with the rush of emotions it entails.

The past revived

At the risk of becoming an emotional wreck, just one message came through and one link lead to another and my life 20 years ago was being reconstructed with ever brick falling in place, every aspiration rekindled anew, every old thought almost becoming a haunting and every smell recreating the atmosphere that had almost become a fossil of memory.

There is no telling that the kids of those days are now well into parenting whilst the parents might soon be great-grandparents – time changes, time transforms, time ages and the observer of time appears to stand still looking through the hub to the circle of timely and untimely milestones.

Are you ready?

Facebook becomes more than facing the book, you are facing the facts, facing the truths, facing the lies, facing the realities and facing the mirages – castles with moats and castles in the air – can one really assimilate all that information and remain anything like sane?

Has anyone really stopped to consider where their Facebook will take them today and are they ready to go on that journey of undiscovered connections which might well unearth things that should have been left buried if we dared to resist the peer pressure of having the book thrown in our faces?

Mixed emotions all, happy and sad, grateful and rueful, considered and inconsiderate, glad and envious – a turmoil of butterflies in the stomach and excited anticipation – you really do wonder – are you really ready for the force of Facebook?