Bitching About Work

I’ve been having computer troubles at work recently. Something’s wrong with one of our servers, and I don’t know how to fix it. I’ve tried everything I know how to do, including searching on Google, but nothing seems to be working. The server is a Hyper-V server, which means it’s virtualized. It’s not a real computer but a operating system running inside another operating system. The host machine runs two virtualized servers, and the other server isn’t causing me any problems. In fact, I did some maintenance on this server recently and everything seems to run just a bit better than before. Except, for the other server. The main thing it’s doing is causing our time clock software to run super slowly. That was the symptom that pointed me down this rabbit hole of stress. People obviously hate when computers run slowly, so I’ve been tasked to fix this since I’m the only tech guy at this school, but I can’t seem to track down the main issue.

There was a bit a time a few weeks ago up to about a week ago where things at work were going super smoothly. It seemed like I was fixing every little problem that came up, and I grew confident. Everyone seemed to like me, and all I’ve been hearing about me were good things. I thought I had a handle on this job. Apparently not. I remember during the first few weeks at work I devoted a lot of my time to learning everything I could about the job. Recently, though, that desire to learn has waned and now I feel like I’m paying the price. After work, I received an email from a teacher who told me she can’t use a certain math program that her elementary school students use. I looked up the program, and lo and behold, it uses components that are installed on this problem server, so I’m seeing more problems trickle down across the school caused by this server. I’m unsure about what to do.

Part of me today wished I could just reinstall everything and start over. It seemed like everything the previous tech guys did to these servers were patches and band-aids and not long-lasting and well-configured systems, and now I’m paying the price for it. I mean, originally these servers ran Windows Server 2000. They were then upgraded to Windows Server 2003. Eventually, they went from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012. Upgrades are worse than clean installs, and I’m seeing why. Windows Server 2012 improved upon technologies that Windows Server 2000 used, but many of these systems weren’t configured correctly to take advantage of them. Files are still pointing to these old ways when the newer ways can improve the speed and efficiency of the network, except the work required to upgrade and fix all the computers and devices tied to the old ways is mind boggling. I can’t do much work now because school is still going and people depend on these devices to work now. Very frustrating.

Anyways, wow, I spent like three paragraphs bitching about work. I guess I should mention, before I go, that my copy of Insanity: the Asylum Volume 2 arrived today. I have 11 more days of this hybrid workout before I devote the following 30 to this new program. I’m excited. Also, I bought new headphones to replace my old ones. They arrived today, and they’re so much better than the old ones. I’m really happy with that purchase. And now I go to sleep. Night.