This week Eric, Max and me finally managed to get more IT-related worktasks. We were introduced into the 1st and 2nd level support helpdesk in the firm. The Tech Department consists of many people which are given tasks between programming and supporting of the employees. There’s plenty of work to do since the different branches in NI keep over 1000 employed and there are more PC’s then persons in the buildings. There are Linux, Windows and Mac Operating systems which will make the work for us even more interesting. The last few days we had to move PCs from one place to another and keep the workplaces in an operating state. We also had to tidy up a storage-room which had caused some trouble because some people were not okay with it, but Peter managed it to reconcile the problems. All in all we’re looking forward to a few exciting weeks but until now I really enjoyed my stay in Belfast.
Kategorie: Allgemein
Thursday the 22th
Hello everyone,
the halfway is nearly taken and I got a project on my own from my workplacement. need to configure a test environment with Windows Server 2012 R2 and install the Data Protection Manager in conjuntion with a SQL Database Server. After finishing the initial setup I have to create a Backup scheme and I have to migrate Windows XP PCs to Windows 7 and also there’s a lot of other work to do.
My supervisor showed me a program which I never heard of before. It’s called HBCD and it’s very useful. It boots into a live Windows XP or Windows 7system and enables you to create an image of a HDD and play it back. It also includes loads of other useful tools and features.
The project is quite difficult, but I’m sure I can manage it.
The other people in my workplacement currently install a PXE-Server for the PCs which will be migrated soon.
Crazy Tuesday
Hi there!
Yeah, actually this week was kinda boring until now, because the colleage who should introduce me into my project is still not here. But it seems that the project will keep me occupied for some weeks, so I’m looking forward for some interesting stuff. The last few days I’ve tried to improve my English skills with some Duolingo tasks which had been recommended by a befriended developer from Germany. Today I will be on tour again for some field work. And for those of you who are surprised at my title: The most cinemas here have a cinema day on Tuesday and at the Movie House on Dublin Road these days are called „Crazy Tuesdays“. Every movie costs only 3 £ for everyone, so of course we used this day to watch a movie. We’ve watched „Bad Neighbours“ which was really funny. Only the end could have been better. And next week we want to watch the new Godzilla movie but this time in 3D.
Workout
I returned The Notebook to Travelling Languages yesterday after work and used the opportunity to ask about our trip to Connemara this weekend. I’m really looking forward to it but I guess everyone knows that by now. I have also made plans for the weekends in June. Nothing’s written in stone but I want to go to Howth and Greystones/Bray because the views are supposed to be great and I can hop on to the DART for both so it’s not going to be too expensive.
So I was telling you about buying my hiking boots. Naturally, you have to break them in before they get comfortable. Well, I am trying to do that since yesterday and seeing as I only have today and tomorrow to kind of soften the leather a bit, I actually don’t believe I will achieve much until I need them this weekend. However, I had a nice long walk yesterday because the bus that was supposed to be at the station in “2 minutes” finally arrived after about 30 minutes of waiting for “2 minutes”.
Of course, it didn’t stop to let anybody on because it was full. Now, the good thing about the real time information of the Dublin Bus is that… ummm… it is that… phew… umm… okay, there is actually zero, zip, nada, zilch… *taking a breath* …bupkis, diddily squat, nothing good about this crappy display. Those things are lying through their LEDs and they are devoid of any emotion so they can’t even feel bad or good about it. They are lying and they just don’t care!
So after waiting roughly another 10 minutes only to have the second bus pass me by without stopping either, I decided to eff this ess and walk home.
This is the route I took: https://goo.gl/maps/g2sqR
It turned out to be a nice “walkout”, my heart racing not only from the exertion but also from the rage boiling inside me. That rage ebbed off while the exhaustion grew and after another hour, I arrived home to three Spanish girls trying to cook what I assumed was to be an omelet. Ann was watching them as they were following the recipe of one of the girls’ grandmother. Now, it was actually only potatoes and eggs in the pan but I was told that it’s “not easy”. I settled with expressing my agreement and underlining that with the widely known fact that the fewer ingredients a dish has, the harder it is to prepare… just think of preparing tea – that’s a science in itself. 😉
This morning it dawned on me that I had left my hoodies at work and since I didn’t want to wear my coat, I came to work wearing my leather jacket. I ♥ my leather jacket! It will come in handy today because the Dublin Staff Relay is happening after work and it is supposed to rain in the afternoon and while I hope that our tent will be enough to protect us from the downpour, it sure is nice to have an extra layer of protection. But let’s just hope for the best!
Cheers,
Angelo
Edit: I just wanted to check the weather again and it first showed me the forecast for Germany. You guys have 31°C while I have 13°C and rain. Now, I knew what I was getting into but there is no reason I shouldn’t be able to be even just a little disappointed right now.
Getting Ready
Monday was kind of a slow day. I was still stuffed from Sunday evening because Eamonn (my host dad) made potatoes and potatoes and beans and a few more potatoes and fish and soup. He also talked me into having a pint of Guinness with him and later when I complimented him on the food, he slipped me another pint. I had a really bad night that night because my stomach was aching in almost every possible position that I tried to sleep in (and there aren’t really that many sleeping positions). I did have breakfast, although I didn’t think I could fit anything in that morning. Work was good, as I put a couple of cables in place, to replace some of the old patching and worked on the documentation of the whole thing some more. I got offered a server to install a couple of VMs to try whatever I liked and I love the opportunity to try that out some time this week.
Today, I switched some of the ports and so far nobody complained. I guess I will take that as quiet confirmation of my good work because nobody affected was actually aware that I have changed things. I also had to “fix” a printer earlier today. The Lady at the front desk changed the toner and after that the printer got hung up on the idea that it would be cool to process the job using the manual tray. There was no paper in that tray, naturally. So I did what the printer asked me (or anyone who would be willing to listen) to do: push the “OK”-button to use another tray. I did that and the printer was happy to oblige and print to the end of all days or at least till it runs out of toner again.
People here are getting ready for the Dublin Staff Relay on Thursday which I will attend to help with the organization because I can’t really run 5k in much faster than 45 minutes and I believe that’s just not going to cut it. I still like the fact that I’m being invited to all those company events. The staff here tries to maintain an internal social network which is an awesome idea because as I explained some time ago, most of the people working for System Dynamics don’t really get to see each other when they’re on-site with the clients.
After work today I went to O’Connell Street to one of the many camping/outdoor shops there and bought a pair of hiking boots, for ~70€, for my tour to Connemara this weekend and also the upcoming company hiking event I will attend in the first week of July. I’m very excited about this weekend and I hope that the weather will turn out nice so I can take lots of pictures of Ireland’s wildest region for you guys… Or no pictures and just enjoy the hell out of it 😉 we’ll see 😛
Take care
Angelo
My work experience: Firday
Hi everybody!
Now I am going to talk about last friday and what we experienced. The thing is that friday nearly half of the building is empty because there aren’t so much people working at friday. Thats means that we also have less to do at work. We had nearly a three hours break because there was nothing to do at that time and when we worked it was just finishing the other tasks from the days before. So yeah we also asked Peter if we could get more IT related tasks to do but he toled us that this is not his desicion and we have to wait another week or two to get better tasks. After work I went to the Victoria Centre tand took a nice view over Belfast even if the weather was not so good.
Friday on Concentrix
On Friday Peter took me over to the Concentrix branch in inner Belfast. We’ve had loads of work
to do there and he arranged a meeting with Marc from the Technology department of the firm,
so that they could get us to know better. We’ve talked about my background and what’s
the stuff I usually work on in Germany. Marc was very kind and told me that he will talk
to David who’s the leader of the helpdesk and development part of the Tech. Dep. so that we
can get some more IT related tasks. When I finished talking to the people Peter took me around the building and we decorated some walls with the firm principles, world maps and clocks.
After a short lunch break which I took in a nice Greece restaurant which offered meals for cheap prices, we had to relocate some lockers into other floors so that people can store their valuables safely. The firm has got a hot desk principle which means that one usually never stays at one desk
for longer then one day, you can log in and start working wherever you are. In the afternoon
we had to clean up a room on the first floor and when we’ve finished Peter took me back to the Lesley Exchange building to meet up with Eric and Max. All in all my first week on Concentrix was okay. We hope to get some different tasks soon, but David will call us back during the next week so lets see what we can expect for the next time.
First week on Concentrix
Peter who’s still responsible for us and our work in the
company is very busy so he couldn’t observe us the whole time.
So Eric, Max and me were given several tasks to accomplish on our own.
He has (like all local people I’ve met there and here) a strong Belfast dialect
which is at times pretty unique. That and the fact that the people speak very fast
sometimes make it hard to follow conversations, but I slowly adapt to the
normal day english. In the Lesley Exchange building on the 2nd floor was an improvised
storage section which was pretty messy. It seems like all departments of the company
tucks their stuff away there and forget about it, so it was our job to tidy it up
and rearrange all the things neatly and organized. It was very time consuming but
we were able to manage that on Wednesday. After we had finished we were told
to drill brackets off the left side of the desk and drill it again to the right side of it.
Because there were many of them (and still are) this was (besides some smaller ones) our main task for Thursday, too.
The weekend in total
Hello everyone,
we went yesterday to a market in the city centre, at the market there is a lot of food from many countries of the world and it was very interesting but also very expensive.
We visited a german shop which offered german „Bratwurst“ , I’m so happy about this because the irish food is delicious but not my favorite. So i bought 10 german „Bratwursts“ for a lot of meals.
The german had a tent which looks like a small Munich Beer Festival and there were a lot of people.
The people there looked very over dressed and I think it was a big event in belfast.
Today it was raining the whole day and it is a really depressing wheather but thats not a reason for irish people not to run an marathon.
two weeks now
Two weeks ago we arrived at the airport in Dublin. And we had time to see the city and speak the the people living here. I have to say Dublin is a beautiful and a really nice place to be. The people here are really kindly and the overall feeling in the city is wonderfull. I hope evryone have a good time here.