Webforms, Webforms, Webforms

I think I’ve mentioned that my job is typically not very challenging.  A lot of the time it is quite boring, though fortunately I get extra projects every so often that are interesting enough to keep things tolerable.  But this week’s extra project has been the worst stuff I’ve had to do there yet.

The company I work for is doing a study on other companies’ response time for webforms: you fill out the webform for a company and then track when and how the responses come from that company.  The concept is good, and the technology to track the responses is pretty cool.  Here’s the really bad part: all the webforms have to be filled out manually.  Thousands of them.  And of course I was one of the lucky people that got the assignment to do it.  So in the past week I have filled out literally hundreds upon hundreds of webforms.  The monotony has been nearly unbearable.  My fingers have started getting stiff from being in the same position for so long copying and pasting, and copying and pasting, and copying and pasting data into the forms.  Fortunately we only have a few hundred to go, so sometime midday tomorrow I’ll be able to stop (I hope).

It turns out that filling these out is starting to warp me.  Today during lunch I needed to fill out a webform for something.  I can’t remember now what it was.  But I realized then that I have developed a pretty strong abhorrence for filling them out.  As soon as I saw the webform I thought, “Nope.  Changed my mind.  It isn’t worth it.  I’m not filling it out.”  And I didn’t.  I might not be able to fill out another webform for months. 

Crossed Connections

I work for a company that provides technology to assist in efficiently managing leads and/or customers.  It also integrates with the telephone system to provide some pretty cool telephony tools for both inbound and outbound calling.  The integration with the phone system works quite well most of the time, but the other day I heard one of the funniest recorded telephone conversations I've ever heard when two calls got crossed in the system.  To make it easier to follow, I'll give names to those involved, though now I haven't any idea what their names actually were or even what company they worked for.

Jim and Suzie both work for Some Company, Inc.  Suzie is placing an outbound call to an elderly lady named Mrs. Brown.  At the same time an inbound call from Mr. Green comes in and goes to Jim.  In the process the lines get crossed.  So Jim and Mr. Green are still able to have a regular conversation, but Mrs. Brown is connected to Jim's half of the conversation: Mrs. Brown can hear what Jim is saying but Jim can't hear Mrs. Brown (and Mrs. Brown can't hear Mr. Green).  Suzie can hear the whole conversation, but no one can hear her.  Both calls were supposed to be recorded, so in actuality the call was recorded from both Mr. Green's perspective and Mrs. Brown's perspective.  Here it is from Mrs. Brown's perspective:

Jim: Hi, this is Jim from Some Company, Inc. How can I help you?
Mrs. Brown: [Confused] Um, I don't know.  You called me.
Jim: Yes Sir.
Mrs. Brown: [Obviously taken aback] I'm a woman.
[Brief Pause]
Jim: [Uncertainly] Uh huh.
[Pause]
Mrs. Brown: [Hesitantly] Are you a person?
Jim: [Decidedly] Yes sir. 
[Brief pause]
Jim: Okay so we won't send you any of our products right now. Can we still send you some materials for you to read?
Mrs. Brown: [Growing slightly exasperated] I don't even now where you are calling from. Who is this?
Jim: Okay, so we'll send that information to you right away. Is there anything else I can help you with?
Mrs. Brown: I don't want ...
Jim: Okay, thank you for your time sir.
[Call Ends]

I also listened to the recording from Mr. Green's perspective; the call made perfect sense from that side.  But man, it could not have matched what Mrs. Brown was saying better if it had been planned.  From what I heard, the system had a few glitches right in a row.  Poor Mrs. Brown got several calls, none of them intended for her. 

I'm sure that nobody ever called her to give her an explanation, either.  Someone should really send her a copy of both recordings.  I really wish I could get a copy of that recording, too.

Withdrawals from Thinking

It has been quite a while since I've been so intent on an activity that I've dreamed about it at night. For example, when I was in high school there was a while that I was programming during all of my free time; I remember dreaming about C++ at night often. Then I started playing Go with some friends a lot and reading books on Go and I dreamed about Go games. Another time a few years later I was playing racquetball several times a week and was focusing on improving my playing, when I started dreaming regularly about racquetball. In the past half dozen years, however, that has stopped. I've still had dreams about math or other things related to what I'm doing, but it hasn't been nearly as intensely correlated or persistent. They are usually just intermittent, isolated dreams rather than periods of consistently dreaming about the same thing.

Last night I woke up several times (which is rare for me) and each time I had been dreaming about SQL. It reminded me a lot of my dreams like those above. Now I have been using SQL some at work lately. In fact, it has typically been the highlight of my working, as it is a little more challenging and fun that the typical monotony (though being more challenging certainly doesn't mean it is challenging). But I didn't think I was focusing on it or thinking about it that much. We'll see if the dreams keep up.

I expect that what I really need is more challenging hobbies to occupy my mind outside of work (not to mention a job that requires the use of my brain)—I think portions of my brain might be dying from the lack of use. I became really aware of this the other day when I was having a conversation with my roommate about calculus: it felt like my brain came off of standby for a little while. Then it went back.

I think I've become kind of accustomed to thinking about fairly complex mathematical stuff. Like how to write a program in Matlab to approximate the solution to a parabolic partial differential equation describing heat flow in a plate over time using a four dimensional array to store and then analyze all of the approximation data. That was the final project for my numerical methods class my last semester, which incorporated concepts from two semesters of numerical methods. It was pretty darn cool. The above descriptive sentence doesn't do it justice at all.

I don't do much complex math anymore. (Though my current coworkers seem to think so—I'm not really sure what they think mathematics majors do after we learn arithmetic.) Now I'm pretty sure I'm going through withdrawals. Yes, mathematics is addictive. So is a lot of education. In fact, many would say you have to develop a taste for mathematics over time by doing it. But then the intoxicating euphoria of understanding and accomplishment begins to reinforce your exploration of it so you want a little more. And the higher and deeper you get the more it takes to satiate your craving. If you haven't started yet then maybe you shouldn't. (On the other hand, relationships are pretty addictive too, and most people still consider those to be pretty beneficial.) As for me, I think it's already too late.