Last week was a long one. Not bad, but long. I can’t believe that it has been only seven days since I was at the concert.

Long hours and a hectic pace at work contributed to this. The fact that one of our ‘team members’ can’t seem to do his job, didn’t help.

I don’t know what’s up with this kid. He’s assigned to be the technician at some of the sites that I am assigned to as a Network Engineer. He won’t close calls. He seems to be paralyzed by the amount of calls out there right now. He works on calls that are more complex for days, with out elevating the call to an engineer or even asking any questions. When he does choose to ask, he sort of just tells me to do his job for him. Meanwhile, his calls keep piling up.

He doesn’t understand that there is more to his job than just knowing how to solve these issues. Unlike comparable positions at other companies, he isn’t assigned a list of calls. He pulls all the calls for his sites out of the Help Desk and addresses them as he sees fit. When things get this busy, being able to prioritize is paramount. He needs to let the complex calls sit (or elevate them) and take care of the simple calls. He should be able to close 15 to 20 calls a day. He is closing about 3 or 4 a day. Meanwhile 25 to 30 calls are coming in each day. This pace will slow down, but by the time it does, he will be in a very deep hole.

I’m not his boss, but I am ultimately responsible for these sites. If he doesn’t get caught up soon, I’ll have to go out there myself (and maybe pull resources from other sites) and bail him out. If that happens, I will have to explain to our boss why I’m out closing calls instead of working on my projects.

This just causes me stress I don’t want or need. I hate it when people don’t just do their jobs. I hate it more when it messes with my job.

One a more positive note, my niece is going to be a senior in high school this year. Her school requires that seniors arrange to have their senior portraits taken by a professional photographer on their own, instead of having one come to the school. I guess she didn’t take care of arranging this when she first found out that she was supposed to, and by the time she got around to it, the photographers were booked up.

My wife mentioned to my sister-in-law that I am capable of taking those photos. And they asked me if I could do it. Last weekend we went out to a few scenic spots and took some shots of her and a few with her boyfriend. I also shot a few traditional head and shoulder shots of her, but I don’t have access to a professional backdrop so I just shot her against a wall. I was able to use Photoshop to cut the wall away and put her in front of a background that looks very much like a pro backdrop.

I thought I did a pretty good job, but this isn’t the kind of photography I usually do, and I’m not really very good in Photoshop (I really need to take a class on it.) I began to become concerned that the photos would not be up to a professional level. I knew they looked good, but there is a reason people pay a pro.

I went to get some proofs printed so we could choose which pictures she wanted to use. When I came back to pick them up, the little girl at the store says, “I’m sorry Mr. Jeckles, we cannot print these pictures.”

I began to panic, I start to try to think of what I might have done that would have caused this problem. Did I do something wrong in Photoshop? Did I use the wrong format? I couldn’t imagine what I had done wrong.

“We can’t print pictures taken by a professional photographer without his permission.”

I smiled, thanked her and assured her that she had my permission.

I can’t think of a better compliment.