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July 26, 2006
Are You Experienced
(Delmer and the boys are on vacation and all entries are being auto-posted using the scheduling agent. This will appear on Wednesday)
The company I work for is ISO/TS certified.
One of the best things about being ISO/TS certified is that one of the criteria for keeping the certification is not that the IT guy has to understand exactly what it means.
In a nutshell part of what it means, though, is that we have in place those checks and balances necessary to assure that we produce a quality product for our customers. And having the certification opens the doors for us to do business with companies that require the certification.
Having and keeping the certification is a big deal. It was a lot of work to get.
We are audited on a regular basis.
Last Friday we were audited.
And really, Friday was a good day for IT to be audited as my IT mojo had been working pretty well all week.
The auditor happened by while I was in the middle tweaking some Oracle tables prior to vacation. I thought the timing was pretty good as, well, nothing looks more geeky to the non-IT folk as a screen full of SQL commands and the data they generate.
The auditor and I talked briefly and he asked to see some data I kept. Not a problem, I'd had the database he needed to see (one I'd written) opened just the day before and it would be in the list of recently used programs from within the database application. Unfortunately, and uncharacteristically, I'd been in about a dozen databases that day; the one I needed had scrolled off the list.
And I froze. I couldn't remember where it was.
Ahhh. There's a backup on my PDA ... but it wasn't current. I'd left the cables -- both of the sync cables -- at home for several days!!
The auditor wasn't there to put me on the spot. And he'd had, I'd learn, plenty of experience with the mico-panics people have during audits. He told me he'd move on and come back to me later.
I found a sync cable -- I'd put one in my bag that morning -- and plugged my PDA into a USB slot. My PC blue screened. That has never happened ... so maybe I was due, or ... maaayyybeee it was a curse.
Nah. I was just due.
I rebooted. I synced. I found the database I needed. The auditor eventually found me.
We passed the audit. Angels sang. Pat Robertson celebrated by bench pressing a Humvee.
Posted by delmer at July 26, 2006 12:22 AM