So my homelife isn’t really the sole reason I haven’t been writing much lately. To elaborate, I’ll give you a partial list of what’s on my plate at the office, in no particular order:

• Complete IIS web cluster for Corporate Internet group. (Begun last night, hopefully completed tomorrow night.)
  
• Rebuild not one, not two, but three studio PCs. (Prod 1, Prod 3, News 1.)
  
• Create a joint email account for new job-share partners. (And discard their “old” separate accounts.)
  
• Develop automated backup system for new fileserver. (You know, the server I rolled out a month or so ago? Yeah, I’m still doing backups manually. When I have the time to do so. Which isn’t often enough by far.)
  
• File paperwork. (Discard old papers, sort and file new, print out things that need printing. Yadda yadda yadda.)
  
• Figure out how to set up access to the admin interface of a website we just brought in-house last week. (The interface currently relies on a hostname in the old host’s domain. Not good.)
  
• Replace floppy drives in two Account Exec’s computers. (Not a priority of course, but this one’s been on the task list for the entire year.)
  
• Sort through CD-ROM library, weeding out obsolete materials and organizing the remainder. (Yadda yadda yadda.)
  
• Install GM’s new computer. (It’s prepped, and it’s sitting under his desk alongside his old computer. I’m just waiting for the go-ahead from him.)
  
• Prep and install new computers for two promotions staffers, five traffic staffers and a sales assistant. (That’s not counting refurbing existing computers for two new sales hires.)
  
• Meet with AS/400 specialist to determine the best way to ensure a complete and useful backup. (Turns out the backups I’ve been making every three weeks aren’t worth the tape they’re spooled onto. Uh oh.)
  
• Come up with a good way to back up the email server. (Nope. Haven’t been doing this for a while now, ever since the new office server became a nightmare project from hell.)
  
• Put a sound card into one of the music office computers. (The built-in sound system isn’t working, and I’m not interested in shipping the thing back to HP for repairs. Easier to just slap a Soundblaster PCI into the damned machine.)
  
• Replace the CD-ROM drive in one of the digital audio workstations. (This task has been on the list for about four months now.)
  
• Install new video card drivers and TV player software onto one of the broadcast studio GP computers. (At least, I think that’ll fix the crashes they’ve been having all year.)
  
• Test “bad” batch of RAM. (Actually, I think the RAM sticks are fine. I think the computers we tried to upgrade with them are pieces of crap. See “traffic staffers” above.)
  
• Set up spare computer for interim PD over at the other building. (So he can check his email without using “webmail,” which is clunky. And so I don’t have to try reinstalling his music-scheduling software, which would be a major PITA.)
  
• Clean, clean, clean. (My work areas are a mess, and that’s no joke.)

There’s more, of course, and that’s just the stuff I know about. Surprises come daily.

And yet, any attempt to improve the staffing level of the technical department gets immediately shot down. Well, at least I have job security. Right?

It wasn’t Fisher, it wasn’t our own corporate guys, in fact nothing at all happened.

When someone in our building tried to send email out to someone at KWJJ after the time when the corporate team had set up our mail system to accept KWJJ email, is it any wonder that our mail system assumed that mail destined for kwjj.com should stay in the system?

The fact that this only dawned on me this morning while on the phone with my corporate boss (who was understandibly upset at the accusatory voicemail I left him yesterday) is not exactly one of the highlights of my work week.

I suppose I can take some small comfort in the fact that the corporate guys didn’t think of it either, and were quite baffled by the failure to send email to KWJJ since Fisher hadn’t changed the MX records yet.

Oops. Once again, Karel overreacts without thinking things through. It seems to be a bad habit I need to work on breaking.

Bite The First:

So we’re given a budget for new computers, since the machines currently at JJ aren’t fit for bringing onto our network. That’s all well and good. I went to our wonderful CDW rep and asked for a quote on enough computers to equip the people coming over, and enough Netware licenses to get them on our server.

And then I asked her for a bigger quote, adding some machines and network switches to the mix. I looked at the final quote, called it Good, and fumbled my way through the paperwork to get everything ordered.

Two hours after I faxed over the purchase order, I looked at the quote again and noticed something lacking: The Netware licenses. Gah! Dumbassed me! A frantic bit of phone tag later, our wonderful CDW rep promised a fix, and disaster was narrowly averted. Didn’t help my frame of mind much, though.

Bite The Second:

The plan for migrating the “former Fisher folks” onto our email system called for Fisher to make the change to the email domains tomorrow, after confirming that everything was ready on our end.

For instance, it would be unwise to repoint the domains if the new email server doesn’t have the accounts set up, wouldn’t it? And since I’d only very recently received the list of accounts, I was spending the afternoon entering those to the server.

One of the ladies from the business office came to ask why emails to folks over at JJ were bouncing back. I looked at the bounce message and sure enough, Fisher had already made the change. Gah! Dumbassed Fisher! I scrambled back to my workstation and cranked out the rest of the addresses, and now all I can do is hope that there weren’t too many bounced messages.

Mind you, now we have a bit of a problem. Even if mail is coming here now, that means nobody over there can get to it. It looks like we’ll be making the WAN change earlier than we’d planned.

Which doesn’t help my frame of mind much…

As of, oh, some time in the very near future, Entercom will own and operate Portland stations KWJJ and KOTK, country and talk formatted outfits respectively. (Don’t worry, it’s not a secret anymore. The press release is out there for the world to see. The part of the world that gives a crap about radio business news, anyway.)

Hooray. Yippee. Yee-haw. Boy howdy. I get to work for a country station now. Well, don’t that just beat all, y’all?

But wait, it gets better. From all I’ve heard, several parts of this blessed union are going to make my job… entertaining. For one thing, they appear not to have a dedicated computer technician. For another, the plan is to move the two new acquisitions into our building. Even better, they want to do it without leasing additional space. That’s right, we’re going to try packing two more stations’ worth of people and equipment into our existing digs. Incredible. And, I hope, utterly impossible. The best thing that could happen would be some facility expansion.

As difficult as this may end up being for me, I can only imagine what the people down at what used to be Fisher Broadcasting’s Portland stations are thinking this evening. They found out the same time we did, right before closing time today.

If any of those fine folks stumble across this website: Guys and gals, my worries are just as much for your sake as for my own. Welcome to the Entercom family, and I’ll do my damnedest to make sure that the transition is as painless as possible. Just don’t be surprised if I’m a bit snappish from time to time. People in my line of work stress a lot. It comes with the territory.

Think of it as being like the stress of, for instance, finding out your stations just got new owners. Each and every day.