Software packaging
I just had some guys come in to my office at my day job and ask me about adding a bunch of configuration files to Microstation. That is no big deal if it were the company's install. We have gone through great pains to make everything fit into a standard for just such times. The trouble is, they want to add our company's configuration files to another company's install of Microstation. I know this other company has not paid as much attention to standard folders and locations for configuration information as this company. They are asking me to do the most difficult possible combination of tricks. They want me to go into an existing system and make a bunch of changes without screwing a bunch of stuff up. I can put a brand new system in place easier. I can get rid of the existing system and put a new one in place easier.
People just don't understand that automating things requires people do do things the same way every time. When Henry Ford automated manufacturing of automobiles he did it with an assembly line. Every model T that rolled off the line was identical. You could get any color you wanted so long as it was black. All the parts have to fall into just the right place and bolt together without modification every time. Computers are no different. When some one changes the folder the program installs to, they are moving the engine to between the seats and don't even realize it.
My suggestion is to remove Microstation off the machines and do a full company-ized install. This will eliminate conflicts between their version and ours.

Jobs going overseas
By the way. The other company is in India. This company is moving many engineering support jobs offshore. The job I used to do here when I started at this company a couple of years ago will no longer exist in a few months, and it will never come back. It will never exist at any company again in the USA. Once they get the skills to do the support jobs and the engineering, what will stop them from just managing it all themselves? Why will they need the USA at all? They will have new markets all over the world full of new consumers with new found high paying (10% of US wages) salaries.
There was a meeting of the engineering industry people not long ago. I wish I had details. They were in awe of the Chinese. When companies go to China to research engineering, they find that all the engineers have PH/Ds from US universities and will work for ten cents on the dollar of US wages. They are immensely qualified. I'm afraid US citizens are just going to have to get used to a lower standard of living. We have ridden the high horse for too long it seems. Not everyone will own a car. Not everyone will have cable. Maybe we really are the stuck-up snobs the rest of the world sees us as.
Well, screw the rest of the world. I love the USA. I think she is the least worst country ever.

And I didn't think I had anything to say when I started typing. I need to be more upbeat. I'm going to be managing support at Tpro, so I will be the one deciding who gets the jobs and how things are done. That should float me for a couple of decades. Houston is a huge engineering town. It will be hit hard by this very soon. Maybe the housing market will come back to a reasonable level. I can watch the fall of western civilization from a tarries on the thirty-fifth floor. (eew! I don't like that image.) I can fight the rising tide of apathy and ignorance by spreading knowledge nurturing wisdom. That is a much better sound bite.

Excused Absences
Christmas and New Years day fall on Thursdays this year. My day job has a policy of working the day after Christmas. A mandate came down from corporate that they can take the day after Christmas and the day after New Years day as a free vacation day. I'm a contractor. If I don't come in, I don't get paid. Thanks Corporate. I get one less day of pay this year, and one less next year. And on top of a 6% pay cut in the beginning of this year. Merry Christmas!