Never Fall A Sleep At Work After A Big Office Holiday Party!
Christmas Eve is upon us yet again, and I leaned back in my chair, put up my feet, balancing somewhat poorly, in my standard corporate chair, which is not designed for leisure repose. The boss via instance messaging, and all my other co-workers, few as they are now, that come into the office routinely, are long gone for the day, at last. I have a mug of tea heated to perfection, now at my elbow on my desk. I am content; another year of successful virtualization engineering and implementation is done. VMworld was a blast; to be sure, all things considered it has been a good year. So relaxed am I, proud of the achievements thus far this year, I feel the creep of sleep approach my consciousness… I start to think this is not the place to dream… but this thought is never finished as I slip into unconsciousness…
I sat in my favorite chair, in fact, the only chair in my bed chamber, the last bite of my warmed gruel, still favoring my tongue. The cold of the house barely avoided by the weak flames in the fireplace, I bemoaned the high price of cool. I hear the wind out side, move across the house structure, but I am warm, comfortable in my miserly surroundings. Unexpectedly, I felt a sudden chill, a phantasm like wave of cold. I fear for my life, but no rational evidence to do so is apparent, or so I thought. Faintly and then louder, I heard the clanking and jingling of metal objects linked by almost silent, fiber optic cable, the scratch or scrape of heavy objects across the hard oak floor. The objects, which appeared to be servers of various sizes and models, all dragged by a ghostly image of the contractor technical support person we, lost to the severe cold of the server vault all those years ago. As this person, of whom I fail to recall their given name, perished while struggling to rack hundreds of servers in just a couple of days. A cruel end for a poor soul that was just doing as instructed. Never mind the task was impossible for any mere mortal to do alone.
This poor unfortunate soul, this poltergeist condemned to travel the spiritual waste lands of the nether world in server support hell, approached me as though solid walls had no substance, having come through my bedroom door as if it was nothing more than smoke or mist. Again the noise of the looped together servers and other miscellaneous fiber fabric infrastructure, I now recognize, assaults my ears. I am speechless, the enjoyed gruel after taste in my mouth, now soured on my tongue. As the apparition spoke with haunting, hollow tones, words drawn out like they were painful to speak, and slurred in duress, as though each syllable was an extreme effort of will to be formed.
It, the thing unreal shadow, said “You will be visited by three wraiths of the virtual realm. They will come after the midnight hour but before dawn, each in its own time. Beware, beware, these wraiths will part the veil of reality. Be warned, be warned, that you heed their words of wisdom and advice, so you have been warned, so you should be aware. Fore ignoring their respective councils is doom assured, and thus doom earned.”
I squealed in fright, I jumped from my comfortable, if suspected quality of chair, and made flight to my bed, drawing the curtains of the bed frame around me, hiding my sight from the specter that voiced such dire prophetic whispers. No, I thought, no, this can not be real, it is not real, I am a man, a man of significant years. I can not and will not be boxed into a corner like timid child. I thought to myself, be gone, be gone you unholy spirit, I have no need of your contempt or compassion. But I stayed my tongue, voicing no sound, for I was, I admit, afraid. And as I thought these thoughts to my self, I heard again the noises I heard before, the rattle, clanking, and merciless scratching, of the technical resource ghost that was once human make its exit as it had its entrance. I thought anew, had this same technical position been not out-sourced under the circumstances then done, this poor entity might yet live still?
Some time passed, and I don’t recall the old clock on the fireplace mantel chiming at all, but when the chime toned thrice, I realized it was now three(3) in the morning or there about? For the old clock was wont to keep imperfect time. As poor in resources I felt I was, I had no desire to acquire a more accurate time piece. After all, approximate time, is good enough, only a fool desires the real time, all the time. A penny saved, is a penny earned, no? But my self congratulation for being frugal was interrupted, and I do not reference such as a computer processor would be. For a physical presence was near me, just out side the curtains of my bed I believed, nay, I felt there. In trembling movements I opened the curtains and there before me, was a wraith, as promised before. I yelled in spite of myself, and hid my direct view with a nearby pillow, saying “Go away oh wraith, leave me in peace. I deserve not this visitation.”
The wraith, in response did nothing more than motion with an appendage that appeared to be a very old and weathered hand, that I should come forth. No word or sound was made, nothing but an android or robotic like stiff jester with the hand. I could not resist the beckoning, though I hated being intrigued by this event. As I left the false security of my bed, I donned my robe and slippers, leaving my night hat a top my head, I also attired myself in my shabby old robe that was at hand at the end of the bed, where I had left it before sleep. Once I seemed prepared, the wraith placed that same aged hand against my forehead, and I lost all since of time and space, as I closed my eyes, for this was an uncomfortable happening. Movement of some type I knew was done, but the means of transportation and location selection were beyond my observation or ability to describe. It felt like I was falling, losing balance, but I never seemed to fall. After some brief time of this sensation, I sensed it was time to open my eyes. I did so. But what I say was both irrational and yet believable. Something I could some how identify as true.
Before me aligned in straight rows, some 100s, no 1000s of server racks, in long rows, stretched across a room longer and wider than I could determine with unassisted vision. Every make and model of server were represented, all manner of distributed server by vendors I recognized were in this unworldly presentation. I walked up to the nearest row of these racks, looking at the enclosed devices, and touched the keyboard nearest me. The corresponding flat-panel, be it small, and quite old in appearance did flicker into refractive light, the backlighting of screen still functional, a miracle given its apparent age. Before me was the simple console of a VMware Virtual Infrastructure (VI) ESX or it appeared to be such? It was hard to tell the specific version, since no reference to the version of ESX was obvious on the screen, this struck me odd, that I could see it was a VMware VI host before me, executing, but I could not focus on the specific version. All I gathered from the screen that this was old infrastructure; this entire location was in fact very old, the distant past, in a word, obsolete? The wraith, still not saying a single word, nor making any sound, motioned to all the racks in a wide sweeping movement, that imparted to my understanding that the entire room, as such, was all the same, VMware VI hosts in all its forms and variances was shown before me.
As I worked the keys on the keyboard before me, I realized in horror, that even though the host I connected to at random, was functional, no virtual instances were in existence. This realization allowed a cold chill to walk down my spine. “Was in fact, this entire expanse empty of all virtual reality? Were there not virtual instances in existence here?” I did not realize I had thought this idea aloud, but I had. Again, I asked, “Were there not virtual instances in existence here?” The wraith moved not the slightest, nor gave any indication that my question was acknowledged or understood. Still, I asked, pointing to the rack both to the left and right of where I stood saying, “Pray, tell me wraith, is this the future? Is VMware not but doomed to be abandoned?” Again, as before, the wraith gave no response. I yelled in frustration, “Wraith before me, speak!” Still this elicited no response.
After a few moments more, the wraith raised that same aged hand, a move I was now familiar with, and motioned for me to follow, I did this, taking one step then another with honest dread as to what I would see next. I was led to a cubical via that same falling sensation of transportation. This cube was long layered in dust and neglect, for it appeared, had not been used for some significant length of time. The trash bins were over flowing with papers and empty cans of Jolt cola. The desk was covered in corporate snail mail and other correspondence from various vendors, unsolicited marketing information to be sure, it all. An empty coffee cup placed at the edge of the desk, which read simple script, “We have done so much, for so long, we can now do anything with nothing, and management could still, care less!” It was clear this was a dead-end cube, which some unfortunate life form once used but was now long forgotten, long abandoned to a fate unknown. The wraith pointed to the name plate on the cube wall just at the entrance to same. Reading the name there, I fell to my knees, the strength of my legs abandoning me. Disregarding the pain of this maneuver, crying in a weak voice I said, “No, no. Please spirit, no.” I was in shock, and despaired at what I had just read. Saying with difficulty around my tears, “Spirit tell me this is not true, that this is only what could be?” But as before, the phantasm before me said nothing, making no jester or response in any way as recognition of my query. I felt confused, I felt lost.
The next instant or so it seemed to me, I awoke. I was sitting in my chair, in my cube. I found it odd that I recalled nothing about two (2) of the three (3) wraiths in my dream. Was I visited by all three or just one? No sooner did I think this thought, than a cold chill walked up my spine, where before it walked only down. The same chill? It changed directions? But that was in a dream, I told myself. Nothing but a dream, I told my self again. With practiced ease, I pulled my legs down to their proper business position, if only the boss knew how often I have my feet above knees with my keyboard placed across my hips as I sit in a relaxed pose, while at work. But the boss is 1000s of miles away, never yet to visit my physical location. So be it. With little thought to other needs of work, I started to disconnect my laptop, planning to stuff same into my portable bag. Thinking I never know when I might need to access the company network over the holidays. When my eye just catches one specific iconic flash in the bottom right corner… an icon that warns that I have new mail, yet unread. I freeze, I think, then say to no one but myself, “Ah, dang it, ignore it, it is Christmas day!” But truth be told, my personified view of life is closer to that of a cat, than of some other animal, whereas my cursorily often gets the better of me.
I click the icon, thinking, with luck it is something of no consequence, something that will be banished to the delete folder or little better. However, it is addressed to all my peers, my manager and other managers in the department, as well as me. It is from the boss of my boss, a communiqué from the top of my world, which makes me nervous. For as everyone knows this type of note, this time of year, is never good news, or never has been in the past. Regardless of my fears, and because I clicked the icon, the note opens to a larger window, which displays the message…
“Everyone, sorry for the late notice, but I wanted to get this to you all before the end of year. It has been decided, that starting the first of next month, we will begin the process of implementing Xen, and Hyper-V as our core virtualization platform, variable class of service, for virtual instances that leverage the Windows operating system. Furthermore, all Solaris virtual instances now run on VMware VI will be retired, and functionality migrated to Solaris LDOMs. All Linux virtual instances on VMware VI will be migrated or otherwise recreated as RHEL KVM based instances, in parallel, to the Solaris move.” As I read this, my knees start to shake; my hands take on a noticeable tremor. What? Has VMware VI not served us well? I read on, having trouble focusing on the meaning behind the words, “I am sure everyone saw this coming, so this should not be a surprise to anyone. Please understand the timeline for this is very aggressive, we need to get this done sooner than later. Right after the holidays, we will have a few meetings to work out the tactical objectives now that the strategic direction has been established. Remember, we have to get more done this coming year than ever before, faster than ever before, or else. Oh, I want to also say, of course, to everyone, Happy Holidays!” Is it a dream, did the wraith have it right? What is real? What is virtual? I am again scared…
Abruptly, I scream in pain, this hurts. No this really hurts… I am now, really, awake! I realize I have fallen out of my chair, spilling my almost empty cup of tea on myself in the process. What a horrible dream? Yes, a dream about a dream? As I set to rights my chair, and clean up the last of the spilt tea, I think to myself… Never fall a sleep at work after a big office holiday party… It is then, and only then, I notice that infernal inhuman soulless iconic flashing at bottom right side of the flat panel monitor on my desk. The unread electronic mail indicator is demanding immediate attention.
3 comments December 24th, 2008
