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Computer Timeline Issue

Email from Jackson:
Please do not forget about the Computer timeline issue Inbox

Thank you and have a great weekend. Jackson
Kathy McDonald
to Jackson:

You (and all of Calvin’s inmates) are welcome. This may be a little punchy, as I had a 12-hr day and came home to find laundry and dishes waiting. Not as much sales as we had hoped, but I don’t think NDF has cleared yet. Jackie’s clerks (and Jackie via telephone) were a great lot of help, and mine were awesome helping get the store passed out to the whole camp when I got back to Calvin.
Kathy
And now: Calvin Kathy’s Computer Chronicles

August 15: Began having major computer issues at my store. Response time about 1 minute per keystroke. Computer repeatedly kicked off network, and must call Ernie who does some magic thing to reconnect me.
August 16-17: Computer is no better, and Jackson suggests I come in earlier to better avail myself of MIS help during working hours.
August 18: Computer connects to network 3 times as 30 seconds per connect. Ernie is no longer able to “get me back on.”
August 21: Jackson gives me the okay to, with Jackie’s permission, to travel to Windy and run Calvin’s store from there. This will be the last store until August 30, when, I am promised, a new computer will be installed in the store. After this I will have online access. Installation time is approx 1 1/2 hours. Sounds like heaven.
August 22: I go to work to pass out the store run on the 21st.
August 24: Ordering and restocking.
August 25-29: Take some time off until computer D-day.
August 30: MIS Eric, shows up, not to install new computer, but to fix my old one. It seems there is currently a problem with the Satellite, and Carlin-On-Satellite and Store-New-Computer date is pushed back to the end of September. I am at work 9 1/2 hours that day, and Eric is finally able to pinpoint the problem. I have a bad controller. A new one will be sent and will arrive next Tuesday. He walks me through installation.
August 31: I go to Windy and run my store
Sept 1: Go to work and pass out my store
Sept 5: Go to work. There is no computer controller awaiting installation. Instead I am told there has been a change of plan. Tomorrow, (Sept 6) I will get a new computer. The whole camp will be put on the Satellite system. I work on stocking and ordering.
Sept 6: Am told MIS folks are there. They will be in the store no later than 12 noon, and will take 1 1/2 hours to install my new computer. They show up in the store at 2:30. They have forgotten to bring my new computer. They install another PC, and are having trouble with the mouse. I go home and bring back an extra one I have. They are unable to set me up with a password to Novell. I have an appointment and need to leave at 4:30. I am told they do not need to get back into the store, but will have my password all configured and set up and will leave it with a camp officer. Once I have it, I can call Matt, who will set me up with a password to the AS400, or whatever they call it now.
Sept 7: I arrive early at work, and find out there is no password. My surge protector is emitting an emergency-broadcast system-like noise. I take that one off and connect an extra one I have, but unlike the other one, my extra one does not have a battery backup. It seems there was a problem syncing Carlin on the Satellite, and all computer are down statewide. I go home and come back at noon. Matt thinks he can get me on, however I am unable to sign on to Novell. Patient MIS help desk Sheila is on the phone with me for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours trying to figure out what is wrong. I am to try to log-on to another computer. Officer Lare logs off for me, but I am unable to log on to his computer either. Then HE is unable to log back onto it; very bad news. The LT lets me sit at his computer for 1/2 hour while Sheila tries some things. Nothing works. Definitely NOT heaven.
Sept 8: I go to work and try again to log on to the computer, unsuccessfully. Noone answers at the MIS help desk. I go to Windy and run my store.
Kathy

Arrive back at Calvin at 6:45. We finish up about 10 PM. I am repeatedly thanked for going, and find occasional disappointments at a ticket not run, money not there, or a wanted item out of stock. On the whole, it is fun being, once again, Hero for a Day.”

UltraMom, Storekeeper Extrordinaire

What Would We do Without Computers?

Would would we do without computers? Well, we definitely wouldn’t run our Calvin Camp Prison Store. For…..........about a month now. I wonder how they did it BEFORE computers….........did they have prison stores then? Were the inmates given actual money to spend? This is something I would like to know.
in our last episode, you may recall, I was going, for the second time, to Windy Camp to run store purchases for Calvin. This I accomplished, inputting some 120 inmate orders into the computer there, as well is inputting all the merchandise shipments we had received since the last time I’d been to Windy. Jackie and her clerks were, again, very pleasant and helpful. It is an imposition to have someone else using her computer, and Windy’s computers had also been down, though only for a couple of days, but Jackie couldn’t have been more supportive. It took me a while, and my hands were aching from all the typing by the time I was finished. At the end of the “ticket” (orders) entering, it is necessary to print a summary screen that lists totals for each item sold, and a numbered list of all inmates who purchased. You do this by hitting “5” and “enter” on the computer, so we insiders call this sheet “The Five”. I know, it sounds kind of stupid, but I don’t know what else to call it. When I did “The Five”, I was astounded by the total amount of purchases. It was $1600, and I thought it should have been far higher. Then I noticed that only 55 inmate purchases were reflected in this “Five”. What happened to the rest???? They were simply gone. Vanished. Hiding in the nebulous, shadowy forests of “Five-Land.” Finally we gave up.
The next day I realized I was missing the “Five” I had printed, and had to ask Jackie to look around her store for it. She found it torn in half in the garbage can. “Could you please tape it together and fax it to me?” I desparately pleaded. She could, and did. Then I called my boss. He was able to somehow find my missing “Five”, print it, and fax it over. “By the way,” I asked him, “what do you call “The Five”? There has to be another name for that printout that sounds a little less insipid.” “No,” he said, “Everyone just calls it “The Five.” If you called it something else I probably wouldn’t know what you were talking about.”
Altogether, we passed out some $4500 worth of store merchandise the following day. I am SO glad to have Joe back. It is making my job (when I can do it) so much easier. Also, he knows everything that’s going on around camp, at least some of which he tells me. The inmates were so happy to have store that they cheered when I walked in the camp. They also made me a second card, even better than the first. About 25 of them signed it. It felt great being hero for a day.
The computer plan, the last I heard, was that I would have a working controller unit waiting for me that next Tuesday, Monday being a Holiday, when I arrived at work. Of course it wasn’t there. “Change of plan,” Jackson informed me after I placed a “what the heck is going on” phone call to him. “Tomorrow you will have a brand new computer. The whole camp will be linked to the Satellite System and you will be online.” Right.
Wednesday I was cautiously optomisitc, especially after getting a phone call from a camp officer telling me the MIS people were there. “They will be ready for the store at noon. It should only take a couple of hours.” They were in the store by 2:30. It only took about an hour and a half, but the results were disappointing, to say the least. “We forgot to bring your new computer,” Eric informed me as they lugged in a clunky old monitor, kekyboard and mouse. “We just forgot to load it in the van!” They hooked everything up and the mouse wasn’t responding. I volunteered to go home and get a new, cheap mouse I’d been storing in my desk. “Right after you left, this mouse started working,”Eric said cheerfully, but installed my mouse anyway.
The other Tech, Ryan, was tall, lanky and wore his sunglasses on the back of his head. He sat down at my keyboard and started typing. Now followed a long period of Ryan typing, waiting, frowning, and making kind of pouty fish lips with his mouth while drumming his fingertips against his cheekbones. “I’m having trouble creating a sign-on for you,” he admitted. “We’ll go work on some other stuff and get back to this later.”
I had a commitment that night to lead Weight Watchers, and I had to be out of there by 4:30. I told this to Ryan and Eric. “We don’t need to get back in the store. We will create your sign-on for Novell and leave it with the LT. Then you call Matt and put in a work order to get a sign-on for the Store System.” A work order? That sounded like time. Like waiting time. I called Matt. “No, I’ll just help you and fill out the work order later. We all know getting your store back up is a high priority.” You could have fooled me.
So, this morning I was at the camp at 7:30 am, ready to go to work. The prison computers are down statewide. Seems there was a little problem last night when they were trying to link Calvin up on the Satellite. Why am I not surprised?

Still outa Work,
UltraMom

The Store Lady Rides Again

Doesn’t that sound cool? Kind of like a movie sequel; kind of alike a store lady that has been riding, and is now riding again….......kind of like, I dunno, just kind of cool. It may be a little misleading, but that’s how this game is played. You gotta pull out all the stops and hook the audience in….........and now for those few of you who may still be with me, our feature presentation: The Store Lady Rides Again.
In our last chaper, the intrepid Store Lady had just driven 80 miles to Windy Camp so that the Calvin Inmates might have their store. Wednesday, Aug 30 was supposed to be the golden, magical day. The day a brand new computer was going to be installed in the store, a PC with Word, Excel and, wonder of wonder, the internet! In the meantime, the store would be closed for a few days, so UltraMom made good use of her time to drive to Idaho and work some more on clearing out that house she has decided to sell. A little R & R time was necessary; dinner with relatives, church, and spending time with UM’s best Idaho friend, whose kids now own Murhpy’s brother, albeit from a different litter. There was also a bit of playing the piano and playing of the old Carpenters records, but a LOT of sorting, discarding and lamenting how much was still to be done.
(Switching out of tiresome third person) I knew I had to be back in Carlin no later than 6 PM Tuesday evening. After all, I had a Weight Watcher group to lead. But after stopping longer than intended to visit with my friend Sharon in Arco, and being held up 40 minutes by road construction at The Craters of the Moon (look it up), it was soon apparent, even to me, that this was not going to happen. Resourcefully, I phoned a staunch LifeTime member and asked of her an enormous favor. “The scale is there in the closet. Can you just weigh people, write it down, and tell them to talk amongst themselves until I arrive? I should be there before 7:00.” She graciously agreed. Pulling out all the stops, I breezed into the meeting room at 7:10, wearing levi capris, tennis shoes and a crumpled T-shirt (NOT approved WW leader apparell), and carrying my poodle. I proceeded to, first, apologize, and second, deliver an awesome and insightful lesson on goal-setting. At least that was the intention.
Okay, Wednesday morning I went to the prison, to ostensibly meet the computer tech(s) and let him(them) into the store. No computer people were there, but there WAS a familiar face I thought most likely never to see again. Joe was back in Calvin! Joe, you may remember was one of my first store clerks, and made it his (very difficult) mission in life to keep me organized and the store running smoothly. He had wrangled a transfer to a prison closer to his mother, and where he could live in a cell instead of the dormitary-type setting of Calvin Camp. Joe breezed into the store as if he had never been away. “I wrote you a letter telling you I was coming back,” he informed me. “There was a caseworker at that prison who didn’t like me. I applied to work in the Coffee Shop there, but he never gave them my application, and then informed me he was sending me back to Calvin.” Of course there was no way I would fire Ricky or Trevor to hire Joe back, but there might just be a way…...............
“Joe,” I said, “Would you be willing to work in the store for no pay? If the LT okays it, for Days Only?” This might require a little bit of explanation, esp. as I don’t entirely understand it myself, but there are certain jobs in the camp that have no pay associated with them. But they are still bona fide jobs, though, so the worker will still earn a few days off his sentence (I don’t know the formula) like any other inmate worker who is paid. They call these type of jobs “Days Only” meaning you are earning only your sentence reduction days, but no money. Joe is lucky to have relatives who regularly send him money, so he agreed. Ricky and Travis were all right with it too. Later that afternoon, when my mail was delivered to the store, there was a letter from Joe telling me he was coming back.
Eric, a very nice and personable computer tech finally showed up about an hour later. But the plan had been changed. The whole Satellite System was down, so they weren’t going to install our camp on it yet. For now, he would make my old computer work, and replace a few tractor feed printers about the camp that had been giving their users a lot of grief. The scenario I had envisioned (straight from Jackson), of a couple of hours work and a shiny, new, working computer played out a little bit differently. Eric squatted on the floor for hours at a time in front of the antiquated control unit and modem with the phone glued to his ear and Ernie on the other end. The phone lines were tested, which involved two different phone companies. Connections were tested and lots of things tried that made only a modicum of sense to me. Joe was everpresent, asking Eric questions and trying to help troubleshoot. Apparently it had been Joe, a year or so ago, who had been sitting on the floor, on the other end of a conversation with Ernie and finally getting the computer to work. Periodically, Eric would go out to his car to get something, or to the phone closet to do…......something….....
I hung around, ate some cookies and crackers, visited with the guys and told a lot of people there would be “No Store Today.” I was there for 9 1/2 hours.
Eric ended up spending the night in the area, and bright and early this morning, I met him at the camp and again let him into the store. After a bit more monkeying, he finally had a verdict. The controller was bad. It might just work if we could find a spare start-up disk. This started a camp-wide search, and yielded countless 3 1/2” floppies from various offices. None of them were what we needed. So now Ernie is rebuilding us a new controller. There is a rumor it may be “over-nighted’, in which case we could have it by tomorrow. Another just as credible (probably more credible, actually) rumor is that we will have it mid-next week. But for now, I’m going to Windy. I’ve got some tickets to run.

UltraMom