Author Archives: Zesty Gal

Time-consuming Backups

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It was bound to happen one day, I couldn’t trust my backup system anymore as it was giving errors. So I’ve been busy for at least a week sorting out my digital footprint. Just like I’ve been busy sorting out boxes for months it keeps surprising me how much stuff a person collects over time. I have two external hard drives in raid that I’ve been using to make backups for years now, but the time had come to change to an upgraded version which I bought a couple of weeks ago, a NAS with two 4TB harddisks. Copying over the network seemed to come with some hickups as well but I’ve managed tonight to sort all the information (2TB of ‘stuff’) on the new NAS.

In the past I’ve made use of TimeMachine but I stopped using it a couple of years ago to manually make backups instead. TimeMachine keeps making copies of the same files over and over again and since I had a couple of crashes over the years I ended up with several copies of system folders and copies of a folder structure of things that I wanted to keep. I’ve been going through each and every folder to delete duplicates and arrange a new filing structure. Some months ago when I started to sort out those boxes I’ve thrown out each and every item that I nolonger used, either giving it to charity shops or putting it in bin bags to have it collected and destroyed.

I was surprised by the -insane- amount of ‘stuff’ that I had managed to collect over time as I wasn’t using most of it anymore or I simply nolonger needed it. Cleaning out each and every box made me feel better and better as it was lifting a weight from my shoulders. Decluttering is the most effective thing to do to me, making space around me and also in my head. But I didn’t expect the amount of digital clutter and I found out that I felt less comfortable deleting system files and backups I had made because of crashes, tho I’ve managed to delete about 180Gb of dublicates by manually comparing files. Yes a total drag but I kept in mind that I only had to do this once ;)

I always got the impression that all my photo archives would take most of the disk space but boy was I mistaken. It was good having to go through each and every folder to see what was in there and if I really ‘needed’ it still. Most of it I got rid of anyway and the largest folders where the ones containing software and those system backups. Folders with 200.000+ files in them, old system folders, folders that nolonger had any use since I’ve bought at least four other computers after making the first backup and changed OS about three or four times as well. I guess the largest is my music collection but since I’ve started buying from iTunes this issue has become more organised.

Sorting my digital history was a total pain but I’m happy that I’ve managed to finish it within a time span of two weeks on and off. It was something that had been dragging my heels for years. I was extremely reluctant to act on it because of the time-consuming copying and checking, but as the other backup system slowly became unreliable I was forced to do this after all those years and I feel relieved now the job is mostly done. I still have some really old IDE disks to check but these are so old, I don’t expect to find anything spectacular on these that is worth saving. Still… I need to see what’s on them before I will use brute force and destroy all the sensitive data ;)

The challenge now, is to keep things organised and tidy… but when I think back of all the aggravation caused by having to go through many folders containing 200.000+ files I’m pretty sure I can keep an eye on that to make sure!

The Grown-up Bully

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I had an unexpected meeting last week about issues I have with a colleague. This whole situation is draining my energy and I’ve not been a happy bunny lately because of this. The person involved has been bullying me for two to three months now. I’ve tried to ignore it but the situation has become aggrevating and his attitude extremely unprofessional. So a meeting was arranged by my unit manager and his in order to talk things out. As I was expecting, it didn’t turn out well, because he is the type of person who would never admit to his behaviour and/or being wrong.

I explained what was bothering me about him and about the political games that are played and how I’m stuck in the middle whilst all five parties involved point fingers at and blame each other or bury their heads in the sand. At some point when I told him he was stubborn he nearly exploded and had to count to ten in order to control a certain outburst. Shame he managed, as it would’ve been the utter proof of what I was trying to make clear. In return he made up a nasty lie about someone who had complained about me, I could tell by the look on his face he was lying. Pathetic indeed.

Last Monday, I ran into another colleague who has started only a few months ago. We take the same bus so we’ve spent some time together that day talking about the situation at work. The first thing she said to me was that she feels like she’s in some sort of LSD trip, pointing out all the political issues and games. Up till then I thought I was the only person within this organisation who felt this way so I was happy and relieved that someone else had noticed it as well. She told me she had a good book about this explaining what was going on and how to deal with the situation.

The next day she’d sent me the ebook which was about bullying and being bullied at work. She’d told me to read a certain chapter and when I did I immediately recognised each and every subject that was explained. I just want to be left alone, do my job, do what I’m hired for and be productive, I refuse to take part in these political games and accept bad management that is causing this situation. So I’ve mentioned several times that if it won’t improve I would be gone and look for a new assignment. I’ve talked with several parties but none seem to understand what is going on.

No, let me rephrase that, they aren’t willing to see, which is a huge difference. They refuse to understand and rather blame me for the current situation. As a result of these meetings I had, and a clash with the colleague I mentioned earlier which I will now call ‘the bully’, they came up with a list of rules and regulations in regard to my responsibilities. After reading parts of that ebook I came to understand that people bully others due to their own insecurities. Usually because they’re jealous of you or because they feel like you are competition that is likely to win. Point taken…

The bully did a 180 when he replaced my former co-worker and gotten into a position where he could manipulate, make condescending comments and feed his power over others. The book is an eye-opener and a strong confirmation that this place is not healthy. I should’ve listened to my gut feeling but I was protected from these issues by my former coworker until she left (in hindsight for the exact same reasons). The presence or absence of negative consequences after bullying is what encourages the bully (‘bad’ to ‘almost no’ management, no one takes responsibility).

1. The Target’s refusal to be subservient, to not go along with being controlled (reported by 58 percent of survey respondents) If the bully is the boss of the independent and skilled Target, the boss has only to constrain the Target’s creativity, pile on impossible burdens, or steal credit for accomplishments. These Target types will leave the job or stay to outwit the bully because, thanks to their self-confidence, they have a low threshold for the lies bullies dish out. All Targets want ‘to be left alone to do the job I was hired to do, as best as I could do it.’

Time to look somewhere else ;)