Keep It Simple Stupid

It started out with a kiss
How did it end up like this
It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss
--- Mr. Brightside, The Killers

Nakakatawa lang minsan ang buhay. Nagmumuni-muni nga ako kanina, sabi ko nga parang pelikula minsan ang buhay. At minsan, para syang isang black comedy.

Black comedy: black humor, in literature,ndrama, and film, grotesque or morbid humor used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world.

INTRODUCTION

Sometimes there are very simple stupid answers to complex vexing questions that haunt and frustrate you.

I started the day frustrated because I couldn't take this required online training at home. I woke up a few minutes before 9AM, but got caught up (eating breakfast, hehe), and found myself with only 15 more minutes to spare before the 10AM call. Since I decided I could not possibly make it into the office in 15 minutes at 10AM on a workday, I tried to connect from home to the office network through VPN. And yes, I can surf through all the corporate intranet sites, but I couldn't surf outside the intranet. Which was fine, the virtual classroom training didn't really require non-intranet access since it is aimed at corporate employees.

RISING ACTION

Well, big surprise, I couldn't log in to the virtual training site. It took me almost 30 minutes to browse through the corporate online help site, which, let me tell you isn't really helpful (Another irony, help files are rarely helpful at all, especially when you need the answer, like, now). I even tried to call long distance to the helpdesks listed, but unfortunately, it was after office hours in the US where the call center is presumably based, so "please just leave a message and they will call me back during regular office hours." Arg.

Changing and editing proxy servers didn't help, restarting IE didn't help, restarting the PC didn't help. After 45 minutes I had to resign myself to my fate. Two thoughts crossed my mind. One, I should have gone to the office and not wasted almost an hour trying to log in to the blasted training site. And two, I had to register for another training, since this is a required one that our group had to take.

Well, lucky me, the last training left will be on...a Friday, at 10PM Manila time. Wow. Lucky Me.

So that was the start of my day. Wasted more than an hour on that incident. Parang nag-training din ako. Hindi lang nga na-register ang attendance ko, so kelangan ulitin ulit. Haha.

DENOUEMENT

And just like a good movie, everything has to have a resolution. 15 hours later, here I am checking my email, and what do I see but a reply to the email I sent to the helpdesk earlier. (Underlines and emphasis mine)

Hello Sim, --> Nakalagay na nga yung pangalan ko sa email. I-wrong spelling pa rin ba??? I am sorry you had trouble getting into your event. www.blastedtrainingsite.corporateURL.com is a public website. You should be able to access it through VPN or outside the corporate network. You may want to try accessing the site from a home PC or without the VPN. It could the VPN port you are logging into does not have updated routing tables to allow general internet access.

Ow, blasted xxxx! Ang dami kong ginawa, and the solution was just staring me in the face. Sabi ko nga, keep it simple. Stupid. :)