You would think I am crazy for if I told you the whole truth about Ivy. I can’t say I disagree. I’ve been fighting logic since I met her. Still I’m forever propelled forward by this invisible undeniable force to love her. I do get a strange comfort knowing I am not the only one that insists on chasing her illusive heart. From the moment we met I’ve been hopelessly, selflessly, and completely in love with her. She doubts this type of love can exist. She even once told me what I feel for her is not real. She feels I am lost and delusional. Maybe on some superficial level I could agree, but when I think deep on the truth of the matter I now she’s is wrong. Even now as I sit here lost, defeated without ever having a fair chance in the fight I still think she is wrong. It’s not out of desperation or denial I disagree. I wish this pursuit of her was fueled by something as simple as delusion. I’m sure I could get some pill from my doctor to dull my mind, and fade her away. I need an emotional lobotomy. Unfortunately, such a procedure has not been invented by modern medicine. Ivy would want me to move on. So would everyone else around me. If only they could understand moving on is not an option. It’s not that simple. Loving her was never a conscious effort, or even a deliberate choice. If I were to ask you to stop breathing could you? You’re probably thinking I am a stupid romantic who always insists and chasing the impossible dreams, always trying to reach the stars. Maybe your right on some levels, but we only have one life and I want mine to be great. I want to die with memories not dreams. I truly believe the definition of insanity is a matter of perspective. So let me back up to the beginning and give you perspective. My name is Gregory. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, growing up in the suburbs about 20 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. I love my city. Its diversity gives you an appreciation for a wide range of cultures. Sure it lacks one centralized soul and because of this it sometimes feels schizophrenic. Still its the only home I ever known and I love it, and really there is also the 360 plus days of sunshine and 75 degree weather. I work for the I.T. Department of a large Utility company. It is a unique entity. Because we a quasi-monopoly regulated by the state logical business decisions are undervalued. Let’s be honest common sense is undervalued. Its all about perception and saying things in a calm confident manner. Kind of like picking up women, it really doesn’t matter what you say, as long as you say it covered with a heavy layer of cool confidence. Maybe that’s why I have fallen behind in my career lately. I refuse to lie about being wrong or insists on being completely honest about the fucked up environment I work in. Primarily, take for example my monthly tasks of uploading software patches to our web server. Let me provide some background to our structure around here. This company likes to separate duties. So essentially I need 4 teams to accomplish what it would take one person to do in the normal world. Let me run you down the list of a basic install. Now I remind you the actually activity only take 30 minutes, but the preparation start at least 2-3 week prior. First I need to contact all teams list on the resource plan. Let me run you down the list. First there is a Server Engineer, this is the guy with all the access. All the access but no knowledge. I have to give him step by step instructions to something I have no access to complete. If it’s not my job and I have no access to do it, how am I supposed to know how to do it? Anyway lets move on. Next there are the network support guys. They are needed to put up an alert. This usually means redirecting network traffic to an outage page. This translate to a few mouse clicks for them, something I could easily do but I do not have access to perform these two mouse click. Next I need a developer to oversee the actual installation. They do not actually do anything, but Server Engineers usually insist they be present during the actual install because they have so little understanding of what they are doing. Finally I need some from what we call the District Operation Center. We call this department the DOC. They are responsible for tracking and reporting any outage. So back to my task of this monthly software update. I have to contact each one of these teams at least two weeks prior with complete instructions of their tasks and confirm their availability of the scheduled day. Then if they agree I need to book time on their calendars. Next is the really insane part I need to get multiple approvals from multiple approval committees. We call these Change Advisory Boards, or CABs for short. CABs are usually consist of a group of managers. Oh yeah did we mention I.T. loves aconyms. CAB is a boring one, but we have had some instresting ones, including S.T.D, S.H.I.T., and F.A.G. I don’t recall what they stood for but I swear these were real projects. So back to my CAB approvals. I need to get time on three different meeting for to get three different approvals. First there is local CAB. This is the approval from my department. Then there is approval from local CAB. Yes you heard me right there are two local CABs. I was never sure why there are two local CABs, but this one was in from our facility two miles away. The only thing I could think of was that these people did not want to drive to another facility so they made their own CAB. Finally there is Global CAB. They have oversight to all of I.T. There job is to assure I don’t interfere with another project or cause delays to any on going operational work. This is probably the only meeting I see as necessary, except for the fact they ask some really ridiculous questions, such as “is this necessary,” or “what happens if it doesn’t work.” Are you serious, “is this necessary?” I always wanted to say, “No it’s not but I needed something to do on Thursday night at 10 P.M., but your wife was busy.” These managers I swear they feel they all need to ask a question to prove their value, even if they have no idea what they are asking. Once I get approval I then notify everyone we have the green light. Since this is one to two weeks prior to the actually activity I need to send an invite a few days prior to the actual scheduled date just to make sure everyone shows. Then the night of the actual install I need to usually call one or two of these guys because they almost always forget. Once I have everyone online and on the conference call we start our work. This means I start telling each one of them step by step how to do their job. So there it is one of my regular tasks in this lovely company. I could have literally completed this task in 30 minutes, but when it’s all said and done it takes a collective set of about 20-30 man hours, very efficient right? This is why I sometimes dream of being a WalMart greeter. At least then my life would have purpose.