I’ve lost my “zest”. That’s how my neighbour defined it in one of our talks over the cup of coffee…I liked the word, though I didn’t know it’s “dictionarial” meaning (I now know it is not only a peel of a lemon).. so I’ve lost mine. Or so it seems. I can see how it potentially might affect me…I have to write this “pro-forma” thing. It is work related. A piece of documentation to …errrmmm… to document the process of migration of our servers to the virtual structure…blah blah blah…booooring…and is an extra effort in creating meaningless paperwork…who reads documentation anyway?!..but I have to do it, it was a task allocated to me, so I’m sitting here, staring into the blank Word sheet with two words: Server. End User…I cannot get anywhere further then that…I have no idea what this “pro-forma” should be filled with…what information do we put into it…server’s name? Address?...I sigh and draw a table…I like making it pretty in creative sense…it lacks the sense in logical aspect…the words just do not fit into the cells…my brain cells, that is…and the form doesn’t get anywhere to being completed…who needs this kind of documentation, I wonder…wouldn’t be enough just to say: Server “Wibble Wobble. Virtualised. Still Works Despite Of That” …but no: someone must’ve have this itch to know all the things that do not matter to the result…hmmm…should we list the methods of communication to the End User there?...it’s a funny definition, isn’t it? – The End User. Almost as tragical as a personage of Shakespearian play. Who is that Mysterious User, I wonder? Is he The One Who Brings The End To Everything He Touches? Or is he that thing that stands at the end of every helpdesk ticket? Or maybe – the one in the end of a list of priorities of IT support?...why would we want us to communicate with him? Users want their servers to work. That’s all they care about. They most likely won’t accept an invitation for a cup of coffee with us to discuss the migration issues; they might not wish us to pester them with technical words they will never understand by definition of End Userage…yet there is a column in the table to fill with details of the End User, as if he matters…*sigh* I definitely DO NOT want to do this pro forma…you can tell it because I’m typing all this bollocks in here when what I have to do is – to create the Pro-Forma…what is Pro-Forma, anyway? Is it Professional Forma? Or the Forma-Not-Against?
The Dictionary helpfully says nothing useful: Pro forma describes a presentation of data, typically financial statements, where the data reflect the world on an 'as if' basis. That is, as if the state of the world were different from that which is in fact the case.
Now tell me how the very real action of taking the server and placing it to a different machine could possibly be “as if”? why did they have to call it pro-forma, I wonder...this is so very ambiguous and my brain doesn’t cope well with the concept of ambigious things in a very logical world of IT…filling administrative documents in IT doesn’t make sense either…but here I am, staring into the empty Word sheet, waiting for the inspiration to come…maybe they wouldn’t mind their forma to be in verses? I could probably attempt to find few rhymes to the columns…
Here is the server Wibble Wobble
His drive is huge, his colour –purple…
Hmmm…maybe I should add something about my best friend End User…
Dear mystery End User,
The server’s dead, you are a looser…
This is so not easy to write a forma, especially when it is also a pro…I’m having a writer’s block…blocked from everything work related…what a shame that it happened exactly at time when there is a work to be done!...boo hoo to me…
The Dictionary helpfully says nothing useful: Pro forma describes a presentation of data, typically financial statements, where the data reflect the world on an 'as if' basis. That is, as if the state of the world were different from that which is in fact the case.
Now tell me how the very real action of taking the server and placing it to a different machine could possibly be “as if”? why did they have to call it pro-forma, I wonder...this is so very ambiguous and my brain doesn’t cope well with the concept of ambigious things in a very logical world of IT…filling administrative documents in IT doesn’t make sense either…but here I am, staring into the empty Word sheet, waiting for the inspiration to come…maybe they wouldn’t mind their forma to be in verses? I could probably attempt to find few rhymes to the columns…
Here is the server Wibble Wobble
His drive is huge, his colour –purple…
Hmmm…maybe I should add something about my best friend End User…
Dear mystery End User,
The server’s dead, you are a looser…
This is so not easy to write a forma, especially when it is also a pro…I’m having a writer’s block…blocked from everything work related…what a shame that it happened exactly at time when there is a work to be done!...boo hoo to me…