Mindi’s right about our frustration with a lot of the elements in our life. But tonight I was reminded of how talented the folks I work with really are. Around 15:30 today we began to have issues with PC’s in our environment that were later traced back to the follow issue:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.zotob.e.html

http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=WORM%5FRBOT%2ECBQ&VSect=T

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/08/16/computer.worm/index.html

Again I doomed my workplace by sending out a warning email that we need to patch on this issue soon. Every time I do that we seem to get infected quickly. Our team pulled together quickly and resolved all of the issues caused by this issue. Myself and a co-worker did a lot of work to track down the actual worm infection, even before it was reported anywhere. This same co-worker managed to write a program, in a very short period of time, that actually cleaned infected PC’s. Granted our job is application support, not desktop or server support, but we managed to find the root cause before anyone else could. We also pulled together a large number of IT Teams to quickly get all servers patches and back in operation with minimal impact to our customers.

In short I was reminded of how talented and resourceful our team is, and how in debt our company is to all of us.

It also reminded me of what it is like to work with a group of competent folks who strive for excellence. It is such a stark contrast to the people Mindi and I have been struggling with for some time. It gives me hope that we can eventually get to that point together in our non professional causes. But even with all of that said, the hope seems dim at times when we have to deal with the things we have had to deal with recently…..

Ever have one of those times in your life where you feel totally out of sorts? Well Richard and I are in one of those times. We are people who tend to over-extend ourselves, we have a lot of ideas and *generally* work well together. However, we have recognized that we do tend to be super busy and are striving to bring some things back into balance. All work and no play and all that. Plus, we want the things we do participate in to have meaning and be fruitful to the causes in which we believe.

Now here is the hard part, what do we get rid of and how do we extricate ourselves from things that we were once committed to, but seem to be no longer functioning well or giving any benefit? And by benefit, I don’t mean benefit to us, but benefit to the purpose of the activity. Here is where the problem that we face lies. As a Christian it is very hard sometimes to draw the line when enough is enough. Admittedly, Richard is easier at this than I am. I have a very strong sense of commitment and it’s very hard for me to extricate myself from anything I feel I made a commitment to, no matter how invalid or dysfunctional that thing now has become. But I would say overall we are not people who take commitment lightly and try to hang in there through good times and bad.

Our frustration with some of the activities in which we are involved is astronomical at this point. Between seeing little or no results, both to the issues that plague the activities and the activities’ purpose, and dealing with incompetent people, we feel our talents are best served in other arenas. At the same time, we worry that if we leave those activities that there will be no one to pick up the slack. And if that is the reason we have stayed, is that a valid reason to continue beating our heads against a brick wall? At what point is it best to start pursuing other activities to achieve the same goals and leave behind the activities that just aren’t working? At what point to do we have to remove ourselves from the personal aspects of those activities and take a hard look at the practical achievements of those activities? These are our dilemmas.