Sometimes you just have to say "Whatever. Good enough."

If our Indian contractors have been working to lower our expectations, they are succeeding. When we were taking care of this stuff in-house, this would never have flown. From experience, I have come to realize that this is the best I can expect from this sorry, indifferent lot.

Here is the actual text (with real names redacted) from an IM conversation that just happened this morning:
[contractor]@[company] 09:29
Hi plonq, just following up to see if the co-production Grain issue has been resolved.

plonq 09:32
Well, it's fixed in that one problem was replaced by another. Prior to the fix, we were not getting CSD data feeding to COR EME after the 6th of December. After the fix we started getting records after the 6th, but all of the CSD data prior to the 6th appears to have been wiped out.

plonq 09:33
Technically the problem I reported has been fixed, and the new issue will fix itself once those records roll off EME after 45 days, so I guess on the balance of things we can call it resolved.

[contractor]@[company] 09:33
Thanks plonq

Email received 30-seconds later:

PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS SYSTEM GENERATED MESSAGE.

Your [case number redacted] Interaction has been completed.

20120109 - Stainless Fail

A couple of years back somebody had the bright idea to clad the walls of our elevator lobby in stainless steel.

I guess nobody thought to talk to the cleaning staff in advance to find out how hard it is to keep fingerprints off of walls like this. I don't think you have to even touch these walls to leave smudges and prints - I'm pretty sure I've seen them appear via induction when somebody stood too close.

About the same time they replaced the classy, recessed lighting with the harsh, glaring, ceiling-mounted fluorescent fixtures. I assume some people were feeling unsafe with the comparative mood lighting in the lobby, thinking that ne'er do wells might just slip past the security desk, turnstiles, and up the card-locked elevators to wait in the shadows.