Thursday *****fest - 4/20/17

Oh hells yeah.

Can't go into details, but it sure would be nice if at my company they'd have listened to me THREE WEEKS AGO when I tried to let them know there were issues with the data quality they are having me build a data extract for, and they kept poo-poohing me.

Now that we're LATE on delivering the project, and up against the NEW production deadline, quality assurance is finding the issues I've been telling them about this whole time, and NOW it's an emergency to get it fixed.

But I can't say "Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine..." because I like getting my paycheck and all.

Grrrr.

As a fellow data nerd, I totally sympathize. That sucks!

Then you'll really appreciate the headdesk moment from my graduate program (healthcare informatics) last night. We're in a module about building dashboards for BI analysis projects, right? And someone posts in our classroom discussion board about how a solid data warehouse is a critical pre-requisite for a successful BI project.

Then this yahoo who will undoubtedly be sitting in the C-suite in a few short years, starts yapping about how the new trend for healthcare informatics is "data lakes" and because data lakes are agnostic and unstructured and eliminate the need for data warehouses. But they present a new challenge because the analytics professionals (us) then have to figure out how to mine and visualize the data in all of these unstructured formats.

::headdesk::

If it's unstructured and unvalidated and thrown into a "data lake" then it's not freakin' appropriate for BI. I just love it when C-suite yahoos read about new tech in an article in CIO Weekly or whatever, and then come to IT saying "hey, we can get rid of our data warehouses because Big Data and unstructured queries and ..." (whatever other IT CIO word salad they can throw together) "and won't this be GREAT?!?"

Um... I do not think that word means what you think it means.

But I can't rebut this guy in my discussion board because I have to provide citations to back up my statements, because 20+ years in IT and 15+ years in data warehousing isn't enough citation. So sometime this evening I have to drag out my stack of IT reference books to back up enough statements to say "WTF, dude? are you high?" in a professional manner.

Grrrr.

Data lake? More like data SWAMP if you ask me.

I've found the best way to come back at that is to ask a really technical question that they can't answer and makes them look silly!

Yeah, we actually use the term in the shop I work at to refer to what I'm used to calling the "staging area"... where we pull the data over from the source system as-is, prior to any cleansing or transformations, because it's a quick data pull or replication over a less robust data pipe, and then we've got it on this side of the "wall" so to speak to do all of our cleansing/ETL/whatever to it from there with bigger data pipes.

I had to go read the article in Forbes (yes, Forbes) to understand the term as he was using it, and was like WTF? Ok, whatever... same general concept, but without any structure whatsoever. OK, that just makes it a data mudhole (though I like your term data swamp, I'm viking that if you don't mind) and ok, whatever, but until we get an AI parsing it (snort, yeah like any healthcare organization outside of a research facility has funds for a Watson project!) or do our own ETL/cleansing process, it's worthless for any BI, but you're too wet behind the ears technically speaking to know any of that, you're just spitting back out terminology you read in FORBES to try and impress us. Quit using words you don't understand, sit down, and shut up. LOL.

But then, most of my cohort are pharmacists. We've got a few docs and a few nurses, and there's a few of us with some real IT chops, but most became super users on their system's EMR and decided to go get a master's in informatics and start doing that now. I understand that my blend of solid IT experience with hands-on medical experience isn't terribly common, but I really expected more from the master's program to fill all of this in for those who are coming to it without the experience. I'm sorely disappointed, as at this point everyone in this particular class is getting really close to graduation. But, I have to admit, they're acting like CIOs. LOL.

LOL I understand a little about data mining...but I have to be honest, most of what you two just said sounded in my head like the teacher from the Peanuts cartoons

Yeah, I get that alot. I only went into that detail because SparkleKitty would get it. I'm used to everyone else translating my geek speek into Charlie Brown adult-speak. :D

I would spend my last dollar on my awesome house cleaners who come every 2 weeks. They just left, the house is sparkling, and my giant dog just threw up all over the kitchen floor.

Me: Good morning, so & so, how are you today?

Them: I'm doing well...

Me: I'm glad to hear that.

(Me in my head: Really? Did your momma not teach you manners at all?)
??
#reciprocity

Happens all the time- drives me nuts.

At least they were present for their grammar lessons?

I do agree that "... thank you, and yourself?" should just roll of the tongue after saying "I am well"