I was intending to give you an update on how my work is totally taking care of the problem how to spend my time and energy, and report on how some people at work 'pulled a Elsie the Cow' (die Kuh Elsa) on me.
Then it dawned upon me that this would have gotten me blank stares bereft of any understanding from the anglophone world, as this piece of humor might never have been translated. I'll have to locate a transcription and translate it, but I can show you what the technical context was.
My charming PM (only a very slight reddish tinge) came to me asking for help 'just to answer a few questions from a customer'. Those few questions made me queasy even before I found out that they were actually only a short excerpt of a longer communication, from what I discovered to be a severely miffed customer, which culminated in 'can possibly aurora have something to do with that?' Duh. Yes, it can. Looking at the recordings of solar emanations over the last year, I then discovered that we were very lucky that the extent of the interference of forementioned geo-astro-physical effect decided to stop just short of the point where two other customer systems would have come into its reach.
The other, quite unsavoury part is played by a big manufacturer of GPS stuff, who first declared to be totally clear for the week rollover last april (which they totally weren't), and shortly afterwards started to produce SW updates with an alarming frequency.
SW updates for distributed GPS receivers in a country where reaching the installations involve helicopters.
And then OUR legal beagles start to play games over the signing of a NDA which would be a prerequisite to getting the abovementioned manufacturer to talk shop with me.
It is not that I need to dig to discover more related dung - it seems to be sufficient to stand near the shovel.
BTW, we have an open position now (Karlsruhe, Germany)! Someone with solid RF (not SW, SHF) knowledge and an affinity to aviation and mind-wrecking troubles feeling lucky? Grab your stick, get onto the equine corpse and let me know!
If you are good, maybe I can make a getaway.
Currently at 350% personal utilisation. Don't be scared, starters get only 200%.