What quick naps can do to you

I had a conference call this morning at 8:30 AM PST and had to prepare for it before hand but after getting up for Suhoor, also referred to as Sehri (A morning ritual of eating a little something in emulation of the Prophet Muhammad before the dawn breaks) I managed to convince myself that I had enough time and I can catch a few more zzzzzzzzs before getting to work. I woke up again at 7 AM and decided I can sleep a bit more since I can do the conference call from home. I decided to put a move on around 7:40 AM figuring I would need about a half hour of preparation for the call. That is when the proverbial got a kick, when to my horror, I was unable to locate my VPN card. At SAP, a Secure ID is provided to all employees so they can generate a code on the fly and login to the company system from anywhere. Unfortunately, the fact that I could not find out rendered me helpless. I don't think I have ever taken a quicker shower in my life and rushed out the door leaving last night's garbage at the door, for which, I am probably going to catch some flak, when I go home tonight. I drove like a maniac on Central Avenue and probably did around 55 on a 25 MPH zone, managing to make it just in time to get in the conference call.

Lesson: Get the &^%^**) up when its time to get up. Sheesh!!

I found out about a new service that SAP provides its customers called SMPC. I had heard of SMPS but SMPC was not only new to me, it was happily new to everyone I pinged for information. SMPC stands for Solution Manager Preparation Check. Solution Manager is SAP's tool installed with our systems to help our customers with support matters, filing tickets, finding notes (SAP Knowledge Base Articles) etc. SMPS stands for Solution Manager Preparation Service. It is apparently a more comprehensive service for the Solution Manager and provides detailed recommendations for customers on how best to use Solution Manager with their SAP installations. SMPC, on the other hand is a much more precise and targeted check that ensure that solution manager is able to do what it is supposed to do in anticipation of upcoming services that are going to be performed by SAP for the customer. Learning new things everyday as usual.