Ice, ice, baby!

[ihateemo.livejournal.com]

Austin is in the middle of an icy spell. This morning I had to chisel and melt off about a quarter inch of ice that had encased my car.

Of course, this also means that people who know that operations needs staff 24/7 are taking the opportunity to punk off of work. One of our guys drives from San Antonio every day and he made it in, so I didn't really have the option to call out because I live about 10 miles away from the office.

But certain lame-oids from our team are using the OMG THE ROADZZZ excuse to not come in, which means that said co-worker and myself will be working to cover those lazy assholes. It also means that a lot of front line techs aren't coming in either. My co-worker summed it up thusly:

"Right now, the NOC has about two people in there who can even spell 'IP'."

Comments

[persephoneflame.livejournal.com]

I'm in San Antonio and they closed my office today-- so unless the servers choke, my ass is staying home in the warm house.

Welcome to Texas, where when the temp drops below freezing, we stay the fuck home.

[ihateemo.livejournal.com]

...unless you're in my job.

[psychotwinkie.livejournal.com]

*comes outta lurk mode*

I wonder how the local techies handle ice in my neck of the woods. I mean, does "bad roads" actually even work up here in Buffalo?

We got blasted with a storm too, and even with the 1/2 inch thick ice, things went along like normal. But up here we are used to it. I can understand how it kicks the crap out your city.

Good luck with the ice. About all i can offer is a good cup of hot cocoa :)

[vortex.livejournal.com]

Awwww...don't be so down on those who don't make it in. Some of them might actually have valid reasons like:

1) they may have bald tire (can't afford new ones on the pittance IT people are now paid)

2) They might live on the North side of town, which typically gets more snow than the south side.

3) In Atlanta (and this year, looks like Texas), we typically get freezing rain, which basically means the roads get covered in sheets of ice. Now, I used to be brave and bold and think I could drive on ice, but once I hit a patch on a bridge and let me tall ya, you can't drive on ice...unless you have metal spikes in your tires. I will never drive in freezing rain conditions again I tell ya!...

[vortex.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...now that I think about it, bald tires would probably give better traction on ice...wouldn't do crap in snow though...

[persephoneflame.livejournal.com]

Your job is clearly insane. There is ice piling up /everywhere/. Even if you, personally, know how to drive in ice and have the vehicle for it, no one else does. I love being on the road with a bunch of people who are driving like /fools/.

I hope they let you go home soon. :( It's getting worse here.

[persephoneflame.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we've had frozen rain for about 12 hours it looks like. Everything is coated in ice.

At least here there aren't any big pine trees to explode-- always a disconcerting part of an ice storm along I20.

[texasts.livejournal.com]

I'm in Houston. Just wai9ting for what you've got. Closed our offices today. But everyone is supposed to login from home. Half of us are on Citrix the other via some form of vpn. My7 system here at home has crashed twice.

The lag between refreshes on some apps is upwards of 2 minutes. Looks like system resources are stretched to the max...

Supposed to be worse tomorrow!

Joy.

[vortex.livejournal.com]

Ahhh..you know the area!

Yes, nothing like dodging 80ft pines on and icy interstate highway.

Also of concern are having those branches loaded with ice, come crashing down onto your house...though hearing them crashing in the forrest is as much of Surreal as you can get in most places...

[adamjaskie.livejournal.com]

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/forecast/MapClick.php?CityName=Houghton&state=MI&site=MQT

[persephoneflame.livejournal.com]

My parents live on about 100 acres of mixed pine/oak forest in North Louisiana. It is /very/ surreal to hear one of the big ones explode in the forest. The little ones just lean over, but once they get to a certain size, the ice is too heavy and they're too rigid and they literaly explode, the tops shatter off if enough branches don't fall off first.

[vortex.livejournal.com]

Sweeet!

We live on a 3/4 acre lot but are surrounded by 40-80ft. pines. I believe it wa feburary 03' when we had our last Big Ice storm and half of them came down...fortunately missing the house...

[vortex.livejournal.com]

p.s.

Are you in any relation to Ms. Persophone?...

[ihateemo.livejournal.com]

Alas, no. I'm here til 5. Without my team in on the job the network is completely unsupervised.

It's not quite trying to keep a colo in New Orleans online during Hurricane Katrina but it's still shitty. :\

[anamacha.livejournal.com]

dude. what center in austin do YOU work in? I'm in Austin as well, and yeah half our people punked out. we're 13 down right now. Fucking sucks. But at least they're feeding us and putting us up in hotel rooms that we wouldn't be able to afford otherwise.

[ihateemo.livejournal.com]

Clearly I work in one that doesn't mind hosing me. I'm not getting out of here til 8pm at the earliest. 13 hour shifts ROCK!!!!!!!!! :DDDDDDDDDDDD

I like overtime pay though. KerCHING.

[anamacha.livejournal.com]

sheeit. I'm getting burned the fuck out just thinking about it.

What do you support?

[ihateemo.livejournal.com]

I do ATM/IP network monitoring and handle some floor escalations for a major telecoms company. We have major (MAJOR) clients so sadly it's not the kind of network you can leave to run by itself.

Apparently working from home is not an option - there is no VPN solution per se, just a few applications that run on Citrix (and don't work 100%) of the time. The company was sold to a larger company a couple of weeks ago and I don't expect things to improve...I am planning to jump ship very soon. :)

[anamacha.livejournal.com]

dude, that's just stupid. I work for an ISP (sort of) and everything here can be done trough the VPN --

-- except take calls, which is what I do. Bollocks.

[anamacha.livejournal.com]

true enough. silly me.

[zendequervain.livejournal.com]

Ah, the ice-laden trees falling on the house.

That happened to my family in Missouri this week. Most of them have been without power since last Friday. :(!

(On the plus side, my aunt's house has a wood-burning stove for heat, so they're toasty warm there!)