Words Fail, So Does Power

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Yesterday around 1 pm, we had a power hit. Our entire facility (Resort Hotel) lost it all.

And the generator didn't kick in.

BEFORE I got here, my predecessor didn't know how to install a basic UPS. Seriously - the ones you stick on an office computer. He had them all on the "power strip" side because he wasn't smart enough to flip them over and attach the battery. The server room was a room BEYOND a disaster - running machines stacked all over the place, covers all over the place, the KVM switch only having three things on it because he couldn't figure out where to get more cables for it, (which meant he had extra monitors and keyboards). He even had stuck the domain server in some guys office so he'd have more room. And that's off the top of my head!

NOW I'm down to a couple of offices that need a UPS and more wiring that still needs cleaned up.


So, while the power is out, I'm calmly shutting down the servers. I get a call from the boss (General Manager). He wants to know why the his cell phone isn't working. Hmm - I'll have to check the UPS on the repeater (that I had to install).

After we're dark, I wander through offices shutting off UPSs. (They shut down the computers on their own! Yah! users that have at least 25% working brains!)

GM wants to know why his computer won't work. ("Uh, no power?") No, what he wants to know is why the battery backup in his office stopped working after 15 minutes - isn't the reason we have them is to prevent that?

(This is the guy that didn't believe me when I told him "We're not putting the computers on the ancient carpet because they act like freaking VACUUM cleaners!")


Then the phone switch didn't restart correctly and IT'S battery backup has failed too.

Looong day today I suspect...

(no subject)

[gotica.livejournal.com]

I guess I don't have as juicy a post as the recent ones..

( email password sharing.... )

I believe I just opened a sack o cats and threw a mouse in to the fray.

Keeping up with the competition

[mtupyro.livejournal.com]

$BOSS: I've been told that profiles over in $OTHERDEPARTMENT load a lot faster than they do here.

$PYRO: Well, we should find a way to slow those down shouldn't we?

I got a high five for that comment =)

One of those moments...

[toxico.livejournal.com]

It's rather ironic to walk in on the entire Compliance department gathered around one person's machine watching a pirated copy of The Great Debaters.

AIEE

[wxgeek.livejournal.com]

Call queue just went from 0 to SIXTY calls deep in about two minutes. *panic.*

edit: We have two call centers; I'm in the Pensacola center, and the other center is Vegas. Vegas just lost power.

(no subject)

[phrogg.livejournal.com]

Maybe i'm just this irate because i'm new to the "call center" facet of tech support. Maybe the rest of you have taken a hollow, begrudging acceptance to these sort of calls, maybe i'm completely missing the point of a call center.

( Dear Old Lady With Unintelligible Accent: )

40 minutes of my life that I can never have back....

[fuego.livejournal.com]

So today's been a nice easy Thursday. I've had very little to deal with. Nothing going on. Easy stuff. Lots of RMA status checks and "quick questions" that for once actually were.

And then The Call comes in. So this guy is telling me about a unit in Iraq. He's calling me from California. Video conferencing over ISDN. Joy. *jump* Starts out with "So we're getting this error message: "error. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera." What's that?

Can't call one of our test sites in CA, sounds like he's talking to someone in Iraq having them do the work. I have him call another in MA...same. I give him a call from a test unit here in my office- AFTER we go through the mess of getting his ISDN number- initially, he asked me for it!!...connects.

Somehow it never registers in my mind that he's having me call a California phone number. And he keeps talking bout this unit being "over in Iraq"- note, he's very distinctively pronouncing it eye-raq, not ih-raq.

I start asking him questions about his BRI box...he's saying he's looking at it, all the lights are green, we're going back and forth and something is very wrong. I ask him how the unit is connected to the BRI. With cables, he says. But it's in Iraq? Yes, he says. And the BRI is in California? Yep. but the unit is in Iraq? Yep. And what is it connected to? The BRI. They're connected directly? Affirmative. How is the BRI in California connected to the unit in Iraq? Phone cables. (Insert several rephrasings of this question, getting me nowhere.)

Finally, the only thing that seems to get my message across is to say "Sir how is it that a videoconferencing unit in the Middle East is connected directly to a BRI in California? Those are some really long phone cables."

37 minutes into the call, I could hear the lightbulb go on.

"Oh, no...it's not in eye-raq. It's in a rack. In a closet here in my office. "

And that's when I killed him, your honor. Reached right through the phone and ripped out his trachea.

Pr0n In the Workplace?

[asbrand.livejournal.com]

So....I'm betting that most of you have HR policies against pr0n in the workplace, right?

I work in the NOC for a large cable / ISP company (that rhymes with ROCKS) and one of our new offerings is Video over the IP backbone.

To monitor this, we have a tool on our desktop, as well as a high-def widescreen TV on our desks.   If the monitoring tool shows a red alarm on a channel, this means there is some type of problem.  Jitter, audio out of synch, etc.    We have to change the channel on the TV to view / listen to see what the problem is.   Not a problem right?

Only problem is...after 11pm, HBO, Cinemax, etc...all like to play Pr0n.  

So, we get an alarm on that, I have to put a gangbang up on the bigscreen for all the NOC to see, just to make sure the "oooh, baby's" are synchronized with their lips...

*massive giggles*

I'm just waiting for one of the little old ladies who work behind me to have a heart attack and have HR come down on us like a ton of bricks...



-Az