Servers Don't Mix With Hurricanes

[jacobine.livejournal.com]

So, my company manufactures drillpipe, which means when you go out to one of the manufacturing plants there's lots of heavy machinery and lots of fork lifts and trucks and big pieces of heavy pipe all over the place, stacked in racks.

We have a lot of sites in eastern Louisiana, including a good-sized manufacturing facility in Houma, which is pretty close to New Orleans and farther south.

Because of Hurricane Ivan, that site has been shut down, and we've turned the servers off. They've been encouraging people to evacuate the area.

So what happens? A couple of folks have come into town to work here, rather than there. And they call and want to know why they can't get to their email or onto their server. One was pretty understanding when we explained why. The other wanted us to turn it back in and move his email.

Uh, no. Deal. We don't have anyone there, we aren't sending anyone there, and we're not risking everyone else losing their data just because you want your email. We had to explain this several times.

Comments

[billysapphire.livejournal.com]

They really just don't get it. They cannot grasp the concept of "it ain't gonna happen" just because they want it to.

this should probably be a seperate post, but i'm lazy

[200iso.livejournal.com]

oh the subject of hurricanes and dumb customers.

i do tech support for a large american cable internet (the preceeding sentence isn't entirely true, but that's a longer story).

yesterday a customer called in from florida.
first of all, she was very suprised that hurricane force winds were able to rip her overhead cable line. secondly, she was even more surprised that the cable line had "some juice" in it, she apparenly gave herself quite an electrical shock splicing the line together.

[fnordx.livejournal.com]

"Alright, sir, so what you're saying is that you want us to send a tech down there and risk his life so you can get your email?"

Re: this should probably be a seperate post, but i'm lazy

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

She tried to splice the line?

A for effort, I suppose..

[seattlesparks.livejournal.com]

I still think my favorite ones are the people who want to know why you haven't sent an e-mail to tell them why the mailserver is down. And miss the glaringly obvious flaw in this statement.