Where do you want this network rack? Tech Support |
- Where do you want this network rack?
- 11:00am. Time for the network to fail for users in 2W.
- Throw it against the wall!
- The Re-burning
- Typewriter fix =/= Computer fix
- I'm Mr. Bigshot and I Approve this Downtime
- The network switch at the roof.
| Where do you want this network rack? Posted: 13 Aug 2019 04:02 PM PDT The company I work for is currently remodeling the first floor of the building. They are turning into a show piece to bring customers in and show off and WOW! people. I'm part of the design approval team because I'm in IT and the company FINALLY figured out we need to be part of the process (after 4 other remodels in various locations). I got the newest revision of the plans today and notice AGAIN that they didn't include a space for networking equipment so I went across the street to the architurkey firm designing the place. I asked to speak to the architect and inquired about a centralized networking spot and he said "we decided it won't be needed and left it out". I stood there for a moment and then picked up my jaw off the floor and asked (in a more diplomatic term) WTF?!?!? He tried to explain that it wasn't going to be too bad we that we just needed to figure something out. I looked at the plans and there are 43 (not a typo) displays (tv with no sound) and 96 network drops. I asked about the wiring and he said "it won't be a problem". After some more back and forth I walked away. Fast forward a few hours and I got my two wheeler (aka the dolly) and wheeled a full sized rack across the street and up to the architurkeys office and asked where they wanted it. Dude came out and asked what I was doing. I said "I need a space for the equipment that is going to run the network and the displays so this is the first of 4 racks I'm bring over to hook everything up when the time comes. He starts spluttering that it can't be done like this and I say "well sir, I've got a fiber line that runs under the street so I CAN run it over for everything" (I know...we'd need more equipment...but he didn't lol) and I "figured out" where I'm going to hook everything up...HERE He decided that maaayyybbeee we DID actually need a space and they would draw it in. [link] [comments]  |
| 11:00am. Time for the network to fail for users in 2W. Posted: 13 Aug 2019 03:40 PM PDT Our group was level two support (deskside) at huge mega international company, manufacturing plants 6A/B. Millions of square feet of production space - large enough for trains to roll through the factory itself, load and unload materials and products and happily chug their way off to other facilities around the country. People in our group consisted of a displaced full-time worker who used to do something else before being shunted to our support group to run out his retirement clock, several contracted employees who were hired by staffing firms who filled 3rd party contracts to fill catalog numbers in the HR catalog (seriously, see epilogue to the post below), and a newly ordained real employee manager, level 1 (the lowest possible managerial classification there was) to oversee us all. There was an internal call center for level 1 support in the basement of a building at the global HQ building several miles away. Anything they didn't get would be sent to us for on-site support. One day, shortly after 11am there was a sudden burst of calls routed our way from the users in the Second Floor, West section. A few dozen engineers reported that networking services had slowed to a crawl, and they were being dropped. Not terribly uncommon, our site was using Token Ring, and users would frequently kick a cable loose, or the token would fall out of the cable and roll under the desk, and a bad termination to any one computer in the circuit would cause problems for all. After an hour or so of unplugging and replugging the cables under all of the desks, making sure Windows 95 had the correct drivers and all of the settings were correct, the network seemed to be back to normal. Next day, shortly after 11am, same group of people called and reported the same network problems. I checked the last computer that I had checked the day before on the assumption that since the issues went away when I checked that computer it was the most likely culprit and was due for a new NIC, not a rare occurrence. But the problem persisted. So the case went to G, a network engineer who had his own cubicle a few prairie dog holes down from me and did nothing but make sure that the several hundred PCs on site would network, the very expensive fiber connections between the switches and closets would fiber, traced bad wiring and other network only things. G didn't talk to any end user for any reason. Every issue with the network came to his attention through us. His troubleshooting included using a packet sniffer and identified the problem as being in the special cube. The special cube was occupied by a manager, level 5. He was the highest ranking person at the site who didn't have an actual office with an actual door, but was special enough to merit cubicle walls that were about 6' high, as opposed to the 4' walls typical for everybody else. His cube was larger, with room for his desk and three visitor chairs across from him. Nobody was quite sure what he did, but he did it with power and authority. He would come into the office around 10 or 10:30am, read some emails, then launch this brand new program he had discovered on the internet - his authority granted him unlimited browsing through the firewall - and when we showed up he was anxious to show us the amazing awesomeness of PointCast. No more having to go to web pages to look up sports scores and headline news like a sucker! PointCast would stream the fresh, new and recent updates to his computer without lifting a finger! He would run the software for an hour or two, then shut down his computer and leave the building for some very important meetings. We explained to him that company policy prohibited the installation of any software that was not on a very short list of approved packages. He initially allowed us to uninstall it, but a few days later it was back, in all of its network saturation glory. Nobody in our group, nor at least three levels up in IT support outranked him so we couldn't force him to comply. The people being kicked off the network were almost entirely engineers who reported to him through one or two intermediate layers so he could dismiss their issues with a wave of his hand, and they were happy to slack off for a bit during the day - or at least work on the software they could use without needing the network. Eventually came the solution: after about six weeks of this he loudly declared that PointCast was boring, he was tired of the constant crawl of text that never told him anything interesting - occasionally crashing in the process - and summoned a level two to his cubicle (he didn't have to call the level 1 call center) to scrub the buggy program from his machine. Before 1:00pm because he had a very important meeting offsite. And just like that the networking issues vanished. Epilogue: catalog numbers. The way humungo corp did hiring involved an HR catalog. When somebody was needed to fill a position a manager would consult the list and submit a requisition order for, say, "deskside support, full time - P/N 4001992" and HR would carry out the steps needed to make it happen. Needed a new engineer, secretary, metallurgy tech, you find the part number and submit the purchase request. Needed a new coffeemaker, fleet vehicle big screen TV to mount over a loading bay? Exactly the same process, to the company it was just another part from just another catalog. It felt like of weird to be itemized like that. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 14 Aug 2019 01:25 AM PDT This story is from 2006. Ever since I got handy with computers I helped my dad with the computers at his company office. He had 2 old flat case systems with the screens on top of them. One day I came from school and went by my dad's office. As soon as I walk in he starts asking me to check out one of the systems because it wouldn't start, the screen stayed black. I could tell he was very agitated and I wasn't having a good day either. As I just walked in I wanted to have a drink first but my dad wouldn't have it and kept pushing me to check the computer. I resumed getting myself a drink and sat down at the cafeteria table. He kept asking and finally I said: "Just throw it against the wall and see if that helps." Guess what? He did. He grabbed the case from under the screen unplugging everything in the progress and walked outside. He then just threw it against the wall outside and walked away. I was flabbergasted. The case was broken and it seemed lost. I plugged it back in to see what would happen. I pressed the power button and the screen turned on... It was working! Windows was booting again and the computer was fine. I didn't dare say I told you so to my father but I was definitely thinking it! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 13 Aug 2019 01:30 PM PDT This happened way back in 2012. English is not my primary language so apologies in advance. I was working in an advertising company as a "swiss knife" which basically means the guy who fixes everything computer related. We we organizing a big event, and we were going to give a press kit. A nice folder, some A4 papers with a press release, and a CD containing a pdf presentation. 1000 copies. Paper stuff was some other guys responsibility, so I got the pdf, went to a cd duplication store, they duplicated 1000 copies, with that organization's branding on them. also had some extra copies were made to be show to the client. Everything was ready the day before that event. At night, around 21:00, my phone rings, my boss calls me - Hi, so the organization manager wants to change the filename on the CD's, its "brand_presentation.pdf" he didnt like the underscore lets make it "brand SPACE presentation.pdf" * excuse me what? are you serious, CDs are already burned, its 21:00, the event starts at 10:00 tomorrow, how am I supposed to to this? - make it happen I dont care how. I called the CD burning shop, closed obviously quick thinking. we have 10 iMacs at the office. I have my work macbook, another macbook at home, let's bring it to the office. pdf is small in size, this operation may be possible. I called 2 of my coworkers, "I will get you food and beer please come to the office and help me" they said ok. I drive to the office. I like to backup things. By total chance, the week before I ordered 2000 empty unbranded CDs and 2000 empty CD stickers to the office. So here we are, 12 Macs, 3 guys, 1000 empty CDs, 1000 empty CD stickers, food, beer, and a stupid pdf with some space in the filename. We started burning the CDs. It was like a ford car assembly line, I put empty CD to one computer, move to the next one, as I put the 12th cd into 12th computer the first one is finished so while I was feeding the machines with CDs, one guy "handwrites" the organization name on the stickers with a nice calligraphy and the other one puts stickers on CD. We started around midnight and finished around 8 AM. zero sleep, I drive to the venue, drop the CDs to the press desk, started putting them into press release folder, and here comes "that" manager. he asks me "why these CD are not branded with actual graphics, why are these handwritten?" "OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD" the end. [link] [comments]  |
| Typewriter fix =/= Computer fix Posted: 13 Aug 2019 06:04 PM PDT First post on this subreddit. Figured it might go here (let me know if there is a better place for it). This is not me, this is a story a coworker told me from the 80's. Coworker of mine (let's call her Rachel) at this government agency works mainly with software, but sometimes acts as the go to person for IT help before formally a submitting a ticket to IT. So this was back in the 1980's. The agency was transitioning from IBM Selectric typewriters to these new fangled IBM mainframes with monitors. One of the older ladies who had worked there for a long time (let's call her Susan) and would type out checks every month, somewhere in the range of 150-250 checks every month. Now, when trying to correct an error on a type writer, there is no backspace. You have to go in with whiteout the wrong area. Quick cover up, blow on it to dry it, you're all fixed. She got really good at quickly correcting her errors. In come these new fancy computer monitors on which Susan is to input her checks on. Rachel looks over one day to see Susan correcting one of her mistakes, by applying whiteout to the computer monitor screen and then blowing on it to dry it. Rachel had to come over and help get the white out off and show her how to actually delete errors (little spit and a napkin. CRT screens were thick and tough). They had a good laugh about it. TL;DR older employee who is used to fixing typewriter errors tries to fix a computer error by applying whiteout on the screen [link] [comments]  |
| I'm Mr. Bigshot and I Approve this Downtime Posted: 13 Aug 2019 06:34 AM PDT I support an application across seven different locations. It's not critical for business, but when it goes down, it makes people hyperventilate because they don't remember how to do the same function the old fashioned way. Thankfully, downtimes for this application are a rare event. Yesterday we had one of those rare unplanned downtimes. It's not my first rodeo, so I pull out my downtime procedures and start going down the list. One of the things I have to do is notify the users and the only way to do that is to send an email through the administrative departments of all seven sites. Five of the sites were perfectly fine with this and sent the message out to their people with no trouble. Then we get to the other two sites. I sent the message to administration, only to get a reply from the person I sent it to asking if the head of their department, we'll call him Mr. Bigshot, had approved the email and if so, to forward his approval email because they don't send ANYTHING without Mr. Bigshot's approval. Small problem with that:
I responded back with points #2 and 3 and copied my boss (she knows what a PITA these two locations are and what a PITA Mr. Bigshot is). I never got a response from the administration department, so I'm not sure if the end users ever received the message or not. Fortunately, the downtime was resolved about an hour after I sent the message out, so there likely wasn't enough time to cause mass panic. I think once Mr. Bigshot gets back into town next week, I'll ask my boss to get in touch with him and ask for a blanket approval on anything I send so that I can avoid this. If I'm lucky, I might get a response by Christmas. [link] [comments]  |
| The network switch at the roof. Posted: 13 Aug 2019 06:08 AM PDT This happened way back in 2008. English is not my primary language so apologies in advance. I was at mandatory military service as an ordinary private, but my "talent" in understanding computer related stuff got me some desk job, and "me the military soldier" quickly turned out to "me the tech support service soldier" in service of the ranked officers. I was actually doing computer and other technical maintenance stuff at the base, until that one day I had the most extreme tech support I ever gave. It was around 23:00 and I was in bed ready to sleep, idk reading, maybe? I got called to the hq by one of ranked officers. I got told to dress civil clothing. "at this hour? ok" I said and went. There was this high ranked officer in his personal car, "get in" he said, "I have no internet at home" wow. So we drove like 20 minutes to his flat, in a 2-building complex, each got 12 floors (important) his was 5th floor. We got into his house, he showed me his computer, no ethernet connection. "show me the modem" I said thinking this should be easy, bad or disconnected cable. He pointed that one other building, 7th floor. "- what?" So, yes. "That guy" pays for a 8Mbit ADSL connection and shares the connection to 2 entire, 12 floored building. I asked "how did you connect" Naturally I said, "lets check the other guys modem cause there is no way I'm going to the roof", forgetting that I'm a soldier and technically I'm under order so the officer told me I should check the roof first and thats an order. So we went up 12th floor, only to find the trap door locked with a huge padlock. The officer said the guy who has the key is on vacation, I thought "ok great this adventure is over" but noooo, he phoned "his foot soldier" to find a cutter and and bust the padlock with a cutter. please keep in mind that its about midnight now. after 20 something minutes, the padlock is cut and roof door opens. I went up the the roof, found the ethernet cable which comes from the other bulding, followed it, and reached to... a network switch, covered in pidgeon poo, its cover plastic melted, and obviously not working. I took the switch from the poo pile, got down the ladder, showed him "this is the problem". and the officer called some guy again. its probably 01:00 am now. give the phone to me, and I "ordered" a switch at this hour. and yes, it was delivered by car. and yes, I installed it, got the internet working, and his "foot soldier" drove me back to base. the end. [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Tales From Tech Support. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment