Aspies For Freedom

WHAT A DAY!

I get into work and one of the first things they tell me, is that the power is going off in the building with my main server, and main phone switch for about 4 hours while the power company reroutes some lines.

Oh yeah, I'm an I.T. guy 75 users in 10 buildings, covering 500 acres of a 5300 acres resort.  5 servers, 2 2003, and 3 NT.  All Windows no unix. 4 phone switches, all different.  And no fiber, darn it.

Yeah I got UPS's, but they are not going to last 4 hours.  I call mountain operations (yeah, we are a ski resort) and ask them if they have a spare generator.  They bring down this little tiny thing.  I tell them, I'll try it, but I'm not really hopeful.  They turn it on and I plug into it, and my UPS's are still beeping.  So they bring this great big thing they have to haul behind a pickup truck, and I got power.  I am happy.

Well, the voice mail system hiccuped somewhere along the line and I have to reboot it.  No biggy, right?  Well, it is 9 years old and runs on OS/2 Warp of all things.  It takes 3 reboots for it to come up, and I have to reboot the phone switch (a Mitel SX 200) in the middle of the process.  Now the Mitel is 9 years old also, and only about 1/2 of it comes up.  Where is that darn manual when I need it?  Oh yeah, it was on a CD and is on my PC in my office.  Lotta good that's going to do me.  We have no power.  I installed the program to read the manual on my PC and the actual manual is stored on the server.  No, it's not a PDF.  And the program will not install on Server 2003.  Did I mention that my server room is off the boiler room and it is getting about 85 in here, and I have run out of extension cords to run the A/C.  ARGHHHHH!

It's 2 in the afternoon and the power comes back on, it was supposed to come back on at noon.  Not 2 minutes later the generator quits, and I got beeping again.  The guy from Mtn Ops, says something to the effect that he knew he should have filled the tank before he brought it down.  No problemo, The batteries ae charged and I unplug from the generator and plug back into the wall.  I start fiddling with the phone switch.  You see I have lights in the server room now.  I have real power once again.  The guy from Mtn Ops is taking the generator away.  Life is almost good.  I go to my office and try to find the manual program.  Oh yeah, last year I bought myself an XP PRO machine up from an NT wkstn.  I have to find the original CD.  It won't load on XP, "OS unrecognizable"  No biggy, I have an old WIN98 machine (a celeron 466)  I have been using as a doorstop.  It fires up and loads the program. OH HAPPY DAY.  I can't find the freaking error code in the manual.  S**T.  

BTW  I have had my unhappy mr. Potato head face on for most of the day, and nobody is speaking to me.  There is a silver lining to every thing.

So it's about 3:30 and the power company guy shows up again.  They "flopped a phase" and have to shut off the power again.  Will it never end?  This means that they crossed the wires, if we turn on the ski lifts they will run backwards. (This would be so much fun).  The Mtn Ops guy shows up with the big generator and it is full of gas.  YIPPEE.  This time the power is out for only a 1/2 hour.  YIPPEE again.

Back to the phone switch.  I power it down and pull all of the cards clean off the contacts, and put it back together again.  It powers up and actually works.  OH HAPPY DAY!  

The A/C has been on for awhile and it is 68 in the server room again.

I walk outside and my cell phone tells me I have 12 messages.  It seems that the Internet has been down most of the day.  HMMMM, I go back into the server room.  My T-1 is always rock solid.  OOPS, I had put put some paper on top of the router.  I guess it has all of those vent holes on top for a reason.  It is really hot.  I power it down for a couple of minutes and throw out the paper, and power it back up.  We have Internet.

EVERY WORKS!  It's 6:25,I'm going home.  

Too many days like this and I will be old and gray.  Oh wait, I already am.

"I get into work and one of the first things they tell me, is that the power is going off in the building with my main server, and main phone switch for about 4 hours while the power company reroutes some lines."

I hope it was an emergency for the power company to reroute the lines.  I had a major tantrum when one place cut the juice without telling me.  We ended up having several experiments spoil and supplies ruined because of how long the power was off for.  So then when they knew the power would be cut, they had to give fair warning.

Did you have any problems with power surges when the power came back on-line?

Ah, we are a development company also.  WE are about to build some very nice houses along the back nine of our golf course.  So the power company had to move some of the lines out of the way.  They have been working on it for a week, and Tuesday was the day to cut the power over to the new lines.  I am the mushroom department.  They never tell me anything ahead of time.

Anybody want ot buy a house?  KIDDING!!!!!

I kept all of my servers on the generator until the power had been on for 15 minutes.  Then I plugged them back into the wall.

"I am the mushroom department.  They never tell me anything ahead of time."

I know that situation.  I had one supervisor who was always criticizing me for missing meetings or not coming to meeting that were just annouced.  He said I never seemed to check my e-mails.  I got so angry.  I asked him if he was sure that he was sending my e-mails to the correct address.  He swore he did.  Then I told him that was strange because I didn't have an e-mail account at that company.  I didn't even have a computer -  so how the (*^&$^%%$# could he send me an e-mail?   I never had a computer there because I was told "I didn't need one".  It was fun trying to get to use someone else's computer when I did.

I hope your work place appreciates your handling of the "no power" situation.  You should probably send them a memo praising yourself.  How much time and money you saved them.  If the servers had all gone down them everyone would have been screaming and unable to do any work.  Let them now how valuable a worker you are.

And isn't it so often the case that our efforts go largely unappreciated while the more flashy people with less substance have their lesser efforts noticed much more easily?

Someone told me that my problem was that I did not know "the boss is always right."

Well, they were the one with the problem - not you.

I had a day like that recently.  I usually work nights but was there in the day for a special meeting of about 75 people.  During the meeting, the power went out.  It was rather fun to jump up and dash out of the presentation room and down the hall to the computer room to rescue the mainframes. The other IT staff were  surprised to see me there at that hour. They were delighted and relieved when I swooped in like superman.  I was trembling with adrenaline taking everything down in time but it was great to look like a hero for once.  Yeeehawwww!  

I've never been able to save the day in such a dramatic fashion but have had some small "victories" in being able to find files that nobody else could.

oooo isn't that the BEST feeling to do that?   Makes me wag my tail like the MSN puppy.