Tuesday, Oct 13, 2009
So after the fun, fun work day yesterday (note the thick sarcasm) I come in to work this morning, expecting roughly the same experience. H greets me with a grin from U's desk, telling me the two sick ones are still sick, and his computer is still dead. He proceeds to tell me that he has taken care of all the support emails already, and is considering taking the day off now since he can't get any more work done anyway. I reply that if he does, please stop by U's and R's houses and kick them both from me. 
Before leaving H heads over to the field service people's office and talks to them to get a status update, since the online case monitor for support cases is close to worthless, but from the wrong side of the scale. He comes back and tells me and Supervisor (S) the field service people have been told the replacement hard drive will arrive late afternoon, and though they would love to help him (they like us) they have no spare drives they can give him.
S frowns and says, "No. We can't have another day like yesterday." I nod fervently in agreement. "Thank you!"
S then tells H that he will not get the day off after all, since we can't have only one Tech Support agent taking calls, and heads over to the Department Manager(DM)'s desk. We see them have a brief conversation, and then DM reaches for the phone. Twenty minutes later our favorite field service tech shows up with a replacement hard drive, and a very amused expression on his face. Apparently DM called the people providing spare parts and, ahem, "upgraded" the priority and emergency level of H's case. So the tech was handed a replacement drive and told to drop everything else and fix this computer right now, before more displeased senior managers called and complained.
The tech of course thought this was hilarious.
Before leaving H heads over to the field service people's office and talks to them to get a status update, since the online case monitor for support cases is close to worthless, but from the wrong side of the scale. He comes back and tells me and Supervisor (S) the field service people have been told the replacement hard drive will arrive late afternoon, and though they would love to help him (they like us) they have no spare drives they can give him.
S frowns and says, "No. We can't have another day like yesterday." I nod fervently in agreement. "Thank you!"
S then tells H that he will not get the day off after all, since we can't have only one Tech Support agent taking calls, and heads over to the Department Manager(DM)'s desk. We see them have a brief conversation, and then DM reaches for the phone. Twenty minutes later our favorite field service tech shows up with a replacement hard drive, and a very amused expression on his face. Apparently DM called the people providing spare parts and, ahem, "upgraded" the priority and emergency level of H's case. So the tech was handed a replacement drive and told to drop everything else and fix this computer right now, before more displeased senior managers called and complained.
The tech of course thought this was hilarious.
Monday, Oct 12, 2009
As I came in to work this morning, right before 8:00 AM, my coworker H poked his head around the cubicle wall and said, "No R today, he's seeing a doctor."
Surprised and a bit concerned I inquired further, and found out that R sent H a text Sunday night (they're friends outside of work) to let H know he has a bad eye infection and will be in on Wednesday at the earliest, and that's if the doctor gives him effective antibiotics.
Ah well. There's only four of us on the Level 2 Tech Support team, so we did just lose 25% of the active members, but a regular Monday is nothing the three of us can't handle.
At 8:30, half an hour before the most recent addition to our team, U, is supposed to arrive, he calls in sick. Very high fever. U hardly ever stays home sick, so it's a fair assumption this is perfectly legit, just with very bad timing. H and I exchange a look, and play rock-paper-scissors on who gets to move their lunch to an hour later, before we go ask our supervisor if someone can help out with the tech support calls at least over the lunch breaks.
By 9:30 AM the hard drive in H's work computer makes several loud clicking noises, and then it dies. When he clocked out at 4:00 PM it still hadn't been replaced.
It's going to be a long week.
Surprised and a bit concerned I inquired further, and found out that R sent H a text Sunday night (they're friends outside of work) to let H know he has a bad eye infection and will be in on Wednesday at the earliest, and that's if the doctor gives him effective antibiotics.
Ah well. There's only four of us on the Level 2 Tech Support team, so we did just lose 25% of the active members, but a regular Monday is nothing the three of us can't handle.
At 8:30, half an hour before the most recent addition to our team, U, is supposed to arrive, he calls in sick. Very high fever. U hardly ever stays home sick, so it's a fair assumption this is perfectly legit, just with very bad timing. H and I exchange a look, and play rock-paper-scissors on who gets to move their lunch to an hour later, before we go ask our supervisor if someone can help out with the tech support calls at least over the lunch breaks.
By 9:30 AM the hard drive in H's work computer makes several loud clicking noises, and then it dies. When he clocked out at 4:00 PM it still hadn't been replaced.
It's going to be a long week.
Friday, Oct 9, 2009
After a few years of just not having the energy to mess with it, I have finally accumulated enough curiosity to go find myself a Linux distro for an old laptop again. I now have a full installation of Puppy 4.30 on the hard drive of a Compaq nc4010. It found my sound card and wireless adapter without my help, connected to the wireless network in no time at all, and I was off surfing websites in the ugliest browser I have ever seen -- Seamonkey.
Don't even get me started on the name. Seamonkey?
Fortunately, Puppy Linux has a very active and very documentation-happy forum community, and I was able to find a guide to how to install and configure Firefox. I then replaced the Seamonkey shortcut on my desktop with the Firefox one, and my next project is to find a way to make the laptop hibernate automatically when I close the lid.
I love having a new toy.
Don't even get me started on the name. Seamonkey?
Fortunately, Puppy Linux has a very active and very documentation-happy forum community, and I was able to find a guide to how to install and configure Firefox. I then replaced the Seamonkey shortcut on my desktop with the Firefox one, and my next project is to find a way to make the laptop hibernate automatically when I close the lid.
I love having a new toy.
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