General discussion
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Topic
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Two weeks from h3ll!
LockedIt started on the anniversary of D-Day. The phone rang at about 4:30 am. It was my sister-in-law saying “It’s time.” We showered, dressed, and drove to the home and said good-bye to my mother-in-law. After some crying and reminiscing, we thanked the hospice nurse and went to IHOP for breakfast. That was the high point of the week.
I checked my calls Sunday morning, three calls in the queue, nothing remarkable. The family started gathering for the funeral on Tuesday. On Monday morning, there were 12 calls. I worked until about 1 and got the count down to 5, then took off home to get ready for the wake that night and funeral on Tuesday. I was not looking forward to the gathering (they’re family and I love’em, but I can’t stand to be around half of them for more than an hour at a time).
On Wednesday morning, there were again 12 calls in the queue. I started to work on the calls in Columbia, forgetting completely that I needed to be at a construction meeting in Augusta at 9. The engineer called me at 9:15, and I went to the store in Augusta to help with a network/electrical survey for a temporary location for the pharmacy; the move is in a week. I spent the rest of Wednesday, and Thursday through Saturday, closing anywhere from 6 to 10 calls per day, only to finish each day with the same number of calls with which I started. One call is a warranty part, but I can’t get the Lexmark site to accept the claim; says the printer doesn’t exist. I’ll fight that later. Went home and managed not to get called out on Sunday.
Monday morning first thing, I finally get the Lexmark site to accept the claim, then I again attack my calls, managing to get the queue down to 5 for the first time since Sunday a week earlier. Then, Monday night, about an hour after I went to bed, I got called out for a wireless VPN server crash and got home at 4 am after replacing the server. (On Tuesday afternoon, I found out the problem was not the server itself, but a conflict caused by the last VPN update!) I was paged back out at 9 am on Tuesday for a POS system failure (11 calls in the queue!) and didn’t get to my hotel room in Myrtle Beach until 10 pm.
At 5 am Wednesday, my phone once again rang for another POS controller failure. I drove back to Columbia. At noon, with only three calls in the queue, I went home to pick up a parts shipment, planning to take a nap as well and get ready for the pharmacy move that evening. Just as I was about to lay down, my phone rang. “If you have this part, take it to Savannah, there’s a store down.” So I headed for Savannah, taking the back roads (less traffic and fewer cops on SC 3 than on US 321). Best-feeling part of the trip is about halfway between Barnwell and Estill, singing at full volume along with Greg Allman: “Sometimes I feel…like I’ve been tied to the whipping post…oh, Lord I feel like I’m dying…” Didn’t sound good, but it sure felt good.
After I delivered the part, I drove to Aiken to pick up the network equipment for the temporary pharmacy, then drove to Augusta to do the pharmacy move. The electrician has everything pulled, but the pharmacy threw us a curve and swapped the drop-off and pick-up windows, so we need to pull two more drops. He pulled while I tested the existing drops. Found a couple of open drops, determined that all the rest were wired 1-for-1, but not to any spec; not worried about it, it’s temporary. Fixed the bad drops and terminated the home run to the primary store switch, installed the switch, then proceeded to move the equipment to its new locations, set it up and test it. Everything except one printer (no drop, the electrician is gone, and I’m not pulling it tonight!) installed and pinging at 1 am, breakfast at Waffle House, home at 3.
Thursday morning at 9 and the call queue is back into double digits. 30 minutes into my first call, my boss calls. Sev 1 paging is down, there’s [u][b]another[/b][/u] server crash. Bad power supply, won’t boot. The power supply I need is the part I took to Savannah on Wednesday. Run some tests, suspect both PS are bad, head for Atlanta to pick up a pair being shuttled out. Get the power supplies, back to the store, install them, server still won’t boot. WTF? Checking all kinds of stuff, help desk finally calls level 3. First question he asks: “Is there a floppy in the drive?” DOH! (I know, I know, I should have checked. But I’m running on about 16 hours of sleep since Sunday night. And how many of you boot your servers from floppies? Or even use floppies in your servers? Hmm?) Server boots normally at 3 pm. Work til 8 to get queue down to 5 calls. Remember that Lexmark printer? No part, claim denied. Telephone desk closed, must call in the am.
This morning I call Lexmark to be told they have no record of that printer. I am in Columbia, the printer is in Augusta, it will have to wait until this afternoon. Get the call queue down to 2 B-) by lunch and head to Augusta. Take a picture of the printer data tag and email it to Lexmark. Get an email about 30 minutes later, “Yep, you’re right, database has been corrected, you can resubmit your claim.” Resubmitted, this time it took first time. Went to the pharmacy I moved Wednesday to finish up with the last printer. Pulled a drop, connected the printer, hooked it up and tested it OK, pharmacy now complete in temp location. Headed for the house.
Something wrong with this picture: I’m headed home and there’s still daylight. Gawd, I hope it’s over! I can’t take another week of this.
But there’s hope. I’ve got my first beer since last Sunday and after 10 hours, there are still only two calls in the queue. Maybe it really is over…
