We received a phone call from an on again/off again client. They were having a new switch installed to replace one that was the victim of a power surge. First they need passwords. Then they call back because they guy has been there for 5 hours now and they're still down. So I head out.
Me: How's it going, I'm Alan from $COMPANY. What seems to be the problem?
Contractor: We're having trouble turning on PoE on this switch. I'm not really a network guy so I've got my guy remoted in from the office and we cant figure it out.
Me: Are you sure this is a PoE switch?
Contractor: Sure it is, aren't they all now days?
Me: <Looks at the part number written on the box and shaking my head>
Contractor: What?
Me: You brought the wrong switch.....
So I go to talk this over with the client, and when I come back, the contractor is gone (he packed up his stuff and bolted). I'm able to cable up everything that needs PoE to the half of the blown switch that still works, and everything else to the new non-PoE switch, and then connected the new switch to the rest of the network (yeah buddy, that's why there was no connectivity for the devices plugged into it) so they're at least back up for now. Maybe this is why the other company charges so much less?
A few days later, the vendor ships out the switch that the client paid for, and I'm called back out to finish the job. Client is happy and I'm a hero for a few minutes until I bring up how they should do something to protect their infrastructure from surges. A good surge protector is a lot cheaper than a new 2960 every year. Cisco switches should't blow out this often, look at all these dead ones in the rack because you're too lazy/cheap to have them pulled out. Aaaaaaaaand now they're not talking to us again because all we want is to constantly try to sell them stuff. See you in another year or two when this one blows.
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Overheard at the Office #13
My coworker was on a call with Cisco troubleshooting a completely nonfunctional setup of Cisco Smart CallConnector, and it wasn't very productive this far. Then all of a sudden the Cisco technician had an aha! moment.
Cisco: I've found the problem!
Us: Great, what is it?
Cisco: You guys haven't set up your email server yet. This needs a working email server.
Us: That's odd, this client has been receiving mail on this server for years......
Cisco: Impossible, the mail server isn't up. I can see that it's not working!
Us: Ok, I'll play along..... How can you tell that?
Cisco: I can't telnet into it on port 25.
Cisco: I can't telnet into it on port 25.
Us: Yep, that's by design.
Cisco: Huh?
Us: The server only accepts external traffic from the spam filter on port 25.
Cisco: <silence on the line>
Me: Presses mute and lets out a loud sigh.
Me: Presses mute and lets out a loud sigh.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Overheard at the Office #12
A colleague tossed a Slurpee cup into the trash. The next morning it was on his desk with a yellow sticky note stating "Please do not throw liquids in the trash. Building rules." He then put another yellow sticky over it asking for a copy of these building rule, and then tossed it back into the trash (still containing a sizable amount of liquid). It wasn't there the next morning.
I would have probably just left a note to stop wasting my sticky notes.
Friday, March 13, 2015
Overheard at the Office #11
Dear $NetworkTeam,
The email server appears to be down. Please advise when it will be back up.
--Message received via email.
The email server appears to be down. Please advise when it will be back up.
--Message received via email.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Overheard at the Office #10
Coworker: ....I'm just trying to mitigate what has to be done out there.
Me: No, if it needs to be done, then you need to do it.
Coworker: right....
Me: Don't use big words if you don't know what they mean.
Me: No, if it needs to be done, then you need to do it.
Coworker: right....
Me: Don't use big words if you don't know what they mean.
Monday, February 2, 2015
Box Mitch
It started out simply enough as a joke within the office. Mitch, one of our technicians, was told that he had a strong resemblance to Uncle Vernon from the Harry Potter movies by another of my coworkers. Next thing you know, there are pictures of Uncle Vernon with Mitch's name on them framed over Mitch's desk. It went on a while, but died down eventually.
Then it happened. Mitch called in sick one morning with the sniffles, and then again the next morning. I'm not sure exactly how it started that afternoon, but the picture of Uncle Vernon was attached to Mitch's chair as if he were sitting in it. Next, there was a tshirt that Mitch got from a vendor event in one of his desk drawers, so we put it over the back the chair with the picture sticking out the top like a head. From there a phone headset was put on the picture. We actually had a good week and got the ticket count lower than it had been in some time (with Mitch still out sick), so we jokingly attributed it to the hard work of Box Mitch. It was probably a bit much and appeared as goofing off, but it really was just 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there across an entire week.
Now here's where the trouble started. At least one of our clients got wind of this. This particular client has a great sense of humor coupled with an inability to let a joke go. I'll just say that I've been onsite at his office and listened to him call back to my office frantically screaming that everything is down, we're way behind schedule, and he not seen me all day. So after referencing Box Mitch a time or two over the phone, he put into a ticket that he wanted Box Mitch to handle this issue due to his success with other recent issues.
That's when management became aware of Box Mitch. Did I mention that we awarded Box Mitch Employee of the Month and hung a plaque on the wall too? Arts and Crafts time has hereby been eliminated from our office. It's a shame, because the ticket count shot right back up as soon as Mitch took his seat back from Box Mitch. I could have created a box army.
Then it happened. Mitch called in sick one morning with the sniffles, and then again the next morning. I'm not sure exactly how it started that afternoon, but the picture of Uncle Vernon was attached to Mitch's chair as if he were sitting in it. Next, there was a tshirt that Mitch got from a vendor event in one of his desk drawers, so we put it over the back the chair with the picture sticking out the top like a head. From there a phone headset was put on the picture. We actually had a good week and got the ticket count lower than it had been in some time (with Mitch still out sick), so we jokingly attributed it to the hard work of Box Mitch. It was probably a bit much and appeared as goofing off, but it really was just 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there across an entire week.
Now here's where the trouble started. At least one of our clients got wind of this. This particular client has a great sense of humor coupled with an inability to let a joke go. I'll just say that I've been onsite at his office and listened to him call back to my office frantically screaming that everything is down, we're way behind schedule, and he not seen me all day. So after referencing Box Mitch a time or two over the phone, he put into a ticket that he wanted Box Mitch to handle this issue due to his success with other recent issues.
That's when management became aware of Box Mitch. Did I mention that we awarded Box Mitch Employee of the Month and hung a plaque on the wall too? Arts and Crafts time has hereby been eliminated from our office. It's a shame, because the ticket count shot right back up as soon as Mitch took his seat back from Box Mitch. I could have created a box army.
Overheard at the Office #9
A coworker is on the phone working on an issue with a clients vendor.
Coworker: We use $VENDOR1 as a management platform. No, it has remote control built in. Yes, we do that. No, we use $VENDOR2 for that, but it integrates pretty well.
Me over IM: Why are you fully describing our environment to this vendor?
Imagine what this guy is willing to disclose to people he thinks he actually knows. Again, he is working with a client's vendor, on a client's system. Not anything in our environment.
Coworker: We use $VENDOR1 as a management platform. No, it has remote control built in. Yes, we do that. No, we use $VENDOR2 for that, but it integrates pretty well.
Me over IM: Why are you fully describing our environment to this vendor?
Imagine what this guy is willing to disclose to people he thinks he actually knows. Again, he is working with a client's vendor, on a client's system. Not anything in our environment.
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