(Just a note: At the time of this story, i was working the hell desk for a large chain of bookstores.)
*BEEEP*
I stared down at the phone, trying my hardest to produce lasers from my eyes and turn said beepy thing into a melted, gooey plastic piece of art. Sadly, i failed, and finally relented to picking it up while making a mental note to throw away all of my "How to shoot lasers from your eyes" cassette tapes.
"Help desk, Bobsentme speaking. Please state the nature of your computational emergency." I said, with all gusto of a fictional medical hologram.
As I wait for somewhere between 1-3 brain cells that my users generally have to kick in, i could hear the sounds of a busy store in the background. Then, from a voice that could easily make a killing from a phone sex line, i hear:
"My rack is wet."
I tried to reach for the mute button, but a sudden growth involving blood moving south slowed me down enough where the user heard the start of my giggling fit. She then goes into a spiel of how it's not like THAT, she's got a serious issue.
I take her off mute long enough to ask her to go on, then fall back into my giggling fit. Until I finally understand what she's getting at:
The room that her store's servers and networking equipment reside in, has suffered a collapsed roof. During a rain storm that would have impressed Noah, apparently.
This immediately caused me to stop giggling like a school girl.
As I ask her to go back there so I can get a clearer assessment of the damages, i start trying to ping her...er...the store's equipment. I am able to get to the router, and one out of 3 servers, but nothing else.
I hear her making her way past customers who obviously don't understand she's on the phone, cashiers who are having to ring things up manually, and so forth, until finally she says she's near the room.
As asked, she opens the doors to what bascially amounts to a closet, and I can make out the faintest sound of rushing water.
At this point, water is still flowing somewhere into and out of the closet. But not before running over (or through) certain equipment. Also, there appears to be at least an inch of water on the floor, and large...buzzing sound coming from the room. At least, this is what's being described to me.
As I'm telling her that 2 out of her 3 servers are down
and will be that way until the main problem (rain/roof) can be taken care of, we're going to leave the other server alone and not touch it. Partially for her safety, but mostly because the equipment is expensive.
Now, as I'm asking about the equipment in the rack room to find out it's state (ie, is it on, is it off, or is it leaking water at all?) so I know what to order for her, Darwin tries to strike.
I ask her about the little server that's off the network.
She responds she isn't sure.
I then ask her to tell me, from where she's standing, about the big server on the rack. (Yes, the giant metal rack, that has water flowing over it and into equipment, AND is sitting in an inch of water).
She tells me it's off.
She then proceeds to tell me:
"Oh, I know how to turn that back on!!!"
And she takes 1 step into the closet to turn the server back on.
At which point, all I hear is a loud BZZZZT and the line dies.
I start freaking out.
I immediately dial the store back, and tell the first person who answers the phone that i think someone at their store just died.
I get hung up on.
I call back, explain who I am, and THEN tell them the person helping me in the back might have just died.
This time they laugh.
Apparently, what happened is this:
The person who called apparently leaned over the water to press the power button on the server, that was sitting on the rack. But, first, to do this, she had to put the phone on the rack. Well, when she turned the power on, the magic smoke was released, and a large surge of power traveled from the server, through the water running inside, out onto the metal rack, and up the contacts for the cordless phone (those two metal pieces that help it charge).
She effectively fried the phone, and the server, but not herself.
I told her to quarentine that room, while somebody at the store flipped the breakers and called a local construction company to fix their damages.
For the record, I still haven't killed a user yet.
That any of YOU know of.
*BEEEP*
I stared down at the phone, trying my hardest to produce lasers from my eyes and turn said beepy thing into a melted, gooey plastic piece of art. Sadly, i failed, and finally relented to picking it up while making a mental note to throw away all of my "How to shoot lasers from your eyes" cassette tapes.
"Help desk, Bobsentme speaking. Please state the nature of your computational emergency." I said, with all gusto of a fictional medical hologram.
As I wait for somewhere between 1-3 brain cells that my users generally have to kick in, i could hear the sounds of a busy store in the background. Then, from a voice that could easily make a killing from a phone sex line, i hear:
"My rack is wet."
I tried to reach for the mute button, but a sudden growth involving blood moving south slowed me down enough where the user heard the start of my giggling fit. She then goes into a spiel of how it's not like THAT, she's got a serious issue.
I take her off mute long enough to ask her to go on, then fall back into my giggling fit. Until I finally understand what she's getting at:
The room that her store's servers and networking equipment reside in, has suffered a collapsed roof. During a rain storm that would have impressed Noah, apparently.
This immediately caused me to stop giggling like a school girl.
As I ask her to go back there so I can get a clearer assessment of the damages, i start trying to ping her...er...the store's equipment. I am able to get to the router, and one out of 3 servers, but nothing else.
I hear her making her way past customers who obviously don't understand she's on the phone, cashiers who are having to ring things up manually, and so forth, until finally she says she's near the room.
As asked, she opens the doors to what bascially amounts to a closet, and I can make out the faintest sound of rushing water.
At this point, water is still flowing somewhere into and out of the closet. But not before running over (or through) certain equipment. Also, there appears to be at least an inch of water on the floor, and large...buzzing sound coming from the room. At least, this is what's being described to me.
As I'm telling her that 2 out of her 3 servers are down
and will be that way until the main problem (rain/roof) can be taken care of, we're going to leave the other server alone and not touch it. Partially for her safety, but mostly because the equipment is expensive.
Now, as I'm asking about the equipment in the rack room to find out it's state (ie, is it on, is it off, or is it leaking water at all?) so I know what to order for her, Darwin tries to strike.
I ask her about the little server that's off the network.
She responds she isn't sure.
I then ask her to tell me, from where she's standing, about the big server on the rack. (Yes, the giant metal rack, that has water flowing over it and into equipment, AND is sitting in an inch of water).
She tells me it's off.
She then proceeds to tell me:
"Oh, I know how to turn that back on!!!"
And she takes 1 step into the closet to turn the server back on.
At which point, all I hear is a loud BZZZZT and the line dies.
I start freaking out.
I immediately dial the store back, and tell the first person who answers the phone that i think someone at their store just died.
I get hung up on.
I call back, explain who I am, and THEN tell them the person helping me in the back might have just died.
This time they laugh.
Apparently, what happened is this:
The person who called apparently leaned over the water to press the power button on the server, that was sitting on the rack. But, first, to do this, she had to put the phone on the rack. Well, when she turned the power on, the magic smoke was released, and a large surge of power traveled from the server, through the water running inside, out onto the metal rack, and up the contacts for the cordless phone (those two metal pieces that help it charge).
She effectively fried the phone, and the server, but not herself.
I told her to quarentine that room, while somebody at the store flipped the breakers and called a local construction company to fix their damages.
For the record, I still haven't killed a user yet.
That any of YOU know of.
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