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Retard the Rookie aka Me (minor language)

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  • Retard the Rookie aka Me (minor language)

    BG: While I've done PC hardware break/fix on and off for a few years, I've never really done networking or even installed any data jacks until now. So, while I'm really good with a lot of stuff, I come off looking like a half wit with the rest.

    One night a week, during the summer, we grill steaks to order outdoors in our courtyard seating area. In order to set this up, someone from the IT Dept. has to install a kitchen printer out by the fence where the steaks will be cooked.


    And our story:

    Two weeks ago was the first time I installed the printer. I plugged it into power and data, sent a test order, and it worked perfectly. That was, of course, the week before the IT manager went on vacation.

    Last week, I took the printer out, plugged it into power and data, and it immediately started printing row after row of garbage. After switching it off, unplugging it, and running it through several test sequences which ran fine, it was still doing this. I discovered that it would only do this when plugged into the data line, though, which left me thinking that maybe there was an error in the system sending garbage data.

    I cleared, shut down, and restarted the print server to no avail. When I called the company that supports our kitchen equipment, he told me he had seen the error before and said it sounded like a bad serial card in the printer. He didn't have any spares and he couldn't get to repairing it until later in the week.

    This left me with the backup plan of having the steak orders print at the bar and then the servers would have to physically walk the order 12 feet over to the grill. I did attempt to tell the head chef about the problem, but he turned his back and walked away when I tried to speak to him.

    15 minutes before we're supposed to start serving steaks (and when I get to go home) I get a call from the head chef. He called to yell at me for not giving him the status on the printer. I then tried to tell him the status, and to explain it was the same thing I was saying before when he turned and walked away, but he hung up on me.

    So, I walked out a few minutes early, fed up with my day. The next day, the chef catches me in the hall to complain about the "clusterfuck" that occurred with his staff having to physically deliver tickets and this is unacceptable, and what's the status. I start to tell him that we think we've located the problem and it needs to be repaired, but he cuts me off saying he wanted the status not details and it's all a "clusterfuck" and storms off while I'm trying to speak to him. Again. Really

    I go vent to my director, who it turns out had the same conversation with the chef. In fact, he said it was almost the same conversation word for word, including the chef storming off while the director was trying to fill him in on the printer.

    Printer repair guy shows up the next day and shows me how to plug it into the server and run a printer test (things I should have been trained on, but that's another thread). Turns out the printer runs fine off the server, but not off the data line near the grill. It's either a bad cable or bad port, but he was surprised at this, given the error was always previously due to bad hardware in the printer. So we all learned something new. We went to look at the port and some of the pins were corroded, we figured that was the problem.

    I go snip the end off, put a new one on, plug in and test the printer and get...absolutely nothing.

    I left it until today, when the IT manager got back from vacation. I gave him the run down and he went down to look at the jack on put on the cable. Turns out I made a really, really, really stupid mistake. When I was punching down the wires, I forgot to flip the punch down around so we were only getting data through 4 pins, the other 4 I had cut the the wire on the wrong side. And never noticed...

    On the bright side, it's working properly now, and this was my only open ticket at the end of the week. The IT manager said it was the quietest vacation he's ever had.

  • #2
    next time Chef asks for status . . ."it is being fixed as quickly as possible"
    They don't want the details and they don't want to listen to wait staff grumble. Make sure that you speak to a trusted wait staff person in the future and let them know you are doing the best you can as quickly as you can. Alot of times if people know you are working on fixing a snafu the grumbling will be minimal.

    woo hoo on the quiet vacation for the head IT . .. sounds like you did great

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