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Among the well laid plans of mice and men and network admins, our network admin was supposed to leave at noon on Friday for a week long vacation down South.
Due to some residual whackiness left over from our core infrastructure upgrade, he was still in the office when I got back from lunch at 2.
A little later, I was looking for the server admin, who STILL was dealing with some dead ports left over from our core infrastructure upgrade, and ran into the network admin. He said he was leaving, and I told him to hurry before I told him about the next fire. He, being the person he is, asked what was wrong. I felt like the meanest person in the world when I told him we were getting reports that the student NAC was down. So, off he went to investigate, and off I went back to the Hades that was THE PHONE.
He was gone so long I figured he had passed word onto the server admin (which is a dual position of server admin and asst. network admin) or to my manager or my boss. That's when I got the call from the HP ENGINEER!!!
I looked at the caller ID, was surpised it came from the queue and that the caller ID said "Hewlett Packard" Any sales calls or support stuff would go to me, my manager or the network admin personally, and not to the Helpdesk line.
Now, I will admit to all of you (even if I won't admit it to anyone at work), that I made the worst mistake a techie can make. I had been taking calls for most of the day and half of the week about the glorious intarwebz" being down. So, when he said he was a father of a freshman, and had sent his little bundle o' joy down with a printer and a router, I forgot the rule I had adapted since students started moving back in IF I THINK IT'S FUNNY, I WILL ***NOT*** SAY IT.
So, I said, "Ah, that's part of the problem right there!"
He instantly got defensive with me. And since I just finished dealing with a student who said, to my bloody face "Well, I took it to a REAL technician, and HE said..." (Crap, I just got myself all angry thinking about it), I wasn't really in the mood to deal with mean people.
"Well, it's a network printer, and since you people only have one port in the room, I had to give her a router."
"Sir, I'm sorry, but I did make sure to note in all the paperwork we sent out before your daughter moved to campus, that networking equipment not owned by the university would not be allowed on our network."
"But you only put one port in the room."
WHY THE FLYING FUCKWAD WOULD YOU GIVE HER A NETWORK PRINTER??"
"I understand that, sir, but I'm sure you can understand our need of security on the network, and due to that, we can not allow students to bring in routers. Can't she plug the printer in directly to her computer?"
"No! It's only a network printer!!" WTF?????????
At this point, I've totally lost it. Thinking the network admin was gone, and not thinking much else, I said, "Sir, let me forward you to our server administrator, maybe he can explain things a little better than I can. He might not be in his office, so in that case, is it alright for me to send you to his voicemail?"
"He won't call me back." The tone of those words seemed to imply the addition of "you bleepity bleep bleep".
"I assure you, sir, he will call you back."
"Fine."
Later on, I did think better, and tell the boss, and he said, as I figured he would, that I should have the server admin forward him the voicemail, and then assuaged my unspoken fears that he would cave.
So, shortly after, the network admin reappeared, since he HADN'T left. Once he got the student NAC server back up, he found out the WAPs were down, and then went to attend to them. So, in short, instead of leaving at noon, he ended leaving closer to 4pm. I really hope his wife doesn't end up killing him!!
Due to some residual whackiness left over from our core infrastructure upgrade, he was still in the office when I got back from lunch at 2.
A little later, I was looking for the server admin, who STILL was dealing with some dead ports left over from our core infrastructure upgrade, and ran into the network admin. He said he was leaving, and I told him to hurry before I told him about the next fire. He, being the person he is, asked what was wrong. I felt like the meanest person in the world when I told him we were getting reports that the student NAC was down. So, off he went to investigate, and off I went back to the Hades that was THE PHONE.
He was gone so long I figured he had passed word onto the server admin (which is a dual position of server admin and asst. network admin) or to my manager or my boss. That's when I got the call from the HP ENGINEER!!!
I looked at the caller ID, was surpised it came from the queue and that the caller ID said "Hewlett Packard" Any sales calls or support stuff would go to me, my manager or the network admin personally, and not to the Helpdesk line.
Now, I will admit to all of you (even if I won't admit it to anyone at work), that I made the worst mistake a techie can make. I had been taking calls for most of the day and half of the week about the glorious intarwebz" being down. So, when he said he was a father of a freshman, and had sent his little bundle o' joy down with a printer and a router, I forgot the rule I had adapted since students started moving back in IF I THINK IT'S FUNNY, I WILL ***NOT*** SAY IT.
So, I said, "Ah, that's part of the problem right there!"
He instantly got defensive with me. And since I just finished dealing with a student who said, to my bloody face "Well, I took it to a REAL technician, and HE said..." (Crap, I just got myself all angry thinking about it), I wasn't really in the mood to deal with mean people.
"Well, it's a network printer, and since you people only have one port in the room, I had to give her a router."
"Sir, I'm sorry, but I did make sure to note in all the paperwork we sent out before your daughter moved to campus, that networking equipment not owned by the university would not be allowed on our network."
"But you only put one port in the room."
WHY THE FLYING FUCKWAD WOULD YOU GIVE HER A NETWORK PRINTER??"
"I understand that, sir, but I'm sure you can understand our need of security on the network, and due to that, we can not allow students to bring in routers. Can't she plug the printer in directly to her computer?"
"No! It's only a network printer!!" WTF?????????
At this point, I've totally lost it. Thinking the network admin was gone, and not thinking much else, I said, "Sir, let me forward you to our server administrator, maybe he can explain things a little better than I can. He might not be in his office, so in that case, is it alright for me to send you to his voicemail?"
"He won't call me back." The tone of those words seemed to imply the addition of "you bleepity bleep bleep".
"I assure you, sir, he will call you back."
"Fine."
Later on, I did think better, and tell the boss, and he said, as I figured he would, that I should have the server admin forward him the voicemail, and then assuaged my unspoken fears that he would cave.
So, shortly after, the network admin reappeared, since he HADN'T left. Once he got the student NAC server back up, he found out the WAPs were down, and then went to attend to them. So, in short, instead of leaving at noon, he ended leaving closer to 4pm. I really hope his wife doesn't end up killing him!!
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