I'm gonna do part of this blog from work. It's only fair, since work cut into my blogging time last night.
I have a user working in San Francisco this week. Our 2nd shift operator called me at home telling me he didn't know how to do what this user needed done. OK, have the user call me. The user called and said all he needed done was having an id reset. I called the operator back and he said he knew how to do that on two other systems but not this one. It's not different. It's the same bloody operating system! Arggghhhh!
Sometimes it's just easier to do it yourself. So, I fired up the old laptop to connect to the network and IT DIDN'T BLOODY WORK! I stayed home one day last week making all this stuff work and now it doesn't? Maybe the old way using my other PC works. Yeah...Let's try that. Nope! Your Account Has Been Shut Down. Thanks a bunch! OK, I'll just call the operator and talk him through it. In the meantime, the user in San Fran has called me two more times on my cell phone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm working on it.
Call the operator back who has told me he knew how to do this on the other systems. I still have to tell him anyway. First we have to get him logged on. It takes three tries. Same id. Same logon procedure as the other two systems. I still have to talk him through it. Why me? Is it any wonder I'm a grouchy old cripple?
Now he's got me rattled. I can remember the command to reset the password, but I cannot remember the command to reactivate the id. So I tell the operator to call one of the programmers in Dallas and ask him to do it. The user calls me again on my cell phone. I'M WORKING ON IT!!!
Ten minutes later the programmer in Dallas calls me on my home phone. What do I need? The operator was not very good at explaining the problem (I'm shocked!) At that very moment, the user calls me on my cell phone again ( passing thought...Is cell phone one word or two?). Aha! The end is near. The programmer in Dallas does his job. I tell the user in San Fran that it should work. He tries. It does. Mission accomplished. Once again science and technology triumph over ignorance and superstition.
Another quality fix by two highly trained (and one lowly trained), highly paid, and highly motivated I/T professionals.
So, I lug the laptop into work this morning so I can connect up to the LAN and get this stuff fixed. Easier to do stuff at T1 speeds. But first, I have to attend the reguarly scheduled team meeting conference call. After that, I need to talk to the Operations Manager to see what we can do about Mr. 2nd Shift. Then, it's time to do SPTS.
On May 1, I wrote a little piece about SHTS and SPTS. SHTS is our Stupid Hourly Tracking System. SPTS is our Stupid Problem Tracking System. In cases where the user has bypassed the normal procedure to call the Help Desk, or, when the Help Desk has passed the call directly to Operations, expecting the call to be resolved quickly (not on 2nd shift), it is the responsibility of the operator or the programmer to open a PR (Problem Record) in SPTS. Even if the problem has been fixed quickly (or in my case, not so quickly) we need to open a PR and then mark it resolved.
So I dutifully logged on to SPTS to log in my PR. Now the last time I used SPTS, I had problems. When trying to save the PR I got a 404. Not surprising since the guy who wrote it was a 404 kind of guy, but it was not his fault. They didn't put it on a server with enough capacity. Then, to compound the problem, they added more functionality to the SPTS application. Yeah, that's a good idea. Take an application that doesn't work, and, that's running on an underpowered server, and try to add additional functionality to it. Man we really need another FQP (Quality Program) about now.
So I fire up the SPTS program and my id and password still work. That's one positive sign. OK. let's just go click on that little square that opens up a new problem record. Nothing happens. I must be doing something wrong. Let's log off and recycle Internet Explorer and log back on. No help. All right, time to call the Help Desk. I'm in luck. I get my favorite: the cute, sweet one with a brain.
'OK' she says, 'Do you see those opposing arrows at the top of the display?' Yup. 'OK, click on the box to the right. What happens?' Nothing. 'Nothing?' Nothing. 'Have you tried logging off and back on?' Yup. 'Hmmmm.' That doesn't sound good. 'I'll have to have William call you.'
Now here is where the story takes an unexpected twist. William calls me five minutes later and in another five minutes FIXES THE PROBLEM!!! They are ice skating in Hell at this very moment.
Now, time to tackle the laptop. First, I need to find a token ring card. Maybe Tony has one. He does. Now, lets see if I can fix all the problems. It only takes about an hour and it appears everything works. I cannot believe it. They're actually having a bodacious snowball fight in Hell. This day is turning out all right after all. Then I make a tragic mistake. I check my mail.
My manager has scheduled a diversity meeting for tomorrow.
The snow is all gone.
The ice has all melted.
Tomorrow I shall be in Hell.
Posted by denny at May 14, 2002 04:10 PM