(no subject)
May. 2nd, 2003 01:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grindmonkehWednesday night at about 8p.m. we had a brief power bounce. I thought nothing of it since it happened prior to my midnight shift...until 1a.m. when the entire campus lost incoming and long-distance telecom as well as all internet access. It's not uncommon for our connection with IHETS to blink, so I gave it about fifteen minutes to re-establish before trying to call them. When the long distance circuits were dead I knew we had serious problems, so I called our network engineer, he came in, and we found that almost all of the GTE equipment in the Gillum Hall Telco room was unpowered. When the power bounced it tripped a circuit to their equipment and after running on a UPS for five hours the light was kicked right proper. That's not a big problem. The big problem is that there is one room that neither I nor anyone on the ISU campus has a key for, and that's a ten by ten room housing GTE's telecom equipment, circuits, and UPS. This has been a dilemma in the past.
After many ill-fated phone calls (no long distance) and a call to our executive director, I was on a conference call with the director of telecommunications and an on-call technician from GTE/Genuity. He couldn't detect any problems with their equipment, and he denied that anyone at GTE/Genuity had a key to their room. Upon request, the tech conferenced the call further with his manager. He also denied having access to their room, and said that since they had been on a job earlier that night they were TOO TIRED to come in and maintain their equipment. I chortled. The director of telecom's reply was, "What the hell???" The GTE tech manager stuttered for a minute, and then suggested that we DRILL OUT THEIR LOCK AND RESET THEIR EQUIPMENT. I laughed again (this guy had the voice of a tracheotomy patient and the sense of a gnat), and then asked, "so you're saying that you want us to break down the door and start pushing buttons?" He answered with, "sort of." The telecom director explained in his own terms that our billion dollar contract with them discounts any probability that we'll ever touch any of their equipment or break down their door, and that if we weren't up and running by the beginning of the work-day then someone better have some pretty damn revolutionary answers. The guy wouldn't budge. He said that he and his techs were just too tired to come onsite and that it was a safety issue, and insisted that they didn't have a key to their room. The director of telecom said he was going to make more phone calls, so before I dropped off the call I told him to call me if he needed anything. At 4:30a.m. our internet service reappeared. I walked over to the telecom department again at 7:00a.m., and found the door to their equipment room open and in one piece. I talked to one of our techs and he said that they had come in after all and reset their equpiment. I guess they weren't really that tired. I guess they paid a visit to the key fairy too.
I really like being the IT equivalent of a janitor sometimes, if only for the insight into common a.m. logic.
After many ill-fated phone calls (no long distance) and a call to our executive director, I was on a conference call with the director of telecommunications and an on-call technician from GTE/Genuity. He couldn't detect any problems with their equipment, and he denied that anyone at GTE/Genuity had a key to their room. Upon request, the tech conferenced the call further with his manager. He also denied having access to their room, and said that since they had been on a job earlier that night they were TOO TIRED to come in and maintain their equipment. I chortled. The director of telecom's reply was, "What the hell???" The GTE tech manager stuttered for a minute, and then suggested that we DRILL OUT THEIR LOCK AND RESET THEIR EQUIPMENT. I laughed again (this guy had the voice of a tracheotomy patient and the sense of a gnat), and then asked, "so you're saying that you want us to break down the door and start pushing buttons?" He answered with, "sort of." The telecom director explained in his own terms that our billion dollar contract with them discounts any probability that we'll ever touch any of their equipment or break down their door, and that if we weren't up and running by the beginning of the work-day then someone better have some pretty damn revolutionary answers. The guy wouldn't budge. He said that he and his techs were just too tired to come onsite and that it was a safety issue, and insisted that they didn't have a key to their room. The director of telecom said he was going to make more phone calls, so before I dropped off the call I told him to call me if he needed anything. At 4:30a.m. our internet service reappeared. I walked over to the telecom department again at 7:00a.m., and found the door to their equipment room open and in one piece. I talked to one of our techs and he said that they had come in after all and reset their equpiment. I guess they weren't really that tired. I guess they paid a visit to the key fairy too.
I really like being the IT equivalent of a janitor sometimes, if only for the insight into common a.m. logic.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-02 10:38 am (UTC)btw, if they are anything like SBC, it's entirely possible they couldn't get anyone to accept an overtime callout. Because of the Union contract no one can be forced to work overtime. If all the techs refused that dumb sounding manager should have gotten his ass out of bed and gone... because it's his responsibility after that. Of course, that's only if they run like SBC. Heh.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-05 02:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-05-02 12:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)