Scripts

Before you start thinking too much I'm not speaking of VBScript or JavaScript. I am also not talking about play scripts....exactly.

It was brought up in my company that while the earnings cycle is going on that we should have extended support hours. I find this funny because the normal line around the office is that "earnings never ends" due to work load. So anyway we the IT staff now get to humor the rest of the staff. I figure that this was something fine and dandy as I could finally have my old shift back, 12:00 to 20:00. No such luck. I was told that right now the other admin that I am working with isn't completly up to speed. He still says "I don't know how Phalse did."

Now this is a problem. The new guy has been there since January/February so one would think that after actually working in a company at an Administrator level would actually understand the systems after eight or nine months later. Now this guy is from a big bank and his normal troubleshooting is through a simple script. If something falls outside of that script than it is the next level ups job to fix.

Now I know that some people have some experience with this, eg calling the telephone company or ISP, but does anyone work with someone like this outside of those groups? Have you seen situations where this caused problems with no way of going higher?

For those outside the know

I would just like to say that I'm now engaged to Bubbles as of last friday. (cheer)

At long last

I have finally got everything finished up with Look Communicaitons....Ok not completely they still have a couple of things to do but at least the billing end of things is now done.

Here is the story in it's long windedness.

Six years ago I ask them to take payments off my Visa and start invoicing me. They didn't so five years ago I called them and asked them to change it so I was. I figured a simple clerical error and it will now be fixed. Boy was I wrong! Fast forward with annual calls say "Please change your billing arrangement."

This year I got fed up and I asked Visa to not pay them. I only found this out after a while because Visa called me saying "Why haven't you payed your bill?". Only to find out that I forgot to inform them about my change of address. Anyway they wouldn't deal with it because of the age of the billing. I then called Look to yell at them saying pay off Visa because they are on my back. This at least had their attention. I asked them to take care of the problem and send me an invoice. It seems that I had too much trust, one would think I would learn, but anyway it wasn't done. Try again two months ago. No luck. Last month I just demanded to speak to a supervisor and someone who could actually work the accounting system. They told me that someone would contact me in 72 hours.

24 hours later no call.

48 hours later no call. So beings the weekend. At this point I don't care that it is the weekend.

72 hours later still no call.

I call in the morning on Monday saying "Where is my supervisor call?". It turns out that a bunch of the supervisors decided to go on vacation and leave it all on Alex's plate. To my delight I get a call at 5pm that day. I outline the situation to Alex and he confirms it on the system that they have there. Promises again are made. After the initial billing issue is sorted out it seems that Look Communications can't pay back Visa because it was more than six months ago. So I pay off Visa and make them happy.

It is now on record that IF anything like this happens again I will get free webhosting and dial up for a year until the problem is corrected.

Now if any of you are asking why I am still with Look after this issue I have actually been with them since .... 1989. Ya before the internet went commercial and a high speed connection was considered 14.4kbps and T1 backbones were considering screaming fast. However I can actually say that this has very much tainted my view on the company.

Is it really that hard to get a simple request filled?

That time of year

Ok it is that time of year when I find that people go funny. Some people are walking around in T-Shirts while others are walking around in deep freeze parkas with everything in between. I find this funny on so many levels and yet I think it is also a tribute to those who fail to see the truly unique nature in people. Right now I am running around in my trench coat but only because of the great amount of rain that is happening. I am sure otherwise I would be wearing a heavy sweater.

For those that are abroad are do you see the same thing? Will I be seeing the same thing next May?

Servers and their joy

Ok I am helping a company move into a co-location here in town but because of some wacky settings that are going to be used I need to use the server in my office first. Nice and simple right. So I pick up the server and I go for about a 15 minute walk around down town.

Now someone in reason I think would at least stare at me odd with a 1U server under my arm but nothing. Not even either of the security guys batted an eye. Oh well at least it was fun walking around with a nice server in my hands....Even if it isn't mine.

New hardware

Ok this is priceless. Once I get the FTP server up and going AND stable I go out and get some new hardware to put in it. Of course this means I now have to down my system and get some new hardware to work with the system. Anyway I picked up a new DVD-Writer that is dual layer. As I'm sure no one will be surprised as to which manufacturer I chose.

Now I just need a few pieces of dual layer media to burn on.