A Week at the Computer Helpdesk with Frederic Denis

Monday
8:05am
     User called to say they forgot password. Told them to use
     password retrieval utility called FDISK. Blissfully ignorant, they
     thank me and hang up. God, we let the people vote and drive, too?

8:12am
     Accounting called to say they couldn't access expense reports
     database. Gave them Standard Sys Admin Answer #112, Well, it works
     for me. Let them rant and rave while I unplugged my coffeemaker
     from the UPS and plugged their server back in. Suggested they try
     it again. One more happy customer...

8:14am
     User from 8:05 call said they received error message Error
     accessing Drive 0. Told them it was an OS problem. Transferred
     them to microsupport.

11:00am
     Relatively quiet for last few hours. Decide to plug support phone
     back in so I can call my girlfriend. Says parents are coming into
     town this weekend. Put her on hold and transferred her to
     janitorial closet down in basement. What is she thinking? The Myst
     and Doom nationals are this weekend!

11:34am
     Another user calls (do they ever learn?). Says they want ACL
     changed on HR performance review database so that nobody but HR
     can access database. Tell them no problem. Hang up. Change ACL.
     Add @MailSend so performance reviews are sent to */US.

12:00pm
     Lunch

3:30pm
     Return from lunch.

3:55pm
     Wake up from nap. Bad dream makes me cranky. Bounce servers for no
     reason. Return to napping.

4:23pm
     Yet another user calls. Wants to know how to change fonts on form.
     Ask them what chip set they're using. Tell them to call back when
     they find out.

4:55pm
     Decide to run "Create Save/Replication Conflicts" macro so next
     shift has something to do.

Tuesday
8:30am
     Finish reading support log from last night. Sounded busy.
     Terrible time with Save/Replication conflicts.

9:00am
     Support manager arrives. Wants to discuss my attitude. Click on
     PhoneNotes SmartIcon. Love to, but kinda busy. Put something in
    the calendar database! I yell as I grab for the support lines,
     which have (mysteriously) lit up. Walks away grumbling.

9:35pm
     Team leader from R&D needs ID for new employee. Tell them they
     need form J-19Rœ9\\DARR\K1. Say they never heard of such a form.
     Tell them it's in the SPECIAL FORMS database. Say they never heard
    of such a database. Transfer them to janitorial closet in
     basement.

10:00am
     Perky sounding intern from R&D calls and says she needs new ID.
     Tell her I need employee number, department name, manager name,
     and marital status. Run @DbLookup against state parole board
     database, Centers for Disease Control database, and my Oprah
     Winfrey database. No hits. Tell her ID will be ready tonight.
    Drawing from the lessons learned in last week's Reengineering for
     Customer Partnership I offer to personally deliver ID to her
     apartment.

10:07am
     Janitor stops by to say he keeps getting strange calls in
    basement. Offer to train him on Notes. Begin now. Let him watch
     console while I grab a smoke.

1:00pm
     Return from smoking break. Janitor says phones kept ringing, so he
     transferred them to cafeteria lady. I like this guy.

1:05pm
     Big commotion! Support manager falls in hole left where I pulled
     floor tiles outside his office door. Stress to him importance of
     not running in computer room, even if I do yell Omigod-Fire!

1:15pm
     Development Standards Committee calls and complains about umlauts
     in form names. Apologizing for the inconvenience, I tell them I
     will fix it. Hang up and run global search/replace using gaks.

1:20pm
     Mary Hairnet from cafeteria calls. Says she keeps getting calls
     for Notice Loads or NoLoad Goats, she's not sure, couldn't hear
     over industrial-grade blender. Tell her it was probably Lettuce
     Nodes. Maybe the food distributor with a new product? She thinks
     about it and hangs up.

2:00pm
     Legal secretary calls and says she lost password. Ask her to check
     in her purse, floor of car, and on bathroom counter. Tell her it
     probably fell out of back of machine. Suggest she put duct tape
     over all the airvents she can find on the PC. Grudgingly offer to
     create new ID for her while she does that.

2:49pm
     Janitor comes back. Wants more lessons. I take off rest of day.

Wednesday
8:30am
     Irate user calls to say chipset has nothing to do with fonts on
     form. Tell them of course, they should have been checking Bitset,
    not chipset.  Sheepish user apologizes and hangs up.

9:10am
     Support manager, with foot in cast, returns to office. Schedules
    10:00am meeting with me. User calls and wants to talk to support
     manager about terrible help at support desk. Tell them manager
     about to go into meeting. Sometimes life hands you material...

10:00am
     Call Louie in janitorial services to cover for me. Go to support
     manager's office. He says he can't dismiss me but can suggest
     several lateral career moves. Most involve farm implements in
     third-world countries with moderate to heavy political turmoil. By
     and by, I ask if he's aware of new bug which takes full-text
     indexed random e-mail databases and puts all references to furry
     handcuffs and Bambi Boomer in Marketing on the corporate Web page.
     Meeting is adjourned as he reaches for keyboard, Web browser, and
     Tums.

10:30am
     Tell Louie he's doing great job. Offer to show him mainframe
     corporate PBX system sometime.

11:00am
     Lunch.

4:55pm
     Return from lunch.

5:00pm
     Shift change; Going home.

Thursday
8:00am
     New guy (Marvin) started today. "Nice plaids" I offer. Show him
     Server room, wiring closet, and technical library. Set him up with
     IBM PC-XT. Tell him to quit whining, Notes runs the same in both
     monochrome and color.

8:45am
     New guy's PC finishes booting up. Tell him I'll create new ID for
     him. Set minimum password length to 64. Go grab smoke.

9:30am
     Introduce Louie the custodian to Marvin. Nice plaids Louie
     comments. Is this guy great or what?!

11:00am
     Beat Louie in dominos game. Louie leaves. Fish spare dominos out
     of sleeves (Always have backups). User calls, says Accounting
     server is down. Untie Ethernet cable from radio antenna (better
     reception) and plug back into hub. Tell user to try again. Another
     happy customer!

11:55am
     Brief Marvin on Corporate Policy 98.022.01:  Whereas all new
     employees beginning on days ending in 'Y' shall enjoy all proper
     aspects with said corporation, said employee is obligated to
     provide substance and relief to senior technical analyst on shift.
     Marvin doubts. I point to Corporate Policy database (a fine piece
     of work, if I say so myself!). Remember, that's DOUBLE pepperoni
     and NO peppers! I yell to Marvin as he steps over open floor tile
     to get to exit door.

1:00pm
     Oooooh! Pizza makes me so sleepy...

4:30pm
     Wake from refreshing nap. Catch Marvin scanning want ads.

5:00pm
     Shift change. Flick HR's server off and on several times (just
     testing the On/Off button...). See ya tomorrow.

Friday
8:00am
     Night shift still trying to replace power supply in HR server.
     Told them it worked fine before I left.

9:00am
     Marvin still not here. Decide I might start answering these calls
     myself. Unforward phones from Mailroom.

9:02am
     Yep. A user call. Users in Des Moines can't replicate. Me and the
     Oiuji board determine it's sunspots. Tell them to call
     telecommunications.

9:30am
     Good God, another user! They're like ants. Says he's in San Diego
     and can't replicate with Des Moines. Tell him it's sunspots, but
     with a two-hour difference. Suggest he reset the time on the
     server back two hours.

10:17am
     Pensacola calls. Says they can't route mail to San Diego. Tell
     them to set server ahead three hours.

11:00am
     E-mail from corporate says for everybody to quit resetting the
     time on their servers. I change the date stamp and forward it to
     Milwaukee.

11:20am
     Finish @CoffeeMake macro. Put phone back on hook.

11:23am
     Milwaukee calls, asks what day it is.

11:25am
     Support manager stops by to say Marvin called in to quit. So hard
     to get good help... I respond. Support manager says he has
     appointment with orthopedic doctor this afternoon, and asks if I
     mind sitting in on the weekly department head meeting for him. No
     problem!

11:30am
     Call Louie and tell him opportunity knocks and he's invited to a
     meeting this afternoon. Yeah, sure. You can bring your snuff I
     tell him.

12:00am
     Lunch.

1:00pm
     Start full backups on UNIX server. Route them to device NULL to
     make them fast.

1:03pm
     Full weekly backups done. Man, I love modern technology!

2:30pm
     Look in support manager's contact management database. Cancel
     2:45pm appointment for him. He really should be at home resting,
     you know.

2:39pm
     New user calls. Says want to learn how to create a connection
     document. Tell them to run connection document utility CTRL-ALT-
     DEL. Says PC rebooted. Tell them to call microsupport.

2:50pm
     Support manager calls to say mixup at doctor's office means
     appointment cancelled. Says he's just going to go on home. Ask him
     if he's seen corporate Web page lately.

3:00pm
     Another (novice) user calls. Says periodic macro not working.
     Suggest they place @DeleteDocument at end of formula. Promise to
     send them document addendum which says so.

4:00pm
     Finish changing foreground color in all documents to white. Also
     set point size to 2 in help databases.

4:30pm
     User calls to say they can't see anything in documents. Tell them
     to go to view, do a Edit-Select All, hit delete key, and then
     refresh. Promise to send them document addendum which says so.

4:45pm
     Another user calls. Says they can't read help documents. Tell them
     I'll fix it. Hang up. Change font to Wingdings.

4:58pm
     Plug coffee maker into Ethernet hub to see what happens. Not (too)
     much.

5:00pm
     Night shift shows up. Tell that the hub is acting funny and to
     have a good weekend. Cheers

Thanks to:
Leonard J. Hicks
recruiter@earthlink.net
Tel: 818-360-2783
9800 D Topanga Canyon Blvd, Suite 250

Chatsworth, CA 91311