Monday

08:05 am 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?

08:12 am 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...

08:14 am User from 805 call said they received error message
"Error accessing Drive 0." Told them it was an OS problem.
Transferred them to microsupport.

11:00 am 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!

11:34 am 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.

12:00 pm Lunch

3:30 pm Return from lunch.

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

Return to napping.

4:23 pm 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.

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

Tuesday

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

9:00 am 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.

9:35 am Team leader from R&D needs ID for new employee. Tell them
they need form J-19R=9C9\\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.

10:00 am 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.

10:07 am 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.

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

1:05 pm 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!"

1:15 pm 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.

1:20 pm 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.

2:00 pm 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.

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

Wednesday

8:30 am 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 1000am 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...

10:00 am 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.

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

11:00 am Lunch.

4:55 pm Return from lunch.

5:00 pm Shift change; Going home.

Thursday

8:00 am 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.

8:45 am 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.

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

11:00 am 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!

11:55 am Brief Marvin on Corporate Policy 98.022.01 "Whereas all
new employee beginning on days ending in 'Y' shall enjoy all
proper aspects with said
corporation, said employee is obligated to provide sustenance 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.

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

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

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

Friday

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

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

9:02 am 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.

9:30 am 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.

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

11:00 am 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.

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

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

11:25 am 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!"

11:30 am 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.

12:00 am Lunch.

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

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

2:30 pm Look in support manager's contact management database.
Cancel 245 pm appointment for him. He really should be at home
resting, you know.

2:39 pm 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.

2:50 pm 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.

3:00 pm 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.

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

4:30 pm 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.

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

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

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

^o^