I drove a half hour for this?

[technical.angel]

Our remote office emailed yesterday, saying that their fax machine and Postage meter machine was not getting a dial tone, and they think the plug is broken.

So, I load up my telco toys and run up this morning to figure out what could have happened to make two ports stop working.

I get there, and am informed that they moved some stuff around. RED LIGHT. I guess I brought my toys for nothing.

The original set up had the fax machine and postage machine plugged into a splitter and the splitter plugged into the wall, despite there being ***3*** phone ports in easy access in the copy room. Apparently only the one is active, as I found out by the fax machine magically faxing after leaving it plugged into the good port.

So, what happened, I guess, is that they plugged everything in correctly, but broke off the prong that held the phone cord in the postage machine. Thus, the postage machine couldn't call home and get them more postage. Thus, everything was broken.

So they unplugged the splitter, and plugged the bad cable into the good port, and plugged the fax machine into a network port. Then called me in to clear up the cluster frack.

:: curls up in a ball, and rocks, whispering, "Job security, job security, job security" ::

[Der Cute]

*choc covered cashews and pint of vodka* All better, dear?

Is there a Don't Touch Our IT Shit Policy? We Move You Cuz You Can't Plug Stuff In Correctly?

Better set one up!

Cutenoob

[Bandit]

Welcome to my hell job.

One might think that 100+ year-old technology just *might* have filtered down to the (l)users, but then you find out that's impossible.

Somehow, after 20 years in the telecom game, I still have not clobbered a user. Yet.

Good luck and lots of for you.

B

[dalesys]

So they unplugged the splitter, and plugged the bad cable into the good port, and plugged the fax machine into a network port. Then called me in to clear up the cluster frack.

It's a guy thing...

Just plug it in anywhere...

[technical.angel]

It's a guy thing...

Sad thing is that it was a bunch of women. You think they'd be smarter than that!

[Ironclad Alibi]

One might think that 100+ year-old technology just *might* have filtered down to the (l)users, but then you find out that's impossible.

Heck, a lot of these lusers haven't yet mastered a technology that's thousands of years old, the hammer. They still hit themselves when they try to use it.

[lordlundar]

Heck, a lot of these lusers haven't yet mastered a technology that's thousands of years old, the hammer. They still hit themselves when they try to use it.

Heck, north of the 49th we have a show dedicated to this concept.

[mattm04]

*choc covered cashews and pint of vodka* All better, dear?

Is there a Don't Touch Our IT Shit Policy? We Move You Cuz You Can't Plug Stuff In Correctly?

Better set one up!

Cutenoob

I do at my org. It's easier for me me to move a freaking monitor to the other side of the desk because if they do it I will get called in anyway and find a broken pile of stuff including pins broke off in the video card.

[Crossbow]

*choc covered cashews and pint of vodka* All better, dear?

Is there a Don't Touch Our IT Shit Policy? We Move You Cuz You Can't Plug Stuff In Correctly?

Better set one up!

Cutenoob

I wish we had this policy at my old job.... I used to work in payroll for a huge multi-national company. Frankly, I was hired because I could use a computer faster than anyone else in the department. When we moved to a different section of the building, I was told by the facilities manager that "The facilities people would move the computer because they were insured if anything happened." He didn't like my response of "If I move the computers, you won't need the damn insurance."

Of course, they screwed it up. Completely. Our desk phones were plugged into the network jacks in the cube walls (or directly into the computers), monitors weren't plugged in right (or at all, depending on the station), and keyboards and mice were plugged in backwards (in the days before USB)... The only machine that worked right immediately was the one connected to the check printers, which the facilities people were not allowed to see, much less touch, for security reasons.

What I still can't figure out is why our IT staff, which had to move its office along with us, didn't move the PCs....

[Chromatix]

I'll hazard a guess - the IT guys were too busy moving the servers, including that super-secure printing doohickey.

I moved my own PC and a pile of rather fragile dev hardware into a conference room myself to work with some customers. Of course our IT guys are competent at this as well, but I got in before them...

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Sad thing is that it was a bunch of women. You think they'd be smarter than that!

Some of us actually are.

If something goes wrong with my home network, cables are one of the first things I'll check. It's been my experience that most major disasters are caused by one simple thing.

[gremcint]

Some of us actually are.

If something goes wrong with my home network, cables are one of the first things I'll check. It's been my experience that most major disasters are caused by one simple thing.

case in point, shooting one archduke caused a war.

[Broomjockey]

case in point, shooting one archduke caused a war.

An oversimplification.

[lordlundar]

An oversimplification.

to say nothing of the fact that that was the intent.

[Broomjockey]

to say nothing of the fact that that was the intent.

And an oversimple explanation of simplification.