working Saturday
I had to work this past Saturday. Our department has to provide 365-day coverage, so we have a rotating schedule where we all end up working about once a month on a weekend day. Now I'm a Monday-Friday, 8-5 kind of guy, so I'm not too thrilled about coming in on the weekends. But I got up like it was a weekday, and got to work by about 7:40 (so I can have a little more time catching up on email, etc.).
The way these days work is this: First I go the office where the pager is kept, and put that on. Then I wait to be contacted by the off-shore team, who will answer the freezer or frying pan question. Freezer means there are no new problems, so I can have a nice boring day, as long as the pager doesn't go off. Frying pan means that there's an unresolved problem, there's a customer somewhere who can't get at their data, and I have to try and fix it. At about 8:10 I got my answer: frying pan.
So the first couple of hours are spent trying to get remote access to the customer site, Not only are there connection problems, there are also silly problems like not knowing the user ID and password to use (which I finally found written on a white board). Around 10 AM, Craig came in. He's the other guy working this Saturday. So I explain the problem to Craig, and he goes off to look at some data we have. We finally do get access to the customer system, and I ask Craig to actively participate, because he knows a lot more than me about a lot of this stuff, at least from a support viewpoint.
Around 11 AM Akash shows up. He's a young guy in our group who came in, not because he had to, but because he wants to see what one of these weekend days are like. Go figure. But I'm glad he's there, and he goes off to research problems similar to the one we're working on.
Around midday (I don't remember exactly), I find out from Security there's a package for me in the lobby. What could that be? It's flowers from Gail, who knew how bummed I was about working Saturday! So I take the flowers back to the room where Craig, Akash & I are working, so that we can all enjoy them. :-)
We work on the problem all day, connected to the customer system, and also talking on different phones to a tech support guy, a development engineer, and chatting on the remote session to the customer engineer.
Now the deal is I get to leave at 5 if I'm not working a high-priority problem (which I am) and if Craig isn't either (well, he's working the same problem). So 5 comes and goes, which means I can't meet Gail for dinner, and I hope our 8 PM concert isn't in jeopardy, We can't transition to the off-shore team until 7. We'd love to resolve the problem, of course, but the problem is getting worse rather than better. We suggest to the customer that if we can wait until Monday, we'll have many more resources to address the problem. They says they'll get back to us.
Akash takes off. Craig and I both want to get out at a decent hour, and there's 2 reports to do, so I do one and he does the other, and he says he'll do the transition to the off-shore team at 7, so I get to leave around 6:35 (handing him the dreaded pager), grateful that I don't have to stay later. I've been there almost 11 hours. I'm glad I had someone to work with, and that we only had one problem to focus on.
I have McDonald's for dinner on the road, and make it to Cambridge in plenty of time to hear Ensemble Caprice with Gail.
The way these days work is this: First I go the office where the pager is kept, and put that on. Then I wait to be contacted by the off-shore team, who will answer the freezer or frying pan question. Freezer means there are no new problems, so I can have a nice boring day, as long as the pager doesn't go off. Frying pan means that there's an unresolved problem, there's a customer somewhere who can't get at their data, and I have to try and fix it. At about 8:10 I got my answer: frying pan.
So the first couple of hours are spent trying to get remote access to the customer site, Not only are there connection problems, there are also silly problems like not knowing the user ID and password to use (which I finally found written on a white board). Around 10 AM, Craig came in. He's the other guy working this Saturday. So I explain the problem to Craig, and he goes off to look at some data we have. We finally do get access to the customer system, and I ask Craig to actively participate, because he knows a lot more than me about a lot of this stuff, at least from a support viewpoint.
Around 11 AM Akash shows up. He's a young guy in our group who came in, not because he had to, but because he wants to see what one of these weekend days are like. Go figure. But I'm glad he's there, and he goes off to research problems similar to the one we're working on.
Around midday (I don't remember exactly), I find out from Security there's a package for me in the lobby. What could that be? It's flowers from Gail, who knew how bummed I was about working Saturday! So I take the flowers back to the room where Craig, Akash & I are working, so that we can all enjoy them. :-)
We work on the problem all day, connected to the customer system, and also talking on different phones to a tech support guy, a development engineer, and chatting on the remote session to the customer engineer.
Now the deal is I get to leave at 5 if I'm not working a high-priority problem (which I am) and if Craig isn't either (well, he's working the same problem). So 5 comes and goes, which means I can't meet Gail for dinner, and I hope our 8 PM concert isn't in jeopardy, We can't transition to the off-shore team until 7. We'd love to resolve the problem, of course, but the problem is getting worse rather than better. We suggest to the customer that if we can wait until Monday, we'll have many more resources to address the problem. They says they'll get back to us.
Akash takes off. Craig and I both want to get out at a decent hour, and there's 2 reports to do, so I do one and he does the other, and he says he'll do the transition to the off-shore team at 7, so I get to leave around 6:35 (handing him the dreaded pager), grateful that I don't have to stay later. I've been there almost 11 hours. I'm glad I had someone to work with, and that we only had one problem to focus on.
I have McDonald's for dinner on the road, and make it to Cambridge in plenty of time to hear Ensemble Caprice with Gail.