Probability level of 0:0, we have normality
I start a blog to talk about all the interesting crap that happens at work, and everything goes normal on me. I've had no real problems in the past week, which is really great and really irritating at the same time. You see, every computer tech knows that if all of the problems stop coming in for a day or so, it means that all hell is about to break loose. It's one of the laws of the universe. Computers cannot exist without problems. When these problems stop happening, it begins disrupting the normal balance of the cosmos. Things start building up, bad shit starts happening and before you know it, iTunes is destroying your hard disk and Quicktime is mass mailing evil copies of itself across the network. (Yes, I know... If Apple is already evil, than how can an evil copy of Quicktime exist? It just can.)
Today was about the only interesting day all week, as one of our wireless routers went down at Lexus. Normally, this can be ignored for a day or so since most of the shop technicians rarely use the internet while at work. However, this particular router serviced the customer lounge. As you can very well guess, this is a very bad thing.
The problem with Lexus customers is that they're often times old, spoiled, rich, or a combination of the three. In any case, this leads them to be a tad bitter when things don't go entirely their way. This is precicely what happened this afternoon. One of the customers was having his vehicle serviced and was browsing the web on his laptop when things stopped working. He, of course, got fairly aggrivated and asked the cashier to have the IT guy come out and take a look at it. So I drove from southern Maryland (Where I had been fixing minor things this morning) all the way out to Lexus
Upon arriving, it was clear that a simple reboot wouldn't do the trick. The router was handing out IP addresses, but wasn't allowing traffic. I tried re-seating the cables, power cycling everything, and refreshing the IP address on my notebook. To no avail, it wouldn't work. At this point, I decided to call the ISP and ask if things were looking bad on their end too. As it turns out, Verizon screwed up somehow and knocked out the primary and backup circuts to the building. Interestingly enough, nothing else was affected. I'm still trying to figure out how that worked. In the end, they opened a ticket for me and informed me that they'd have one of their field technicians come out to take a look at it. With that, I packed up and headed home. That five hour shift was the longest I've worked in a week. I need a vacation or something...
Today was about the only interesting day all week, as one of our wireless routers went down at Lexus. Normally, this can be ignored for a day or so since most of the shop technicians rarely use the internet while at work. However, this particular router serviced the customer lounge. As you can very well guess, this is a very bad thing.
The problem with Lexus customers is that they're often times old, spoiled, rich, or a combination of the three. In any case, this leads them to be a tad bitter when things don't go entirely their way. This is precicely what happened this afternoon. One of the customers was having his vehicle serviced and was browsing the web on his laptop when things stopped working. He, of course, got fairly aggrivated and asked the cashier to have the IT guy come out and take a look at it. So I drove from southern Maryland (Where I had been fixing minor things this morning) all the way out to Lexus
Upon arriving, it was clear that a simple reboot wouldn't do the trick. The router was handing out IP addresses, but wasn't allowing traffic. I tried re-seating the cables, power cycling everything, and refreshing the IP address on my notebook. To no avail, it wouldn't work. At this point, I decided to call the ISP and ask if things were looking bad on their end too. As it turns out, Verizon screwed up somehow and knocked out the primary and backup circuts to the building. Interestingly enough, nothing else was affected. I'm still trying to figure out how that worked. In the end, they opened a ticket for me and informed me that they'd have one of their field technicians come out to take a look at it. With that, I packed up and headed home. That five hour shift was the longest I've worked in a week. I need a vacation or something...