On Call As the vacation season nears, put together for the smaller celebration that’s the finish of the week with one other version of On-Call, The Register‘s weekly stroll by way of the worst of the world of labor.
This week, meet “Brad”, who despatched in a narrative he says has haunted him for over 25 years. Such is the anguish he suffered after the electronic mail server he oversaw began to decelerate, and a warning gentle instructed considered one of the drives in a RAID set was the cause for the freezin’.
Brad’s office had engaged the then newly mixed Compaq/Digital to offer {hardware} assist. When the warning gentle was adopted by a lifeless disk, he invoked the assist contract and waited for a technician to seem.
Said worthy arrived and Brad was appointed his chaperone, so confirmed him to the stricken server in the expectation that changing the deceased drive would see the RAID array rebalance itself.
The Compaq chap requested Brad to drag out the disk – an act Brad obligingly carried out.
Note, pricey reader, that this story is greater than 25 years outdated. And in these far-off days, when plug and play was younger, simply yanking out a disk was not beneficial process.
Brad did precisely what he had been requested to do. That he ought to have achieved one thing else first was one thing that ought to maybe have been made extra specific.
Things went effectively … for about 20 seconds.
“The server then promptly fell over, as in shut itself down, taking all our electronic mail companies with it,” Brad recalled.
Brad requested what occurred subsequent, at which level the visiting tech absolved himself of all blame.
“It was you that pulled the drive out!” cried the one that had ordered the drive to be pulled out, who then failed to offer a repair.
Poor outdated Brad ended up pulling an all-nighter to revive electronic mail service and his colleagues’ inboxes.
Fast ahead to per week into the future, when somebody from Compaq/Digital referred to as with a job reference quantity and a query: “To whom ought to we ship the bill for the work carried out in your electronic mail server?”
Brad replied with the strongly expressed sentiment that he ought to be billing Compaq, not the different approach round. He then noticed in clear and succinct phrases that when one pays for tech assist one expects assist personnel to know, keep in mind, and implement disk dismount procedures.
“We by no means heard about that bill once more and by no means noticed that Compaq engineer once more,” Brad recalled. “And the room bought actually quiet when this occurred. I suppose I raised by voice a bit.”
Has a tech assist incident ever made you bellow with rage? Or have you ever ever dodged a bill for horrible service? If so, revisit the second with a little bit of digital primal scream remedy by clicking here to send an e-mail to On-Call and your take may seem right here on a future Friday.
No story is just too small as we plot the return of On-Call snippet roundups for the foolish season. ®
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