A week in the life of Th notes supporter from hell

Monday  8:05am 
     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? 

8:12am 
     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... 

8:14 am 
     User from 8:05 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 pm 
     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 the 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 10:00am 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 2:45pm 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.