No, my house didn't burn down... nothing was stolen... no accidents or illness (well, not for me and mine anyway, but more on that momentarily), or marital strife. This week was simply a stress-fest. A shining example of how cutting too many corners always leaves somebody painted into one.
(Warning... this journal is about to get all tech-y and work-related. If you're still here, you might want to have a comfy pillow handy since it's probably not of much interest to anybody but my stressed out self... lol!)
I work for a small IT company. Did I say small? That's much too generous. Let's try..... tiny. No... not quite. microscopic! Yes, that's the word I'm looking for. I say I work for the company, but I'm actually part owner... albeit a pretty small part. At present, there are exactly two of us here on a full time basis with a constantly rotating retinue of contractors doing everything from design, to development to network stuff. Contractors are good. They are very helpful when you're stuck for someone to do a given task. They are absolutely worthless when you need someone to "remember that project we were working on last spring?" That said, usually things run pretty smoothly. I handle all things development. My partner handles all things network-business-y. It works. He's a great schmoozer. He makes the best first impression you'll ever get (the French accent helps). He's also pretty good in that tangle of wires and menacing blinking boxes that populate our server room.
Network... LAN, WAN, IP, DNS, reverse DNS, A record, MX record, start this service, stop that service, open this port, close that port...
AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hate it! I don't want to know!!!! I just want to come in and hide in my cluttered office and write my if...then loops!
Last Friday, with the help of some of the aforementioned contractors, we did a major network overhaul. Without getting too tech-y, this involved a whole new batch of IP addresses for all of our clients and us. Ugly under the best of circumstances. Again. I don't get it. I don't want to get it. I already know more than I ever wanted to! I can feel bits of useful information dropping out of the back of my head every time I learn more about it!
I came in on Monday morning to a voice mail message from my partner. He's got pneumonia. O.M.G. I get to work at 7:30. By 8:01 the phones were ringing off the hook.
"I can't send/receive email."
"I can't see my website."
"I can't ftp into my site."
WTF??! This was supposed to be DONE! I get on the phone with the consulting company and it takes me an hour just to get in touch with one of the guys who was actually here! Nobody knows nuthin'. They don't want to come back. God forbid they finish what they started! They'd rather walk ME through their diagnostics and repairs on the phone!!
This has gone on ALL WEEK. It's Friday and I have got NONE of my own work done, plus I've made myself look like an inept idiot for 5 days as I BS clients trying to sound like I know what the *)*&^^! is wrong with their email. Have I mentioned the boat-loads of verbal abuse heaped on me by those clients? That's been especially nice.
It's going to be even nicer next Monday when I have to explain to all my development clients (you know, the ones whose projects have been in the drawer all week?) why their projects are now a week behind!! I'd say I'll have to work from home all weekend, but...
I CAN'T CONNECT TO THE NETWORK!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment