Wrong Location
Back in the early 2000s, I was working for a Network Integrator in the city of London, mostly delivering WAN solutions. One morning a colleague approached me looking somewhat puzzled and asked me if I knew where “Geo Pardy” was?
“Geo Pardy?” I said, “No, it doesn’t ring a bell”. She went on further to explain that she had ordered a circuit, but according to the customer, the location was wrong. At this juncture, I should point out that whilst she was very capable, English wasn’t her first language. I asked her to forward the customer’s email to me, only to find it actually said “This circuit is in jeopardy”
The Interview
Finding good engineers is never easy. One morning my manager asked me to interview a candidate and to expect him around 10am that morning. Sure enough at 10am I got a call from reception to inform me my interview had arrived.
The reception was only a short walk away, and a couple of minutes later I had greeted the candidate and was accompanying him back to the interview room. I offered him the usual coffee and asked another engineer to join me.
Almost straight away I had the sense something wasn’t quite right as the candidate started to remove his tie. I thought this was a little odd, but then again not everyone wears a tie these days, perhaps it’s just making him uncomfortable? Thinking no more about it we started the interview.
“Okay, let’s get started” I said, “We’ll start with some easy questions, which will get progressively harder, but don’t worry if you don’t know any of them, that’s fine, just let us know and we’ll move on to the next question”
At this point, the candidate looked even more uncomfortable, turning slightly pale.
“Erm, this wasn’t what I was expecting?” he said
“Don’t worry” I replied, “It’s really not that bad, we just need to know what your skill level is”.
“No, that’s not what I mean. I’m here to service your photocopier”
The Cabinet
One company I worked for sold colocation in a local data centre, which was then called Level(3). Customers would buy a server rack, fill it with servers, and we would provide connectivity solutions for them, such as internet breakout, access to private circuits etc.
Whilst working in the data centre, I received a call from one of the project managers requesting a hard reboot of a server for a client. This wasn’t something we routinely did, but as I was in the data centre I agreed to help him out.
Each Level(3) rack had a combination lock on it, and to appreciate this story fully you have to understand just how difficult these combination locks were to open. They were the type you might expect to find on the front of an old fashioned safe, except half the size and twice as fiddly. It wasn’t a case of simply turning the lock to the appropriate numbers, but more the case of turning the lock one way, then another, then another again, and then hoping the lock would engage, enabling you to keep turning and open the door. Most of the time it would take two or three attempts.
The project manager gave me the rack location and the combination code and I dutifully went searching for the rack. After three unsuccessful attempts to open the door, I decided to call the project manager to check the code.
“Are you sure this is the right code Geoff?” I said. He confirmed the code was indeed correct and I tried once again.
“Are you definitely sure, Geoff?”
“Yes, I’m sure” he replied “What kit is in there? Can you see the HP server?”.
“No” I replied “This rack is empty”.
DSL Phone line
Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of the nicest people. One such person was an Engineer called Vince. One day Vince picked up a call from a customer who had a problem with their broadband. You could tell from his demeanour the person at the other end of the line was completely technology phobic and he was doing his best to guide them through a troubleshooting process.
“Okay, the dark grey box is the router. There should be a phone cable in the back of it” he said in a slow helpful voice.
“Oh, yes there is” came the reply
“Okay, good. What does it plug into?”
“It goes into one of those filters, and then into the phone line extension, I think?”
“Okay good. You’re going to need to unplug the filter and plug it into the BT master socket. That’s the socket where the phone line comes into the building. hello…? hello…?”
The Traceroute Blog 