Well, today is my lucky day off! I’d say it was well deserved despite the datacenter arguments that took place last weekend.
Last Saturday we had network issues with a Point-to-Point T1 that goes from our office to a datacenter where we have some servers colocated. We seemed to be getting good speed in one direction. I put in a ticket with the data center and they forwarded it to the service provider (won’t say name). The service provider came back and said everything was good on their end and the data center ensured me that they’re were no issues in the jurisdiction. Off I was to save the day. I checked router configurations and experimented with clock settings to no avail. Then I decided to start doing soft loopback tests since I was too lazy to go down to the data center myself. One router was recieving horrible line errors while one side was good. After doing soft loops on the CSU in the data center I noticed that all errors dissappeared. I had a strange feeling the issue was between our CSU and the data centers DMARC. I called them to inform them of my findings. They said they would test the cabling and get back with me. They never called back so I called them and they said they had tested and everything was good. Damnit! I grabbed a spare router out of my home lab and headed for the office. Installed said router and no change. Headed down to the data center and installed that router there and guess what? No change. I fiddled with cables and router settings for an hour until I got pissed off. I was starting to feel crappy about myself because I had thought the network got the best of me. I grabbed a data center technician and asked him to test the cabling all the way to the DMARC in segments in front of me. Low an behold, from the patch panel closest to my equipment to the patch panel on the way to the DMARC we had found a broken pair of wires. I rolled my eyes and got bit of an attitude and told him to replace it. After 30 minutes of fishing cable he was done. All was back to normal. I learned something from this experience. Don’t trust data center technicians.
Anyways, for my above and beyond performance I was awarded the day off! So here I am… working. I’ve already had a number of trouble calls to tackle today. Don’t you hate it when someone e-mails you an issue they’re having and when you don’t respond in 1 minute they e-mail everyone in leadership. That just makes me want to help you out so much more. Be patient. I could be saving the servers from the depths of hell. Who knows? I prioritize incoming issues and if I don’t get back to you with the minute it may be because I’m working on something just a little more important than your little printer. I undertstand that you want to go home early, but I’m doing all I can. Shit, I like going home early. I don’t see you here at 3 am replacing network equipment or nursing a poor server back to health, so chill the hell out. I’ll get to you. You haven’t been forgotten. If it continues I may just happen to start forgetting about you. I have a real good memory and I keep notes, a checklist at that. Listed in order of priority of tasks I need to complete for the day.
Who cares right? Just another day in the life of a sysadmin. My day off has already been spent eating breakfast, drinking coffee, fixing printer spool issues, testing scripts, troubleshooting FTP issues, and responding to e-mails. If this isn’t you, don’t ever become a sysadmin. If I could go back and choose a different career, I wouldn’t. This job really puts you at the edge. Tests how much you can take. Takes a lot of dedication. If you aren’t interested in saving the world, go become a data entry clerk or something.
