Christmas tales engineer post

The most difficult thing before the New Year is to make a schedule when an engineer cannot be plump. The thing is: the "X-team" of field engineers has a standard duty shift, there the fighters just sit in the office. And we also have regular projects, and for those where there is a support service, someone should always be in touch. That's why we carry laptops and phone modems with us, even at parties. And - certainly - we don’t drink if we need to insure today.

From examples - my colleague somehow went on a date, and instead of communicating with a girl, remotely raised a server.
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And on the New Year the adequacy of requests for technical support changes dramatically. Once, for example, on the 31st, critical equipment flew out at us: it turns out that the customer “put out” the rack to call the engineer. Understood, contagion, that so it will not be released from duty. Made a service case for him. I arrived, and there is a glade with vodka, a satisfied customer and a gift for the New Year for good work.

In general, take tea, a cookie - and come, I will tell.

The main problem of the New Year is the desire of the customer to save on the support of 10-15 days of January , when, it seems, nothing happens anywhere. “I don’t need anything,” says the customer, “I’m still myself.” Ok, we say - and facilitate the duty schedule. As a result, the necessary engineer can leave Russia trite, there will be no people left. And on the night of the first number, something falls, and this something gets a prize for the best tantrum of the year. What is the most offensive is that even if you want to help, it is not always physically possible to help: you cannot take the X-team off duty, but the fact that someone else will be in Moscow is not a fact. No other people can be: here, from the same banks from January 1 to 15, up to 30% of consumer loans per year are issued - this is how in some cases we have a duty shift sitting in their office not to go.

Once, according to a rather rare system, with which 3 people know how to work in Russia, there was a familiar “dry” schedule. They wrote it with the understanding that the probability of breakdown there is extremely low, but order is order. In general, according to the law of meanness, he came. And remotely there is nothing to do, I had to go. The closest to the customer was the fourth person who understands this system. It was one of our tops, which by no means pulled at an ordinary engineer. Naturally, he decided not to advertise his position, but just changed into a sweater and went. Well, then reality show "feel yourself in Russia" with the rude watchman and others. He kept silent, picked up the system, left. He says he remembered youth.

I had a similar situation when I began to lead the department. We sit at the customer, calmly discussing a big contract with their tops. All such in ties, chin-chinar. And then the alarm phone rings. The problem with the service, SLA 4 hours, the engineer only get three traffic jams. And I'm on the spot. Well, I asked to wait 20 minutes, got to the server, sent the question. It was just interesting for me to shake the old-fashioned, but the customer had a feeling that it was as if he suddenly had a queue in the client room, and one of the tops would come out to stand at the checkout.

Another engineer answered directly from the bath , more precisely - outside on the snowball with the phone. Ticket closed quickly, it was in his interest. When something completely unpleasant happens - you need to spit on everything, get in a taxi and go. I was in my youth right from the New Year's party once broke. One more time the customer asked directly to a specific specialist, they transferred the call through half-planets. They talked for about twenty minutes, then the customer could not stand it and asked to leave the beach, because the noise of the surf was annoying. In the distant snowy Russia.

December is still a very busy schedule in general. At budgetary organizations, “sour” money is the saved budget surplus that can be spent. As a result, we are starting a boom of orders for various preventive works, all kinds of buns are being introduced, which have long been wanted. While all the infrastructures are frozen until March 10 (no, God forbid, that will fly off at retail in the peak period, for example), in December there is a real movement in the public sector. They make overhauls of the UPS, every fan is checked, the air conditioning is cleaned, instructions are written, regulations are made, disaster recovery plans are thought out ... For several years we even made a special page for such a case if it is interesting). The most terrible story was when one big boss, summing up the year, at a press conference promised to launch one big system before the end of the month, where work was until February. I remember that then, by a miracle and an inhuman effort of will, we raised the basic functionality, and then we finished all the holidays. But there is a plus - usually long negotiations for state structures took place in a couple of hours instead of a couple of days or a week.



Here in the photo is another memorable case. It was necessary before the end of the year to finish the “long-term construction” of the replacement of ERP for the aircraft manufacturing holding in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. The city is far, so the colleagues went at once with a group of 15 people to do as much as possible at once across all profiles. Who was out of work at the moment (according to the schedule there were “failures” in 2-3 days and weekends at the customer) - not to go back. Therefore, on the advice of experienced colleagues immediately took ski and snowboard equipment. The most healthy our project, I guess.

On holidays begin "checkers" for the schedule. Someone without a family or a very young one - the New Year is not critical, but the bonus for December 31 - January 1 is weighty. Someone who is older, sometimes, tries to change so that this year he is not on duty at all, and next he will not leave anywhere and take all the shifts. Dispatchers, security guards, warehouse keepers of the reserve - they all also meet right at workplaces. As a rule, until the 4th, the work is boring, but there are sharp peaks, when something breaks - this is then remembered for a whole year.

I remember once in the "quiet" year technical support just raised the right. On the eve of the New Year, the guys were bored, and they got to the PBX, began to replace the internal alphabetic numbers of their familiar colleagues. It turned out "Santa Claus", who asked what gifts a person received. Harmless drawing ended on the first call to the security men. And it could make a good epic in the spirit of Mitnick.

Because of the Russian specificity of the holidays, the work of support is complicated. Someone who knows by iron knows that the usual service case “slammed the handle in the laptop” turns into “accidentally sat on the laptop”. And "poured a laptop coffee" is changed to "poured a laptop with beer with champagne." Coffee - you can still wash, well, or is it a replacement for the keyboard. Beer and champagne are almost always new motherboards. Drink with a laptop - drink vodka. Vodka is a diluted alcohol, if you're lucky, just dry it and continue to work.

People are changing too. We, again, for each project compile a list of knowledge and competencies on the part of the customer, prescribe for each responsible deputy. It sounds very funny in December, but the benefits are just incredible. For example, Vasya went too far with champagne and instead of “Hello” just something unintelligible. And we already have the phone of a second person who can help or give the necessary access.

Or another great case. The guy received a certificate of sysadmin level 80 in the morning, having passed the next MS exam. Well, of course, worried. He came to the office, relaxed, put the brain to sleep. At this point, he updated the rights in the corporate network, and he went to restore order. Saw some "left" user and deleted it to hell. By the evening it turned out that it was the financial director. From the same opera, the engineer heard the customer badly from a distant city, which did not receive an appeal in the court’s information system. I did not understand anything, I wrote off for the New Year, but I put the ticket. The letter fell on everyone with the theme: "The customer does not undergo hair removal." Before the trial was a shame.

We have few women among the field engineers , but the girl-engineer feels quite well to support non-critical systems (especially remote-looking systems). So, the end of December, preparation for the holiday, the end of the working day. Now the bus will arrive and take everyone to the corporate party. One beautiful mamzel does the styling for about an hour, puts on an evening dress, everything comes out so beautiful ... And - right! Urgent call. Change, of course, no longer exists. In the end - the whole party to hell. And then it turns out that two more engineering guys are sitting quietly downstairs with a jar of juice: they just waited for her for several hours. Fed Ira with a chocolate from a machine gun and drove along through half the town.

Yes, finally about that epochal date from the very beginning . BoVados , who now runs the EMC Solution Center, was once part of the X-team. On the 31st he met a girl. Since he is on duty, and the next day we need to sleep, a date was set for January 2. Vadim, as expected, took the laptop, phone, cable to the phone and drove off. And then one large bank went to the server, and vendor support needed our engineer in touch. The date, they say, was unforgettable.

And this year, that same girl became his wife.

PS Have you had New Year's stories?