Tales of "engineering special forces", well, or just our fun work

We walked along the highway from Magadan to Yakutsk, carrying parts for one data center. Cold in these parts are such that the machines are not jammed. Because before the spring will not get. Machines should be placed in warm garages or hangars. We already in the evening just found such a hangar and began to knock. A very podgy owner discovers such a simple Siberian man in a quilted jacket and a fur hat:
- Hello, can I have your car delivered?
- Not. Get out of here, I don't know you!
- Come on, man, we'll give you money.
A peasant takes out a five-thousand-centimeter cutlet from his pocket five thick and says:
- Yes, I’m the ones who give money myself! Here you will bang with me - then we will deliver.

We then fulfilled our obligations under the state contract for this data center.
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And you go inside, I will continue to tell our stories. By the way, yes, who was worried about our rat (still alive in the photo in the last post) - even though it flew 380 V, but she came to and started walking a little. We ottoili her sweet tea and let go, she ran away already fun. True, what happened to her next, we do not know.

What are we doing

We go all over the country, do preventive maintenance, maintenance and repairs of any engineer. In general, in Europe, vendors are engaged in this, but we in Russia have a nuance with the size of the country. Vendors, except for a couple of large ones, simply do not make sense to develop their infrastructure. Out of a hundred, two devices will fail, and for their sake it is unprofitable to keep a staff of people. Many have telephone support, but the engineer service is different. It is similar in load to a sine wave. And in the upper parts can only cope who does a lot of things else the rest of the season. At the peak of small teams, the economy does not add up. We have peaks are compensated by a huge amount of service contracts and prevention, so we are always busy. And so vendors rely on us.

The second feature of purely our country is the place where the minerals hid. They are despicable hiding in places where it is not so easy to get to them, and there is no infrastructure nearby. And there it is necessary to deliver spare parts, and it is not always physically possible at all. Accordingly, without many years of experience solving such problems - a dead number. Below I will tell you why.


The novel in 2010 makes its way in St. Petersburg to the equipment at the power station. A little later, we saw true Far Eastern snowfalls, but this memory remained forever.

Month in the data center

We took on the maintenance and repair of the data center in a very poor condition, then it gave us a good load if 30% of the design. I really lived there for a month right there.

In general, it is morally difficult to leave for a long time. A long trip is when all social ties fall off. Car services, dry cleaners, doctors - everything must be thought out in advance. It is quite important to take with you something so as not to be bored, but easy. The same books are too big and heavy - it is better to grab an instrument instead of them, especially considering the 10–15-kilogram norms on the North's air traffic. We take electronic reading rooms, tablets or we load books into phones. Usually - a deck of cards. We read newspapers. From personal experience, you go to bed with a tablet, there is no connection, there is nothing. And it becomes very sad sometimes. You look where you are, on the map, and where everything else, it takes a long time to scroll. The operating system, after the GPS catches, sometimes asks again: "Are you exactly here?"

At that data center, we did a lot of things with our hands, because there was a shortage of components, it was necessary to rebuild from the existing one, restore, sit with a soldering iron and old boards ... I cannot tell the details, but the result - now this data center is already 85% loaded.

More often on long-distance departures, we eliminate other people's shoals. For example, we did a project, and then it turns out that the contractor was attracted by the fact that the radish was crooked at the installation. And we are told: "Your project is bad."

Roman and Anaconda

Roma Karrp is probably the most sociable of us and definitely the most positive. Very friendly. Everybody loves him on objects. Very inspiring customers. Here they are running on the spot and do not know what to grab after the accident. Roma appears from the plane and smiling says:
- Oh, what nonsense. Everything will be now.
Takes and makes. And they know him, and they understand that he does not throw words.

We repaired the chiller in the same bank at night. The day off, almost already Christmas, no one there. Customer calls:
- Are you cool? Can you today? What do you need for this - we will give everything!
- Let's get the lighting.

We put there spotlights on the roof, we worked, assembled the chiller from the parts of the same chiller using the recombination method. Together they bent the "anaconda" - the vibration damping insert. It is like a reinforced plumbing, only very large, and it must be bent and brought into the suction line so that the vibration from the compressor is not transmitted further. In general, it is not done by hands, but there was no choice then - it was necessary either to do it, or the data center would have warmed a little.

Of the hardest was the case : the equipment was damaged on the way (the modular safe was smashed during transportation), inside - a damaged industrial air conditioner. Restored so that the customer was happy. Some areas almost from scratch were collected, as in the factory.

Luggage

Baggage inspection is something. We are immediately counted as especially dangerous. Perhaps, for the safety of the Motherland, I became a little calmer - there are such vigilant and active employees that you can’t even carry a tool past them:
- Guys! Guys! There is a full suitcase of metal. What to do?!
And the name of everyone you can call. The chiefs of all are called. They have metal in such quantities - just panic.

I flew away from Rostov, drove a burnt out switch of the switch. I decided to take it to the office for the experiments - they wanted to pick it up, give it to the interns as a visual aid. And this is such a box, slightly burning from one of the corners, plus a bunch of wires sticking out from there. I spun it with silver reinforced tape. Inside a plastic casing.

Saw on inspection:
- WHAT IS IT?!
- This is a broken control unit.
- Show!
Well, of course, got it, but there is scotch, wires, everything. The commission with the police and the guard came running, sappers. They took me to a little room, started asking. Everything showed, told, and only the presence of a travel certificate from one of the objects of the university calmed down. It turns out that their students studied there. I asked a couple of tricky questions, such as on which cheek the mole at the teacher (and on his nose), calmed down, let go.

In the Stavropol airport at Roman - a scandal every time. They are very, very sensitive to the cargo, even in the Minvody is calmer. And Roma is a former military man, plus he knows his rights.
- Give me a certificate that your measuring device is a device.
- Do not give you a certificate that the screwdriver is a screwdriver?
A man in a stupor.
- Show a traveller.
- Here it is, but I will not give it to you. And if I just traveled?
He is again in a stupor.

As a result, of course, they shake everything out.

Once I flew from Domik to Chita in 2007, so they took apart the laptop. They say organic matter (drugs) you have there in capacitors, maybe now someone will come. It was 15 minutes, no one arrived. They looked at me and said: "Go further, comrade passenger."

In Stavropol the man took the passport and left. Just grabbed one of the guards and carried it somewhere. Roma made a scandal. The man came later, apologized.

In Nizhny Novgorod, the hotel drove the subway with spare parts. They stop us there, check the documents, then half an hour piss in a capter. Starley struck the bases, we called him all the data. I did not know what to say. At the end issued:
- If you are a programmer, say: this is the case, the router does not work at my home ...

Once flew with a colleague air conditioner. And they always have large complex luggage, they carry the most. Expect. Both tags are stuck on my ticket. Ask to come to the rack - we approach together. We are asked: "Whose?" And we are at the same time: "Mine." Both are led into a closed area where baggage is overloaded. Our suitcases lie separately from the stream on the floor, the delegation stands in a semicircle. We explain what and how. The woman opened the suitcases, began to ask what it was and where, poke a finger. They have almost calmed down, when suddenly she refuses the charge hose for freon. And there was a bit of freon left, some kind of reptile in the configuration when packing was not strained. The faucet touches - and the hose says “PSSSC!” - and white smoke is like that.

Judging by the fact that half of the delegation characteristically lay down, people were not simple.

In Chelny, the most active grandfather caught:
- You have a gas burner there!
- Yes.
- A cylinders can not be transported!
- And they are not there.
- Let's open.
- Ok, here, look.
- Where are the gas cylinders?
- Not the same. You can not them.
- Strange ... Gas burner is, no cylinders.
I looked for them for some time, even looked into the pockets.

Voronezh. They found out, asked to drink from the bottle. He drank (the usual water was with him) - missed.

Somehow I was carrying a network card for a bespereboynik with myself - they asked to turn it on. It was explained for a long time that it will not turn on.

Pasha somehow found a rosette in Ufa in an empty corridor. He sat down on the floor, connected, started charging, put the phone in a backpack and reads a magazine. An employee passed, looked strange. Then back passed. After two minutes - again she goes and with her two in uniform and a dog. They imputed some kind of “unauthorized connection to the grid of a strategic object”.

Fines

In Yekaterinburg, they arrived somehow with the components very late. While we were unloaded from the train - the station was empty, nobody was cold. It is important that there are flat platforms at ground level. Dragging heavy iron along the platform is hard, so we decided to go straight. We look - there is a man walking along the paths of a local, it seems, it means that it is possible. Everything is lit. There are no trains.

Iron grab and go. In parallel, we are a policeman exactly like us, maybe 10 meters away from us, with our speed. We got to the end - he: “Let's get the documents, you can’t walk the ways - a fine of 100 rubles”. Apparently, he was bored, because he wrote out the real administrative, everything was as it should be.

But in Khabarovsk at the airport came by a margin. Aunt at the checkout says:
- You have an advantage here.
- Yes, we know.
- You have to pay.
- Yes of course.
- It is expensive.
- We know.
“Give me a thousand, I'll do it for you.”
- No, I'm sorry, we still have to report to the accounting department. Let's make out the right.
- But expensive.
- We know.
Aunt was deeply moved, excited:
- Listen, you do not understand, you fool or what? Come on a thousand - five is worth it!

Local

Many ask about local contractors: really can not? Can But often there is a problem with the fact that they disappear in an unknown direction, or make it so that it is easier to remake. And we have the backbone of the team working with one composition for 4 years. And it plays a huge positive role in terms of reliability.

I know how other companies work and how vendor service departments work. As we have on the final result, few can. For example, a large network of hypermarkets - 80 shopping centers in the country, or another customer in 35 regions. And this is prevention and maintenance, plus all planned Moscow ones, plus emergency applications ... We have already finished in February. 7 months incomplete with geography from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. And all went on vacation. Pasha went to study in China.

Aladdin's Cave

In Voronezh, there is a special cave diesel. He had long been placed near a residential building where the office was on the first floor. Opposite the windows of the first floor could not be coordinated according to the norms of noise, so they installed it in the basement pit, mounted it with a crane, then covered it with a capital roof. They made a wreath and exhaust pipe.

And the door did not. In the pit only the window goes. Engineer through the window with the tool and fuel climb. If you watched the feature film "Water World" - almost like oil smokers produced. We were the last time there when it was especially interesting to pour oil in the dark in the light of flashlights.

Aldan

Getting to Aldan is difficult. The problem is that the road along the winter road is about 400 kilometers from Yakutsk. If there is no winter road or it is impossible to drive through it - it is necessary by small aircraft.

The plane flies only in the off season (in summer). There are 8 seats on the plane (in fact, sometimes 10). The cargo can be no more than 10 kilograms per person, and we have a team of three engineers (energy, cooling and, for example, a salesman) of 30 kilograms each. And mostly - components and tools.

Plus, it is impossible to deliver consumables for maintenance in Heat Key: it is engine oil, freon under pressure in cylinders, antifreeze. On board the aircraft they simply do not take. With the help of transport workers tried many times, but could not deliver the goods even once. The story is:
- Will you take?
- Yes, we will take. Where are you going? In Aldan?
- Yes.
“Hmmm ... It's more expensive.”
- Here is a bunch of money, just take it.
- Good good.

Fly to Yakutsk and meet. The Bermuda Triangle exists in Russia.

Where there are two rivers - Lena and Aldan - in warm time (one and a half months) it is possible by ferry, because there are no bridges. After 4 months of the ferry there is no - the river begins to freeze, you can not go yet, but the ferry can not. There is a moment with hovercrafts: for passengers and small vehicles, but they are extremely rare there. In practice, everything is paralyzed. A good option - on the winter road in winter. But we almost never get on the emergency exits - it opens from January to mid-March. And this is the period when the service is the least. Therefore, watch the movie "Territory" - highly recommended.

Who asked last time why we need fake vodka instead of technical alcohol for flushing the outdoor units of air conditioners and why we should buy it on the spot - now you understand the situation a little.

As a result, we make our own warehouses of spare parts and components there in winter, when there is a road. The last time in this area on one of the objects of antifreeze was not enough, got it like this: in Khandyga 40 kilometers (village), there is a commercial warehouse. In theory, it was possible to buy there, but, naturally, there were no options. As a result, they went to a local mechanic, he repairs wagons there and puts double glazing on the cars. The guy really over the years worked out connections throughout the region. Can get anything. Only the bear is afraid. He rustled a couple of days - and got the right amount. He says, be careful there, people have stockpiled for years.

We know such people in almost every city where our facilities are, this is very important.

It is very important to know where to take what and how to drag it. In Khabarovsk, oil can be found by anyone, and then you should already know. Another peculiarity is that over the years, the established routes even along the Volga region, not to mention the Urals (it is necessary to walk along the rivers in order to visit 4 points in a week, and for the weekend back to Moscow, to the family). For example, recently there was a route Ufa - Chelyabinsk - Perm - Yekaterinburg. Before that - Samara - Ulyanovsk - Tolyatti - Penza. Trains, buses, cars. Each of us plans. Sasha was driving back from Izhevsk, he was sent to Kazan for maintenance. While there was repairing, planners say: “Naberezhnye Chelny is not far, right? And we know that you have specials there. Let's send it back there! ”

Aircraft

Last year, the Far East did so. They calculated the trip between service contracts, agreed with transport workers - loaded a minibus and drove through the winter road through all points. We should have been thrown into Magadan two pallets - freon, oil. Several times already used that year transport, which carries it well there, there were no problems. They were shipped to them in Moscow, they accepted the cargo in the hangar, gave them a receipt. We went.

At this moment, the transport aircraft they broke down. The problem was that our cargo was at the end of the hangar. While they were being repaired, the hangar was showered with alien cargo. The men in Moscow tried to knock him out, but without a chance, and others did not even send. In general, I had to wait. During this time, we have thoroughly studied all the local entertainment. There is no cinema, no restaurants, it's cold to walk.

Alcohol fun uncivilized and expensive. There is no railway, so cargoes by aviation or ferries, respectively, trade is also not particularly developed. The cost of all goods from milk to bread is unreal. Kamchatka, Sakhalin, Magadan - 2 times from the base. Further - as lucky. I remember we went to this store to shop. Martini, that 500 rubles in Moscow, - 1100 on the spot. And still fish, crabs, caviar - everything is on the market, but also at Moscow prices, although everything is caught on the spot.

By the way, mobile operators with 2G have recently started up in Thermal Key. Before that, there was only one landline phone at all. To call, you had to get up early (while working in Moscow) and call, while the employee with the phone in the office.

Therefore, we must love nature and the edge of the world.

More tales

• Long trips
• More visits "astronauts" and about our team
• My mail is PStepanov@croc.ru