A Week in the Life of the Notes Support Person from Hell

     Submitted by Robbie Roy.

Monday
8:05am
     User called to say they forgot password. Told them to use password
     retrieval utility called FDISK. Blissfully ignorant, they thank me and
     hang up. God, we let the people vote and drive, too?

8:12am
     Accounting called to say they couldn't access expense reports
     database. Gave them Standard Sys Admin Answer #112, "Well, it works
     for me." Let them rant and rave while I unplugged my coffeemaker from
     the UPS and plugged their server back in. Suggested they try it again.
     One more happy customer...

8:14 am
     User from 8:05 call said they received error message "Error accessing
     Drive 0." Told them it was an OS problem. Transferred them to
     microsupport.

11:00 am
     Relatively quiet for last few hours. Decide to plug support phone back
     in so I can call my girlfriend. Says parents are coming into town this
     weekend. Put her on hold and transferred her to janitorial closet down
     in basement. What is she thinking? The "Myst" and "Doom" nationals are
     this weekend!

11:34 am
     Another user calls (do they ever learn?). Says they want ACL changed
     on HR performance review database so that nobody but HR can access
     database. Tell them no problem. Hang up. Change ACL. Add @MailSend so
     performance reviews are sent to */US.

12:00 pm
     Lunch

3:30 pm
     Return from lunch.

3:55 pm
     Wake up from nap. Bad dream makes me cranky. Bounce servers for no
     reason. Return to napping.

4:23 pm
     Yet another user calls. Wants to know how to change fonts on form. Ask
     them what chip set they're using. Tell them to call back when they
     find out.

4:55 pm
     Decide to run "Create Save/Replication Conflicts" macro so next shift
     has something to do.

Tuesday
8:30 am
     Finish reading support log from last night. Sounded busy. Terrible
     time with Save/Replication conflicts.

9:00 am
     Support manager arrives. Wants to discuss my attitude. Click on
     PhoneNotes SmartIcon. "Love to, but kinda busy. Put something in the
     calendar database!" I yell as I grab for the support lines, which have
     (mysteriously) lit up. Walks away grumbling.

9:35 pm
     Team leader from R&D needs ID for new employee. Tell them they need
     form J-19R=9C9\\DARR\K1. Say they never heard of such a form. Tell
     them it's in the SPECIAL FORMS database. Say they never heard of such
     a database. Transfer them to janitorial closet in basement.

10:00 am
     Perky sounding intern from R&D calls and says she needs new ID. Tell
     her I need employee number, department name, manager name, and marital
     status. Run @DbLookup against state parole board database, Centers for
     Disease Control database, and my Oprah Winfrey database. No hits. Tell
     her ID will be ready tonight. Drawing from the lessons learned in last
     week's "Reengineering for Customer Partnership," I offer to personally
     deliver ID to her apartment.

10:07 am
     Janitor stops by to say he keeps getting strange calls in basement.
     Offer to train him on Notes. Begin now. Let him watch console while I
     grab a smoke.

1:00 pm
     Return from smoking break. Janitor says phones kept ringing, so he
     transferred them to cafeteria lady. I like this guy.

1:05 pm
     Big commotion! Support manager falls in hole left where I pulled floor
     tiles outside his office door. Stress to him importance of not running
     in computer room, even if I do yell "Omigod -- Fire!"

1:15 pm
     Development Standards Committee calls and complains about umlauts in
     form names. Apologizing for the inconvenience, I tell them I will fix
     it. Hang up and run global search/replace using gaks.

1:20 pm
     Mary Hairnet from cafeteria calls. Says she keeps getting calls for
     "Notice Loads" or "NoLoad Goats," she's not sure, couldn't here over
     industrial-grade blender. Tell her it was probably "Lettuce Nodes."
     Maybe the food distributor with a new product? She thinks about it and
     hangs up.

2:00 pm
     Legal secretary calls and says she lost password. Ask her to check in
     her purse, floor of car, and on bathroom counter. Tell her it probably
     fell out of back of machine. Suggest she put duct tape over all the
     airvents she can find on the PC. Grudgingly offer to create new ID for
     her while she does that.

2:49 pm
     Janitor comes back. Wants more lessons. I take off rest of day.

Wednesday
8:30 am
     Irate user calls to say chipset has nothing to do with fonts on form.
     Tell them Of course, they should have been checking "Bitset," not
     "chipset." Sheepish user apologizes and hangs up.

9:10am
     Support manager, with foot in cast, returns to office. Schedules
     10:00am meeting with me. User calls and wants to talk to support
     manager about terrible help at support desk. Tell them manager about
     to go into meeting. Sometimes life hands you material...

10:00 am
     Call Louie in janitorial services to cover for me. Go to support
     manager's office. He says he can't dismiss me but can suggest several
     lateral career moves. Most involve farm implements in third-world
     countries with moderate to heavy political turmoil. By and by, I ask
     if he's aware of new bug which takes full-text indexed random e-mail
     databases and puts all references to furry handcuffs and Bambi Boomer
     in Marketing on the corporate Web page. Meeting is adjourned as he
     reaches for keyboard, Web browser, and Tums.

10:30 am
     Tell Louie he's doing great job. Offer to show him mainframe corporate
     PBX system sometime.

11:00 am
     Lunch.

4:55 pm
     Return from lunch.

5:00 pm
     Shift change; Going home.

Thursday
8:00 am
     New guy ("Marvin") started today. "Nice plaids" I offer. Show him
     server room, wiring closet, and technical library. Set him up with IBM
     PC-XT. Tell him to quit whining, Notes runs the same in both
     monochrome and color.

8:45 am
     New guy's PC finishes booting up. Tell him I'll create new ID for him.
     Set minimum password length to 64. Go grab smoke.

9:30 am
     Introduce Louie the custodian to Marvin. "Nice plaids" Louie comments.
     Is this guy great or what?!

11:00 am
     Beat Louie in dominos game. Louie leaves. Fish spare dominos out of
     sleeves ("Always have backups"). User calls, says Accounting server is
     down. Untie Ethernet cable from radio antenna (better reception) and
     plug back into hub. Tell user to try again. Another happy customer!

11:55 am
     Brief Marvin on Corporate Policy 98.022.01:

     "Whereas all new employee beginning on days ending in 'Y' shall enjoy
     all proper aspects with said corporation, said employee is obligated
     to provide sustenance and relief to senior technical analyst on
     shift."

     Marvin doubts. I point to "Corporate Policy" database (a fine piece of
     work, if I say so myself!). "Remember, that's DOUBLE pepperoni and NO
     peppers!" I yell to Marvin as he steps over open floor tile to get to
     exit door.

1:00 pm
     Oooooh! Pizza makes me so sleepy...

4:30 pm
     Wake from refreshing nap. Catch Marvin scanning want ads.

5:00 pm
     Shift change. Flick HR's server off and on several times (just testing
     the On/Off button...). See ya tomorrow.

Friday
8:00 am
     Night shift still trying to replace power supply in HR server. Told
     them it worked fine before I left.

9:00 am
     Marvin still not here. Decide I might start answering these calls
     myself. Unforward phones from Mailroom.

9:02 am
     Yep. A user call. Users in Des Moines can't replicate. Me and the
     Oiuji board determine it's sunspots. Tell them to call
     Telecommunications.

9:30 am
     Good God, another user! They're like ants. Says he's in San Diego and
     can't replicate with Des Moines. Tell him it's sunspots, but with a
     two-hour difference. Suggest he reset the time on the server back two
     hours.

10:17 am
     Pensacola calls. Says they can't route mail to San Diego. Tell them to
     set server ahead three hours.

11:00 am
     E-mail from corporate says for everybody to quit resetting the time on
     their servers. I change the date stamp and forward it to Milwaukee.

11:20 am
     Finish @CoffeeMake macro. Put phone back on hook.

11:23 am
     Milwaukee calls, asks what day it is.

11:25 am
     Support manager stops by to say Marvin called in to quit. "So hard to
     get good help..." I respond. Support manager says he has appointment
     with orthopedic doctor this afternoon, and asks if I mind sitting in
     on the weekly department head meeting for him. "No problem!"

11:30 am
     Call Louie and tell him opportunity knocks and he's invited to a
     meeting this afternoon. "Yeah, sure. You can bring your snuff" I tell
     him.

12:00 am
     Lunch.

1:00 pm
     Start full backups on UNIX server. Route them to device NULL to make
     them fast.

1:03 pm
     Full weekly backups done. Man, I love modern technology!

2:30 pm
     Look in support manager's contact management database. Cancel 2:45pm
     appointment for him. He really should be at home resting, you know.

2:39 pm
     New user calls. Says want to learn how to create a connection
     document. Tell them to run connection document utility CTRL-ALT-DEL.
     Says PC rebooted. Tell them to call microsupport.

2:50 pm
     Support manager calls to say mixup at doctor's office means
     appointment cancelled. Says he's just going to go on home. Ask him if
     he's seen corporate Web page lately.

3:00 pm
     Another (novice) user calls. Says periodic macro not working. Suggest
     they place @DeleteDocument at end of formula. Promise to send them
     document addendum which says so.

4:00 pm
     Finish changing foreground color in all documents to white. Also set
     point size to "2" in help databases.

4:30 pm
     User calls to say they can't see anything in documents. Tell them to
     go to view, do a "Edit -- Select All", hit delete key, and then
     refresh. Promise to send them document addendum which says so.

4:45 pm
     Another user calls. Says they can't read help documents. Tell them
     I'll fix it. Hang up. Change font to Wingdings.

4:58 pm
     Plug coffee maker into Ethernet hub to see what happens. Not (too)
     much.

5:00 pm
     Night shift shows up. Tell that the hub is acting funny and to have a
     good weekend.