Someone asked me to describe my work day and what happens on these night adventures. Since this sound reasonable, I thought about keeping log such as this:

08:00 Arrive at work
08:15 Enter office, log onto computer
10:45 Finish reading comics, checking email, posting to blog
11:00 Check queue for work orders, take nap
12:00 Wake up and eat lunch, watch Naruto videos on Youtube
13:30 Check queue, see order to swap a handset cord
13:31 Go online and browse Ebay
14:45 Walk upstairs and swap handset cord
15:30 Close out order
16:00 Go home.

But I decided not to because it doesn’t look that good. Instead I’ll just say that as a dedicated phone technician – I should probably define that before I go on.

By dedicated I don’t mean I’m highly motivated to stick to my job but rather that there exists a contract between my company and a customer that guarantees a technician will be on site for 8 hours each day, Monday through Friday. So instead of working "in the field" and going from customer to customer as the workload dictates, I come to one specific customer and stay there, doing whatever work they assign.

Often this means I may go a day or two without so much as lifting a tool. Other times I may be given only a day’s notice that 20 people are moving to new desks without any connectivity and I have to scramble to get them dial tone. Feast or famine, as they say.

So, as a dedicated technician it is my duty to look after the customer’s equipment and complete the moves, adds, and changes (MAC work) they assign to me. I refer to all this as "swapping handset cords" because that seems to be the level of technical skill required and often the remedy for end user troubles.

Trouble: User complains of poor voice quality. Dispatch tech.
Resolution: Swapped handset cord. User happy.

Trouble: User says no lights, no dial tone on set. Dispatch tech.
Resolution: Plugged phone into jack. Tested phone ok.

Trouble: User recently moved per order XXXX. Says phone doesn’t work at new location. Dispatch Tech.
Resolution: Plugged phone into correct jack. Tested phone ok.

Trouble: Fax line in the User Support Center does not work. Dispatch tech.
Resolution: Fax line tested ok. Made and received test calls. Trouble is not with the phone line.

It needs to be pointed out that the User Support Center (USC) is the central call center for all user related issues on voice, data, and other equipment. They walk users through voicemail, email, and other stuff.

Trouble: Fax in USC still doesn’t work. Dispatch tech.
Resolution: Tested phone line again. No trouble found.

Trouble: Fax in USC still doesn’t work. Dispatch tech.
Resolution: LOOK AT THE BLOODY FAX MACHINE! IT SAYS "OUT OF TONER" WHY ARE YOU DISPATCHING THE PHONE TECHNICIAN??!!??

When I brought to their attention that the reason the fax wasn’t working was because it out of toner and asked them why they kept insisting it was a phone line issue, they, in the USC, replied "Oh, we’re not technical."

I’m sorry to say I was not a loving Christian to them in the moments that followed.

On those days when I have to work late on an installation, the following timeline applies:

16:00 Can’t go home (3 hr round trip). Go to mall and get cheap Chinese food
17:00 Eat food at desk while watching Naruto videos on Youtube
23:00 Confirm engineers are still working on the job, watch more Naruto
02:00 Go home

But again, that doesn’t look very good. Instead I should say that as the technician on location for the cut (a term left over from when we literally cut the old cables and installed new ones) it is my responsibility to be available to the engineers (who do everything remotely now) in the event that there is a hardware issue that needs to be resolved. In other words, if a server needs to be cold-booted instead of just restarted, I get to push the power button. Or maybe I get to verify that Ethernet cables were plugged in, something exciting like that.

So that’s what I do. You’ll have to excuse me now. It’s already after 11am and I’m behind schedule. I have to post this quickly and suffer through a shorter nap than usual.

Maybe I can make up some of that time if I don't check the work queue...