A toast to being in the right place at the right time
- Reference: 1686554831
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/06/12/who_me/
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This week meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Nellie", who long ago worked for a Primary Care Trust – part of the UK's National Health Service (NHS). Now, for non-UK folks, it's worth noting that a lot of the buildings the NHS uses were built long before technology was a big part of healthcare. Heck, some of them were built before hand-washing was a big part of healthcare. But we digress.
The point is that these buildings did not have dedicated spaces for servers and the like, so the techs who installed them made do as best they could. In the case of the building in which this week's adventure is set, that meant installing a half-height rack under a bench in the break room.
[1]
When Nellie started as team leader, the various IT bods were invited to compile a list of their primary gripes – the things most deserving of a fix.
[2]
[3]
In one health center the number one gripe was mysterious WAN dropouts. Every so often – not regularly – the network would simply disappear, and then reappear a few minutes later. No-one knew why.
Naturally, there was redundancy built in, but it was in the form of a very slow VPN. This simply was not fit for purpose.
[4]
Staff were sent out to the site, diagnostics run, monitors monitored, packet sniffers sniffed, and nothing found. A mystery.
[5]Fed up with slammed servers, IT replaced iTunes backups with a cow of a file
[6]Seriously, boss? You want that stupid password? OK, you get that stupid password
[7]Rigorous dev courageously lied about exec's NSFW printouts – and survived long enough to quit with dignity
[8]An important system on project [REDACTED] was all [REDACTED] up
One morning, on the way to work, Nellie decided to pay a personal visit to the building just in case. Since the kit in question was in the break room, a cuppa was brewed and a laptop opened to begin testing.
Just then, the phone rang. It was one of the remote engineers: "Link's gone down."
Nellie confirmed locally that, indeed, it had.
Then another unexpected sound: the popping of a pop-up toaster. Nellie watched as a staff member collected their toasty treat, unplugged the toaster, and plugged in another cable.
[9]
"Link's back," said the remote engineer.
"And I can see why," said Nellie, having witnessed an operator fault no diagnostic software could ever have detected.
It transpired that when the local cable provider had installed the fiber terminator in the rack, there hadn't been a spare power point available – so they just plugged it in above the counter. For years the medical center had been getting by on a barely functional network every time someone made toast.
All for want of a double adapter.
Have you ever encountered similar breakfast-related downtime? Has someone else's cut corner cut into your day? Tell us all about it in [10]an email to Who, Me? and we'll maybe brighten someone's Monday.
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[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/05/who_me/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/29/who_me/
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Re: He's toast
Badly burnt toast is a stink that lingers for DAYS!
Re: He's toast
Now imagine what we did to the guy who tried microwaving kippers at our place!
Re: He's toast
Eating fish at work should be banned along with reheating broccoli.
Long ago I worked for a very small company and we had a kebab lunch Friday. The whiff was still hanging around on Monday morning.
Re: He's toast
Yum, yum. I love the taste of burnt toast. My wife is, sadly, less keen.
Re: He's toast
Had a similar problem, but the solution was to cover the stupid smoke detector in the kitchen with tin foil...
Re: He's toast
You were the one burning the toast, weren't you?
Re: He's toast
AFAIK, the current law in Scotland is to have heat detectors in kitchen areas, and not smoke detectors. Avoids false alarms that desensitise people to them: alarm goes off and everyone stays put assuming it's just somebody burning the toast again! Eventually, they'll realise it's for real when the corridors fill with smoke. That's also the time when they realise that learning where the nearest fire exit is, rather than going out by the main way, might have been a good idea. I say that after many fire drills where the fire exits were often unused - that is, until we blocked off the usual corridors and made everyone find an alternative route.
Actually, this reminds me of the time I was running a management system audit on a company. On arrival, I was shown to the conference room on the first floor (per UK definitions - one flight up from ground level). Just after the opening meeting was started, the fire alarm sounded. The H&S Manager offered to escort me to the assembly point and accompanied me past the fire exit opposite the conference room door, and into the queue of staff going down the main stairs and out via reception. Having noted where the exit was, and not sensing any smoke or heat (and immediate danger) I complied. It wasn't a big office and my assessment of the situation was that it was probably a false alarm (as most tend to be), not a high-risk office and refusing my escort and taking the fire exit might have led to panic (as it was, everyone was leaving in an orderly manner. Notwithstanding, I raised the issue when the audit meeting restarted and raised a requirement for staff evacuation retraining. I also commented on the location of the fire assembly point: the entrance to the car park and access to the building; had the emergency services responded, access to the building would have been blocked by all the staff.
Re: He's toast
Sounds like you should have arranged a fire drill (unbeknownst to all but the absolute minimum of management) every time you performed an audit, just to check on those sorts of issues.
Re: He's toast
Similar problem in CMK, except it was the Bar/Restaurant on the ground floor that did this 3 times over a space of about 4 months. (It's just a good job that they didn't flambé anything!)
Cue, the whole building evacuation, but at least our evacuation point was under one of the underpasses and so we were out of the rain.
The whole fire alarm system for the Bar was redone from scratch to avoid this issue in the future.
Icon: just too obvious!
Did it talk?
Lister: Look, I don't want any toast, and he doesn't want any toast. In fact, no-one around 'ere wants any toast!
Talkie Toaster: How 'bout a muffin?
Lister: Or muffins, we don't like muffins round 'ere! We don't want muffins, no toast, buns, baps, bagets or bagels, no croissants, no crumpets, no teacakes, no potato cakes and no hot cross buns! And definitely no smegging flapjacks!
Talkie Toaster (after a very brief pause): Ah, so you're a waffle man!
Re: Did it talk?
You have experience, I can see...
Do you want some toast?
If the firm installing this crap is still around... they'll be toast.
So Nellie found the elephant in the room....
And obviously network trunking must have been involved....
He's toast
Worked with a dev who managed to burn his toast every time. After the fire brigade were called out, for the second time, we confiscated the toaster. Problem solved!