Do(n't) drink and support
Posted by Prog9999@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 48 comments
I'm quite lucky in that some major mind bleach has erased some real horrors but I still fondly remember this one.
So this was late 90s and I was a freelancer in a large organisation doing vb & sql development. Somehow (and I still don't know how) I got landed with the support rota on a dos based pc system. Now this was obviously in the days of modems & isdn here in the uk but we didnt have remote access so overnight support was an office visit via a contract taxi.
One Friday night when I wasn't on the rota some friends & I had quite a big session in the pub. After 5 or 6 pints I wandered home to sleep it off.
2 in the morning...ring ring, ring ring.... Sorry to wake you **** the batch has failed and **** didnt answer their phone.
Now at this all assumed, I have no recollection what happened next!
Next morning I surface, make a coffee and then ponder... I did something last night.
The penny dropped, a swift cycle across the city to the office (which I still remember even though it was 25 years ago) and to my relief the batch had completed successfully. To this day I am still dont recall what went wrong with it!
Still at freelancer rates back then my few hours doing something more than covered the mortgage for a month.
NoeticSkeptic@reddit
Your mention of a DOS Batch file run reminded me of my introduction to PCs in 1984-1985. I used to keep all of my .BAT files in a folder named BELFRY.
The things we did to those who could only type on their PCs was so much fun. They would come in and turn on their PCs, and the words on their screen would start to spin, to the sound of a sink draining. Batch files were so much fun. Being the Terminal Area Security Officer (TASO) meant I had everyone's login info. I remember when we received Windows 2.0 (a glorified GUI menu system), and six months later, we loaded Windows 3.11 for our network.
In my freelance days in 1989, I wrote a one or two-line Batch file that allowed their dot-matrix printer to print out the activity from their PCs during off hours. I stepped into a job with a startup as VP of Operations. The pay was steadier than infrequent federal contracts three hours away in D.C. and freelance computer work.
AndiArbyte@reddit
you are a real pro if you do your work on autopilot
Geminii27@reddit
I've gone into work with about one hour's sleep in 72, and being sicker than a very sick dog, and had the manager tell me to turn around and go home.
"You realize I can probably still post better figures in this state than half the department, even if I can't walk in a straight line or see more than about six inches."
"...yes. But go home anyway."
bob152637485@reddit
Good boss!
pockypimp@reddit
Previous job we had on on call rotation with relatively lax rules. Once you receive the call you had an hour to start working on the resolution (in case you were out/in transit). We had a spreadsheet that listed what weeks we were on rotation. Our Help Desk was a domestic outsource company. They had a really bad person working there for a while. He called me on a week I wasn't on rotation at 2am. I think I shouted something about not being on rotation and to check the schedule.
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
At a previous job, one colleague needed to be available to purge spurious records from the production AS400 during a go-live. Sadly, he was a last-minute replacement on account of one of his staff being sick, and he was already several pints in at a family wedding.
He said there's nothing more liberating than DFU-ing records away while hammered.
Medical-Traffic-2765@reddit
AS400, haven’t seen one of those in years. I hear Costco still uses them.
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
Maybe I should check to see if they're hiring...
Medical-Traffic-2765@reddit
I hear they like to promote internally but it’s worth a look.
ol-gormsby@reddit
"DFU"
My eye started twitching. I used to teach the end-users how to do their own reports. For some reason they thought this was better than adding requests to my queue of jobs......
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
I once asked him what it stood for. "Don't fucking use!" was the immediate response.
I did use it - carefully.
ol-gormsby@reddit
I thought it was pretty good, at least on simlpe, flat file structures.
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
There was one file that needed to be maintained to provide user access to a custom interface, and they'd never bothered to build a proper display file for it. So that was folded into a DFU menu that was built for the purpose.
Fairly certain that someone misusing that menu caused a problem with a SQL database, thinking back on it.
ol-gormsby@reddit
Oh, I would *never* try DFU on an SQL db.
I got started on it on a System/36, then the files structure got migrated as-is to an AS400. As usual, it would have cost far too much to have it upgraded to a proper database. I mean, it's not like the AS400 had DB2 integrated...........
KelemvorSparkyfox@reddit
DFU wasn't used on the SQL database. DFU was used on the AS400 to create a record that the SQL database tried to ingest. The problem was that the AS400 saw
XX0000andxx0000as different values, and the SQL database saw them as the same. This caused a primary key violation in the latter, which I had to try to unravel.At that point, I wasn't confident with being able to get away with using DFU myself, so I had to find a colleague with the necessary access and understanding of the manufacturing system to do it for me. The solution was to delete the record with the lower case lot number, and then increment the quantity field on the record with the upper case lot number by the deleted amount. There was no net change to the database, but at the end of it the production system was happy, the SQL database was happy, and the Cheese Planning Manager was happy.
nymalous@reddit
My dad installed and maintained AS400s once upon a time. I remember once going with him at midnight to "rewire" the setup at a chemical production facility. The monstrous mainframes they had (some of which were AS400s) were sitting on a steel grating with crawlspace below them where all of the cables and wires were tangled in a swirling morass.
Some of the mainframes were massive, and I was crawling around below them, nervous about the strength of the metal grating above me. At one point, all of the power to the facility was cut and the lights all went out. We were expecting it, but it happened while I was underneath the grate, and I had to wait for someone to get a flashlight over to where I was. I'm not claustrophobic normally, but I was for a few minutes then.
My teenage self got maybe $50 for an 8 hour overnight... but I was unskilled labor, and I was more so doing it to help out my dad (one of my brothers was also there, along with a friend of my dad's). That was back in the '90s. Good times.
ginger-inside-007@reddit
I just cried reading AS400. And your flair for Lotus Notes.
Realized how old I've gotten.
udsd007@reddit
Wife tells me I used to answer the phone at 0-dark-30, conduct perfectly lucid conversations with the mid shift mainframe operator, solve the problem, go back to sleep, and not remember the incident when I woke up to go to work. Incident logs support this. I did it for 25 years.
Furrymixup@reddit
German here, what does 0-dark-30 mean?
Commandblock6417@reddit
Pretty much any hour starting with a zero and no lights outside (01, 02, 03 etc.)
Anonscout666@reddit
It was popularized as a military joke, formation starts at 0600 and the list is officers that kept pushing the meet time until zero dark thirty meaning 00:30
udsd007@reddit
Early morning.
ZacQuicksilver@reddit
I'm not able to do it anymore; but I used to be able to have full conversations in my sleep. This includes a friend in college claiming I answered the door in my sleep; and asked a question in class in my sleep (I *also* listen in my sleep, so could sleep through some easier classes and still retain most of it).
highinthemountains@reddit
I remember those days. I even fell asleep a few times while waiting for them to finish a task. The pager would go off to wake me up again.
marysalad@reddit
Your brain was like, "just sleep, I got this dude"
Prog9999@reddit (OP)
😀 The older guys back in the day (now I am an old guy) told me all sorts of tales like this.
DaddyBeanDaddyBean@reddit
I too am an older guy. I used to be the only level-2 oncall support on the team; a bunch of people took turns getting the calls overnight, but when something came up they couldn't figure out, they called me. I learned to go from all the way asleep to all the way awake in seconds - and retained that skill to this day, it comes in handy sometimes - and often debugged issues and talked them through the solution without getting out of bed or turning on a light. My wife often didn't know I'd gotten a call. It was even mentioned in an annual review once - people had the distinct impression I was sitting up by the phone just waiting for them to call.
Birdbraned@reddit
I'm envious. I rock up at work and if I pick up the first call of the day still clearly sounds like I haven't woken up
anubisviech@reddit
I'm sitting at work for an hour now, and im not really awake yet.
fullthrottle13@reddit
Are you me? I can’t recall 50% of the problems I’ve solved at 2AM. It’s a gift.. I guess the mind just blocks it out 😂
mistegirl@reddit
I was tier 2 tech support for a company in like 2004, and though we were a call center, T2 had to do on call rotation overnights and weekends sometimes. Getting a call was really rare, and 90% of the time something we could punt.
So I went out and got drunk on my weekend, and 2am while I'm at the bar the pager goes off and I have a call.
Not just any call, the nightmare call for anyone in my position. The call that would suck and take 2 hours if I were sober and in the office
Still don't know what I said or did, but I fixed it while talking on a cellphone outside a bar in 10 minutes or so.
StrategicBlenderBall@reddit
When I was in the Air Force I got a call one Thanksgiving. I was active duty and lucky to be stationed in my home state. Unluckily the on-call Airman didn’t answer the phone (he got a load of shit that following Monday), so I got called next. There was an issue with the phone server (they were local back then) so I had to go help troubleshoot.
We literally just sat down to eat, I’d already had a few beers but said I’d be there. I had my dad drive me the hour from my uncle’s house to the base. I got him a visitor badge and he got to see what my job was.
Except I did nothing but escort the contractor. And my dad. Thankfully it only took about an hour to get the server back up and running. Then we walked into the hangar and I showed my dad the mock flight deck and dirigible bridge.
Some of you might actually know where I’m taking about lol.
HelloThere62@reddit
I'm civ side but escorting contractors in a lab is always the shit job the noobies get.
cloaked_chaos@reddit
Fort Huachuca?
StrategicBlenderBall@reddit
Nope lol. It’s a Joint Base.
raerdor@reddit
Sounds like Moffett? Bet your dad enjoyed the tour
StrategicBlenderBall@reddit
Wrong coast lol. But yeah he did enjoy it. The mock flight deck was cool, but the zeppelin gondola replica was even cooler.
raerdor@reddit
I bet Lakehurst is great too, but never been there.
StrategicBlenderBall@reddit
The location is great. When I left AD I picked up a job as a contractor. I worked mostly on McGuire and Dix, but went to Lakehurst every other Friday. Once a month we’d take a long lunch in Toms River.
PrinceFan72@reddit
I remember being horrifically hunger / still drunk from a "team meeting" the night before. Drove from Birmingham to Essex, (I know, I know), to fix a printer problem. It was a really hot day, too and I was really feeling rough.
I needed to unplug the printer and, out of habit, just bent over it from the front. Everything from last night suddenly made a break for it via my mouth. Disgustingly, I was able to swallow it all back down and then spent the rest of the visit kneeling (to steady myself) and turning the printer on the table in front of me.
Also, I used to work nights, 7pm to 7am in a data centre. We had a corner of the office, with the 4-5 person night shift team. At 3am every night, without fail, we would "hit the wall". Basically, our brains just stopped working for about an hour. We couldn't remember what we were doing, what we did during that time, or have proper conversations with each other. After a while, we scheduled our lunch breaks for that time, as we were basically useless.
Parody_of_Self@reddit
If only everyday at work could be such
Prog9999@reddit (OP)
That was back in the days of lunchtime pub visits, I dont know how we ever survived.
highinthemountains@reddit
We took the boss to lunch with us. We all survived together 🤣
hansdampf90@reddit
with pints
AStrandedSailor@reddit
It comes in pints?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
luther_crackenthorpe@reddit
Totally unrelated to tech support, but the best autopilot I ever saw was while marshalling motorbike racing - we had an incident to deal with and the medic moved from dozing in a deckchair to a full run with his kit before he'd even fully opened his eyes
unixhed@reddit
I have been called out at 10 at night to add two new terminals "that have to be up in the morning". Unfortunately, I was too drunk to type, and had to dictate the commands to the client. Took about two hours.
ginger-inside-007@reddit
It's funny how the troubleshooting part of your brain goes on autopilot while the rest of you is like nope, I'm not here, leave a message, signed out, afk.