Hello again! Or maybe for the first time!

Some of you might remember me from such stories as Peanut Butter Jelly Drive, Interrupting Cow, and the Wireless Printer Before Time.

I've been quiet for a while, and I have a very good reason for that! I'm lazy!

Err, that's not a good reason... What was I supposed to say?

Oh! I've changed jobs and am now actually in Tech Support! For reals!

That's right: I'm now half of the one man, one woman crew that supports four US based plants, plus a Canadian warehouse, a Mexican warehouse, and a whole gaggle of remote salesmen, customer support, and a bunch of other characters from a few different countries! And I've been compiling stories... Most may only be posted after a good amount of time has passed to better abstract people and places to keep nosey nellies from making incriminating connections.

But that's ok, because I've been there for three years now and I have a few stories to tell.

So, with that introduction/reintroduction out of the way, have a recent story involving Big Blue, Old Data, and Money!

Time: August 2024

I've been with the company for nearly three and a half years at this point. It's been great: the people are generally great, the work is sometimes tough but rewarding, and I've really helped my boss out by taking over projects and most daily tasks, freeing her up to actually be able to take vacation and enjoy herself from time to time.

This was not one of those times.

Background: several years before my employment, the company I now work for was bought out by a multinational company because we were the leading producer of a very specific product catalogue that meshed well with what they produced.

The US operations kept the old name, and the tagline, "A xxxx Company" was added to show who our overlords were. In addition, our operations were forcibly catapulted into the modern era. New Cisco blades, switches, industrial switches, wifi APs, etc... were bought, installed, and configured. Old systems were removed or integrated into the new systems, including a huge migration of data into SAP.

Except for some custom software that did one thing: software that integrates the weighing scales into SAP. That software was written by a person who is No Longer Employed. And for technical reasons, that custom software was never adapted/rewritten into SAP, and calls for funding for a newer hardware system that could be brought into SAP had, heretofore, fallen on deaf ears.

You can probably guess where this is going...

One Thursday we get panicked messages that the scales aren't working. Weighing the raw product is the first step in production, so being able to correctly weigh the right product in the right mixture is very, very important.

I'm usually at the frontline of this, so I did the usual: since all the scales were affected I check the wireless connection between the scales and the system. MODAS clients are all up and working, but the scales can't get any data from SAP.

I quickly realize that this is going to be something I haven't handled yet, so I contact my boss. She's several hours away, camping, trying to enjoy some time off. Ha. Ha. Ha.

I tell her what is going on and what I've done. She checks a few things... The IBM server that hosts the scales program, as well as the old Power8, and some old data that hasn't been migrated, isn't responding. So she makes her way back.

Again, and I cannot put too find a point on this: not being able to weigh the raw product means that production can't happen. Once production runs out of already mixed raw product, no more product can be made. There's other work: finishing, shipping, etc..., but moving all of press to finishing will be tough.

To make the story progress faster, here are some highlights from This Comedy of Errors:

• My boss does a 4 hour call with our contracted third party support for the IBM server. Together, they decide that the disk backplane has gone out.
• By contract, the third party support had to have a tech dispatched with the replacement part within 4 hours of the ticket being created.
• We work on a yearly contract that is paid once a year.
• My boss rec'ed and submitted the bill 30 days before the bill was due.
• Someone in billing changed the terms to 90 days.
• The IBM server backplane went out FIVE DAYS after the contract ended.
• By this time, IBM support was closed so we had to wait until Friday.
• Even if we could get the third party paid, it would have been late into the following week before they would work with us.
• We had to buy an out-of-warranty support contract with IBM, but they wouldn't be able to send a tech until the following Monday.
• They ship the replacement part and it is rec'ed Monday morning. I note that it isn't a backplane, but the entire system board sans backplane.
• IBM tech comes out Monday late morning. He pokes around for a while and makes a long call to the IBM Support Line and comes to the conclusion that the backplane went out (which is the conclusion we came to earlier with IBM AND the third party support), but because they sent out the system board and not the backplane he couldn't help.
• IBM Tech found the right part and we had it overnighted to be delivered first thing Tuesday morning.
• After talking with the IBM tech, I discovered he had to drive several hours to our location. I quickly ask if we can pay for a hotel room so he didn't have to drive home and back the next morning. "Oh, I can't come back Tuesday as my daughter is having her tonsils removed. I should be back Wednesday or Thursday."
• My boss' heart nearly explodes. This means we would have been almost a week with no mix being made. Very Important People with Very Interesting Accents are asking questions and not liking the answers.
• Fortunately IBM says they can send someone else on Tuesday.
• Tuesday comes and the backplane is replaced, but the server isn't responding.
• I tell the new IBM Tech that I'm pretty sure the previous one put the server in Manual Mode. "Huh, look at that, he did put it in Manual Mode." My boss' heart rate slightly drops.
• It is finally up and running, but degraded because... a Hard Drive Has Died!
• Another call to IBM is made, and they send out a replacement drive, and a Tech should be on site by Friday to replace the drive.
• Drive arrives. Tech arrives. Tech drops replacement Hard Drive onto floor. Installs it anyway.
• System is back to purring like a very loud kitten. For now.
• And then most of the old scales died anyway...

Oh, at least now the funding for a new scales system has been approved!

Have a great day!