In days gone by there was a project to refresh our site.

Pallets upon pallets of kit arrived. Desktops, monitors, as many as our storeroom could take. Desks were stripped and rebuilt. So shiny. So new. So uniform. So factory default. It had a certain unblemished beauty akin to thick, level, settled snow.

"Are we going to refresh the network cabling too?" I ask, thinking of the decades old CAT5 poking out through holes run directly from the server room, not a single RJ45 wall socket in sight. The response I receive only adds to the Christmas card like image in my head. The absolute crisp, delicate serenity of acoustically insulated silence.

Santa visits often, and is generous. Boxes arrive, boxes are opened, boxes are sorted for recycling.

Some of the boxes are different to the others. Some are flatter. Some are heavier. These boxes arrive, these boxes are not opened, these boxes are set aside in the corner.

Santa has been at it quite a while now. We must be the goodest and bestest boys and girls in the world. Boxes arrive, boxes are opened, boxes are sorted for recycling.

"Is Santa going to keep coming all year?" I ask, aware of the quantity we're accumulating. Such exquisite, pristine silence. Boxes arrive, boxes are no longer opened, boxes fill up our storeroom.

PCs are ready to be imaged. So exciting! All the new toys, so new and so perfect, so delightfully fresh and identical. So full of baseline, known condition, uncompromised promise.

Images deploy, oh no. Such strange and erratic behavour! Intermittent faults and discrepancies! If only we had gone for the network cabling refresh. What a sad little disappointment on the happiest day of the year.

I think all is not well with Santa either. Boxes arrive, boxes are shunted straight into stores, boxes pile high. We are given the schedule for several more weeks of deliveries.

"What are we going to do with all this equipment?" I ask, concerned. The snow is beginning to turn a little yellow, yet still there is silence.

Maybe something is wrong with Santa. I write Santa a short letter. Santa replies that this is none of my business and to mind my own.

I am sad that Santa would speak to me this way when up to now he has been nothing but generous. I write Santa a longer letter this time. One with a count of the total number of desks on site, the number already set up, and the number of kits in storage compared to the number of empty desks.

Santa calls me immediately. "Err.. are these numbers right?". Santa and I become close friends, he calls me every week now. He only wants to talk numbers and dates for deliveries though. For many many weeks we only talk about the same numbers again and again, and I tell him he has been far, far too kind. Surely there must be other very good children in the world as well? I begin to suspect Santa only wants to talk to me so he can tell all the other santas who to speak to if they find out their generosity was misguided.

One of the other santas writes a letter to me, Santa2 is very worried he has missed us off his list. Santa2 wants to know if we received an extra extra special box. I tell him we have that very special box yes.

"What about the other boxes?" I ask, wondering about the tower of switches in the very far corner of the storeroom. No one has said we can open those yet. Silent Night.

I count again the number of desks in the entire building and divide by 48. On no, Santa. We have been sent far too many of these boxes. There must be several good boys and girls with their own sites that didn't get their switches by mistake! Several! These can't possibly be all for us?

I'm worried about Santa2 now. I write a letter to Santa and Santa2 about the switches. "Santa was on a temporary contract and doesn't santa for us anymore". Oh. Santa did not even say goodbye.

Santa2 did not say anything about the switches. This time I write a letter to six or seven santas. "Why do we have X times 48 switch ports for a site with Y number of endpoints?"

Santa2 calls me straight away. "..ummm. Can you send me a photo of them?"