Office Place closes down.

Hey everyone. I hope you've all enjoyed my stories of the IT helpdesk and all the adventures and misadventures myself and my team have had.  It was a lot of fun and I don't plan on stopping.

However, Xanga is a free service and is pretty limited on what I want to do.  I happen to come accross a really great deal on website hosting at Dreamhost, and I wanted to get my hands in on wordpress.

Therefore, please continue to follow the Office Place blog on www.creativelyinsane.com .  I'm sure you'll have fun.

All my recent posts have been removed from xanga and have been copied over to www.creativelyinsane.com, so you can still see them here.

Thanks, everyone!

Axel Jones

The end of the world as we know it

What a calm day.  It's actually nice outside.  Everything seems to be running ok.  Hey, this is a good day!

<ring>

"IT Client Services Helpdesk, this is Axel."

"Oh, uh... hey, Axel, it's Paul from... uh.. Operations."

"Oh, hey Paul! How's the wife?"

"Good, good..."

"You sound a little shaken up, Paul, what's going on?"

"Well, we have a little.. uhh.. problem..."

I quickly glanced at the call queue and noticed 2 callers waiting.  Then there were 3....4...6...8...

"What happened, Paul!"

"I..uh..."

"Tell me, NOW!"

"I spilled my coffee on the exchange server.  I was just trying to reheat it again.  It puts out such a nice heat on the back vent, plus it blows the coffee smell around the machine room and it's nice.  Anyway, the coffee blew the mainboard and shorted out the power supply.  It also ate away on the leads on the motherboard so its pretty toast.  It also arc'ed to the next rack over and killed the backup server..."

"Paul, listen to me!  What about the other backup server??"

"Well that one overheated last week when we tried to heat the whole pot of coffee on it.  You may not have noticed because of that new switch we put in.  Pretty ingenious stuff, you see..."

"Paul!  What about the backup tapes??"

"Well the backup machine has actually been busy copying every album released in the '70's for me and Frank.  It's been doing that for a few months now... I can't wait for the Moody Blues B-sides..."

The call queue was up to 212 now.  The phone system was drawing so much power that the lights flickered and lowered.

"Paul, you've killed us."

"I know.  I'm sorry.  I feel for you guys.  I'm really sorry."

"I understand, Paul.  Tell my wife I love her, and yours too.  It's been a dang honor serving with you joes.  Jones out."

I jerked the phone cord out of the wall.  The sparks landed on the carpet but were quickly snuffed out. 

"Jim!  This is the big one!  Lock the doors and grab some ammo.  It's them versus us!"

I raced around the office, jerking out file cabinets and pulling cables.  I used the power cords from our file server to tie a door, then Jon and I threw a table against it.  We kicked the phones off their cradles as they began to melt.  Fires broke out in the ACD closet.  I shut the door and locked it.  No time.  It's time to save ourselves.  This isn't the defining moment in man.  This is survival.  This is war.  I could hear the clients pounding on the doors.  It made my heart skip a beat when I first heard the saw.  They'll never take me alive.

"FRRREEEEEEDOOOOOMM!!!"

.......

New greeting

So now they changed it to "IT Client Services".  Considering we usually screw up and say that anyway after years of saying "IT Services" but having to change it to "Client Services", we were ok with it.  However, I came up with my own that I only use when I see certain recognizable phone numbers go across the line.

"IT, have you tried turning it off and on again?"

<startled client> "Oh.. well, no.  I guess I should try that."

"Yeah, try that and call us back."

"ok, bye!"

Perfection.  Excellence in digital form.

The Great eXape

"IT...uhh...Client Services, this is Axl"

still haven't gotten used to that name change.

"Hello, I need some help forwarding my mail."

"Ok, are you trying to forward a message to someone?"

"No, I'm trying to forward my entire mailbox."

"Oh... is this an employee account or a student?"

"Employee, I'm a professor."

"And where are you trying to forward to?"

"eXmail."

"You're trying to forward your entire email account to eXmail."

"That's correct.  Well, actually I'd jsut like to redirect it so people send stuff to my campus email and I get it on eXmail."

"Ok, well when you reply to a message it will still send from eXmail.  I mean, they will get an eXmail address and may not know it is from you."

"Oh, that's fine.  Yeah, I don't mind that."

"Ok... i'm just not sure this is possible.  I mean, the university provided you with an email address with our domain name for you to use it.  I don't think they'd be to comfortable using an external system we don't have any agreement or contract with."

"Well, eXmail gives me 5 gigs of inbox.  You guys only give me 300 Megs.  I mean, I NEED more space." 

"Well, we can request more space for you.  It won't be 5 gigs, but you can archive."

"Yeah, but archiving pulls it down onto my computer.  I don't want my hard drive taken up."

"Uhh.. most computers have at least an 80 Gig hard drive.  5 won't put a huge dent in it, will it?"

"I'd rather not."

"Well, you may have to.  If you loose your password for eXmail, we can't help you.  If you get a supena for your email, and it isn't on Univeristy mail, they have to go to eXmail.  If you have any problem with eXmail, we can't help you.  We can't garantee eXmail's security.  We can't keep official records on eXmail.  We can't have sensitive data on eXmail.  We can't garantee email delivery to eXmail.  If eXmail kicks the bucket, you may loose all your email and nobody can help you.  You aren't paying eXmail so they don't HAVE to provide service.  Shall I go on?"

"Well, I just need the storage.  How do I do this?"

"You don't."

"Why not?"

ok... nice and easy.  breathe.  don't freak out.  don't freak out.  don't freak out.  don't freak out.  don't freak out.

"Its illegal.  You'd be in violation of lots of privacy laws."

"ok.  buh-bye"

Wow.  That's it?  Jeez.  People are weird.

"Client Services, this is Axl."

"Hey man, look i'm having..a little problem.  Its no big deal really... not really bad or anything... I..uh... "

At this point I wasn't sure if he was going to confess his porn addiction to me or the fact the he liked a girl and didn't know what to say to her.

"See.. my computer.. uhh...."

At THIS point he erupts into swearing, cursing, and what sounds like fists pounding on the keyboard.

"DANGIT...AAHHH!  Ohh.. I getta get somebody out here before I make this any worse!"

"Ok, what's the problem?"

"I deleted my recycle bin.  Accidently.  For the second time."

"You mean you deleted the contents?"

"No, I actaully deleted the recycle bin.  Like, the application.  And I don't know how to get it back.  It's gotta be important to, like.. windows or something."

"Ohhh..kaaayy.... Well, why don't you go find an empty space on the desktop, right click, go to personalize, click the 'change icons on dekstop' link on the left, find the recycle bin, and put a check in it."

"Oh.. ok... lets see.  OH MY GOSH!"

"What happened??"

"It came back."

"Oh, well, glad it found its way home."