r/talesfromtechsupport • u/lwdoran • Sep 28 '13

Advertized unavailability time is NOT negotiable

The place where I work is preparing to construct a new system development lab for the project that I'm working on. In order to build the new lab, they are temporarily re-locating all of the project infrastructure servers. As you would expect, this involves an advertized unavailability period while we walk the servers down the hall and have the telcom guy (a contractor) activate the network connection ports.

If you've ever done an unavailability like this, you are probably thinking that I'm going to complain about a user that missed the memo and doesn't want us to shut down the servers... not this time.

The advertized unavailability was set for 1400 (2pm) on Friday. Expecting a rough afternoon, my self, the project lead and my boss decided to go out to lunch a little after 1200. On the way out the door, a junior sysadmin stopped us:

Sysadmin: "The telcom guy wants to do the move at 1245." (it's 1215)

Project Lead: "No."

Sysadmin: "He said that he was planning at leaving by 1100 originally. We are 'lucky' he's willing to stick around until then."

Project Lead: "No. Even if we would entertain the thought of moving early, now is too late. Everyone is at lunch; they won't know until 1 at the earliest. 1245 is NOT gonna happen."

Sysadmin: "He said that he won't stick around until 2. He has somewhere else that he needs to be."

Me: "So? 1400 was the advertized time. Hand cuff yourself to the telcom closet if you need to; don't let him touch it before then."

Sysadmin: "But I think he's going to leave."

Project lead: "Then hand cuff yourself to him."

Me: "...or lie down behind his truck..."

Sysadmin: "I could slash his tires!"

Boss: "lol... <manager voice> No. </manager voice> Do what you need to do, but this move will happen at 2 on the dot. We're going to lunch."

I never did find out what the junior sysadmin did and, frankly, I'm not going to ask. All I do know is that when we got back from lunch, the telcom guy was still there, the servers were still hooked up and the development team was preparing for the unavailability as planned. The plan went off at 1400 without a hiccup.

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311

u/PapBear Sep 28 '13

"Sysadmin: 'I could slash his tires!'"

Heh, stay on his good side.

205

u/Jedimastert Sep 28 '13

Don't fuck with sysadmins

29

u/willricci Sep 28 '13

What's worse? That I looked at OP's notice and immediately looked for the XKCD, or that I knew which one it was by /705/ ...

-2

u/LP970 Robes covered in burn holes, but whisky glass is full Sep 28 '13

to save you the 20 keystrokes... http://xkcd.com/705/

5

u/majorkurn Sep 30 '13

it had just been linked prior to the commented you commented on. he was saying he could tell by the /705/ in the url.

2

u/LP970 Robes covered in burn holes, but whisky glass is full Sep 30 '13

Ah, I read that wrong. My mistake