Tag: Work (page 1 of 2)

June 4, 2017

Next time can it yell “Danger Will Robinson!” instead?

Yesterday I went to work at a data center in NJ. I don't often go as the round trip is more than 5 hours on the road. I had to do some heavy lifting and I wasn't sure if I had access to the last place I needed. So my pal walked me to the man trap there so I could check.

Man traps worked like this: I badged into the trap, the first door closed me into a small room. I badged to a second door, added another type of mandatory authentication and the second door would open. If it didn't work then the first door will unlock and I would have had to exit and try again. Or I just didn't have access and I wasn't getting in.

I did this. The second door opened. Sweet! I walked through and waited for my friend to join me.

Once I closed the second door on the data center side, the LCD panel lit up RED and the speaker started loudly repeating these words.

PIGGY BACK ALERT! AN ATTEMPT TO PIGGY BACK INTO THE DATA CENTER WAS MADE!

That happened. It was loud. It did not stop, it just yelled at me on a loop.

The stern recorded voice just kept repeating that. I was in the data center and the door would not open to let me exit. There was an emergency open door exit button for safety but there was no way I was going to set off that alarm too. I was not in any danger.

I had to call my pal on his cell. He was on the other side of the man trap and he could not come in either. The speaker was on both sides and we were both getting yelled at by a recording.

In short, I put that section of the data center into lock down mode.

What happened was that the first door's handle was not quite in the fully reset position. The door was locked magnetically (I checked) but it wasn't considered fully closed. When I went past the second door pandemonium was the result.

A security guard came and reset the system. He was a good sport about it and it happened to other people before. I tried a couple more times just to be safe. It was all good now.

I'm just glad the local cops weren't called. That would not look good on my next employee review.

October 14, 2013

At work you can have good failures too

Sometimes when things go wrong at work they still go right.

Two Friday nights ago I was at the office till about 11 PM working on some infrastructure. Originally the scope was for 2 devices but that was expanded to cover 4 devices instead. After notifying different groups I started at 5 pm.

Naturally I did the 2 easier devices first and that was wrapped up by 7 PM. One of my co-workers helped me out and sanity-checked my work. That part went well without any issues. After those 2 I was on my own for the rest of the night.

The next 3 hours were an exercise in futility. This included almost 2 hours on hold with the vendor that was supposed to be providing support. While I was on hold I backed out the changes on that device and worked on the last one. No joy there either.

Except for emphatically expressing my displeasure to the vendor’s duty manager (who failed to get me the support I needed, thanks anyway) I was not fatigued, I was not frustrated, and I never lost myself in “where am I and what am I doing here???”

Here’s why: the entire work effort was all my plan and the team I worked with vetted and approved my steps.

My managers not only knew what I was doing but was available if I needed help or just to explain that I was stuck.

My back out plan called for leaving the old devices in place and untouched. Putting it back all back was a pretty straight forward process.

When I called my boss to report the status he said those magic words:

“It’s been 5 hours. Back it out and shoot off an email to the stake holders.”

I was prepared to go at the problem from a different angle but he’d pointed out that I’ve already crossed the line where I’ll start making mistakes due to being tired. I backed out the last 2 devices, performed my checkouts, and shot off that email.

I got home after 1 AM.

It’s all about the support at work

Anyone who works in IT has times when things just don’t work. When that happens you can spend hours on the phone and let people know the status is still “Yep, beaming Happy Thoughts™ at it hasn’t solved the problem”. Those support conference calls are the worst.

But what makes it all worthwhile is knowing that I have the support of my teammates and managers. It’s a small group that I work with but everyone has each other’s back.

I’m not the easiest person to manage (due to my sense of humor- WHAT??) but no matter how deep into the pool I get I will always have a lifeline. Also good planning and being able to roll back completely is a bonus too.

Here’s why two weeks ago was not a failure.

I planned for the worst.
I made sure my back out plan was solid and I checked my plan with the team.
I communicated in planning, before the work, during the work, and after. Did I mention communicate?
I set a threshold for when to declare a failure and roll back. Which I almost didn’t follow but my boss got me to do.

This next week was spent working out those problems I encountered and last Friday night I tried again. The job was completed successfully by 9 PM.

So what’s the point again?

Being prepared is great and can save you grief at work. Having the support of your managers and co-workers? That’s awesome and I’m glad it’s part of my work environment.

October 8, 2011

We are your typical American consumers

Sometimes you plan on buying one thing and end up getting something slightly different.

As part of my job responsibility, I provide support after hours. It’s not something that happens frequently because the first and second level support is really good. If a problem is escalated to me during my personal time, I don’t question it because I am treated as a last resort.

Last month I had a problem that started at Sunday 5 PM-ish and lasted till just after midnight. My home office line is a pair of cordless phones with old batteries and they kept dying on me. The rotten phones only had speakerphone on the handsets and not on the base station!

That was last month. This past week Lily had all day meetings and was working from home. The same thing happened to her so today we got a replacement at Costco.

Her: That model has a base speakerphone and a total of 4 cordless phones.

Me: Yes, that’s true, but we’re looking for just one cordless phone and speakerphone base station.

Her: It’s $65.

Me: Yes, but it’s got three more phones. What are we going to do with the other three?

Her: It’s $65. On sale. Best Buy’s would probably be more expensive and this one is normally $80.

So we got this unit. it’s a discontinued AT&T phone but it works well. I’ve put the three spares in the kids bed rooms and the guest room. I haven’t said a word to the kids, I wonder how long it will be before they notice?

It’s a neat phone. I kept getting “Messages available” even though there was none on the base station. It was from Vonage; the phone got the message notification that I had messages and was letting me know. Cool! The old ones never did that.

July 10, 2008

DNS excitement! Panic at the office!

Well not really panic, just your usual vulnerability patching day at the office.

When I saw Dan Kaminsky demonstrate voice over DNS, I was convinced that he dreams in BIND source code. It was a neat demonstration.

Now he has uncovered another vulnerability in BIND regarding UDP source port prediction. It’s causing some excitement in the work place as to what the impact could be and how soon our vendors can release patches.

I’ve had to do some explaining as what it means; see Matasano’s blog for more information. Thomas Ptacek sums it up really well here and states the impact more here.

You’ve got to love someone who can explain the seriousness using a movie quote from Jack Black.

Tag: Work (page 1 of 2)

Next time can it yell “Danger Will Robinson!” instead?

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Jan Dembowski