It’s Friday, it’s been an odd week, bone chilling -22 degrees C days, with spells of 2 degrees C on other days; global warming I thought. It’s been business as usual despite the weather patterns; requests for mailbox maintenance, anti-malware checks, software licensing expiring, Server checks and Hardware warranty renewals. Enough activity to keep anyone’s hands full at a nice pace. Today at the office, it’s just me, Tom; and Rick, holding down the fort while most of the team is busy at Client sites and the Data Centre working on other tasks.
Taking a breather, I was staring at the phone when it rang, it’s Jill from the Call Centre, in her usual slow voice, “Cliiieent [soooo & sooo] called weeeith uuuurgent reeeequest” …. “WiiiiiFiiii nooot cooonnnneeeeecccctttting…”. I thought, why does she talk so slow on the phone? In person she sounds upbeat. Maybe she was staring at the phone too and the ring stunned her!? I quickly called the client and resolved the issue; a local cafe Wi-Fi signal interfering with their office.
Still a relatively slow day, so I took another breather and found myself starring at the phone again just as it rang -- I really should take a walk sometimes -- “Hello Tom, its Mic…”, one of my colleagues who had recently arrived at the Client site to investigate an issue, “…WE HAVE A PROBLEM!…”
The madness began, Client firewall was down and all the Client’s users were offline; a fail-over was never purchased due to budget constraints. I broke into a sweat as I gathered emergency supplies to provide the Client with a temporary firewall. I was out the door in 10 minutes with my backpack on, 2 side bags with laptops, and juggling three Cisco Firewalls in my hand. “Wow!”, I thought, “these are heavy when you put them together.”
After a quick 5 minute drive, I ran with the equipment to the client’s front door, panting. Luckily, Mic greeted me outside to help carry in the equipment, commenting, “You need to work out a bit more, Tom.” Once we were upstairs, we got straight to it. The Teamwork played like beautifully orchestrated music, one person got the backup configurations ready, one got the new firewall ready, and another was handling the existing firewall; we managed to get the original firewall repaired and alive.
All was good, and we left one of the firewalls behind as a temporary spare, just in case.
Back at the office, I got to thinking “those firewalls are heavy, maybe I should strap a couple to my legs and use them as weights for a little “deskercising” during my next breather!”
