Monday morning started out slow, which is rare for a Monday because usually there will be a few things that need attention after the weekend. So I return a few phone calls, made a couple of repairs and see that I have time to work on the rollout of our new phones for the Engineering division.
I start out the project slowly knowing full well that I can get called away at any time for a computer or phone problem. I begin my documentation and before mid-morning I see that I have the ability to roll out a few of the phones. I start with Fred, he is not at his desk and I can quickly replace his phone without disturbing his work.
It goes flawlessly, I program the new phone, sync the system and install it at his desk before he returns. I return to my desk and am amazed to see that there are no new work orders, so I start on Radomir’s phone, again all goes well. I see that Mary is away from her desk so I roll hers out too.
By now it is lunch time so I head off to have bologna and cheese sandwiches with my son who is currently enrolled in playground camp at Miller Park.
I return from lunch confident as ever, things are still slow so I am going for it! I am going to roll out the rest of the phones for Engineering. I start with Paul, his goes well so I roll out Randy S’s. A little more work is mounting but I am in too deep now, 3 more phones and I can stop the roll out until tomorrow. Quickly I configure and install J.R’s and Randy N’s phones, one more to go. A couple of emails came in so I have very little time to complete this.
As I am finishing the roll out I am also working on a couple of other things, I am moving an archive folder for one person and helping another restore their outlook contacts while trying to figure out a video driver issue on another computer. I go to install the last phone and I am told that several of the new phones that I installed are not working. In disbelief I began testing the phones, they can call out but you can’t transfer calls to them. Franticly I rush to my desk through what seems to be a sea of users with questions making mental note that I need to return to them after I fix this phone problem.
I check the system and all seems OK (while Nevada and Ryan needle me about how good my blog better be, thanks guys!) so I start calling the numbers of the phones that I first installed and they are going through, whew! That was close! What I found was that the two phone systems were syncing and just had to play a bit of catch up.
I have more to do so I opt to finish up my work with everyone else and wait to finish the rollout until I get home and configure the rest remotely. Well, I will spare you the details but all didn’t go well with my remote configuration, luckily I got everything working without having to come in.
So Tuesday rolls around and the two phones I configured from home are working. I begin going through a tutorial with Sandy
and notice that you cannot transfer calls from her phone. WHAT! I quickly set up a substitute phone for her and work on the broken one, think I got it, nope didn’t get it. Finally I called the vendor for support. I worked with Sandy to get a working situation and worked on work orders for the rest of the day as I waited for a call back from tech support.
That is a usual day for me, flooded with work orders or projects that sometimes don’t go flawlessly. But I love it. I have been doing IT for almost 10 years now, 3 ½ for the city. It is never boring and I am very proud of what I do. I work with a great team; they are like my brothers and sisters. I hope I can do this for years to come.
Thanks for letting me Blog Mr. Neal.
On a personal note I am celebrating my 9th anniversary with my wife tomorrow. Happy anniversary, honey! Thanks for putting up with me for all these years!!!
