We’re really doing well in our virtualization project at work.  On Monday we got everyone to shut down a little early and planned to virtualize our Exchange server and one or two others.

Precisely at 5pm, there was a blip.  A blip can be defined as a momentary fluctuation in power or signal.  This particular blip occurred as one server was 97% virtualized and killed the process on the spot.  With several large and very heavy UPSes on premises, we figured it wasn’t power-related.

What we did not know at the time was that Murphy (of the Laws) and his entire extended family had camped out in our server room.  They were having a loud drunken party and were absolutely hysterical at our expense.  I couldn’t have written a more perfect comedy bit than a four hour process failing at 97%.

Undaunted, we carried on.  And on.  And on.   One of our number, a pastor in his non-MIS life, offered to bring in holy water and his bible.  A-religious though I am,  I told him it was a very good idea: it appeared that someone didn’t want us to finish.  Or start.

It’s not pretty to watch your coworkers falling asleep watching you fall asleep at 4am.  We had no end of hell, with problems from the network, problems with the virtual environment, and what looked like power issues too.

One guy finally left at 9am.  The rest of us left around 12:30.   We were a pretty toasted lot of techies, with only one virtual server to show for it.

What did we get for our herculean efforts?  I got called into the principal’s office today due to some very nasty allegations from a department head.  There was an unrelated network issue after I left, prompting him to run around screaming that I simply left the building with nothing working and no one capable of fixing anything left.

My boss asked me what happened and I told him.   I’m guessing he didn’t pound the errant department head into the concrete with the aid of the MIS Crowbar.

After eight years and a recent promotion, the suggestion that I would leave the company with a broken network and go home is ludicrous.  To further damage my person by stating that I’d leave unskilled people there is preposterous.  It would seem that someone owes me an apology (that I’ll never get). Not to mention some appreciation to the crew for pulling an all-nighter to get this done.

What does one do in situations like this?