Troubleshooting: If there’s no Internet, Check for Wall

We’re having our usual good time here at the Twilight Zone<tm>.  There is some relatively massive construction going on and as a result, things are more interesting than usual.   One favorite seems to be network connectivity: it’s not there for periods.

One of Our Best People got up off his posterior and wandered out to the affected area.  It certainly was a head-scratcher.  All sorts of passwords weren’t working and were getting confused by some fellow.  Taking a moment to assess the larger picture, the MIS Superhero turned around and managed to put his finger right on the problem: the pc was not plugged into the network.

How did he know?   The entire wall that formerly housed the ethernet jack was missing and the jack with it.

Then there were random complaints about the internet being slow.   We assured them that we’d reboot it as soon as we got the chance.

The entire day has been like this.  Missing walls don’t usually fall under our charter but we’re a pretty accommodating group and we’re all playing for the same team anyway.  We like to help - that’s why we have the jobs we have (or because we were the first to fool the interviewers).

Next up is the reminder, sent to the entire organization, with the following subject line:

Reminder Soul Line Dancing Class

I was going to take a few guesses as to what this could possibly mean but the next message I got was from the head of Human Resources, advising me not to take a few guesses as to what this could possibly mean.

He’s a good guy and he knows me well, for some reason.

The other fun tends to start when I have to use my Windows machine.  It’s the only one on my desk afflicted with Windows.   To be honest, I had a lot less problems when I ran Windows as a virtual machine under linux.  Ever since I put up a separate Windows box, my poor coworkers have been treated to my verbal explosions, the main one being:

#*@!ing Windows.   It’s not an operating system - it’s a VIRUS!

This morning it once again lost my preferences for view but it decided not to stop there.  It also `forgot’ which monitor was which in my dual monitor setup.  When I went to install a program, it told me that 7zip wouldn’t allow this.  I uninstalled 7zip so I have no idea what this is about.

I have had it (once again/still) with Windows.  It’s quite amusing to my coworkers because things happen that they’ve never seen before but it’s a bit much for me on a daily basis.