Re: Several times...
Lost track of how many time that, per contract, I had to bill "portal-to-portal travel + 2hr minimum" for a site visit that showed on the "Resolution" as "Troubleshoot/Repair open circuit".
This was our code for "Drove 100 miles one-way to plug phone cord back into wall jack". We couldn't do it for free, but really hated to see some poor receptionist get canned over not noticing that the plug wasn't fully seated in the jack.
-----
On a more technical side, the old AT&T/Lucent/Avaya SCC cabinets (and the newer G650 carriers which replaced them) in a stack configuration have a ribbon cable which connects the carriers together.
More specifically, the architecture is a common TDM bus. Each carrier has two TDM bus connectors. A single-cabinet has a terminator plug on both bus connectors. Adding a cabinet requires removing a terminator, installing the TDM Bus cable between the cabinets, and moving the terminator to the unused connector on the new cabinet.
Both the terminator plugs and the ribbon cable have an arrow embossed in them. Unfortunately, it is physically possible to install a terminator or cable in the wrong orientation, resulting in dead cabinets, really weird system behavior, etc....
-----
Site visit for a totally down PBX. As we are heading for the comm room, my escort mentions something to the effect of "Bad enough that the network servers are down due to a failed UPS, but just too much to lose the PBX at the same time".
Me:
"So you lost the (huge single "room") UPS and all your servers went dark, and the PBX in the next room went down at the same time?"
Escort:
"Yep. Servers tend to do that when they dont have power...Oh F**k. Bet I know where the PBX rack is powered from..."
Me:
"I think I have a pretty good idea as well."
About a month later I was back there with a truckload of rack-mount UPS units, PDUs, and EBMs to install. Seems that the "Whole room UPS" crowd lost out to the "Multiple UPS systems with bypass switches" crowd.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
