Stressful Workday

[1Str8G]

We currently have a potential client visiting the site today that will give us about 120-200 more employees before the end of the year. I was given a last minute notice of the visit which is normally not a big deal, but the head Telecommunications Director for our company is on vacation so I got stuck as the spokeman for our technology and site. I have a tour I have to give later which is no big deal, but this afternoon I have to site in on a one hour security meeting, half of which I have no clue about. I don't know because we were recently bought out and merged with another company, since then I have not gotten a word on how our infrastructure will be changed since it is in the process of being changed.
So now I am waiting, I have 3 hours of nothing to do until my meeting, I have reached the end of the internet 3 times today, and I am about to go nuts because all of administration is in the meeting with them currently so I don't have anyone to waste time chatting with :dunno Oh well, just bored and taking some time up, hope everyone is having a good day and I should be on tonight relieving some stress:)
P.S. Max, if you think about it sometime don't forget to send that Network+ stuff if you get some free time please sir.

[LA_MERC_T4rg3T]

Str8G, who do you work for?

[LA_MERC_Diesel]

same question I had?

[LA_MERC_Cowboy_From_Hell]

Stressful work day? Tell me about...I just wish the stress was actualy WORK related.

[LA_MERC_LaTech]

Tell me about stress...I don't get any at all at work.

JK!!!

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

So now I am waiting, I have 3 hours of nothing to do until my meeting, I have reached the end of the internet 3 times today, and I am about to go nuts because all of administration is in the meeting with them currently so I don't have anyone to waste time chatting with.

THAT's what you call a stressful day??? I dream about days like that ... lol

Nothing to do? That never happens to me!

[LA_MERC_M@lACHi]

Stressful work day? Tell me about...I just wish the stress was actualy WORK related.


Same here...LOL

[Apocalypse]

Anybody want me to fill in for them for a day or two or thirty? I have enough stress as it is...I'm on Easter Break, currently not working, getting a lot of sleep, eating out with friends, and playing basketball...someone save me!!! (sarcasm) :)

[1Str8G]

We were called Service Zone, but a company called ClientLogic (which I am sure some of you have heard of) bought us out. I am the site Telecom/Network Administrator for our location. We have 600 production seats and about 100 training/office seats in the building. I am in charge of the incoming T1's, Avaya G3R PBX, and all of the hardware related material such as routers, switches, wireless network.

I have been at this site now for 4 years, I am also the only person who does my job at this location. I was the one who cabled all 75 miles of cable, terminated all of the drops, and setup all of the drops in each office and on the floor. I do logins for everyone, phones moves, wirefield additions/moves, if it's anything to do with telecom/network I do it. The reason I mentioned all of the above being the only person who does it I have everything setup how I want it, plus I know where it is all at. It makes my job extremely easy, plus I am an extremely anal person when it comes to work so no one messes with my stuff or setup. So most of the time I spend doing nothing to be honest, if a ticket doesn't come in to move a phone or add or remove something, I just sit in the office all day studying for my next certification.

When it comes to work I would consider myself to be a very lucky person, I love the I.T. field and I have a great job. My site director loves me so she buys me study material for my test and they let me goto college if I want. (I start back this summer) I work hard to make sure everything is done flawless and ahead of schedule so I get they work with me and let me do this type of stuff.

Also, I hardly ever have stress, I just don't like dealing with potential clients because I don't have a say in what we can offer them and/or roll out for them, and if I am not careful I can say the wrong thing. It was a last minute deal with me doing the presentation so I wasn't really prepared, and I didn't want to screw something up. Good news is I am done with it, and it went really good, I am just waiting on them so I can give the data room tour and explain our infrastructure design which is no big deal at all:)

[LA_MERC_Sabre]

inner peace fella's.....inner peace.....

[LA_MERC_Dirge]

Man if only you could those BellSouth T1's to come in without any stress... hehehe

[LA_MERC_MadMAX]

How you like that Avaya? We just put in a S8700 Avaya system a few months back (to replace an aging Executone system for administrative type users) - also have an ASPECT call center for the Support Department, and various sales agents...

[1Str8G]

I love Avaya, we use the Avaya G3R PBX release 9 with the CMS and voice mail software from them also. In the 4 years of having an Avaya switch it has never crashed....well...other than the time I stuck one of the maintenance boards in a power supply slot and it blew up 100k in boards, but I was doing what Avaya told me to do on the phone so we didn't have to pay for it. It's a stable and easy to use system in my opinion, but I have only worked on Avaya so I don't have anything to compare it too.

We currently have 13 T1's in our site from Bellsouth, 10 voice, 1 internet, 1 point to point, and one outbound ISDN line. I hate BellSouth, their installation and Customer Service sucks. About 3 weeks ago I pulled one of the tiles up in the data room and we had 4 inches of water underneath the floor. Well, the water was coming from the fiber pipe somehow, and the city never installed the water pump in our room 3 years ago. So while they are working on that issue, one of BellSouth's DDM-2000 Fiber Reach boxes was dead. It was on a surge protector that kicked off, so I plugged the Fiber box back into another protector and it would reboot the box for about 1 minute and then go cut itself back off, each time doing this it dropped the called on power up. For some reason the backup battery system was rebooting the box because the batteries were dead, I guess it's a UPS system since I don't touch their equipment. I called BellSouth and tell the person his box is dead, he does a test and says it's all fine I must be wrong. I was like WTF the box isn't even plugged in atm how am I wrong. They told me to call the network carrier for some reason. So I call them and they can't do anything because everything is testing fine. So I call BellSouth back and they refuse to send someone out since they show it as being up. Well...after dropping many calls I figured out that the box can run on line power (okok, I know home systems can but I didn't know a fiber system could when the splicing component. mainboard, and T1 interface cards were all dead with no power) so I just plugged the batteries in and let the system stay dead for 14 hours running on line power while the batteries recharged. Plugged it all back up that night after we closed and it ran fine. All this stuff I was messing with I am not suppose to touch nor have I ever worked on it, but the idiots at BellSouth refused to come make a fat paycheck by coming out to the site.

Sorry if anyone here works at BellSouth, but their customer service from a home and business standpoint is just horrible.

[LA_MERC_Dirge]

Where is your location at? I am an engineer for Bell and I may be able to help.

As far as the pipe bleeding water... Customer premise conduit runs are the responsibility of the customer, but there are specific rules. I would be interested to see the situation. As far as the DDM-2000. The tariff does not provide for UPS, the battery back ups are just for temporary service interruptions.

Let me know more details and I will do some investigating.

[1Str8G]

Dirge,

As far as the problem it's fixed now. The pipe and water issue was also our fault, the city never put the cap on like they were suppose to. Before this issue the business customer service has been great, it's the home service that is just beyond terrible.

We have a raised floor to run the cable under. Well, it filled with water overnight and our second DDM box which was on a alternate surge protector had kicked into protection. So when it did the Lucent backup batteries came on and ran dead and the system shutdown. I came in that morning early for some reason, and I walked into the data room like I normally do and saw right away how the one whole box was dead. First thing I did I pulled a tile up and saw the surge protector laying under water, so I pulled it out and unplugged the DDM from it. I called our maintenance in and other staff for emergency issues, after I did I got a new surge protector and plugged both the DDM box back in and the backup battery system (each one has a plug). After I plugged them box up the system cycled on for about 5 minutes and then it shutdown and rebooted again. It did this a couple times so I unplugged it all so it wouldn't keep power cycling and mess something up. I called Bellsouth immediately after this (we had 1 shift in currently when this was going on, only 1 customer T1 was on the other DDM box so I though at the time that when we got busy we would not be able to handle calls, I didn't know about fiber and line power ) and gave them the address and a circuit ID to look up our account. I then explained that we had a water issue and that one of their boxes was dead, could they send someone out to look at fixing it (we would be charged obviously I knoew this also). The rep on the phone did a test on the initial circuit and said it test clean. So I gave her several more of the circuits and she said they were fine. I specifically told her that the box was physically unplugged, we had a major water leak, and that the equipment was cycling when I attempted to plug it back in. She then told me that she was showing no problems, that I needed to call the network carrier and get them to test the circuits and issue a ticket to BellSouth before they come out.

By now I was pissed off, so I called MCI and repeated the same process. They tested the circuits and showed no problems (box is still unplugged). They opened a ticket on the issue to continue testing. I called back BellSouth, explained that MCI was testing clean, but that the box was not plugged in because it was cycling. I was told again they were testing clean and they weren't sending someone out. Needless to say I was more pissed, so I attempted to plug the box back in. This time I watched to see what was going on. After a few minutes it cycled again. I noticed the backup batteries were in a charge state on the LED on the battery. Also, about this time a second shift came in and we had about 50 people on the phone. We only had one powered T1 so I got confused and called our telecom guy in Mississippi who retired from doing fiber work for BellSouth if the lines could run on line power alone. He said they could, so I knew we were safe then for taking calls. I called back MCI and asked the status of the ticket. They had talked to a BellSouth engineer and everything on both sides was testing fine. I said screw about this time, cancelled the ticket since no one was obviously coming out, and decided to see if I could fix it myself. I traced which plug was strictly for the battery system, and just plugged it in. I let it charge for about 30 minutes and then tried to plug in the DDM box. It cycled again after 5 mins or so like it had been doing. I unplugged it again and just left the backup battery plugged in so it could charge. We were at a point in the day where if I did anything else we would of dropped many calls. I came back in that night at like 3am and it was fully recharged. I plugged it all back in and it had worked fine since then.

If you want anymore information or the address and my info since I am the contact shoot me a PM. It's over with and working now, I just don't understand how they cannot send out help if I say the equipment is unplugged and cycling power when plugged in. I know I am not suppose to mess with the equipment either as it is not mine, but if I can't get help to the location I don't really have any other choice in a situation like that.

[LA_MERC_Dirge]

Hmm Reading what you wrote, I can only say that the T1 for your voice lines must have been running on the other machine or on copper. Muxes do not run on line power. There is no way to power a machine with a fiber cable. Copper T1's do run on line power. For future reference, you should use the TID (target Identifier) for the machine in question. It will be on a sticker on the inside or outside of the DDM-2000 cover and it will look something like this: RT7801ADM203#2410
If you tell the trouble line to look for that, then they should be able to tell you where the circuit in question is actually. I will tell you there is no way that a circuit would test clean if the DDM was unplugged and the batteries were dead. Perhaps Diesel and I can look at the situation further. PM us the CKID in question and what not. I might make a road trip. :D Don't want any bad customer service now! :)

[1Str8G]

I thought that they couldn't run on line power myself. We do run fiber though, we have 2 fibers spliced currently into the system. The mux was completely dead though, the main panel with the external Alarm LED panel for far end and near end activity and the individual cards where my lines connect and extend to my PBX were dead. The other box was still working like you said maybe that was powering the dead panel, also the splice box was on the operational box.


Anyway, I will be back at work Monday, I will shoot you the information then and you can look over it. We will possibly be ordering about 4-5 more T1's in the next month or so also, so more business for you. You and Diesel ought to come down and look at the installation. Our site was one of the first sites in the state that system. The system itself works great, we have never had an issue with it other than this which was our fault. The business CS other than this has been great also.

[Apocalypse]

OMG I am so lost! Anyone else confused? I'm not a smart, tech guy like you guys. I'm glad there's people like you to help me out (and by me, I mean the ignorant public) Keep up the good job...my phone works, my internet connection is fine...I'm content :)


-Mike

[LA_MERC_Diesel]

Yes 1'Str8G you should choose your words a little more careful...:)
As we have won best customer service for like 8 out of the last 10 yrs, you should be on the other end dealing with all the numbnut customers and CLEC's :p (roX)
I designed a DS1...stop calling them a T1...sorry personal pet peeve,
to 411 INDUSTRIAL PKWY in Bogalusa the other day, is that you nub. we have a DDM2000 in that building.

[aCiD]

:twak ENGLISH! THIS IS A ENGLISH SERVER! Str8 and Dirge, please speak english :twak :d: lol er, If i were you, i would take the central mamaunberclaben cord mainframe the substenstriental re-clambenstarbet it, then your problem should be fied, lol, yea i know what im talking about :d: :dance :dance :dance :dance

[Seductive]

Strike that - reverse it! heheh j/k acid!

[1Str8G]

Yea that is my site Diesel, have you ever been their before?? I let everyone in when they come onsite. And yea diesel if I am reading your post right, we do have a new data circuit scheduled to be installed onsite around the 20th, so that is probably what you setup for me.:)