Delayed Relief

Both yesterday and today I went into work. I'd planned to take all of this week as vacation, but I went in yesterday to follow-up on one issue that I'd gotten called on on Sunday. When I got in I also found that another issue from Sunday had blown up into a bigger deal, and that I was expected to provide some information on both. At the same time.

That obviously doesn't work so well, so I corralled the only other person from our group that was working this week. He wasn't really so hard to corral, since he was expecting me to hand off the hotline phone to him anyway. I chose the easier one to explain to hand off to him, and then settled in to a succession of conference calls to identify the root of the more complex issue.

I'm not going to get into details, but suffice it to say that it took all day to find anyone who knew anything about the area where the problem was, we still couldn't get definitive answers as to what was really going on, and so I wrote up everything and opened a problem ticket for development to answer. Then I left the office, but I forwarded my office phone to my home number in case someone tried to contact me for either issue.

I had only a tiny amount of time to devote to the other problem, the one I'd handed off, but that customer group didn't seem much satisfied so I logged in in the evening to try to find some more information for them (well, after gathering some King Wok food for Ryan, Matt, and I). By the time I finished that, I knew they were to be doing some restoration work in the other market, so I called the conference bridge line to see how that was going. Not so well, so I wound up on the line with them until close to 3am, watching the system I have some responsibility for -- watching it fail but knowing the problem was external to it so just waiting to watch to make sure it recovered properly when the fixed the far end.

By 3am I knew that we still had some answers to come up with for this problem, that the earlier explanation wasn't complete, so I forwarded a batch of e-mails to one of the UK team members and asked him to poke around for more info, and got to bed by 3:30.

I dragged myself out of bed four hours later, showered, and headed into work. Just after I left, Ellen called my cell phone. She got a call at home (via the call forwarding) from "a woman with an English accent". She didn't quite get the name, but I got enough phonemes from her to match it to another person on the UK team.

When I got into the office I checked my e-mail and found a minor flood. I IM'ed my UK teammate who had called, and she dumped some more info on me. I then followed that chain for much of the morning to make sure whether they needed any more from me. Eventually, it seemed that they had a handle on things, and didn't need anything further from me, so I'm going to let that one go now until Monday.

Meanwhile, I was getting bugged by folks on the other issue. When I let the first issue go (about noon), I turned my attention back to this issue. It took about another three hours to get the info they needed, but I think I should have satisfied them, so I left. I'm not planning on checking back on this until Monday either. If they need anything more, I know they have my cell phone number.

So, I'll look forward now to a long weekend and forget work.

The rest of the day, I've basically been hanging out with family here. Ryan, Matt, and I watched "The Class" last night. I know I'd previously written that off, but its proving that the episodes are very much hit and miss. Last night was pretty much a hit, with all three of us laughing out loud (you know, the offline equivalent of "LOL"). It was basically one joke, but they played it well. The scenes that were away from that one big joke, not so much. I'm staying with the show, but I'm not really committed to it.

Then Ryan and I watched "Heroes" and "Studio 60" (this while I was logged in to work). Neither was quite as sharp as last week. Hey, for "Heroes" the phrase is "Save the cheerleader ...", not "save a cheerleader". I think I see some of the turns this is likely to take (one from tonight was pretty predictable two weeks ago). Let's see what the big reveal is next week on who Sylar is.

Tonight: "House", "Jeopardy", "Futurama". I don't know how many times I've seen these "Futurama" episodes (the third and fourth of the first season), but I'm still noticing little things that got by me in previous viewings.

Oh yeah, and when I got home Ryan was watching the DVD of "Arrested Development" season three. Another show I can watch over and over, and do. I think we watched eight or ten episondes together.

Shifting gears: This comment is important. I suggest everyone read it, and pass it on.