I work in I.T. which I’m pretty sure all 3 of you know. I’m sure all 3 of you have called me up at various intervals in the last 7 years and heard me utter the following phrase “I can’t come out I’m on call”.
Call at Scottsdale isn’t nearly as bad as it was in Kingman. The call volume is much lower and I get paid to be on call. Lower volumes and paid or not it’s still damn annoying to be on call. Mainly because it puts my social life on hold for a whole damn week.
I know what your thinking right now… Wait when did Tom get a life? It happened a long time ago but those are details that you don’t need to know.
Finally this week I threw caution to the wind while “On Call” and said fuck it, I’m going to continue my social life “On Call” or not. Now I’m not a dummy if your going to talk the talk you have to walk the walk, so to that end I took advantage of several “perks” of being on call for Scottsdale. Namely a laptop (which is actually my daily usage computer for work) and a celluar broadband card (you know those nifty data cards you people with when your in the park because the park doesn’t have free WiFi yet). Laptop and Broadband card aren’t the only things you need when your on call you also need your pager (yes pager because in my particular line of IT work cell phones are still new fangled technology not to be trusted), Cell Phone (of course your personal cell phone because other then the random grandparent who doesn’t have a cell phone these days), blue tooth head set (have to type when your on call), and since you have so much crap anyway why not throw in a backpack for good measure. Oh and don’t forget the Keyfob because it looks really bad if you can’t dial to fix a problem when your on call.
OK now that we have our “On Call” kit built lets go out to dinner on a Friday night at (rolls 100 sided dice for dinner location) Rula Bula! And for kicks lets round out our party with the usual D&D sterotypes (Ogre, 2x pixies,rouge on a motorcyle, and a Paladin). OK good so we have our party established (IT Geek, Ogre, 2x Pixies, rouge on a motorcycle, and a Paldin in a pear tree) off you go to dinner…… ***BUZZZ*** ***BUZZZ***
FUCK! the pager just went off…. and you are like a block from Rula Bula!.
Drop off your party and tell the rouge on the motorcyle that you have to work. The Ogre gets the laptop booted before he bails, thank you Mr. Ogre. Once again you are alone and call into the help desk to find out what the problem is, oh this is a two for one special and you are going to need to dial in. So you find a nice parking lot and log into your laptop and fire up the broad band card which con…. dammit it won’t connect.
Reboot the laptop, login, restart broadband card (throw the dice to see if it will connect this time….) and nope no connection. Repeat this act 4 more times in the next 10 minutes. While rebooting also throw a dice for how helpfull the report from the helpdesk is… not very.
So at this point it’s very apparent that your laptop isn’t going to work with the broadband card, start looking for a Starbucks. Hey look a Borders! They have WiFi and are always quiet on the inside. OH look all the inside tables are full, but there are a few out side that open it’s only 100 degrees and you won’t be dialed in for long. You sit down and start looking for WiFi score you found some! Your finally logged in to work have your bluetooth rockin this problem (throw dice for ambient noise…) This is when you notice the following things… The water fountain built in to the ground… the two guys who are far to faboulus to the left… and the two women who have hair cut to a #1 blade… both couples are not being quiet neither is the water fountain and (roll for help desk volume) the help desk is speaking in a very soft voice as well.
Damit…
Your quest for a quiet place begins again… after several minutes you find (roll for location…) the drive through of a Bank of America. So with laptop, bluetooth, and empty drive through you begin your quest to start fixing what ailes your caller. So starts your saga… (roll for time to fix problem…) 1 hour later in the same bank of america drive through you finally fix the problem (roll for problem fix…) by rebooting the whole damn server.
You close the laptop, and deposit all of the items into your back pack of IT trinkets and stash the bag in the truck. You find your way to Rula Bula! to rejoin your party. Upon rejoining your party you sit down (roll for action….) and drink the Ogre’s beer.
The Ogre is not pleased.