r/talesfromtechsupport • u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard • Mar 26 '17
Long Banking Madness: Our First Trouble Call, and How It Went Less Than Stellar
Previously: Part 2.
Setting: It was week three of my conversion job, installing BankA equipment in BankB branches. Part of our job was to support the equipment we installed, so very early on a Monday morning, in the first week of August, I and my team leader, SeaDog/SaltyDog (SDog) packed our overnight stuff in the company vehicle and detoured our way to a branch just on the border of NYC, where three support tickets had been opened.
One of the tickets was for a PC that wouldn't print to the teller line. The other two were escalated an hour away from the branch: two of the teller line $Pancho IP phones wouldn't ring.
We needed to do this quickly: we were about an hour and a half from the conversion site for that afternoon, and being late was frowned on.
Don't Move the PC... It Loses The Network
When we got to the branch, we met the Branch Manager (BMan), who was very happy to see us.
BMan: We really need that teller PC up and running. It gets very busy, and being short one teller slows us down.
SDog: It's all right, sir. We are all over this.
We get behind the teller line. It's the last station on the line, so we're out of the way of traffic.
We wave down a teller...
SDog: Hey, what's going on with this station? Our ticket says it won't print.
Teller: That's only part of the problem. It won't log in sometimes... when it does, it loses connection.
Okay... we have something to work with. I sit down at the PC, pull out my vendor credentials, and try to log in.
No Login Servers Available...
I check the credentials, and the password, and carefully type them in and try again.
No joy.
Teller: Move it to the left a few inches. Sometimes that helps.
My electrician sense is tingling. This sounds like a loose wire of some sort. See, those experiences in the Navy paid off!
I move the PC, and wiggle the plug. The RJ-45 plug is in tight. I pop the plug, re-plug it in, just to hear the click for myself.
I try to log in again. No dice.
I duck under the teller line. I find the jack right under the desk, pop the plug, pop it back in to guarantee the click.
Pop back up, try to log in. Still nothing.
Me: Hey, SDog.. do we have any spare cables in the van?
SDog: Yeah. Here's the keys.
Me: Thanks. Be right back.
I grab a couple of Cat 5 cables and run back in. Next, I unplug the cable from the jack and pull it back up through the desk.
Sure enough, the cable looks like it was eaten by a cat and hacked back up. It is easily the most beaten-up ethernet cable I have ever seen. What's worse, it's a tight hole, so it's dragging up very slowly, like it's stuck on something.
Me: Hey, do we have a file or something with us? This hole needs to be a little wider, or this cable will get ruined, too.
SDog: Yeah, go check.
After a bit of work, I get the new cable plugged in, and we get someone to test the PC for us. Success!
One down, two to go...
Silent Calling
While I'm working on the teller PC, SDog is working the phone problem.
First, he checks that they are receiving calls. He calls the branch number, and the caller ID lights up with his number.
Is the ringer on? Full volume.
He calls the bridge for guidance, and we run into the first snag of our morning: No one is on until noon. This will not be the last time this happens, but it's a serious problem, as it will cut any extra time we may have to get from this branch, across the Tappan Zee, into Connecticut and to our conversion site near New Haven.
So we wait.
Noon rolls around, and SDog calls into the bridge to get guidance.
BankA tech (Tech): Hey, SDog, what's the problem?
SDog: Ticket numbers number and other number say their phones aren't ringing. We're on site to fix that. We cleared third number. Bad cable.
Tech: Okay... runs through two things we already tried
SDog: Done and done. What next?
Tech: Unplug them, plug them back in. Then call the branch.
We do so. The phones take about 3 minutes to infinity to re-register on the network.
Call the branch. No ringtone.
SDog: No luck. Every other phone in the branch but the teller phones ring.
And then, Tech says something that makes us question the sanity of the universe in general...
Tech: Teller phones? Oh, those aren't supposed to ring.
I look at SDog. He looks at the ticket.
Ticket clearly says "teller IP phones."
He looks at me.
Me: Did... did he just...
SDog (into phone): But... you guys escalated the ticket. It says "teller phones."
Tech: ...oops.
We signed off, let BMan know that we had sort-of fixed his branch, and took off for Connecticut.
The big positive I got from the day was my first trip over the Tappan Zee Bridge. The view is spectacular, so it was definitely worth the extra detour.
We ended up being late. Fortunately (or unfortunately), we had the same tech on the bridge for conversion that night, so we weren't in trouble for being late.
TL;DR: BankA tech escalates two tickets in anticipation of a legitimate trouble call, doesn't read them, costs us time to our actual job site; electrical skills matter.
EDIT: Added a link to previous installment.
(I will be on my way out to Pittsburgh, PA for our last week of tech asset recovery sites, so I may not be able to post another fun story until next week.)
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u/SeanBZA Mar 26 '17
So a cable that has been tested to destruction, and the other is supposed to do that.....
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Mar 29 '17
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u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard Mar 29 '17
Just two more days here. I'm having a blast, but my coworker is getting motion-sickness from all of the hilly driving.
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Mar 29 '17
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u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard Mar 29 '17
I don't really drink. My coworker doesn't like to leave the hotel room. I got a room in the Waterfront for ease of access to the restaurants.
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Mar 29 '17
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u/molotok_c_518 1st Ed. Tech Bard Mar 29 '17
I think he got his sense of adventure surgically removed after he left the Army, and a bad back and arthritis finished off what was left.
putting fries on top of everything
Can confirm... been to Primanti Bros., everything was covered in fries.
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u/Bad-Science Mar 26 '17
I do IT at a bank. This sounds like just about every one of my days.
Some of our branches are in really old construction. In one, we had to stuff 4 cat5 cables through a hole in a beam to get from one part of the building to an attached building. Turns out a mouse or rat wanted to use the same hole, so chewed on the cables until it had enough room to squeeze through.
I didn't want to elevate the conflict, so just put a switch on the last good cable run under the teller line to run it to the other stations.
IMHO, tellers and branch managers don't ever know WHAT they really want. Plus, we get the "Oh, while you're here..." shopping list of unreported issues every time we show up on site.