Die, puny mortal ! Click!
Aug. 9th, 2004 03:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reynardoI got to play God the other day as part of my work.
To recap, I work for an Australian Cable Internet provider. The system works a lot off the modems, as said modem sits in your house and through which your data streams. As the acccount is based on what comes through said modem, the location of this same piece of tech equipment is rather important.
And as the deals in the company work on the basis of amount-of-data-downloaded (and then slow you down when you reach your monthly limit), ensuring we're speed-capping the right modem from the right account is very important.
So I got to sit with a list of modems that had been listed as sitting on a node that they don't belong to.
Do you live in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane? If the power lines outside your house have another cable hanging about 5 feet below the main ones, then that second cable is our data line. Each line feeds a possible 200-300 customers (although obviously most have a lot less than that) and then heads back to a main base. Each line is a node that feeds back to a card then the set exchange. If you ring up with symptoms of a line outage, the first thing we check is your local node to see if you're the only one or if some twit in a semi has taken down a local power pole again.
If a house sits at a corner, and the main line is across the street, sometimes the techs will wire it instead to the one coming up the side street.
So I got to sit with a map of the appropriate city and work out if the modem had been moved or had merely been wired to the wrong node.
All details have been changed to protect nosey-parkers and innocent account-keepers.
"Hmmm - account in Waitara, modem feeding from .. oh, Wahroonga, from the corner of X street that feeds into Waitara - wiring job. Pass to the boss for chewing out techs."
"Account in Preston, modem feeding from - Carnegie? That's one heck of a long drop-cable. SUSPENDED!!! Clickety-click."
"Modem in Scarborough, account formerly in Maroubra but ... oh, bother - they officially moved to the new address and no-one's updated the details. Oh well - little email to our Moving team about that oversight."
"Modem in Ennogera and account disconnected in Altona Meadows? No info on moving? No reason for this modem to be sucking our life's blood out of us? DISCONNECTED Clickety-click."
And I was on the graveyard shift, and thus would be at home and snoring before any of the 20 or so customers I disconnected discovered their prescious modems not working and rang in to complain. And off for four glorious days so their complaints will have to go elsewhere.
Sometimes I love my job.
To recap, I work for an Australian Cable Internet provider. The system works a lot off the modems, as said modem sits in your house and through which your data streams. As the acccount is based on what comes through said modem, the location of this same piece of tech equipment is rather important.
And as the deals in the company work on the basis of amount-of-data-downloaded (and then slow you down when you reach your monthly limit), ensuring we're speed-capping the right modem from the right account is very important.
So I got to sit with a list of modems that had been listed as sitting on a node that they don't belong to.
Do you live in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane? If the power lines outside your house have another cable hanging about 5 feet below the main ones, then that second cable is our data line. Each line feeds a possible 200-300 customers (although obviously most have a lot less than that) and then heads back to a main base. Each line is a node that feeds back to a card then the set exchange. If you ring up with symptoms of a line outage, the first thing we check is your local node to see if you're the only one or if some twit in a semi has taken down a local power pole again.
If a house sits at a corner, and the main line is across the street, sometimes the techs will wire it instead to the one coming up the side street.
So I got to sit with a map of the appropriate city and work out if the modem had been moved or had merely been wired to the wrong node.
All details have been changed to protect nosey-parkers and innocent account-keepers.
"Hmmm - account in Waitara, modem feeding from .. oh, Wahroonga, from the corner of X street that feeds into Waitara - wiring job. Pass to the boss for chewing out techs."
"Account in Preston, modem feeding from - Carnegie? That's one heck of a long drop-cable. SUSPENDED!!! Clickety-click."
"Modem in Scarborough, account formerly in Maroubra but ... oh, bother - they officially moved to the new address and no-one's updated the details. Oh well - little email to our Moving team about that oversight."
"Modem in Ennogera and account disconnected in Altona Meadows? No info on moving? No reason for this modem to be sucking our life's blood out of us? DISCONNECTED Clickety-click."
And I was on the graveyard shift, and thus would be at home and snoring before any of the 20 or so customers I disconnected discovered their prescious modems not working and rang in to complain. And off for four glorious days so their complaints will have to go elsewhere.
Sometimes I love my job.
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You have Teh p0w3R!!111!1!1!!
Date: 2004-08-08 11:48 pm (UTC)I am full of the ph34r. Or something.
And your sense of satisfaction at all this is deliciously evil... *snuggle*
no subject
Date: 2004-08-09 01:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-09 05:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-09 05:38 am (UTC)had a key that was unused (some old ass macro keyboard)
found drivers, set a macro, labelled key "LART"
What did the key do? Well, if I was logged into a shell on the system in question, it issued the commands to suspend their account. My boss loved it. I requested permission to auto-send them an e-mail with it that says "You have been slapped with a LART" (you could access e-mail for 12 hours after we suspended, to ensure anyone doing business could get their precious e-mail, and thus cut down on the number of calls we received from idiots)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-09 06:02 am (UTC)I suppose if your F12 key is not doing anything important, you could map the disconnection script to that key and replace it with a "SMITE" key... ;-)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-09 04:18 pm (UTC)