Wednesday 16 May 2012

Oh, How We Laughed...

This weekend, my colleagues and I will be assisting our facilities management team with a building-wide powerdown in order to allow them to upgrade the building's electrical generators.

The announcement went out three weeks ago, and after the inevitable wrangling and disagreements, it's on for Sunday.

A final reminder went out reminding people to make sure to power down their desktop PCs and such on Friday evening before leaving, (because power will be unavailable between 0700 and 2000 Sunday) and we got this reply back:

"Saturday's (!) fine with us for the powerdown, but we'll be updating the website on Sunday (!!)so we'll need access to email, intranet and server <xxxxxx01>, as well as a phone contact in case there are any issues. Thanks. (!!!)"

Needless to say, we were too busy rolling around the floor laughing to reply immediately, but my team leader pulled himself together and sent a carefully-worded reply to the individual concerned.

Who didn't understand.

"But we have to update the website - we need access."

"There'll be no electricity."

"But - "

"No electricity, no lights, no comms, no PCs, no servers, no network, no intranet. No access."

"But I don't think you understand - "

At which point it got ridiculous. It seems his team interpreted "No power" to mean that the network would be unavailable. Curious, because they work in Communications, and I thought we were quite clear.

Can't wait for the next instalment...

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