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11/06/2004 Entry: "Weekend on Call: All Quiet on the Western Front" I can't really go anywhere because I am on call for the next two weeks. This week, I am secondary, and next week, I am primary. Normally that would mean I only get called this week if the primary doesn't answer within 5 minutes. But what was supposed to happen was the primary on call was going to call me when something happened. Then Sprint... ... and I want to rant about Sprint, but promised myself I would not because I don't want to offend my friends that work there... ... Sprint "lost" my order for a new phone. I won't get into why this relates, except to say I was supposed to get a new phone for work, and didn't. So I got a pager instead. One of those older pagers. Not an ancient one the size of the first Gameboy, no; I actually knew someone who had one of those back in the 1980s. But this is one of the first kind that was 2-way, it has a flip-top and a worn thumbpad, and is obviously recycled. It works. Sorta. Okay, I had this exact same model in 1999, when I did international network operations. When I started doing the wardialing, I didn't need one, but used one for administration purposes, like when a server went down or something. Well, they didn't consider this "justified," so they took the pager back, and I didn't really complain because I had already gone to Linux and my servers never went down enough to justify the monthly cost (I only had 3 major incidents with 8 servers in 4 years). Time passes... So I get this new/used pager. They set up an account. I test my pager via phone and e-mail, and it works. But at work, they have a pager "system" you have to be in, and THAT is not working. After much investigation, what I suspected all along turns out to be true. They had two accounts, the new one, and the old one still active, pointing to my old 1999 pager. So they tested the old one, of course. Doh! And they went back and forth all day Friday trying to fix it. First, they deleted the wrong one. Then they set up the another new one, but ran into some "trouble for new account creation." They tried to change the old one, but it never "took." I was in class at this time, as was my new boss, both of us having to deal with this. I was at Nate's housewarming today, and told him about it, and we're sure they never fixed it, and it won't be fixed until Monday. Ish. And he's on vacation all next week, so I have to deal with my old manager. Now, either the primary on call has gotten no pages, which is possible. Last week we had a work moratorium on all new systems, so only failures would be reported. The guy on call last week go no pages at all. Or, the primary on call won't page me, because he's... a loner. And I don't mean he doesn't like me, or he's got a chip on his shoulder, he's just a guy who just wants the job done, and doesn't like slowing down to train new people. Shy would be a better word than loner. But I have to remain glued to the pagers and cell phone. And I have to be home in case something happens, and I have to log into the machines at work. I went out to Nate's house because I figured, hey, he's my new boss and all, he'll buy the excuse or will have a way for me to call in if need be. The rest of this weekend, I plan to get a LOT of housework done. If my asthma lets me. My asthma has been really bad this fall. I don't know why. I have nothing more to comment on that but I hate having asthma. My lawn needs mowed, and I will try hell or high water to do at least part of it tomorrow.