IT Log: After "break" madness
I've decided to document my daily activity, both for my own sanity and to hopefully help someone else following in my footsteps.
0800, I got in and started my daily correspondence via email. It started fairly simply, with about 8 messages moved to one of many folders dedicated to mass blasts. I had to respond to someone to let them know that if someone can log onto a computer via AD, they can log onto a website- the credentials are shared. I don't think the message got across.
Afterwards, I started looking up some important personal files that were sent after I got out of work on Friday. Thankfully I can leave work at work. As they were loading, I got a call. User wants to know about the "status" of his bulb replacement. The bulb that burnt out on Friday. I told him, as friendly as I could, that bulbs don't grow on trees and there's a process. I also told him I need to work with our Secretary to order his parts. He said he understands and will talk to the site Admin on his break. I don't think the message got across.
I checked his needed part and then double checked my stock of bulbs that have no counterparts (thank you predecessor, your mess is greatly appreciated /s). We didn't have it, as expected, and the machinery he has is supported so I send out a quote request from a vendor. I open up my PDA to load a game and check on how things are going.
Before the game finishes loading, an assistant admin comes by. Wants to know about the status of his dedicated printer. 7 days ago, someone else printed to it, caused a paper jam, removed the toner/drum, and had someone else improperly place it in, jamming the device. The irony is that there's 3 working communal printers within walking distance. All of them are better than this "personal" printer, and closer to the other person's room.
I had tried to get to the juicy drum in my spare time, almost entirely disassembling the printer. The remaining screws are slightly stripped, not by me, and the remaining pieces are no longer just casing. I still wasn't able to get the important piece out. Assistant admin managed to get the drum out sometime. Darn. I was hoping to have an awkward mess trophy in my work area.
After much jiggling and coercion, I was able to get the drum properly seated. For some reason, there's a rotational part that's supposed to retract when installing the drum, but it didn't, so I had to hold it with a slim screwdriver while simultaneously gently shoving in the piece.
As I'm working on this, a part-time user comes by talking about their error. They mention the last time we talked. That was last year, roughly a month ago. Something about viewing PDFs fine but Word documents being all garbled, in less technical terms than that. Sure, I'll look at it. User whips out their PDA. No. Bring me your machine so we can see the issue and resolve it. User gets a look of anger and defeat for a moment. They'll come by tomorrow.
Back to working on the printer. Oh the lights turned out again. I'm extremely grateful to have a 30 minute timeout period on lights where the sensor doesn't reach my work area. And before I can reach the printer, a user comes by asking for a password. They're new, and this isn't the correct procedure, but most of their supervisors are brick walls when it comes to learning new things. Thankfully this user is old enough to use computers somewhat competently and is able to get their own password going with very little hawking on my part.
And as soon as I send the user off, I receive an email. Apparently there's user drama on a video/image sharing service completely unrelated to work, but whose name contains metric. I'm supposed to be a good IT guy and don my Private Investigator hat to figure out who logged in and messed with their account. After a brief check with the almighty kb, I reply with how to see recent login activity and what can be done with that information. I note that I don't condone certain parts which may or may not be appropriate for work.
And now, 3 light timeouts later, I finally go to work on the printer. Maybe I'll get more than one panel on before someone comes by. Nope, another two users are walking by... Please send help.
And before I could even paste and post this, I've had 2 more 10 minute sit-downs about missing devices, but without enough information to confirm that they're missing. Aaaaand the lights just turned out again.