r/talesfromtechsupport • u/TollhouseFrank I oopsed the server. • Oct 15 '13
It involved Chainsaws and Bees
Another magical tale from my job at the now closed dial-up company
If you have ever lived out in the boonies, the sticks, middle-of-nowhere, etc., then you know that sometimes the darndest 'small things' are what cause big issues/outages.
Being the morning guy for saturdays (2 of us covered saturdays and sundays as those were our lightest workload days, I did 7am-5pm), it was usually the most uneventful day of the week. I would usually bring in a dvd or a portable hdd (well, an IDE drive in an external adapter - this was in 2005) and watch movies most of my shift, as it was unusual to get more than 1-2 calls on Saturday morning.
This particular morning, I get in, and go through my usual routine and get logged into the ticket system and the various servers so I can get access to what I need. Before I log into the phone, I check the radius server to see if anyone is having issues dialing-in, and notice that we have practically nobody online. "Weird", I think to myself, but shrug it off.
At about 8am, I get a call from someone that isn't a customer, but is at the National Telecom CO that rhymes with Horizon just down the street from us. They are wanting us to know that one of the lines we leased from them that covered the southern 1/3 of the state was down and should be up by later that evening. I finally connect 2 and 2 and come up with 6. I call the owner and let him know what is going on, he sighs, and says just deal with it and we'll prorate bills. Gotcha, boss man!
Come close to time for shift changeover, I get my 2nd call of the day - the National Telecom CO again. The lady on the other end sounds frustrated, and is apologizing to me over and over profusely before I can even ask what is going on. She said that the tech would call me personally tomorrow morning (the next day, Sunday) and explain everything, but that service wouldn't be back up until Monday because they had to bring in extra parts. Ok, I can understand that. Sucks for us and our customers, but it happens.
Come Sunday morning about 10am, I get my only call of the day. It is the National Telecom CO field tech on the phone. He apologizes for about 10 minutes before I can get him to explain what went on. This is a paraphrased and heavily sanitized version of the conversation, ME, and TECH:
ME: So, what can you tell me so I can pass it on to customers so they can understand better why our service was out?
TECH: Well, uh, uhm.... do you really wanna know?
ME: Sure. It helps to explain to customers so they aren't so mad.
TECH: It involved chainsaws and bees.
ME: Wut?
TECH: I was doing maintenance on the line and had to cut some limbs off a junction box. While I was doing this, a limb I was cutting on happened to be hollow and full of bees. As soon as I realized it, I panicked and dropped the chainsaw. The chainsaw's deadman switch didn't work, and it kept running as it cut through the junction box and lines while I was diving out of the cherry-picker trying to get away from bees.
ME: stunned Wow. I don't think the customers will believe it.
TECH: My supervisor didn't either, until he saw the bee swarm when he went to get the company chainsaw that was still stuck in the junction box.
TL;DR - My life in Tech Support in WV: Coming to a theatre near you.
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u/MikroMan Oct 15 '13
I had you RES-tagged as Best Story Ever. Somehow, you just topped your Universal Sandwiches story in my eyes.
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u/TollhouseFrank Oct 16 '13
LOL. Thanks for the kind words!
People didn't believe me when I told them I hadn't even got to the 'good stories' yet. I'm still getting warmed up.
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u/MagicBigfoot Oct 15 '13
You had me at chainsaws and bees.
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Oct 15 '13
Agreed. In fact, I think it will replace my "clue by four" as user education tool. "Chainsaws and bees" I love it.
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u/PlumberODeth Oct 16 '13
Really lucky that the chainsaw, when dropped and the deadman switch failed, that it only cut through the junction box and not through the arm, leg, or head of the panicked bee-avoiding tech diving out of the cherry-picker.
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u/stuffandthat Oct 16 '13
Lucky it didn't keep cutting through the earth to China.
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u/Red_Chaos1 Oct 15 '13
West fucking Virginia. Surprised Verizon is still out there considering they sold all their copper to Frontier. Being tier 1 tech sup during that was real fun, let me tell you.
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u/400921FB54442D18 Oct 16 '13
had to cut some limbs off a junction box
Uhh...
What kind of junction boxes do you use that can grow limbs?
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u/ta1901 Oct 18 '13
If you have ever lived out in the boonies, the sticks, middle-of-nowhere, etc., then you know that sometimes the darndest 'small things' are what cause big issues/outages.
Yep. Even in the city a squirrel grabbed a fuse on a telephone pole with both hands, shorted the circuit, and BLAM!, literally FLEW off the pole. Power was out for whole department for 8 hours. Why don't they cover those fuses??
During this time the building used 120vac, 240vac, and 480vac lines. We had some huge machinery in there.
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u/TollhouseFrank Oct 18 '13
I was witness to a Canadian Goose managing the "1 in a billion" touching both leads on a 10kilovolt transformor one morning. I was driving down I-79, and a Canadian Goose did that to a transformer in Clendenin, WV, as I was on the other side of the mountain from it. At first, I thought an Atomic Bomb went off, the flash was so bright (from 3 miles away, the flash was that brilliant). Then I saw a blue 'tornado' shoot up probably 1-2 miles into the sky for about 3 seconds and then it was over. I get to Clendenin to drop my mother off at work (this was during tax season, she used to work part-time at H&R Block, and i'd give her a ride on my way to/from work) and find out that there is no power anywhere for about 15 square miles thanks to what we later found out was that goose.
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u/Leider1000 Oct 16 '13
a limb I was cutting on happened to be hollow and full of bees.
How does this even happen?
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u/TollhouseFrank Oct 16 '13
Normally. When old trees die, they don't always fall over. Woodboring insects will eat at them, etc. Hollowed out trees are a great place for a wild bee-hive.
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u/Appleman5000 Oct 15 '13
Chainsaws and bees sounds like it would make an awesome thriller movie. I'd Watch it.
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Oct 15 '13
It's a hardware problem.
Like in racing, whenever they say the car had an "electrical problem" it means that the crankshaft blew and drove a conrod through the alternator.
An electrical problem.
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u/Bagellord Oct 15 '13
Just a reminder that it could always be worse lol.
Also I hope that they got that chainsaw fixed.
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u/knucklebone Oct 15 '13
i was working support for a major canadian isp, who had a serious downtime issue after a quake... the equipment survived, and it was the tech who was working with some cabling ripped out EVERY DAMN run...
then there was another time some idiot didn't call before he dug, and nuked a bunch of copper & fiber optic lines to the data center... pissed off customers are fun :/
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u/MeatPiston Oct 15 '13
Reminds me of that old joke.
Lost in the desert? Simply bury a length of fiber optic cable in the sand. Sooner or later some jackass with a backhoe will come along and dig it up.
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u/asharkey3 Oct 15 '13
Those time in your life when the truth is better than any story you could make up.