Attestation

We all have days at work that are stressful. I have been having a very stressful month. One thing after another. I don't care to elaborate much but you know how it goes. Work that was supposed to have been done (by another company) in the summer was not complete until last week. This delays me doing my part. When it is my turn to go out into the school and install equipment I am dealing with two hot items. The first is the school is angry because I have to take them off line. No time is a good time to do this unless I want to work a shift that runs from 4 p.m. to midnight. Uh, no thanks! 

Nothing goes as planned. There are snags here and there and it delays everything and everybody. You are trying to contact people on the other side of the network via your own personal cell phone because work's cell phone gets no signal out in my rural area. Fortunately for me I get 12 people in my circle. I put work's number as one of them. As soon as I am ready on my end - my co-worker has left for lunch on the other end. Sigh.

The second hot item is "MY" primary job (taking care of the filter) is having major issues currently and I really need to focus on that. I have school districts angry that this job is not done, I have school districts angry that the other job is not done. 

To complicate matters we have one technician away at a training session this week. One technician had a death in the family and has to take half the week off. Another tech has serious diabetes issues and I hate to ask him to drive too far (seriously, this worries me because I really like this guy and I am so concerned - he has had an ambulance called more times than I can count). 

That leaves me and one more technician. This last tech is the office joke. He cannot handle stress. Case in point - it has been so hectic this week - he is taking two personal days the rest of the week. Today and tomorrow. That is with two other techs out of the office and he gets away with taking two personal days out of the blue. I will never understand management. Some of us get written up for pulling a stunt like this and others - they just look the other way. 

This is the same tech who panics if he is farther away from the office than 10 miles. He goes into full panic mode. I have never seen anything like it. If he has to drive away from his office and it is not towards his house - he begins pacing, sweating and rambling. He rambles "I have to be out of here by 1:30!"  He will not work over one minute unless absolutely forced to. Most of us just shrug him off as fairly useless. This is the tech who used to manage the filter before me.

The above photo is one of the wiring closets I was in this week. I do not like to see a cable hanging loose. Where does it belong? Something like this can cause a "loop" in the network and bring the entire network crashing to it's knees. I have known well-meaning janitors to see a loose cable and plug it into the nearest wall jack. Sheer havoc.

It seems as though the week is winding down, though. The major "hot" issues appear to be on a simmer and low boil. Schools are still not real happy but now I can try to focus on my filter issues again. Then again, I have six more fiber switches to install. I know that the phone companies will finish those all at the same time, also. We wait on them and when they are finished - all hell breaks loose. My manager goes into panic mode and shouts "Get those switches out to the schools and install them!"  I know why. It is because we started charging the schools back in the summer when the fiber was supposed to be installed. Believe it or not.

Oh, hell. I forgot about the title to this post. Attestation. Since I was busy at another district out of county my co-worker (the one with diabetes) had to help a school in my area. After the ordeal I was speaking to him on the phone. I had a really bad day and I was not mincing words. He said to me "This tech, is he a nice guy?"  I paused (barely) and spat out "He's an asshole!"  My co-worker sighed and said "Thank-you! That is the impression I got, too." Attestation.