Anyone still in work?

[matt40k]

Still here until the end of Mon 24th.

Same :'(

 

Still work got us all a £100 gift card and a hot dog so not too bad.

[NokiX]

The one thing I do miss from working in education is knowing I would get Christmas off, now I work remotely in a different sector it's typically a 50/50 whether I get Christmas off or not, my last day is tomorrow though until new years day!

[mikeprice]

School finished at about 12:00 after a fire alarm activation at about 11:30 (deliberate false alarm)

 

I went off to order a new front door. I am home for the day now.

 

Edit: Bacon rolls with brown sauce being consumed now.

 

 

WRONG

 

must be consumed with Ketchup

[6Foot2]

WRONG

 

must be consumed with Ketchup

 

Will still have brown sauce EVERY time.

[hardtailstar]

I took the time off but thinking I shouldn't of done as the first two days back are going to be hetic trying to catch up on work and deal with post Xmas issues

[MartinT]

I'm in this morning - the only person here although I'm expecting someone else later. Think we'll enjoy a coffee and wrap up around midday.

[elsiegee40]

Back in the olden days, when I was supporting mainframe, we had to have people in the office on support until the London insurance market officially closed at 4pm. So everyone else would leave at noon and one of us from each support area would take the short straw and have to stay until 4pm which was the earliest the operators could kick off the backups and batch runs... there was always a risk we would have to return if the batch runs failed, but it didn't happen on my Christmas Eves thank goodness.

 

We generally rerouted all the phones to the operators' rest room and spent the afternoon playing cards in there. It was very unusual to see any users logged into the mainframe after 11am. Mobile phones and remote login have completely changed support these days!

[chazzy2501]

I'm here, got some recycling people in and a service for a my new dead server! ((I've brought my electric scooter in so I can whizz around the school!

[mikeprice]

Back in the olden days, when I was supporting mainframe, we had to have people in the office on support until the London insurance market officially closed at 4pm. So everyone else would leave at noon and one of us from each support area would take the short straw and have to stay until 4pm which was the earliest the operators could kick off the backups and batch runs... there was always a risk we would have to return if the batch runs failed, but it didn't happen on my Christmas Eves thank goodness.

 

We generally rerouted all the phones to the operators' rest room and spent the afternoon playing cards in there. It was very unusual to see any users logged into the mainframe after 11am. Mobile phones and remote login have completely changed support these days!

 

Back in the old days we were in work until 12:30 every Christmas Eve - every department in the company was basically just having a party - except the IT dept. who had to work and support the computer systems. They were always running weird schedules and on different days than the real day - due to bank holidays etc - so they always needed some help.

 

Then we went to the pub - there was one bloke who always came to the pub for the afternoon - which was strange because he never socialised outside work at any other time.

Until one year when someone answered the team phone at about 1 p.m. - it was his wife - who was surprised he wasn;t there as she had no idea we always had the afternoons off

 

Never saw him out of a Christmas Eve again

[tg12]

Been told we’re getting kicked out later than I expected. 2pm! However, just remembered there’s a Dell engineer due in this morning to replace the system board in our VRTX, so I’m now hurrying around turning off all the servers

[MunkySpanner]

I should be in this week as I don't have any annual leave left (used up on wedding, honeymoon etc.), however, managed to get approval to work from home. Currently sat at the wife's place of work as she has to be in today and she's the only one in the office. Thought i'd give her some company. Hoping to build up a load of good karma for next year as it's the only thing keeping our aging network running!

[Jamman960]

Typical... our NAS got bored last night and decided stop passing traffic

 

Had to pop in and revive everything this morning, all went well until the exchange server decided to throw a wobbly because an ad servers time was out of sync

 

Now back home looking after the kids and OH who got admitted to hospital with suspected meningitis on Friday then got released late on Xmas eve thankfully.

[matt40k]

Oh noes!!! Hope your partner gets better soon, good news they weren't in over xmas! Not what you want to hear, but this is why Office365\Google Apps for the win - one less thing you have to worry about, because everything breaks at the same time!

[Jamman960]

Thanks Matt, she's getting better every day at the mo thankfully

 

I'm planning to move over to 365 during the summer with Exchange 2010 going EOL next Jan, I've held off going too far into the cloud until we have a leased line in place(134 working days and counting... Openreach ). I kind of like looking after Exchange/onprem servers... when they're not interrupting my holiday!

Edited December 27, 2018 by Jamman960

[matt40k]

Hate waiting for suppliers! Have you looked at Virgin or someone else - seems to be some good feedback on here - like: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/general-chat/202571-well-done-virgin-broadband.html

[Jamman960]

We're too far along with the installation unfortunately, we've paid excess construction charges so now its just a waiting game with Openreach, they're having to dig up the pavement to clear ducts along half the length of the road, being so close to a school () they're having to do it during weekends/hols. As ever with Openreach the whole thing is far from painless - only last week we had them claim all civils were complete while further works were clearly planned on roadworks.org. We're now looking at mid January at the very earliest for a circuit which was originally estimated to be installed ready for September.

[matt40k]

:'( Just hope they don't dig up the road and cut the cable once its connected!!

[forkies]

Had an emergency call out at 6.15am on Christmas Eve for a fire alarm. Turned up to be a hot water system pipe came apart at a fitting above the ceiling. Spent 5 hours dealing with the aftermath before calling it a day. Now all my backups are failing, looks like I will be dialling in tomorrow to investigate that.

[DrBeaker]

Had an emergency call out at 6.15am on Christmas Eve for a fire alarm. Turned up to be a hot water system pipe came apart at a fitting above the ceiling. Spent 5 hours dealing with the aftermath before calling it a day. Now all my backups are failing, looks like I will be dialling in tomorrow to investigate that.

 

 

Can I ask why IT is having to respond to fire alarms? Is that not a site/caretakers issue?

[matt40k]

...Because servers aren't fire proof?

[newpersn]

This time last year I was on call. Our site manager was off ill. I responded to fire alarm call at 330 in the morning. False alarm. Bad sensor.

 

Anyway.. better get back to topic.

 

Not In work. But doing windows updates on 1 of my sites. And keeping an eye on emails.

[forkies]

Can I ask why IT is having to respond to fire alarms? Is that not a site/caretakers issue?

 

I manage the fire alarm system, because apparently it falls under “systems” in my job title “IT, network and systems manager”.

 

The on-site site controller attended the initial fire alarm but couldn’t find the detector that had activated, we have recently renamed the whole school, having renamed everything on the fire panel too.

 

He called me out, and good he did otherwise would have had it leaking for almost two weeks unnoticed. While I was there waiting for a plumber I went through the basics of the fire panel again and reminded him about the zone chart which is pretty well broken down into over 40 zones now.

 

On a side note, I am second closest person to the site, so I am number 2 on the emergency call list anyway. I work very closely with the site team on a management level, with that and the fact IT manage most of the site systems now anyway it makes sense. A good bit of overtime pay at least!

[forkies]

...Because servers aren't fire proof?

 

Luckily the servers are in a different building altogether [emoji6]

[matt40k]

Luckily the servers are in a different building altogether [emoji6]

 

Phew!

 

PS: I had visions of British fire going - oh no, we can't spread between buildings, we don't allow open migration to other buildings.

 

PPS: I really need to book next Christmas\New Year off