Working the Weekend

For the better part of the last decade, I've worked at East Carolina University in the Information Technology & Computing Services department. It is hard for me to talk about my work. Typically, when I go into details about what I do, people's eyes tend to glaze over. So I don't talk about work much.

The simplest way to describe what I do is to compare it to the job of a 911 dispatcher. Your typical IT department is broken up into various teams that specialize in different aspects of the IT field. Some work on software, some on hardware, some on programming, some on data storage, some on networking, some on telecommunication, and so on. Pretty much the same way your emergency services break down into police, fire, paramedics, etc. So when something happens and one of those systems goes down, I'm the one who identifies the problem and contacts the appropriate response team.

Since there's no way to predict exactly when a problem might arise, our area has to be manned 24/7, which means that we have staff on hand on nights, weekends, and holidays. And while we thankfully don't rotate shifts anymore, in the interest of being fair, we still rotate weekends and holidays. So, every three weeks or so, I find myself working the weekend.

I feel like the last man on Earth sometimes.

A basic weekend at work for me goes like this:

Saturday:
07:00 - Pull into parking lot 30 minutes early.
07:10 - Convince myself to get out of the car and go inside.
07:13 - Load morning backup tape.
07:15 - Enter command center.
07:16 - Get shift turnover from 3rd shift employee on duty.
07:17 - Try not to get run over by 3rd shift employee fleeing the building like it's on fire.
07:18 - Make sure help desk call agent is active.
07:19 - Boot up antiquated laptop.
07:25 - Log into antiquated laptop.
07:30 - Check email and shift report.
07:32 - Check event logs for servers.
14:50 - Perform a walkthrough of the building.
15:25 - Submit shift report.
15:30 - Wonder where 2nd shift employee is.
15:35 - 2nd shift employee arrives.
15:36 - Pass on shift turnover.
15:45 - Go home.

Sunday:
See Saturday.

A typical weekend is very quiet. When nothing breaks, and no one has a reason to call into the help desk, I find myself with about eight hours to kill. While it may seem nice to essentially get paid to do nothing all day, that's not really the case. Since I have to stay alert, I can't really do anything too distracting, which more or less eliminates games, movies, and such from the list of things to do in my down time. So that pretty much leaves reading and browsing the web.

On a particularly dull weekend,
you can reach the end of the internet by 9:30.

Of course, then there's the weekends where things don't always go smoothly. The help desk phone ringing is not necessarily a bad thing. It breaks up the monotony of what can be an extremely long, boring day. Plus, the average call is usually a simple problem that can be corrected, such as a password reset. As for the rest...

Let's go back to the 911 dispatcher analogy. Your typical caller would be someone with a serious problem. Heart attacks, gunshots, robberies, etc. Then you start getting the calls that aren't really emergencies, stuff you wouldn't dispatch a unit to respond. Nasty paper cuts, sprained ankles and the like. We get those types of calls too.

The severity of a problem determines what I can do about it, the bigger the problem, the faster the response. If the network goes down, or a critical server crashes, I have an on-call list I can use to get someone working to restore everything. If the display cable on your monitor is messed up and everything has a yellowish tint, sadly, I cannot page someone to take a look at it. Some people understand that not everything is considered an emergency. Others, not so much.

Based on a real conversation.

Those who know me can all agree that to call me a patient person would be a lie. I once yelled at a baby for crying. But when dealing with the people on the help desk phone, I do maintain a professional demeanor, no matter how hostile the person may be on the phone.

Also based on a real conversation.

And no matter how much I want them to just get to the point.

You guessed it, based on a real conversation.

Oh, and in case you were wondering about the types of people who call 911 because McDonald's was out of chicken nuggets, or because their mailbox was looking at them funny? We get those too.

*sigh*