The Weekend

By fletch Monday, March 30th, 2009

DESPITE being on-call this weekend it was nice to have one spent entirely in London with no tasks to complete or events to attend. I’m quite happy bumbling around the flat doing a bit of washing or something equally mundane – it wouldn’t suit all the time of course, but occasionally it’s nice. I even had time for a haircut!

Fletch gets a haircut - London loses a tourist attraction.

That’s the thing with a job in network support, on-call work usually comes as part of the job and it can be a bit of a roller coaster.

When you’re on your own and you’re dropped in the shite at 4AM: “All the TV channels have gone off air!” it can be quite exciting because even though it’s pressured, you’re making a difference – actually achieving something. These are the times you’re earning your money and it feels good.

The times when it’s horrible are when you get four or five tiny little issues that keep you awake the whole night. Not in themselves anything even worth mentioning but together, you get beaten down by grabbing 45minute slots of sleep here and there.

By far the worst bit is the unknown. Getting nervous because the phone hasn’t rung for two days, knowing that it must mean you’re in for a hell of a time when the phone actually does ring. Sometimes I’ll wake up and think “fuuuck, I must have missed a call!!” and ring my own phone up to check it’s working.

Can’t be good for the system all that stress.

Support sucks because you never ever complete anything. You can never go “There, that’s repaired! Fixed forever!” because there’s always some bastard ready to upgrade it, or change it to support a new application and then all your hard work is out of the window. The list just grows and you can never get to the end of it.

Anyhow, now begins my five weeks of relative normality – some other poor bastard in the team is on schedule for a week and I know they’re feeling the same way I felt last Monday. Swings and roundabouts, luckily for me though I’m on the up.

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Hello! Fletch.cx has been going since 1999 in one form or another, yep incredible, when will it end? For more of my bullshit see last.fm, lluckj.com, facebook and if you really want a constant avalanche of musings, observations and lies then follow me on twitter..