Current frustration...

[icecream-guy]

In vendorland, no one can hear you scream when you're on mute. But you gotta take the meetings when the customers call for them unless it's 100% not doable. When I'm dealing with good customers who need help quickly, I am flexible. We also tend to have an agenda like "finish the stuff we were working on yesterday", which helps to keep things on track.

Yesterday is less than today if you use yyyymmdd format. 20200901 is yesterday and that is less than today, 20200902. I use yyyymmdd format in the titles of all my time-sensitive documents.

now if we all  could only agree on using 3 digit IPV4 addressing scheme
192.168.001.010  so the IP's can sort properly in a spreadsheet.

[deanwebb]

now if we all  could only agree on using 3 digit IPV4 addressing scheme
192.168.001.010  so the IP's can sort properly in a spreadsheet.

[icecream-guy]

todays frustration is a list of problem that I have no solution to,
e.g.

customer says its a network or routing issue, since they are unable to access database after 2 or 3 successful connections
swear it is not a application issue, since no issues in another data center for same application

one of my firewalls, management interface went unreachable in middle of night, port flaps, and device cannot be managed except oob why?  i think its optics,  but 60 mile drive to replace some unknown optic and TAC engineer took 24 hours to get back to me. I am trying to determine a way in fx-os to determine installed optic type. so I know what I need to bring and not waste a trip.




I can go on.....

[Otanx]

Thanks Dean. That actually makes sense. The funny thing is I do the same thing with my files, but never correlated that to ><. One of my coworkers also mentioned Unix Epoch. Newer time has more seconds than older time so it is greater. The best part was I went to show my coworker what I did, and when I ran the code it bombed out. They patched the system Tuesday night and changed how the date is reported. It was a text string as YYYY-MM-DD, and now it is returned as a HEX String. 30 minutes of converting Hex to Int to String, and a quick if statement to figure out if I have to do hex conversion, and I made it work again.

Maybe not your problem ristau, but we had an issue with an application and database. The application would open a session with the database server. It would use that connection for all look ups. However, if nobody was using the application there was no traffic. The firewall would timeout the TCP session after four hours of 0 bytes. Usually around midnight. Then in the morning the application would bomb, and they had to restart it. Nobody ever coded in a recovery for a failed database connection. We ended up having to change the idle TCP timeout on the firewall to something like 96 hours so it wouldn't die over long weekends. I tried to get them to just setup a database check to do tests every 15 minutes, but they wouldn't go for it.

-Otanx

[deanwebb]

Wow. Actually having a customer argue with the DC guys because we're asking for a 1G copper interface and they want us to use a 10G fiber interface. We can do that no problem, but the customer then has to order 10G cabling if they go that route.

[wintermute000]

whats cabling, i thought that we cloud all the things

[config t]

Layer 1? It's like Layer 2, right? It just magically works.

[Otanx]

Layer 2? Is that like Layer 3? It just magically works. Wait what do we pay you network people for? Everything just works.... Only funny because it's true.

-Otanx

[config t]

Till that dual hub DMPVN single cloud overlay on top of a SATCOM MRT mesh network faults during the failover test. 

I was a champion today. Not gonna lie though.. I totally forgot that the timers on RIP are just updates and not route flaps

Days like today are when I'm reminded that I love this business.

[deanwebb]

I think I'll just start telling everyone to not worry about cables, just cloud it.

[config t]

For government contractors it has become a pattern for me to see situations where they pay 4 guys the same and 1-2 will actually have enough knowledge to do the work while the rest freeload with zero intent to learn but have big mouths when it comes to sounding off about how long they have been professionals.

In our case it became apparent today that only one guy has the knowledge while 3 others freeload. I heard him on the phone today describing the difference between exec, priv exec, and global configuration modes, as well as point out that the "shiny thing plugged into one of the holes on the right side of the switch" was an SFP, and attempt to get the guy to describe the shape of the fiber interface since he had no idea what SC, LC and FC even means.

Don't get me wrong. I understand that we all start somewhere. But these guys have been there 1 year plus. One of them has been there for over 4 years and couldn't describe the WAN if he tried. The minimum requirement for the job is allegedly 5 years experience.

[deanwebb]

I have a customer that has trouble with numbers bigger than 2.

No lie, as soon as we hit 3 or 4 of something, the arguments start and the confusion sets in.

[icecream-guy]

customer: we need a new VPN to Azure

Requester:   (Friday) Dave, we need you to work on this project.

Me: what are the requirements.

Requester: we need to do this next Saturday.

Me:  No, I need dest networks IP's, transit networks IP's, security policy, etc.

Requester:  No issue, I requested you build a new firewall context, should be a clean slate, just create a blank CR and
                  you can work the details later

Requester:  I need this on Monday so we can push to tech review asap.

Me:  I can't build 2 entire firewall contexts configurations in a day. especially with no security policy direction

,,..so usually it's a 3-4 week process,  engineering review board should have been last week. tech review board yesterday.
approval tomorrow, for it to go off next Saturday.  nobody has reviewed CR

Routing engineer:  Can you push CR to Technical Review?

Me:  NO CR is incomplete, it will be rejected,  finish up CM with missing information and I will push to tech review

PM: Dave, can you finish up configs today (Tue afternoon)

Me: Did this morning.

i dont know how this will fit into the normal process without going emergency, then with end of fiscal year....

never pushed CR .


Arrrrrgh...... customer wants it implemented Saturday must have

[icecream-guy]

windows 1903 update forced on me after lockup and hard reboot
at least I am up and running again

[deanwebb]

Mideast time zones... their early is too late and their late can often be too early...