Techie was given strict instructions not to disrupt client. Then he touched one box and the lights went out
On Call Welcome to another instalment of On Call, The Register's weekly reader-contributed column that tells tales of times when tech support turned troublesome.
This week, we're again sharing a story from "Kent," who last week told us how a client held him hostage.
This week, a client held him responsible for something he didn't do.
"I was contracted to modernize a live-testing center – the sort that runs high-stakes exams," Kent explained. "These are places where silence is sacred and panic spreads faster than Wi-Fi."
Kent told us the site had four testing halls, two of which were in use when he arrived.
"My remit was comprehensive: new desktops, new servers, new switches, and new UPS systems for the two unused testing halls … without interrupting the tests in the other rooms."
"The production servers were on their own UPS stack, isolated and left untouched until cutover," Kent explained. That arrangement meant the job went smoothly and he upgraded one of the testing halls without incident.
Kent moved to work on the second unused room and reached the moment when it was time to plug the UPS into mains power.
"The very instant the plug seated, the building went completely dark," he wrote.
Proctors soon emerged from the two exam halls that were in use and demanded Kent explain what he had just done, because he had clearly ruined Very Important Exams.
Because the kit Kent was working on connected to a UPS, he was able to determine they were all working perfectly. The building's network was fine, too. But every other electrical appliance or light in the building was dead.
Kent stepped outside to call his dispatcher and was comforted to see the entire street was dark.
"It was not my UPS. It was a beautifully timed, utterly ordinary grid failure."
But because Kent had been doing something to do with electricity, he was prime suspect.
A few minutes later, the grid returned to action, the building flickered back into life, and the exam proctors decided tests could continue.
"For the remainder of the project, I was watched very closely whenever I approached a power cable," Kent told On Call, before making a little declaration.
"I would like to state for the record that while I can replace servers and re-rack UPS units, I do not yet possess the ability to take down municipal power grids on contact."
"It was simply a badly timed, run-of-the-mill, trousers-tightening power failure."
Has a coincidence put you in the frame to wear the blame for an outage? If so, click here to tell us your tale so we can share it on a future Friday. ®
