the dangers...

there are times when it really sucks to be on-call. and today, is one of those times. normally, when there is a problem and i am on-call, i'm at least awake, or at a point where waking up is a better idea for me than going back to sleep.

this morning however, is the exception to the rule. last night i actually managed to stay up past 1am for the first time in a while. and given the last few days where i have not seen midnight except thru the backs of my eyelids, i was feeling pretty good. i suppose i only have myself to blame for staying up late. but it's friday night. lots of people stay up late friday nights. anyways....

at 637am i wake up. i look over at my clock to see what time it is and go to roll over when i hear the pager go off. i think the vibrating of the pager is what woke me up, but it wasn't until the annoying alert went off (i have it set to mixed alert) that i realized i was in trouble. so, i stumble around for a few minutes, find my glasses, follow thru some of the morning rituals and then begin the process of finding out who has the audacity to page me this early in the morning.

turns out, it was JB (TC in SW) who managed to lock herself out. i believe the quote was:

"I am SO locked out right now, I can't get into anything"

so i checked, unlocked her and had her reboot her PC and imagine that. it all worked. she also commented that she thought this weekend was supposed to be really nice. i had to bite my tongue to keep from asking what rock she crawled out from under, but i was good. she apologized and we ended the call. i logged it, and looked thru our log briefly to see what the last few calls were for, saved my changes (we keep it in a fairly simple excel spreadsheet) and decided to check a few things before attempting bed.

unfortunately, bed, while warming up nicely in it, wasn't soothing enuff for my now partially functional brain, which was rather confused and wouldn't shut up. so, here i sit, ready for coffee, and tired, hoping that i'll get no more calls. at least i get paid for being on-call.

and in good news, i had my review yesterday. it went pretty well and i was pleased to discover that my boss is STILL pissed about the whole bonus fiasco where i am concerned. the current plan for the department looks to be to bring someone in late summer/early fall to help augment the laptop support side of things while i move into the network support/management side of things. i'll always have a hand in the laptops, but DH thinks (correctly) that i would find the network support/management to be a more interesting proposition. unfortunately, when it came to the question of what changes do i think need to be made, the bulk of the time was spent discussing the resident bull in the china shop and how to deal with her. (yes, i know bulls are male, and the trainwreck is female, but she is most certainly a bull in the china shop. the very expensive china shop. not the cheap ass wallymart china shop.)

so i was pleased with the end result, and i am going to make an effort to be a little more 'matter of fact' rather than let my emotions dictate some of my reactions, which is good advice. especially when it comes to bitchbull. i wonder how many names we have for her now....