Fixed It!
I used to work for a global telecoms company as part of the European Third Line team. The company was massive. Offices in every capital city in the world, offices in most major cities in most countries. 120 000 desktops worldwide - and a shit load of NT4 Servers. Looking after the servers and domains was my teams job. The desktops could go fuck themselves.

The global setup was interesting. There were three call-centres. America - covering North and South America and Caribbean, Asia-Pac, based in Melbourne covering Australasia and Asia and Europe which covered as far as Reykjavik to the West, Moscow to the East, the Middle-East, Europe and all of Africa. If any server went down in the "Europe" area, we were the boys to fix it.

We also had a "follow the Sun" policy where for 8 hours, Europe would be in charge of the global network, 8 hours later, America would take over and 8 hours after that, it was the Ozzies turn.

When I first started there I was quite excited about the scope for global travel. At work, I kept a bag under my desk packed with a weeks worth of clothes and toiletries. In my desk drawer was my passport and my company Amex card. I was fucking dying to use that beauty.

So, the first day I started there I was told that I was on-call for the month. I had to be ready to drop everything and set-off at a moments notice to anywhere in our "Europe" patch. All travel arrangements would be managed by our in-house travel team. They would arrange flights, transfers, visas, hotels etc. All I had to do was grab my kit and head for the door. Very exciting. Very Jet Set.

In my first week, a call came in, server down in Moscow. This was it! I rang a cab and headed for the door. My boss was liaising with travel who'd book the tickets and call me and tell me what flight I was on and text me the rest of the details. I was off.

Moscow!! I couldn't believe it. Red Square. The Kremlin. The Bolshoi Ballet. This was going to be great.

Cab arrived, I jumped in and was off to Heathrow. We were just pulling in to Terminal 1 and my pager went off. This would be the travel details. Scrolling across the pager screen was:

"Fixed It. Come Back"

Tail between my legs I asked the cabbie to take me back to base....Curses!!

The next three weeks were like that. I was called out about 12 times. A couple of times in the middle of the night. I never got further than the bloody airport. Once, we were actually boarding when my pager went off - "Fixed it. Come back..."

The cherry on the cake was a callout to Barcelona. This time I actually made it onto the plane. We took off and landed in sunny Barcelona at about 8pm and I headed to my hotel where I'd meet a local contact and he'd take me to site. At last! Exotic travel in far-flung places. I'd fix the server, do a bit of sight-seeing and stay a couple of nights - had to make sure it didn't fall over again. A bit of vino, a bit of chatting up the local señoritas. This was more like it.

I got a cab to the hotel. Rocked up to reception and asked to check-in when the receptionist handed me a note. I opened it....

"Fixed it. Come back..."


Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Sat 16 Jul 2011, 8:59, 7 replies)

An IT tech friend of mine feels your pain.
13-hour trip to Spain (would have been a lot quicker but his company refused to shell out for any faster form of transport).
Half an hour on site.
13-hour trip straight back again.
No sleep.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Sat 16 Jul 2011, 9:35, closed)

You (un)lucky bastard.

(boozehound is drinking your bar dry, Sat 16 Jul 2011, 9:41, closed)

Sucks to be you, poor bastard. Mind you, Moscow is ratpoo.
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Sat 16 Jul 2011, 9:49, closed)

Twunts! I'd always allow a few hours on the ground before the engineers had to head back.
And if we set up everything, the tickets at that point were not refundable so they'd usually go, and take care of the odd maintenance tasks that are always needed.

This was only in the state of Hawaii, mind you, so it wasn't exactly exotic.... well. sorry.

We did enjoy their tales of mad drives up the coast to see waterfalls and lava flows before speeding to the airport to head home.
( kila is reading clocks upside-down as usual, Sat 16 Jul 2011, 10:02, closed)

To Be Fair
I did eventually get to see a fair number of countries and cities. And the team, with the exception of the team-leader who was a red-neck, lazy cunt, were magic people to work with. Work was normally a joy.

And once I'd settled in and got down to do some real travelling, the boss would always lets us stay over a an extra night or so. And we got to take the local "eyes and hands" - non-techies who we'd sometimes use to talk them through things form base - out on the piss on the company Amex.

Good days...

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Sat 16 Jul 2011, 10:21, closed)

I like this
So I'm going to click the 'I like this!' button once I've finished typing this.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Sat 16 Jul 2011, 12:53, closed)

On the converse
My mate works as a turbine engineer for Siemens, on power stations.

He got called from his UK base to Galveston, Texas and took his time, assuming it was a routine job.

When he arrived the turbine was bouncing about on it's bearing casings and the station was about 24 hours from meltdown...
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Sat 16 Jul 2011, 18:23, closed)