Had this really shitty day at work, last Friday of the year… my leg hurt (still don’t know why, I think it’s the footwear, but I’m not sure), had a lot of work that day (stayed overtime, not paid BTW). My wife calls me, says to pick up some things on my way home… OK. I walk home BTW, I live 30 minutes from where I work. I buy the stuff she asks… people from work start calling me, there’s problem, they can’t access some of the storages in the network… OK, I go back to work, walking on my busted leg, plus the stuff I got from the store. I get there, everything is working fine 😒… check the backbone switches, the storages, logs, it seemed like a glitch of some sort, a sync issue most probably. I start picking up my groceries and packing up to go home, shit happens again… OK, at least I’m not gone… it’s 8PM by now. My wife calls me to ask me where I am, I say I’m at work, she hangs up 🤦… now I gotta explain why I’m still there. OK, go to the server room, the problem is gone by now, inspect the logs again, same thing… at this point, I’m this close to plugging everything out of the wall and plugging it back in again… to make sure I just yank a few cables and not every single piece of equipment in the rack (in case I decide to do this), I start inspecting how everything is connected, power cable wise. So, I pull out the backbone switches from the racks, one by one, and I start hearing this buzzing sound, like a bad electrical connection/plug… mhm, OK, I think we might be getting to the root of the problem, now let’s see which one is it. I go to the back, start checking each plug on the back… everything seems OK… OK, so it’s not the power plugs… at least not on the switch’es side. Something’s still buzzing, so I try and pinpoint the sound. Seems to be coming from the lower part of the rack… darn, have to pull everything out to get in there. It’s 10PM by now. So, I pull everything out and I notice 2 power cables not in plugs, but just connected with wires to another cable that goes into a plug. Why would they do that. Sure, they were insulated with tape, but why not just plug them in. Go in a bit further to hear of the sound is coming from there, move the cables a bit, the buzzing stops, but I hear coolers spinning down… OK, I pull myself out of there, go back to the front of the rack, sure enough, one of the backbone switches is down. As it turns out, they didn’t have enough free plugs in the rack fora all of the equipment, so instead of installing a new extension cord, they just cut 1 power cable, mad e a Y splitter for 2 of the switches and just plugged that cable in. Basically, there is no way of getting one of the switches offline, if you yank that thing out, 2 go offline. I pull out a few new power cables, get an extension cord from my office (we have a few laying around), plug those 2 the way they should be plugged, plug in the extension cord in the first empty power plug I could find in another rack, put the equpment back in the rack, leave the rack open cuz of the extension cord going to another rack and (finally!) leave work to go home, on my busted leg, with a shit ton of groceries… it’s 11:30PM by now. I get home, get the 3rd degree for arriving so late on a Friday before NYE… I go to bed, my wife says she want’s a backrub… I told her to suck it, left the bedroom and went to sleep in the living room.
That kind of work / life balance will cost you your marriage and health, and you do not seem to realize how it impacts your life partner at all. How do you expect her to understand and support you when you don’t let her in on your situation when she calls?
In my defence, she hung up when she called. I would have explained, but she never gave me a chance. Same thing happened at home. I got yelled at before I had a chance to explain.
My job requires this from me sometimes. Things like this don’t happen often, but they do happen from time to time (once in a few months). She knows this. I could switch jobs, but I do this because the pay is not bad (could be worse) and I’m usually free after work (no late night calls, or maybe a few in a year, that’s it) so I can spend more time with my son, rather than making money. It’s a choice I made for reasons that are out of the scope of this reply and I would rather not get into that.
That series of events really really sucks and I’m sorry that it all went wrong for you at the worst possible time.
I understand your wife could have been more understanding about the situation and put herself in your shoes to empathise more, but maybe it would be worth trying to see her perspective as well. It’s not too late to make up and start 2024 on the right foot (no pun intended), with a little humility on both sides.
Yeah yeah, we had a conversation the next day… about half a day in, she was still pissed, so I waited. Still, we smoothed things out. She had no idea my leg hurt, I usually don’t bother people with my problems (I may tell, but only if someone asks), so she had no idea how things went down… she just spew everything out that night and I couldn’t even say a word. She said she was sorry, she could have handled it better, she was empathetic when I told her the whole thing… so, no harm no faul, we’re good now ☺️.
Had this really shitty day at work, last Friday of the year… my leg hurt (still don’t know why, I think it’s the footwear, but I’m not sure), had a lot of work that day (stayed overtime, not paid BTW). My wife calls me, says to pick up some things on my way home… OK. I walk home BTW, I live 30 minutes from where I work. I buy the stuff she asks… people from work start calling me, there’s problem, they can’t access some of the storages in the network… OK, I go back to work, walking on my busted leg, plus the stuff I got from the store. I get there, everything is working fine 😒… check the backbone switches, the storages, logs, it seemed like a glitch of some sort, a sync issue most probably. I start picking up my groceries and packing up to go home, shit happens again… OK, at least I’m not gone… it’s 8PM by now. My wife calls me to ask me where I am, I say I’m at work, she hangs up 🤦… now I gotta explain why I’m still there. OK, go to the server room, the problem is gone by now, inspect the logs again, same thing… at this point, I’m this close to plugging everything out of the wall and plugging it back in again… to make sure I just yank a few cables and not every single piece of equipment in the rack (in case I decide to do this), I start inspecting how everything is connected, power cable wise. So, I pull out the backbone switches from the racks, one by one, and I start hearing this buzzing sound, like a bad electrical connection/plug… mhm, OK, I think we might be getting to the root of the problem, now let’s see which one is it. I go to the back, start checking each plug on the back… everything seems OK… OK, so it’s not the power plugs… at least not on the switch’es side. Something’s still buzzing, so I try and pinpoint the sound. Seems to be coming from the lower part of the rack… darn, have to pull everything out to get in there. It’s 10PM by now. So, I pull everything out and I notice 2 power cables not in plugs, but just connected with wires to another cable that goes into a plug. Why would they do that. Sure, they were insulated with tape, but why not just plug them in. Go in a bit further to hear of the sound is coming from there, move the cables a bit, the buzzing stops, but I hear coolers spinning down… OK, I pull myself out of there, go back to the front of the rack, sure enough, one of the backbone switches is down. As it turns out, they didn’t have enough free plugs in the rack fora all of the equipment, so instead of installing a new extension cord, they just cut 1 power cable, mad e a Y splitter for 2 of the switches and just plugged that cable in. Basically, there is no way of getting one of the switches offline, if you yank that thing out, 2 go offline. I pull out a few new power cables, get an extension cord from my office (we have a few laying around), plug those 2 the way they should be plugged, plug in the extension cord in the first empty power plug I could find in another rack, put the equpment back in the rack, leave the rack open cuz of the extension cord going to another rack and (finally!) leave work to go home, on my busted leg, with a shit ton of groceries… it’s 11:30PM by now. I get home, get the 3rd degree for arriving so late on a Friday before NYE… I go to bed, my wife says she want’s a backrub… I told her to suck it, left the bedroom and went to sleep in the living room.
That kind of work / life balance will cost you your marriage and health, and you do not seem to realize how it impacts your life partner at all. How do you expect her to understand and support you when you don’t let her in on your situation when she calls?
In my defence, she hung up when she called. I would have explained, but she never gave me a chance. Same thing happened at home. I got yelled at before I had a chance to explain.
My job requires this from me sometimes. Things like this don’t happen often, but they do happen from time to time (once in a few months). She knows this. I could switch jobs, but I do this because the pay is not bad (could be worse) and I’m usually free after work (no late night calls, or maybe a few in a year, that’s it) so I can spend more time with my son, rather than making money. It’s a choice I made for reasons that are out of the scope of this reply and I would rather not get into that.
That series of events really really sucks and I’m sorry that it all went wrong for you at the worst possible time.
I understand your wife could have been more understanding about the situation and put herself in your shoes to empathise more, but maybe it would be worth trying to see her perspective as well. It’s not too late to make up and start 2024 on the right foot (no pun intended), with a little humility on both sides.
Yeah yeah, we had a conversation the next day… about half a day in, she was still pissed, so I waited. Still, we smoothed things out. She had no idea my leg hurt, I usually don’t bother people with my problems (I may tell, but only if someone asks), so she had no idea how things went down… she just spew everything out that night and I couldn’t even say a word. She said she was sorry, she could have handled it better, she was empathetic when I told her the whole thing… so, no harm no faul, we’re good now ☺️.