Posted on: March 6th, 2010 You’re not even supposed to be here today
Yeahyeahyeah it’s been a long time without a post blah blah, fuck yourself.
Downtown Atlanta, office building, security guards, work after-hours.
Mix well and add 5 hours on the phone with IT people that don’t have fucking idea one about what they’re doing.
That is how you make a fucking retarded evening at work. Allow me to explain further.
The job starts at 5 p.m. EST. I arrive a little bit early to make sure I’ve got everything I need in the office space and all the people that need to know I’m there… know I’m there. The loading dock security guard approaches my vehicle.
“What are you here for?”
“I’m working in the building this evening, they’ve got me scheduled from (looking at paperwork) 5:00 till 11:00″
“Does building management know you’re coming?”
“I honestly don’t know, they should?”
“Go to the front security desk in the lobby, and talk to them”
“What about this gate over here, what time do they lock that up? I may be here late and I don’t want to get stuck in here”
“Nine o’clock”
“Ok, thanks”
I get out of my van, grab what tools I think I’ll need and head to the front security desk in the lobby. There’s a small African (from Africa) gentleman sitting at the desk. He seems eager to assist to me…. I explain what the guard at the dock told me and he picks up the phone and starts calling folks. I forgot to mention that this was a Friday and it was on the edge of 5:00 p.m. sooooo… not a lot of people at their desks, more like people in/on their way to their cars to get the fuck out. So of course no one is answering their goddamned phones and I end up standing there at the security desk for around 10 minutes.
Finally he gets someone on the phone and they tell him to tell me to meet them on the 6th floor. I ride the elevator to the 6th floor and stand in the elevator lobby for 2 or 3 minutes and no one shows up. The office I’m to be working in is on the 7th floor, so I head up there and attempt to go into the suite.
The fucking door is locked, I knock on the door… no one answers. Time for phone calls! I call the people I’m doing the work for, and then those people called some other fucking people…. and finally I find out that the dude who is supposed to be in the office has run out to do a quick errand and will return at 5 to let me in.
Fine, very good. I’ll just sit out here in the hall and fuck around with my Droid (DROID!). Everything is fine and good, I’m fucking facebooking and texting my wife about the ridiculous bullshit, when another security guard arrives on the scene.
“So they sorted everything out?”
“I guess, the guy at the front desk told me to come up here”
“They want to talk to you on the sixth floor”
“Who?”
“Building management”
“Oh ok…”
I follow him to the 6th floor and into an office where a woman is on her way out. She informs me that the tenant I’m trying to work for has no insurance hoo-ha on file and thus I cannot do any work in the building. I am to fuck off immediately.
I am then escorted from the building by the security guard.
Time for more fucking phone calls!
My contact is all “WHAT THE FUCK?!” not in those words, but similarly confused and irritated. So she makes calls and I sit in my work conveyance waiting to hear back. The site contact gets back from his errands and he sneaks me back into the building and into his office. Now… he’s supposed to stay with me until the fucking job is done. He did not, however, in fact we weren’t in the office 5 minutes and he was out the fucking door.
In a situation like the one we had going on… you’d figure he’d be fucking smart enough to realize that I was in at least a little bit of danger. He couldn’t be fucking bothered though, big man fucking stock broker type. I believe I’ve posted about my utter fucking abhorrence of those types. Fucking cocknecked faggot summummabitches.
Fuck that guy. I’m sure he’ll get, at the very least, a stern talking to at the end of this bullshit.
Allow me to continue!
I am to call into a conference bridge (stupid name for a conference call), which I do. The people that are already on it are aware of the bullshit I’ve had to deal with to be in there and they let me know that it’ll be 15-20 minutes until they really need me to do anything, so I sit down in conference close to the server room I’ll be working in.
An hour later they ask me to go turn something off, so I do it, no problem. I can fucking flick a switch on and off with the best of them.
Another hour goes by and they ask me to unplug one thing and plug it into another. Yes! Progress! I may make it out of here before the cops get here to arrest me for trespassing! Hu-fucking-zzah!
Move this to here, move that to there. More IT folks talking to themselves. I can’t tell if the one is French or Indian, maybe both.
“I’ve gotta take my daughter to ballet class”
“….” (me)
More sitting, more waiting. New guy joins the call. This guy KNOWS what the fuck he’s doing, he’s making changes to this fucking router and that fucking switch. He’s doing it, and it’s looking like I may just get out of here before they lock up that goddamned gate and I have to go to the security desk in the lobby and get them to unlock it for me. Keep in mind, I’m not supposed to be in the building.
We’re working through this shit, making real progress. I’m moving all of the connections over from the old shit to the new shit. Then they tell me I’ve got a new piece of equipment to put in the server cabinet. I unbox it, set it in the cabinet and power it up, I move the connections to it as they tell me and it’s looking good. Then the shit hits the fan! French Indian forgot to configure some hoo-ha in this equipment a few months back before it was shipped to the site and they can’t do whatever the fuck it is that they need to do with it. It’s not looking so good for finishing this shit anytime soon, if at all.
The guy who knows how to get shit done says.
“Start undoing everything”
“Ok” I respond.
So I go about putting everything back the way it was. It doesn’t take long at all since it was really only turning 2 things off, and moving 3 connections.
- Flip Switch
- Flip Switch
- Unplug cable from new jobber, plug into old jobber
- Unplug cable from new hoo-ha, plug into old hoo-ha
- Unplug cable between two new things, plug back into old things.
- Done.
The guy who knows how to get shit done tells me he’s sorry for wasting my time and asks me:
“If we need to get you back out there tomorrow or Monday, will that be a problem?”
He’s the newest to the call, so I go about explaining how it came to pass that I was in the office that evening.
“Oh..” he said “well, we’ll get all of that worked out before we need you to come back”
“Ok” I said “have a good night”
It’s over. Done. I spent 5+ hours on the phone, pacing the office, sitting around… all for nothing. Not a goodamned thing was accomplished. That’s fine though, it all pays the fucking same.
Now to get out of the building. It’s 10 o’clock, and as I’ve been lead to believe the gate out of the parking lot will be locked, I reluctantly head to the lobby to see the security guard at the desk.
I’m hoping there’s been a shift-change and the guard at the desk will not recognize me.
No such luck.
It’s the very same guy that walked me out of the building after I was told I was not allowed to work in the building.
His fucking jaw hits the floor.
“No one from building management is here to approve you to work here, why did you come back?”
I allow a little smirk to sneak across my face.
“Come back? I never left!”
“You never left?” He said, showing signs of confusion and a little bit of anger.
“Yeah, my contacts said that they had cleared everything with the building”
I hand him the insurance info shit that was faxed to the office.
“You’re going to make me do this, aren’t you?”
“Do what?” I ask, as his hand reaches towards the phone… I assume to call the police… he stops short and picks up a notepad and pen.
“You’re going to make me write”
“I’m not trying to make you do anything”
So he makes a little report, asking me for my name and my contacts name. I’ll throw that motherfucker under the bus in a goddamned heartbeat. Leave me here alone will you? You’ll pay!
Ten minutes later I’m on my way to my vehicle, relieved to be done with that shit and on my way home.
I pass through the final door and I’m outside. The African guard from earlier is walking back into the building.
“Excuse me” he says “were you cleared to work in this building?”
“I’ve already done the work, and I’ve already had this very same conversation with the guy at the front desk. Good night”
The most adventurous night at work ever.
First post of 2010. It’s only March…. hahahahahaha.