Hairball Thursday.

I missed the page. It was at 10:10 as we were getting ready for bed. We had just settled in for sleep when the phone rang. It was the data center at work. There was a server I don't really deal with having issues. I was trying hard to process what they were saying but it was difficult. Files being FTP'ed, test systems, price files, one of the "touchier" applications. In the end I decided to head downtown.

I got there the server in question was hung up on a reboot. My first thought was that it just wasn't coming back. I went and checked that the price files did what they were supposed to. I rebooted a machine that I figured could use it (and didn't have jobs running). I talked on the phone to the folks who called me. I looked at the original server and lo and behold it was up!

I checked some other systems then I went home. Back in bed by midnight no problem. Except that at 1:30 the phone rang again. They said the system that I was worried about hadn't run. I basically said it was too early to worry and blew them off. I did worry, though. I really had 2 choices blow them off or go into work - lots of people have remote access, but I am not one of them.

I finally drifted back to an uneasy sleep. At 3:45 the boy walked in. He'd had a nightmare. "I was in school then it was madness" he said. I hugged him and took him back to bed. I layed in bed and worried about that job, did it run?

By morning I got up in full panic mode about whether the job ran. I was making myself sick. When I got in I discovered that it was well founded panic. The machine had rebooted mid-job and it just ended no errors no indication of anything. I started it back up and waited. I got one inquiry from the main data validator that I was sure would be angry. I told her it what happened and that I should have come in when they called. I got a call from a non-technical person that got a call at 4 am. If they'd called me then I would have come in to work. But that was it. I caught far less flack than the last time when it wasn't my fault at all and I hadn't even been called.

So I screwed up. No one seems to be getting the hint that I need remote access. Plus I'm really tired. It's been one big honking mess. The entry title came from the funny pages today - it just seemed to fit.