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Bonus post. I appreciate everyone's kind words, so here's a second part for today.

Monday night Steph's workstation wouldn't boot so I investigated it. Turns out somehow the motherboard power cable became unseated. I've never seen that happen naturally, but it's possible. It's also possible that she was looking to take RAM for her home machine.

Mental note: Inventory serial numbers of all hardware in case of theft

When I got back to my office Monday night I had a new email from Jeff saying that the RAM I pulled had been earmarked for something else and that I needed to get it back. Fair enough, I didn't ask before giving it to Tammy. So I shot an email off to her asking her to bring her laptop into my office on Tuesday and then left for the night.

Tuesday morning I was dragging ass, so I stopped and grabbed a Monster Absolute Zero and sat in my office thankful that there wasn't a new box of laptops to repair. after 10 minutes Tammy barges in my office

Tammy: What do you mean you have to take the computer memory back?

Me: It was supposed to go to another project and it wasn't mine to give you. I can give you the original 1GB and put in a request to get you bumped up to 2GB.

It was obvious at this point she had come to my office without the laptop.

Me: Can you go grab your laptop? I'm really really sorry about this

And with an exaggerated sigh she left and returned a few minutes later with her laptop. I swapped the RAM out and handed it back to her. As she was leaving she decided to get the last word in

Tammy: This is SO unfair!

Me: Do you know what the company does here?

Tammy: Talk to Jeff

She said as she was walking out. I send an email to Jeff letting him know I was able to get the RAM back and tossed it on my desk.

From: Jeff

To: Pavix

Subject: RE: Tammy

Just leave it on your desk. I'll grab it later.

I check the shared mailbox, there's a new email

From: Liz

To: shISMbox

Subject: Acrobat Pro licensing

I have Acrobat Reader. Can you get me Pro?

I forward it to Jeff since I don't know what system they use for tracking licenses in the company. I decided to take this opportunity to wander around the building to see if I can find where the servers are housed. With the fiasco that happened last time I was in the Restricted room I decided to stay out of there for the time being. I found over a dozen offices down hallways, and various restrooms. Then I saw it, A steel door. They use those when there's a fire risk to protect the rest of the building. This must be it. I open the door and it's arctic in there. Now I feel like I should explain, I'm normally ok with cold weather. I actually prefer it. When it's 30° F I'm not wearing a coat. You'd actually be hard pressed to find me wearing a coat at any point during an Iowa winter. So when I say it's artic, it's VERY cold.

And it becomes apparent why, in the back are 2 giant AC units pumping cold air into this tiny room. There's not much in here, a pair of 13U telecom racks, a set of switches, a router and about a dozen servers. Why would they put so much cooling in this room? At least they have hostnames for the servers on stickers. I take out my phone, grab pics for later documentation of the infrastructure. I leave and Jeff is walking down the hall

Jeff: There you are. We thought you got lost

Me: Nope, but I did find the server room

Jeff: Great. You'll need to know where it is in case anything crashes.

Me: So why is it so cold in there?

Jeff: It's to cool the farm

Me: The farm?

Jeff: That's what we call that room with all the machines

Me: Umm...how is cooling this room helping that room?

Jeff: Jen said that most rooms have a "return air" vent. She said that if we route that return air vent to the farm that it will cool it

Me: ...........

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