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My phone was failing authentication to my company email. I shot a text to Jeff letting him know I wasn't able to get into my email then headed to the warehouse. The 30 machines I built last night needed testing so I sat my laptop down, fired up winamp and took a heavy swig of Mt Dew. I was able to get all 30 tested within 2 hours and only 2 had bad hardware, both of them RAM. It appeared to be the same stock so I wrote down the stock numbers and replaced the RAM. I started building 4 at a time again and was able to get 20 built by lunch.

I decided that today was going to be a working lunch so I grabbed Caseys pizza and a bottle of Dew and worked through lunch. While building a computer I get a text from Jeff saying he'd like to see me at the office at 8am the next day before I head to the warehouse. Huh. I had my suspicions of what was going on but I wanted to confirm so I stopped working for a moment and headed over to the new office I helped get going and I notice that the lock looks different. I try my key doesn't fit. I go inside and see Tom talking to Liz, Tammy and 2 other ladies

Tom: What are you doing over here?

Me: Oh, I just wanted to check something. I think I misconfigured one of the servers

Tom: I think Chris can take care of that later

Ignoring Tom I walk to the server closet and noticed THAT lock had been replaced as well. I try my key doesn't fit

As I was walking out to go back to the warehouse and build computers for the rest of the night I see Chris walking through the door.

Chris: Hey, I'm glad you're here. Do you have a sec?

Me: Sure, what's up?

Chris: After moving Liz's office she can't launch Word without it crashing.

Me: Strange. So let's see what you've done so far

Chris: Well, I'm not sure. I've never seen this before.

Me: Ok, lets start from square one. How is she launching the programs?

Chris: Well, she clicks these shortcuts

He points to the ones on her desktop

Me: Ok, it could be bad shortcuts. Have you had her try the ones in the start menu

I knew it wasn't bad shortcuts, but I wanted to walk him through analyzing the problem. It still crashed.

Me: Ok, so it's not the shortcut. Check %appdata%, delete everything to do with Word.

He works for a few minutes, has her try it and it loads normally.

Me: There you go. I've got to get back to building machines.

I head out with Chris still trying to figure out why it worked. I told him later of course. On my way back to the warehouse I get an angry text from Jeff basically instructing me to not go to any other locations without prior authorization. As I was walking through the warehouse there was pallets of laptops juxtaposition to each other and 4 guys going through and printing off shipping labels and boxing them individually. There must have been easily 100 laptops, I was curious but I had Alex yelling at me to get back to work so I didn't have time to stop and find out what they were doing.

Back in the office I turn on winamp and start working, getting back into rythym I had another 10 machines cranked out. I get a text from Chris asking me to meet him at the coffee shop near his office. I didn't have the time but I would make time for him. I duck out and meet Chris who was sitting at a table

Chris: Hey, glad you could make it

Me: No problem. What's going on?

Chris: So I saw the email you sent Jeff about your access. Sorry, I got my marching orders a couple days ago to pull your access.

Me: And the other day my phone wouldn't authenticate.....

Chris: I had to deactivate your AD account completely.

Me: Figured as much. You did what you were told, I have no animoisty towards you for that

Chris: So what are you going to do?

Me: Like a fat kid in dodgeball, I'm out. I'm just curious on how it's gonna play out.

Chris: You didn't leave me any shit to clean up, did you?

Me: Nope. Not my thing. And even if it was, I wouldn't do that to you.

Chris: Let me pay for lunch

Me: I've got to get back, but I'll take a bowl of Chicken Tortilla to go

I rush back to the warehouse and the guys have started 2 pallets with boxes that I can only assume contain the laptops that were previously on the pallet. It appeared they were taking the laptops, boxing them then stacking the boxes up. I start testing the 10 machines I built before grabbing lunch. They all test fine, I pile them up and start building again. I build 20, test them and fix whatever problems I find, then build another 20.

The only company I had was Alex peeking his head back to make sure I was still churning out machines which is fine by me because winamp has kept me company and being an introvert I prefer being left alone. It's midnight, I'm barely awake and there's stacks of dew bottles in the trash can. The last 20 machines have been built and Alex decided to sit with me tonight, thankfully he kept quiet as I worked and didn't complain as my music went from Disturbed to Garth Brooks to Michael Buble to Outkast. He helped test the last 5 boxes as I straightened up the empty boxes and packed away my gear.

Alex: Toss me another stick of RAM. This looks like it's from the same lot you told me about

Me: Here you go. Did you want me to stick around? I've got an early meeting in the AM

Alex: No, you can go. Thanks for your help the past couple of days.

Me: No sweat.

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