Today Is: Waiting
Posted by James Wesson
I am waiting for things later in the day to happen, mostly. Meeting with people to set up calendar access for them to other people, although the first meeting for that may end up being about an iPhone instead (lack of communication in regards to exactly what that meeting is supposed to be about and the person I am communicating with about it is NOT the person I am meeting with); meeting with someone else to do the same thing for the same person; printer repair vendor is coming to take away a printer for a brief period of time for repair and leaving a spare which I hope will have postscript, otherwise my day will be very busy with phone calls to have people print from particular systems to different printers for such a short period of time that, ultimately, cost analysis would make it evident that it should not be done but the (perceived?) need for it may (perhaps) override the more reasonable action of not doing it.
Both my 10 AM and 11 AM were no shows for my meetings with them. I have emailed their assistant to request rescheduling.
I had a phone call with someone regarding the use of a "backup" printer for a specific kind of printer that is not, unfortunately, a simple set for setting up as backup. It is a complicated situation and the person's stance was that it wasn't and my job is that of a consultant in this case and I essentially do not commit to an answer for their request at this time, but in the end I have no authority or say in the matter and end up just doing what is requested no matter what my opinion of the matter is. Those situations are certainly the most challenging for me. When I know the reasons something is not as simple as someone wants it to be I often must move forward and set up what they request no matter how convoluted, which is a lot of work for me and ultimately does not genuinely provide the solution that the client has in their mind. It is puzzling, but when you have a lot of tickets to address you pick and choose about what is worth the time and effort at the moment and this one was not worth my effort given the number of tickets I have in my queue.
I have spent much of the morning up until nearly lunch time going through my ticket queue noting what I can close, what needs addressed now and what needs follow-up later.
My 11:00 AM missed appointment: the assistant ask if I met with the person and I let the assistant know that the person missed the appointment. The person walks in the door and we ad-hoc a new meeting at that time (11:40 AM) to grant the calendar access for the assistant.
The 11:40 AM ad-hoc meeting took place while I was in the middle of helping someone else set up connectivity to a printer. Usually this is an easy setup since there is a print server but for whatever reason this person is specifically prohibited from access only THAT printer on the print server and therefore connectivity to the color printer was set up via a local printer driver. This person also had a problem with their locally connected USB printer and was unable to print and the error message said that the printer was out of paper, which indeed was the case.
Then lunch and a nice walk outside in the mist which blew over while out on the walk.
Back into the office and still pouring through my printouts of my ticket queue and checking email. Email has a few items: password reset information request; information from a printer repair service about when their technician should arrived; person asking about software that is not part of our supported software not working on presentation laptops even though it was working for me when I tested it (and one of the laptops is on long-term loan and unavailable); phone call for someone requesting a Flash update for the computer they are working on - the person is an intern for our communications group and the computer the person is using is closing in on (and perhaps past) ten years old so I gently let the person know that I can install the update but they still may not be able to watch Flash video on the computer.
My 2:30 PM meeting goes off without a hitch and last all of the five minutes expected.
I am now working on email asking someone to reschedule the laptop that is out on long-term loan. [Done.] They replied and requested that the other laptop be able to play Region 1 DVDs (a good designation since the laptop originally was unable to do so after people changed the region on it back and forth so many times that they locked it on region 2). When I go pull out the laptop to check it I find that the battery is completely dead which is an indication that the last person to use it just shut the lid.
Walk-up request to order a new transfer kit for our color laser printer.
More emails with information request regarding various thing (iPhones and calendar synchronization).
The Dell technician who emailed me Friday is not returning email to me today reporting the problem and so I am now going to spend 30 minutes on the phone yet again getting someone to come out to replace the part.
In fact, it takes me 30 minutes to find the service tag for this computer due to competing inventory spreadsheets for this unit. The one I should use does not have the word "inventory" in it, and the one used does not.
As anticipated, 30 minutes on the phone but a technician is coming to replace the part.
The day is over.