**Yes, I know Day 15 is missing. I didn't write it yet. I'll catch up later...I promise.
I started my day by visiting the ID office to obtain a permanent visitor badge. Visitors normally obtain a temporary badge from security, but they're only valid for a week and come with all sorts of restrictions. George insinuated that I would be back here sooner rather than later and I should take time during this trip to get a badge. Everyone I talked to commented how the ID office was similar to an American DMV. You plan for the worst and hope for the best.
I woke up early and caught a train 20 minutes earlier than normal. I walked directly to the ID office from the train station in Leverkusen. When I walked in I found an empty lobby with 3 clerks waiting for customers. Success! I had selected probably the best time to get my ID. I pushed the button for my number slip and was immediately called back. The guy who processed my paperwork was a little grumpy, but I was out of there in about 10 minutes. All in all not too bad.
And then my day descended into insanity. I arrived in the office to find everyone busy. Stefan took a few seconds to quietly wish me a Happy Birthday (since not many of my colleagues know when my birthday is) and then we were off and running. I spent a good chunk of my morning dealing with residual fallout and questions from yesterday. The major network outage across North and South America wreaked havoc. The more I dug into it, the more I found affected. I attend the 9am Operations Meeting and provided what I knew...hardware failure, device isolated and replaced, still assessing...only to find out I didn't have the latest news. Always awesome to be left hanging like that.
I spent a good chunk of time trying to decipher what really happened yesterday and where we currently stood on repair. One of the WAN guys from the US arrived in Germany this morning, so I welcomed him to HQ and then peppered him with questions. He had some info I hadn't seen yet and had a pretty good understanding based on what happened before he left the US yesterday. I talked with Andreas F. who then contacted one of the local guys to ask about contract levels and expected service response times. What we were being told from the US wasn't matching the expected turn-around time.
All the while I'm updating George, who is the head of infrastructure and will ultimately be the one in the frying pan if the situation worsens. He's not happy with the answers I'm giving him, but thankfully he understands I'm just the messenger working with 3rd and 4th hand information. As the day progresses there are a few more major issues that I get thrown into. We had more SAP problems which took down 3+ plants for a couple hours. Our data transfer server (one of my other hats) decided it was going to take a nap. That was a fun fire drill, but I have to give major kudos to our team of contractors who recognized the problem and took expedient action to contact those who could correct the situation.
Once all was said and done I was the last to leave the office, around 6pm, on my birthday, in another country. I finally made it back to my hotel around 6:30 and after taking care of a few things here I ventured out for dinner. I ended up back at XII Apostel since the food and service were good last Wednesday.
Unfortunately, tonight was another story. I was seated in a corner, it took forever for my food to come and I was pretty much ignored by the wait staff. Overall it was not a very good birthday dinner. But...c'est la vie! I talked to Peggy, Aiden and Owen and then called again via FaceTime at Aiden's request. They're showing Peggy's mom and aunt the National Aviary and then heading out for dinner.
Tomorrow I have a test and a surprise event. I'm not too worried about the test. It's basically what I've done the last two days. I am curious about the surprise event. It's an evening out with the team, but I have no idea what we're doing. In any case it should be fun. Now that it's almost Wednesday here, I'm off to bed!
I started my day by visiting the ID office to obtain a permanent visitor badge. Visitors normally obtain a temporary badge from security, but they're only valid for a week and come with all sorts of restrictions. George insinuated that I would be back here sooner rather than later and I should take time during this trip to get a badge. Everyone I talked to commented how the ID office was similar to an American DMV. You plan for the worst and hope for the best.
I woke up early and caught a train 20 minutes earlier than normal. I walked directly to the ID office from the train station in Leverkusen. When I walked in I found an empty lobby with 3 clerks waiting for customers. Success! I had selected probably the best time to get my ID. I pushed the button for my number slip and was immediately called back. The guy who processed my paperwork was a little grumpy, but I was out of there in about 10 minutes. All in all not too bad.
And then my day descended into insanity. I arrived in the office to find everyone busy. Stefan took a few seconds to quietly wish me a Happy Birthday (since not many of my colleagues know when my birthday is) and then we were off and running. I spent a good chunk of my morning dealing with residual fallout and questions from yesterday. The major network outage across North and South America wreaked havoc. The more I dug into it, the more I found affected. I attend the 9am Operations Meeting and provided what I knew...hardware failure, device isolated and replaced, still assessing...only to find out I didn't have the latest news. Always awesome to be left hanging like that.
I spent a good chunk of time trying to decipher what really happened yesterday and where we currently stood on repair. One of the WAN guys from the US arrived in Germany this morning, so I welcomed him to HQ and then peppered him with questions. He had some info I hadn't seen yet and had a pretty good understanding based on what happened before he left the US yesterday. I talked with Andreas F. who then contacted one of the local guys to ask about contract levels and expected service response times. What we were being told from the US wasn't matching the expected turn-around time.
All the while I'm updating George, who is the head of infrastructure and will ultimately be the one in the frying pan if the situation worsens. He's not happy with the answers I'm giving him, but thankfully he understands I'm just the messenger working with 3rd and 4th hand information. As the day progresses there are a few more major issues that I get thrown into. We had more SAP problems which took down 3+ plants for a couple hours. Our data transfer server (one of my other hats) decided it was going to take a nap. That was a fun fire drill, but I have to give major kudos to our team of contractors who recognized the problem and took expedient action to contact those who could correct the situation.
Once all was said and done I was the last to leave the office, around 6pm, on my birthday, in another country. I finally made it back to my hotel around 6:30 and after taking care of a few things here I ventured out for dinner. I ended up back at XII Apostel since the food and service were good last Wednesday.
Unfortunately, tonight was another story. I was seated in a corner, it took forever for my food to come and I was pretty much ignored by the wait staff. Overall it was not a very good birthday dinner. But...c'est la vie! I talked to Peggy, Aiden and Owen and then called again via FaceTime at Aiden's request. They're showing Peggy's mom and aunt the National Aviary and then heading out for dinner.
Tomorrow I have a test and a surprise event. I'm not too worried about the test. It's basically what I've done the last two days. I am curious about the surprise event. It's an evening out with the team, but I have no idea what we're doing. In any case it should be fun. Now that it's almost Wednesday here, I'm off to bed!
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