Bad Dog!

I feel dirty.
So very dirty.
I had to do it. I was in the office before 8:00a.m. and didn't get out until the little hand had done a full revolution.

There's some heavy testing going on with $OurBigApp and Citrix (even though it's not supported) because quite a few major customers are experiencing a problem. Because Microsoft and Citrix are directly involved and working with us, this issue trumps all.

My current ticket load (not including the 8 relating to Citrix) is around 25. Not only did three of those customers send updates yesterday, the due date for sending a response to three others had arrived. I could only quickly answer two of them so I did it.

I did the Support Shuffle.

* * * * *

It wasn't intentional, at least, not in the "Fuck 'em, I'm too busy playing Bookworm" sense, because one thing I wasn't doing yesterday was playing games.

Virtual Servers are slow. Terminal Sessions to three different virtual servers are even slower. Add WebEx into the mix so that third parties can access the virtual machines which are hidden behind a couple firewalls and NAT and you've got molasses. We got Citrix 3 installed in only two hours and setting up the test only took another two. I was finally able to run my tests.

Then we tried to get Citrix 4 installed. The server crashed. There went 15 minutes for a reboot, restart, prep, WebEx session initiation and reconnections. Then the installation crapped out. And so on. And so on. And at around 6:00p.m. WebEx decided to die and no one could connect through anymore.

Every minute past 4:30 p.m. that a German actually works demonstrates the exponential seriousness of the situation. It was already 6:00 p.m.

WebEx finally came back to life around 7:00p.m. so I initiated another session and sent out E-Mails to the rest of the people working on this. They'd gone for food but they'd be back. I answered the two tickets I could knock out relatively quickly and then I did the deed.

Every ticket requires we respond to any update within three working days. There has to be some sort of activity which involves contact with the customer. So I sent a stupid question which was pathetically tangent to the issue to buy myself some time. I have no clue why this guy's having trouble with large files and I don't have time to build a test environment to replicate his as well.

Twenty minutes later I was still at my desk and received notification that he replied. I finished the server crap and went home.

And from home I logged in only to find the server crapped out again shortly before 11p.m., so I restarted it, restarted WebEx and mailed everyone again. There was a problem when I woke up at 6:00 this morning and I got the servers back on-line and made them available before heading to the office.

We have more Citrix testing today and the problems we're having just installing it will keep me busy most of the day. This is being written on my laptop while riding an S-Bahn to the hell I call "hell", an 8'x6' cubicle with a few computers, a bunch of code page charts and a lot of customers waiting for me.

Update: At the time of posting, testing has been pushed back even further. That Win2K-DEU server wasn't DEU, it was MUI. I'm installing a new, German Win2K that's really German this time. What's the difference? Citrix won't install in MUI and they also bind the license key to the server name. This is so totally upgefuckt.

I don't have to write back to Mr LargeFiles until Monday and I know I won't, either.
Bad monkey.