I am the dim locator. Don't call me dim!

[reddragdiva]

A tale I probably haven't mentioned yet:

I left Ericsson AsiaPacificLabs Australia at the end of 2001. Around September 2002, they folded that entire division (all development in Australia — Ericsson was haemorrhaging red ink so badly they were cutting off limbs to survive). I heard a story on the mailing list for our section's ex-employees. The story went that they had by that stage lost all their sysadmins, and in fact all their systems workers in general. They had a small problem: it seems no-one left knew where the actual server room with all the machines they were using was. THEY LOST THE SERVER ROOM, SOMEWHERE IN MELBOURNE CENTRAL TOWER.

Did I get in touch and tell them? CUE LOUD CACKLING FROM THE DIRECTION OF LONDON.

Comments

[poggs.livejournal.com]

We have a PABX room with sprinklers.

Water sprinklers.

They've not been removed, because the landlord won't do it for "health and safety reasons".

WTF!?

[blarglefiend.livejournal.com]

When we want to dampen our machines, we just let the aircon do it.

We used to keep all our critical gear in a "level 1" machine room: proper floors, A/C, power supply, generators, the works. Since that room is in the throes of being closed down on account of zinc whiskers, we moved a lot of stuff to what might charitably be called a "level 3" room which has leaky A/C and inadequate UPS. The alternative was relocating it all to the other side of the city, or perhaps to a "level 4" broom cupboard which had no UPS and a piddly little pipe.

We're supposed to have a new room ready for 2007. They haven't even settled on a site yet, or on who is going to do the work or own it when it's done. University politics, gotta love it.