ON CALL Welcome to another installment of On Call, our weekly reader-contributed column that shares your stories of tech support jobs that tested your skill, sanity, and sensibilities.
This week,
meet a reader we’ll Regomize as “Nathan” who told us that back in the mists of
time, he worked for a small investment company.
“Its
sole purpose was, and probably remains, managing the European investments of a
very rich Russian oligarch who shall remain nameless,” Nathan told On Call.
As befitted the oligarch’s wealth, the firm’s
premises featured an elaborate entrance foyer with a standout feature Nathan described
as “a magnificent chandelier suspended from the ceiling with a clockwork
mechanism to lower it down for cleaning.”
Chandeliers don’t need to be cleaned every day, but after
cleaners got around to the job, an entire floor of the firm lost all network
access – WAN and LAN were both deader than Lenin.
Nathan did the usual tests without finding the fault, so he decided to have a look at the clockwork mechanism.
“I finally found the access port, pee