The Network Engineer Errant

The leader then prompted Fred, "What is the next step?"

Fred answered, "I admit that I am powerless over my chivalaric urges; that my life has become unmanageable."

"Very good! Now, what comes after that?"

"A power greater than myself can restore me to sanity."

"Excellent. Now, I want you to take the next step. Bring them here."

"Yes, sir." Fred went took a bundle from his palfrey, and brought it into the meeting room. "Here they are."

The leader opened the bundle. Fred felt a pang of remorse. He was giving up the shining armour! And the sword! What if he were called on to do battle? To defend the honour of the kingdom? He squelched the thought. I am Fred. I am a Network Technical Support Engineer for the kingdom. I do not need to use violence or heroic measures to do my job.

The meeting over, Fred left, feeling uplifted and refreshed. He had the courage to look at reality in the eye, and take it on without escaping into the netherworld of chivalry and heroism.

Fred sat down at his cubicle. A slip of paper that was a form printed in 12-point Gothic blackletter font lay on his desk. A quill pen was used by one of the scribes on the first floor to fill in the form with ornate, well-formed strokes. The form read:

Incident number: 57855
Severity: 1
Assigned to group: Network
Assigned to technician: Fred d'Honaire, Senior Network Engineer

Description of incident:

Lord Cisco claims slow response to eBrew and eDungeon applications. Can ping bell, but response of villeins appears to be slow. Lord Cisco has asked that this be escalated due to the Drunken Revel that is scheduled for tomorrow night, needs eBrew back up ASAP!

Lord Fred sighed. This hardly justified a sev-1. He twitched a bit, moving his hands as if he were clutching a sword pommel that was not there. He wrote back, in blocky letters.

Bell is fine. Problem is with the application, not the hardware or the network. Villeins' response is outside our scope of responsibility. Reassign incident to eBrew application developer.

Lord Fred knew that this was only postponing the inevitable.

After lunch, the expected slip of paper was back on his desk. It was the original ticket, with annotations.

eBrew application developer says his application runs fine, it is just that the villeins don't respond to the bell. Has to be the network. Please send engineer to check network at Castle Cisco.

Fred noticed a sooty sort of ink and an intoxicating scent on the back of the slip. Carbon copies. Who had the jerk copied in? Fred looked at the bottom of the paper. His boss, his boss's boss, the entire Network Technical Support Team, eBrew applications development, the King of Allaria, Bishop of Camelyn, and Fred's grocer.

Lord Fred reached down into the bottom drawer of a cabinet. He rummaged around. Phillips screwdriver ... 14 gauge wire ... a couple of FDDI cards ... vampire taps ... junk codex for Allaria OnLine ... ah, a flanged mace! If those developers want to declare war, bring it on!

1. Lord Fred sets out in search of Lord Cisco.
2. Lord Fred sets out in search of the eBrew development group.

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