Paladin Roaming

"Help Desk"

Why do they thank me for calling them when I have no other choice?

Things I would rather do than call the Help Desk and speak with a script reader in India....

Have my skin removed with 40 grit orbital sander and then take a nice salt bath.

Get naked, cover myself in barbeque sauce, and jump into a pit of starving wharf rats.

Amputate my own legs with a rusty hand ripping saw.

Drive 10p nails into my skull with my air-powered Palm Nailer.

Real World Back Board

Every once in a while I get to go out into the Real World and work on something *other* than a phone company building. This one is a part of some nation-wide WAN project, I get to put in the POTS lines.

Check the order carefully -- I'm not allowed to give anything away to outsiders. Hmmm.... MPoE is the 2.1, second floor, cable is direct, no B-Box. Get access, taken upstairs by the on-site Tech, left to do my thing.

Find the underground, find my pair, clip on and pull dial tone. Verify telephone number, matches my order, so far so good. There is a jumnper on the underground, trace to a Demarcation Block (Block #7 to be precise, just left and above the light switches.) My jumper comes in on the left on pair 5, is bridge clipped across, another jumper leads to the CPE. Or should. Doesn't 'cause it was a disconnected number which is why I was assigned that pair. Jumper was lifted from whatever equipement it used to go to. I pull it back and coil it up so whomever wishes can simply punch it down wherever they want it.

Look further, just to see if I can figure out where they may want it...

It is a new WAN thing, obviously will be going to a computer room. Find a pair of 66 blocks marked "T1s" and "Computer Room" -- a CLUE! There are a couple dozen or so small shielded cables, bundled together and leading to a three inch single conduit. OBVIOUSLY the conduit goes to the computer room where they will want the new WAN circuits and my POTS line. Along with the skinny grey cables there is a fatter black cable, a 25 pair. It traced back to a 66 block where it is tied across a 200 pair cable going to some office 1000 feet away (or so it says on the back board.)

Making it easy for the client, whatever Hi-Cap tech that ran in the WAN circuits in put them on a Demarc Block right below the cables to the computer room. The 25 pair to the computer room is right next to it. So that is where I left the POTS line.

There are enough vacant cables going to the computer room for all the WAN circuits and the POTS line, or the POTS line can be tied onto the 25-pair cable.