More Phone Company Funny

[jimlongley]

In a previous post someone mentioned technical support calls ping-ponging back and forth around the world - telephone tech support level 1 located in Rajahmahjampur, India to tier 2 support in Chicago, to someplace else along the way.

A bunch of years ago I was doing some of the early data communications technical support. How early? We thought 9600 bits per second was an almost unachievable goal over a dial up phone line.

I got a call out in the middle of the night. The Conrail railroad yard near my home had a critical data circuit down and they were on a one hour response time. One hour response circuits back in those days were reserved for national defense and that level of criticality. Instead of driving all the way up to the garage to get my vehicle I just grabbed some personal tools and headed over to the yard, saving about 40 minutes of drive time. Of course if I needed some of my specialized test equipment I would have to go get it, but my experience told me that most of the time such problems can be taken care of with ordinary hand tools and enough knowledge.

I arrived at the yard and sure enough, the data set (like a modem) was mounted on a wall near a desk where someone had been using it as a foot rest and had knocked the power cable out of its jack. I plugged it back in and the set, and circuit, came back up, less than a half hour from my bed to fixed.

Then the long part happened.

This was after the phone company "divestiture" in 1984. Before the split, I could call in and talk to one person who would call the various parties involved and confirm that the circuit was up and working, a necessary step even though we could see it working right in front of us.

Now I had to call in to the local test board, who had to call AT&T (the AT&T desk and local board were about ten feet apart, with a yellow line painted on the floor between them, and all communications had to be carried out by phone, fax, or paper, no yelling from one position to the other, or walking over, the way things were done before the split.) for permission to take the circuit down to test it. AT&T had to call the data control center in PA to get permission, and did so, giving us permission to test it and then hanging up with an admonishment to call back when we were through. We tested the circuit and confirmed that it looked ok now, called AT&T and let them know we were finished, and then it was AT&T's turn to test it, which involved calling PA to get permission, again, to take the circuit down for testing.

Having secured said permission, and tested, and turned the circuit back up, AT&T, with me and the local test board on the line, called PA to get confirmation that the circuit was up and good. They tested the circuit and confirmed that it appeared to them to be working. I then asked for permission to close the ticket and go home, which was denied because the people we were talking to in PA were not the people that controlled the tickets, they just tested the circuits. We, those assembled, then called the people responsible for opening and closing tickets, in another part of PA, and asked them for permission to close the ticket.

These worthies informed us that they could not close the ticket without confirmation from the end user that the circuit was up and running, so with me, the local test board, the AT&T test board, and the Conrail test board on the line, all having checked the circuit, the control center placed a call to the end user.

The phone on the next desk to the one I was sitting at rang, and the guy I had been working with on site answered it, and I heard him in stereo. The control center asked him if the circuit was working ok, and he said "I think so, but the guy that has been working on it is right here, let me have you talk to him." and handed me the phone. In his defense he was not a participant in the call up until that point, he was just sitting there watching the train dispatches and such on the circuit, when we didn't have it down for testing, so he was pretty much innocent.

So, with all of us gathered on a conference call from South Bethlehem, NY; to Albany, NY; to Albany, NY; to Allentown, PA; to Pittsburgh, PA, and back again to South Bethlehem, NY; the control center asked the end user (me) if the circuit was good, and I asked the repairman (me, on the other phone) if it looked good to him (me) and I told me that it looked fine to me and me told I that he agreed and we decided the circuit was ok and then the control center closed the ticket and we all concurred and hung up.

It took longer to make the calls to close the ticket than it did to fix the problem - so much for divestiture making the phone companies more efficient.

It took a while longer for me to stop laughing, while trying to explain to the control tower crew what I was laughing at.

I carefully secured the power cable so the situation couldn't happen again, avoiding having such fun in the future.

[nitrogen]

Don't worry, Jim, we'll be back to those days soon enough.

[DoubleJ]

That's beauracracy at it's best!
well handled, sir.