On Mon, 01 Nov 2004 17:15:21 -0600, Michael Cozzi
<cozzi@cozziconsulting.com> wrote:
> Colin Raven wrote:
> 
> > Andy Ruhl wrote:
> > <sob>
> > /me looks at a long night ahead.
> > Isn't this great though?? I mean...all the practice....excellent for
> > documentation writing purposes.
> > /me hits self on the head with a large book
> 
> 
>     Dont be too hard on yourself.
> 
>     I once firewalled myself out of my primary MX host with the sendmail
> config munged up so bad it was an open relay. I have the box closeted at
> a client site.
> 
>     At 12:00am I had two choices, drive 4 hours and solve the problem,
> or get lucky that someone would answer the phone at the site.
> 
>     Someone answered the phone. I had to talk a 72 year old semi-retired
> Janitor (named Hugh) through login, su, and iptables configuration via
> phone, with the computer located 250 feet from where the phone is. It
> took about an hour of him running between the phone and the server (was
> that a space followed by a slash sir?) when finally (miraculously) I got
> an ssh connection.
> 
>     With permission of the client, I sent him a $250.00 gift certificate
> to Home Depot. This last summer, I also attended his daughter's wedding
> after hiring his grandson as an onsite admin at one of my larger clients.
> 
>     Always look at the bright side. It aint that bad.
> 
>     Enjoy the coffee....

Wow, that is a really cool story! I work support and sometimes the
people that call are not the people who got into the problem, because
the primary person is on (permanent) "vacation". The people that are
on the phone are probably like your janitor, but in the end they end
up thanking me in similar ways. I can't accept gifts though,
unfortunately.

Thanks for that.

Andy