LIGHTS OUT!

Last week on Thursday, last day before Xmas vacation. We're sitting around, my boss was out, we're just catching up on some last minute work and BSing a little bit. It's around 2:30pm.

*FZZT* lights go out.

I pull my Surefire out of my coat pocket and paint the ceiling, lighting up the whole area. Emergency lights kick in, we pile out of our cubes. Lights go on. Then lights go out, then they go on, they the go out permanently for the rest of the day. I loan out the Minimag so some people can go to the bathroom. We're thinking WOOHOO! Maybe they'll let us leave! Then one of our other branches a few miles away calls me on my cel phone. They want to know if I can log in and help them with something. Uh Yeah.

Seems their power flickered and they're back up, but their logins are stuck in the system. Yeah I'll log in...On my blacked out PC? Our head sysadmin let me into our dark server room (backup generator only powers the servers ya know, not the lights) so out comes the X5T-HAIII and I find my way to the console, looping the paracord lanyard around the rack so I can see the keyboard. I log a few of our orphan users out of the system. Then more come in to be logged out. Our technical support staff comes to help and they log in at a few consoles in the server room. Pretty soon, I had armed most of our IT people with flashlights as they're reading the handwritten lists and printouts of ports and network equipment that needed to be checked and reset via these few consoles we're allowed to use. I got a lot of the "Damn dude, how many flashlights are you carrying?" as everybody came up, asked to use a light, was given the light which I immediately replaced by pulling another light out of a pocket. It was flashaholic heaven.

I did manage to get them all back of course after a few hours of furious keyboard whacking and frantic calls from users who couldn't log in because the system said they were already logged in, but it calmed down after we got them running. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

And some people call us crazy. BAH!

You can NEVER have enough lights!! Everytime I think about cubes and computers Office Space comes to mine!

Interesting side note: I've tried to explain thousands of times to my folks exactly what I do. I sat them down in front of the TV, put Office Space in the DVD and said "THIS is what I do."

just how many lights did you have on you? LOL

Awesome!!! Would have loved to be there. I better get a raise for responding above and beyond the call of duty... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/naughty.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleye11.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleye11.gif

Well, I had my E1 in my pocket, the C2 came out of my coat, Minimag and X5T came out of my briefcase. I had the E1 clipped to my collar pointing down at the keyboard, the X5 was hanging on a rack and got passed around for people to read something in the dark. The C2 doesn't get passed to anyone. Nothing like someone walking away with $80 worth of flashlight to **** you off. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

The Minimag got loaned out to people going to the bathroom. I figured it was the light I was least likely to care about if someone dropped it in a toilet.

Good save!

Now, get your company to provide emergency lights to everyone and fire the facility manager that failed to put at least minimal lighting on a UPS.

Daniel

Cool, never ending supply of flashlights

LOL! that's a great set up

Yeah, amazing how they will meticulously cable all the servers to the UPS and no lights.....WHERE ARE THEIR PRIORITIES! Every real sysadmin knows, the fridge first! The beer must remain cold... oh, then the TV must stay on, too. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crackup.gif

Great story. People will always ask "Why do you carry so many lights?" but your story has taught us that they absolutely do *NOT* want to be the person saying "you carry too many" during a blackout when they NEED to borrow it.. or risk taking a leak in the dark /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I have always felt that some day the people the lights may save may not necessarily be us - but rather those around us, the same who think we're nuts.

Now that you mention peeing in the dark.....


The darkest place I've been in 30 years is a men's room in large, multi story office building during a blackout. They often put the rest rooms near the center of the building where the elevator noise is. Sometimes they forget the need for emergency lighting.

When the lights die you can find yourself in a room with 5 or 6 baffles (corridors) and shutters (doors) between you and daylight. No pinpoint of light. Anywhere.

Even a Solitaire works well in those circumstances.

Interesting point. When the lights go out, whoever gets their light out first, wins. Hopefully you were playing with your flashlight instead of working when the power went out!
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Free E.T.

gadget_lover, I had a similar experience of having to use the restroom during a power failure at work. At the time my company had not installed all the emergency lights and all I had was a 2AA minimag. As luck would have it, the bulb burned out and I had to fumble around in pitch dark to swap the spare bulb from the tail cap /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/Christo_pull_hair.gif