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I'm on call this week, lucky me, so the work mobile is on 24/7, and sits on my bedside table. I received two text messages from CSC (our outsourcer) at midnight last night, telling me a production-critical problem existed at one of our sites and that the call had been assigned to me. Fine, I got up, all bleary-eyed, and staggered to my laptop. I tried to access our shitbox helpdesk software. True to form, the client shat itself so badly I had to reboot my machine. Fine. Reboot, wait, log on, wait, VPN, wait, access shitbox helpdesk software. OK, the problem is that their transport docket printer isn't working and that it's stopped them from loading trucks. Fine. I ring the guy's number, it's busy. Hmm, why is he on the phone? Is he perhaps still talking to CSC about the problem? I accessed CSC's vastly better but incredibly complicated helpdesk software. Oh. It's been assigned to the CSC VMS team. THEN WHY IN THE BLOODY FUCK DID YOU SEND ME TEXT MESSAGES TELLING ME IT HAD BEEN ASSIGNED TO ME, AND BLOODY WAKE ME UP??????????? Many unhappy sounds were uttered. Figuring there was nothing more for me to do, I went back to bed and tossed and turned for another couple hours before finally falling asleep at around 0300.

I got up this morning to check the progress of the call. The comments from the CSC VMS guy almost made my head pop off. The printer (according to the CSC guy) had been out of paper. Not only that, there was nobody on site to check the paper status for him. I'll say that again: This PRODUCTION-AFFECTING, MISSION-CRITICAL PROBLEM was so important that there was nobody on site to assist with troubleshooting. I just don't understand. Who reported the problem in the first place? Did they come to work, have a problem printing, report the problem, then go home again?

I am filled, filled, with GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!