I had to do a bitch of an upgrade on Friday night, so I went into work around noon. I spent the hours before I could take the system offline making an upgrade checklist so that all of my bases could be covered and I could hopefully leave work by eight thirty. It turns out (like most system changes do) that something went wrong. It was ultimately my fault, of course. I backed everything up ad nauseam…once to our offsite, once using MS, and making sure that the databases being updated have two backup copies and that the C drive and system state was backed up twice. I had learned from all too many mistakes as a sysadmin puppy that you can NEVER be too careful. Once the server was patched to specifications and all of those bases were covered, I began the install…except I forgot one critical thing. I was supposed to switch drive letters to keep it off C:\. So after some disk cleanups and database consistency checks (not to mention dinner with my Fruitpie and Fruit Cocktail), I went to try it all over again. I got the familiar error “An upgrade of Proprietary App from Hell has already been attempted. Contact Proprietary App from Hell support.” I tried to remember why this was being caused so that I could fix it, but it happened to me so long ago that I was just spinning my wheels. After kicking myself for not writing it down, I called after-hours support and got the answer. PAfH created its own db backup and could not overwrite the file name when I attempted to reinstall. Finally, around 10:45, I was able to pack up and leave home with everything up and running. I got an email from a user on Saturday informing me that PAfH had been updated (REALLY??) and that she can no longer print as a result. Ugh. So it begins. This is one of the things I hate about upgrades. A user can have an issue for months and months without saying anything, but the SECOND something is upgraded or changed that has NOTHING to do with the problem they’re having, it’s suddenly a fire I have to clean up ‘because of the upgrade’. Every little hiccup or glitch their workstations have is going to be because of the upgrade. Shit, sometimes they even try to blame problems with the office or cell phones on the upgrade…an upgrade to a system that has absolutely no connection to the others. I’d say I hate users, but I just can’t even feel that any more. Not like I used to, anyway. I’ve matured as an IT professional in that way, I guess. They don’t know any better and if they did, they’d probably be dangerous. They’d either create even bigger problems with their pseudo-savvy or put me out of a job…or both.
I woke up yesterday with the sickness everyone in the house has had. It took me a considerably long time to finally contract it, but now my body is working against me with a vengeance. I ended up having Fruitpie swing by the office yesterday so I could pick up some papers I needed. I was going to create some charts for our QAPI meeting today, but knew I wouldn’t be able to do it if I felt any worse in the morning. So, I finished it and ended up sleeping downstairs all night. Now I’m wishing I were still asleep. My head feels like it’s been invaded by a midget who is desperately trying to push its way out. If it weren’t for the fucking upgrade, I’d call in sick right now. But, I can’t. I know there will be little fires all over the fucking office today and if I don’t go in to take care of them, it will be a huge fire for me to go back to. Sometimes I really wish I had backup. How I would love to have a helpdesk peon at my disposal right now.
