Speaking of stupid stuff.....

Friday 23 November, 2007
1830

So what was it I said yesterday about people doing stupid stuff?

Yesterday at about 1900 local (1100 eastern time), shortly after I finished my blog entry and posting photos and sending music emails (but before I was planning to call my family to say hi for Thanksgiving), the network went down in our building. I didn’t think much of it at first, since it cuts out fairly often and usually comes back pretty soon.

This time it stayed down awhile, though. When I noticed there was no power to the router in the hallway, and then that the outside security lights were out, I realized there must be an electrical problem, so I got my keys and went to the distribution panel to reset the circuit breaker.

Imagine my surprise when I got there and found two technicians with the network junction box all torn apart! “What are you doing?” I asked them. “We are upgrading the network” was the response. I told them it was Thanksgiving, and they just gave me a blank look. They had no idea why that might be important or even relevant.

It turns out that somebody at AAFES (Army and Air Force Exchange Service – the PX system) decided that Thanksgiving Day would be a good time to disconnect the internet service in our barracks and upgrade the capacity. I’m very happy they decided to upgrade, but WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

On what many people would consider the most important family-oriented holiday of the year, several hundred people here were cut off from VOIP phone calls, IM, webcam, email, or any other computer-based contact with their families. The network stayed down until about midnight. So for the exact block of time when it was neither too early at home nor too late here, we were down. And of course the regular phone lines were jammed. I couldn’t even get a dial tone in my office to call the US.

*sigh*

I don’t know how high you have to go in the PX system before there is an American in management, but none of the people I talked to (the contractor’s technicians or their first-line AAFES supervisor) were American, and I don’t think the next-higher manager is either. So they really just didn’t get it.

What’s ironic about this is that on the military side we are totally inundated with cultural sensitivity training. For example, during Ramadan we are not permitted to eat or drink outdoors during the day, in order not to offend Muslim sensibilities. Too bad our own exchange system didn’t manage to train their employees to have some cultural sensitivity towards *us*…..

Music: BAP – “Lena”
Mood: Amazed