Diary of a Wolfeman

Let’s see here…

An intermittently bogged-down network at a business client’s has been giving me fits for almost two weeks now. The problem would show up for a few hours, and then go away. Similarly, if we re-booted the router, it would go away. Replacing the router, however, did not fix it. We couldn’t isolate the problem down to any one device – everything checked clean through the diagnostics, we were just getting hammered.

So, we put the original router back in. And it uhm…just works fine now? What the fuck? I put 15 hours into troubleshooting this goddamn thing and it just goes away?!? Argh!!

Near as I can figure, the most likely cause is a hacker. With no commonality of occurance on the inside (I.E., different computers on / off, different days of week / times of day / duration…) there has to be something on the outside.

Looks like it’s time for an intrusion detection system.
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How do you know when you can trust your teenager? When he still asks if he can go to a party, despite being 17, having a cell phone and knowing I will be out most of the night on a date. Of course, he still bitches when I ask all the “who what where when how many adults?” questions, but at least he asked :)
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It is hard to be a morally honest and true employee sometimes – especially when you don’t think you are being paid enough. In my line of work, people often ask you to take care of things for them, and I get hung up on the idea of doing the work for myself or bringing them in as a customer to the shop.

If I bring them in as a customer, it will increase the revenues for the shop, thus allowing my boss to give out raises.

If I do it myself, I get all the money now.

The real hesitation for me comes from the fact that ever since he hired me, the boss has been going on about how our managed services contracts will eventually float the business and get all of us raises. It has been 7 months now, and we have only sold 4 contracts of the 130 we need to get me what I’m worth. On top of that, when work gets slow, he implements mandated un-paid days off.

OK, this has only happened to me once, but it’s his first response anytime we get slow. It’s a stick I’m tired of being beat with.

I think this customer is mine.