Day 2 - The Move in Begins

I am as usual, probably due to residual jetlag, the first person in the
morning. I foolishly expected to find the NOC locked, but instead the door
was wide open and there were a couple of contractors helping themselves to
the contents of the water cooler. It has apparently transpired that this
is precisely the reason the door was open in the first place and mostly
due to the fact that on leaving last night the security guard requested
that we leave things in such a way as to allow him to have a drink.

Now although I'm never one to give a security individual a hard time,
over here I'm even more inclined than usual to help them out. The security
here is much more relaxed. In the USA they'd usually shoot you before
they asked you what you were doing (Except for the fact that the average
security guard is, for various personal legal reasons that I don't really
want to think about but they tell me anyway, no longer allowed to own a
gun). Over here The guards stop you from doing things not because you
are breaking the rules, but because you have inconvenienced them by
making them go to the effort of stopping you.

Bernard was stopped from riding his bike in the center because the guard
"...Just got hassled by his boss over the radio to go and stop him
(they've got cameras everywhere)". Later we get bailed up for going
through the wrong door "Er, please don't do that again" The guard says
"Because now I have to go over to you to tell you to not do that again..."

It's not so much the security that stops you as the guilt trip they lay
on you afterwards.

I'm also in early because I eagerly await the arrival of the helpdesk
system by our sponsor 'Commander'. The system seems to be shrouded in
secrecy since it hasn't as yet managed to make it onto the show floor.
I have to assume that is is locked in a lab somewhere going through some
vigorous beta testing. Finally, around 9am one of the commander team drops
by to tell me that "There system is on its way, but it has been delayed,
Glenn is still building it". Ah the joys of the temporary life we live.

The actual presence of the helpdesk system, when it does finally arrive,
is in many ways moot. Not because the system doesn't work, because it
did, and it tracked all our tickets and who had them out at the time,
and who was going to resolve the problem and who was their first born etc
etc. However since most of the tickets related to people who were just
too damn lazy to configure their PC's, we don't really have any data
that possibly suggests our network is, in any way, disfunctional. The
damn thing just keeps working. Even with Sanjeev and Paul rewriting the
router configs every 10 minutes, we're still forwarding frames and people
are none the wiser.

Moment of irony would have to be that the most difficult ticket we had
to work on was to get the ticketing system actually connected to the
correct network.

This does lead us nicely into to today's lesson in swearing, which
comes to us via an a random ex TAC engineer, who mostly described his
customers as "Complete Fuckwits". You should be warned that as much as
Australian Society tends to breed familiarity through contempt, this
is not a way you would ever describe a friend. If you use these words,
you had better be right, and prepared for a fight.

Although I'm convinced that someone has made a pact with the devil for
all this success, I'm reasonably sure that it isn't going to be me so I
decide that we all need to go out for a long lunch. The NOC never had
phones to begin with (we all used our mobiles) so our slightly remote
absence isn't going to affect things much.

As we're being seated Bernard points out that for some strange reason
the noodle bar we're in is offering free neck and shoulder massages to
its patrons. I can only imagine that this because at some point the hippy
in the owner kicked in and they felt that they needed to offset the, as
I now discovered looking at the menu, outrageous prices. Hardly being
one to not saver all that is on offer we partake in the pleasure and,
Feeling No Guilt At All, we return some indeterminate time later relaxed,
fed and still wondering what and when it will all go horribly wrong.

I casually place all my chips on wireless, this is usually a safe bet.
We're still in setup mode and only about one third of the exhibitors are
here but a brief survey reveals that there are more than ten wireless
access points on the show floor and people haven't been clever about how
they distributing the frequencies. This is also when I discover that one
exhibitor has yet to install their 6 wireless devices but they hope to be
operational before the end of the day. I'd nonrmally panic at this point
however, although there are a lot of base stations, I can't see that there
are actually any clients connected to them so most of this infrastructure
is seemingly pointless. Since I can't really do anything about at this
time I decide that I'll just have to wait for it all to fail.

Returning from my survey I find that our lunchtime massage ("Er, 2 steaks,
a beer and a shiatsu, please") has had the desired effect and the NOC has
become very relaxed indeed. The stereo is cranking out lounge music back
beats, everyone is quietly hacking away on their pet project (today's
winner is Bernard and his code that walked every router interface we
have and is now collecting statistics on them) and we're slowly eating
away at the day feeling functional without being stressed. Of course,
at this time we're only dimly aware that our reticence is primarily due
to the hot humid weather that we're all working under and that it will
eventually bite us in the arse.

Late in the afternoon the NOC becomes unbearable. Since we're right
against the west wall of the hall, it transpires that we're been slowly
roasting as the wall heats up in the afternoon. This is compounded by
our nice black walled NOC and the the new halogen lights that just got
installed (although I now notice that someone has unplugged them). It is a
subtle process but after a while you realise that the sweat running down
your armpits at that rate is not normal and you don't really recall your
clothes sticking to you quite that badly earlier in the day. Although the
work isn't stressing us, the atmosphere is but we only need to hang around
for a few more minutes before the helpdesk closes, so the end is near.

For some reason Glenn thinks that this would be a good time to go an
play a few games of tennis. We think that it is just too damn hot,
it's Beer O'Clock.