Wednesday, July 15, 2015

What a day

Yesterday was quite the day of highs and lows. It started with my arrival at work. Before I even pulled in I could see 3 or 4 utility trucks on the grounds. That is rarely ever a good sign. There were also a couple people waiting at the west gate. Sure enough, the storm Monday night had taken down a power line in the trailer court behind my workplace, and it had knocked power out to part of my facility. Fortunately the office did not lose power, so I had phones, computers, and internet at least.

The first order of business was to try to get the gate open on the west side. I had to climb over the fence because we don't have a pedestrian gate. So I got it open. Then I had to determine how many buildings were without power - because all of our climate control buildings have keyless entry, and they don't work without electricity. Fortunately just 2 climate control buildings were down, so I unlocked those doors.

Next I noticed that my Digigate software would not work. That is what handles people's codes and allows them entry into their particular gate and building. I also had 16 security cameras that weren't working (almost half of them). Fortunately the company that services these was already in town from Indianapolis. They came over and looked through things and discovered we also had a short somewhere in our electrical system that was tripping a circuit breaker. So an electrician had to be called in. Then the security company replaced some parts and needed to restart the computer. Our computer is set up so the only person with the passwords is our IT person, who lives in Michigan. I called him and he WOULDN'T GIVE US THE PASSWORD!!! He said he would drive down from Michigan and take care of it. The security guy - who is from Indianapolis - was totally (and understandably) pissed, so he left. He was not going to wait for this guy to make a 2 hour trip just to do something he could have done himself. In the meantime, now none of my doors or gates would work, so I had to go manually unlock the remaining 22 doors on the property.

Anyway, then the electrician showed up and found that there was a light that must have been hit by lightning and was shorting out. So after an hour or so they got that resolved. The IT guy showed up and started monkeying with the computer. He eventually got things working, so I had to go back and lock those 22 doors I had just unlocked. Oh, and I haven't even mentioned yet that we have a construction crew that started demolition on our middle office building this week! One of the former office tenants didn't return his keys, so I have to let them in the one building.

At the end of the day we still didn't have power to the west gate or 2 of the buildings and half the security cameras didn't work. The utility crew was still restoring power, and must have gotten it done not too long after I left. The IT guy was also going to update my computer after I left. I was more than happy to get out of there at closing time.

On the bright side, though, when I got home, son Isaac and his lovely bride were at our house, along with the Feipel clan. Isaac and Ricci will be staying with us for a few days. We had supper together and then just hung out the rest of the night.

All in all it wasn't a terrible day - it could have been much worse - but it was a bit hectic. It didn't start out much better today. When I arrived at work I had our property manager/construction contact waiting for me, and then the owner called and gave me a list of things to do (most of which are not my responsibility, but apparently I am expected to be in charge of seeing that my superiors do them). Whatever. I am not going to let this job stress me out. Basically, it's Wednesday.

That is all.