Support newbie figured out how to avoid all-nighters, and his colleagues hated him for it

Software

Sleep doesn't pay

ON CALL Welcome to another installment of On Call, The Register's Friday column in which we share readers' tales of tech support jobs that go south, pear-shaped, or just badly.

This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Lionel" who told us that in the 1990s he worked for an outfit that operated what he described as "big IBM computer centers running overnight COBOL batch processing jobs."

When Lionel started this job, he was hired as an analyst and assigned to a new team.

"My main job was the development of new or improved processes to support business change," he told On Call. "However, the job included an overnight support roster, mainly to oversee the batch processes and correct any errors – particularly in input data sent from various sources."

Lionel's first week on the job was also his first week on the support roster and it was an eye-opening experience.

"I was called out nightly," he told On Call, and on each occasion the problem was the same: input data needed to be reformatted, a job Lionel accomplished with a file editor.

While the fix was easy, being woken every night was not. Lionel could dial in to make the repair, but the connection was frustratingly slow, and working in the wee hours wasn't ideal for his young family.

"I would rather have a good night's sleep, so I analyzed the problem, specified a pre-process program, tested it, then implemented it in the overnight batch flow."

Lionel thought he'd solved the company's problem and put an end to his disturbed sleep.

How wrong he was.

"One of my colleagues relied on regular overtime payments and told me exactly how unhappy he was," Lionel told On Call.

There's no pleasing some people. Lionel didn't try.

"I continued to seek permanent solutions to other overnight issues," he told On Call.

Have your good deeds and tech support cleverness earned you anger instead of appreciation? If so, On Call would very much appreciate it if you click here to send On Call an email so we can give you credit for your story on a future Friday. ®