Geek Clarification and Data Center Technicians

Before I get into the meat of this entry, I feel it is necessary to address the comment made by my esteemed friend and colleague Thanh Tran, general manager of our Houston operations. In his blog entry earlier this month, Thanh mentioned “I work with a bunch of geeks. But that’s ok, because I’m a geek myself.”

I feel that this might have been a light-hearted jab at my previous entry, which I will readily admit was steeped in a healthy dose of science geekery.

Now, Thanh says that he too is a “geek.” For the record, I would like to point out that keeping a MS Paint-drawn Buzz Lightyear image file archived on a hard drive somewhere for nearly ten years pretty much seals the deal on one’s level of geekishness.

Thanh, I don’t think you had to tell us you are a geek; consider it self-evidenced. Just kidding around, of course …

All kidding aside, I’ve been looking forward to this blog entry, because I wanted to take a moment to acquaint everyone with just a few of the many outstanding data center technicians that our customers have probably worked with in the past. The next time you are reading a support ticket, check the usernames of the employees working the issue with you, and see if you recognize any of these excellent technicians.

For example, Jac has been with The Planet for more than two years, and is currently a Level 2 data center technician. A few days ago I was reading a recent ticket that he was working on for a customer who was suffering from a bit of “new server syndrome.” That’s the critical window of time after someone orders a new server that we have all experienced at one time or another. The customer was hard at work attempting to get his configurations in place so the server could be usable for his business, but he was running into some pretty wicked permission errors that he simply could not deduce.

Jac responded to the customer’s questions quickly and effectively, adjusting the settings to address the issues. He then went above and beyond expectations, providing the customer with some very detailed documentation related to these permission configuration issues. The problem was wholly solved, and the customer was quite happy. But more importantly, the customer was enabled to address his server needs more quickly in the future as well. It’s all about responding to business needs precisely and rapidly, and Jac Lindley does an excellent job of helping our customers achieve just that.

Another Level 2 data center technician I wanted to “introduce” is Johnny L., who has been with The Planet for almost three years, and in that time he has proven to be a strong anchor of knowledge in our data centers. Johnny is a whiz when it comes to server hardware; I’ve seen him swap out bad drives and start degraded array rebuilds so quickly it would make your head spin.

The pace of work in our data centers can be dizzying at times, and seeing guys like Johnny work can be awe-inspiring. But in the midst of all this activity, the thing that makes a guy like Johnny stand out is his attention to detail. Anyone can whip through a dozen unique hardware upgrades in record time, but not many can do it with the level of accuracy and care that Johnny displays.

I’m proud of all the technicians we have working in the data centers, but I thought to would be great to introduce a couple of our techs to everyone. Keep an eye out for them in a support ticket coming to an Orbit portal near you!

- Britt

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 5:00 am and is filed under Data Centers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.