Something’s Not Connecting, And It’s Not From A Lack Of Cables
A few years ago, I started a job for a third-party IT company. My role was onsite support for one of our clients. There were three or four of us who supported the various locations for said client. This job should have been a red flag from the beginning — I literally face-planted on the sidewalk on my way into the interview — but I’d had to take the first thing I could because of bills.
I’ve been in this job for about a month when I am told that there’s some regional meeting coming up, and I’m supposed to go up to one of the locations to support the meeting. (They host several of them just because they have offices all over western Washington and just use Teams so everyone can be involved.)
I have never been to this location, but I manage to find it and stumble my way into the meeting room where literally nothing is working. In a panic, I pull up our internal chat system and message my senior tech.
Me: “I’m at [Location], and I’m pretty sure I’m in the conference room, but I can’t get the screen to come down, the projector won’t turn on, and the laptop that seems to be designated for this has no cables.”
Senior Tech: “Extra cables are in the cabinet in the corner.”
I glance around and find what I think is the cabinet she’s referring to. It’s holding craft supplies. There are no other cabinets in this room.
Me: “There’s nothing electronic in there. It’s all craft supplies and stuff for the store.”
Senior Tech: “It’s really easy. Just find the cables and plug everything in.”
Me: “There are literally no cables here.”
Senior Tech: “I don’t have time for this. I’m getting [Her Location] set up for the meeting. Just plug in the cables and it’ll be fine.”
She ends the chat. I start to panic because we’re supposed to have people coming in like five minutes. One woman finally comes in, and I apologize profusely and tell her I’m trying to get stuff going. When the time for the meeting comes up, no one else has come into the room.
Woman: “Oh, well, I guess the others decided to join from their desks. I can just use my laptop. Can you make sure I’m good to go?”
I checked that she was fully connected and got the meeting pulled up. Then, I sat just across the table from her and worked on tickets through this meeting, feeling very embarrassed about this not working. Then, things got worse at the end of the meeting when she introduced herself and I realized she was the CEO!
Like I said at the beginning, this job was a nightmare disguised as an opportunity. When I called my senior tech on the fact that they’d sent me there unprepared — DESPITE my asking for either a walk-through at some point or someone who knew what they were doing to be there with me — I was just told that it was fine since it only ended up being the CEO in the room.
I started looking for a new job right after that. It took me nine months, but I did find one that’s much better.