On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 5:04 PM Rob Thomas <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm watching my wife and her friends on derpbook try to consolidate > their tech support hints and tips to get the rugrats onto and into Day > 1 of their remote learning, and the last thing she sent to me was > 'High school has fully crashed'. > > I understand that all your stuff is on fire, and everything that was > on fire yesterday is now a towering inferno, and you probably feel > like everyone is blaming you. > > Please don't stress. If you have someone breathing down your neck, > here's a bunch of technically correct, but also useless excuses you > can give people to get them off your back for a while, while you > actually fix the problems that have cropped up without having to > explain them to a non-technical audience. > > 1. There are IPv6 problems (you can grow this one out as much as you > want. Blame NAT64) > 2. We aren't receiving all of AARNET's BGP announcements (bonus points > are awarded if you're not MEANT to be receiving AARNET's BGP > announcements, but still manage to use this as an excuse) > 3. Some of our peering links are down (Well, you can't use that if you > REALLY have all your peering links up, but who is in that state right > now??) > 4. Office365 is playing up _or_ Office365 has just started working > (You can alternate this one, to match reality) > 5. There's congestion on the Telstra network (Don't be specific as to > WHERE the congestion is) > 6. Have you checked YOUR firewall? No, really. Check it again. (Repeat > several times) > 7. Wildcard! Blame VoIP. SIP is so complex, most people will glaze > over when you start explaining that the SDP is being mangled > incorrectly so RTP is leaving bogus port forwarding in place in your > border NAT device which ... blah blah.
8. Bufferbloat! > But here's the important thing. This is not the end of the world. If > stuff is down because of something out of your control, or because > you're busy putting out other fires, IT DOESN'T MATTER. Here's a photo > of my pair not CARING that everything is broken. > > https://i.imgur.com/jBXrE9M.png > > They're the end users, they don't care. No matter who is saying it's a > life and death thing, it's not. There ARE things that are life and > death (eg, 000/VoIP!). Care about those. > > And geez, if you REALLY get stuck with something that you think that > you should be able to figure out and can't, post it here. We don't > mind. Got a VOIP problem? Ask me here, or off list. BGP Filters not > working? Routing loops? Whatever. Post it here. (Except, possibly > enough of the 'Office 365 CDN is corrupt' stuff, because this is > something that Microsoft REALLY SHOULD have solved by now) > > I always find that even just talking about, or writing down, a problem > that has stumped me always helps (see 'Rubber Duck Debugging'). Half > of us are sitting around twiddling our thumbs because we've got 50% of > our normal traffic, and I'm sure we'll all be willing to help. > > --Rob > > PS: I honestly, truly, care. I've been RIGHT at the end of my tether > for stupid reasons and because I was under insane pressure. You, > personally, are more important than your job. Don't kill yourself > (metaphorically OR literally). Wanna chat about shit? Call me. > 0402-077-155. Anytime. > _______________________________________________ > AusNOG mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog -- Make Music, Not War Dave Täht CTO, TekLibre, LLC http://www.teklibre.com Tel: 1-831-435-0729 _______________________________________________ AusNOG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog
