Happy Friday!

That is something you often hear quite genuinely around my work on a Friday morning. However, by Friday afternoon, it often turns into a VERY sarcastic phrase.

For instance, here is what happened to me this past Friday afternoon.

First let me give a little background...
My current situation at work is that my team consists of 2 people, me and my co-worker (we'll call her K). K and I are responsible for 5 machines. That means if any hardware problems occur on any of these 5 machines, we are responsible for making sure that it gets fixed. Not neccesarily know how to fix it, but know who to contact to get it fixed.

Well, in the last year, K moved to another city. Which means I personally have to make sure the hardware for all 5 machines is in a happy state, this is fine, but it is a fact and component to the story.

This was the week I had been out for jury duty the last 3 days. Well, one of our machines (the biggest and most obnoxious one) was having some power problems. So since I was on jury duty, I told her to make do, and see if she could figure it out. Well, eventually she found out that multiple parts on the machine are were having failures, so after contacting the developer (the expert who would know) the assumption was that the sensor part that connects to the other multiple parts, is indeed the bad part. So she asked another co-worker to help out with the maintenance on this machine, since she is in another state.

So, this co-worker finds the person who knows how to do this maintenance, we'll call him J, and J is available to fix this on Friday. Well, I make it back to work, and Mr. Helper Co-worker has a meeting, so he says,"Can you help oversee the repair/maintenance process?" I think, Sure, how hard could it be?

HA! So, I show up at the machine and J comes to join me with the correct part and the needed tools. Excellent, we're off to a good start. So he gets on the machine and asks," What repair do I need to run?" How do I know, I've been in court for 3 days? And of course there are like 10 to choose from. So I instant message K. Within a few minutes, we figure out what repair event to run, and THINK we know what part number it is that we need to replace. So we start the repair. Then the instructions to remove the part come up. Ummm... these are not the instructions to remove the part that J brought over. Uh-oh. So we start hunting around. This process ends up taking so long to run, the Mr. Helper Co-worker's meeting finishes, and he comes to ask us if we are doing ok. Yeah, right! I have no idea what is going on with this machine or what the CORRECT part number is.

So, we start down the path of finding out the correct part number. Mr. Helper Co-worker is able to show us the error of our ways, and 1 hour after starting this process, we are finally beginning the correct repair process.

Of course the bad part is in the middle of some bigger part. So we have to take off what feels like every cable on this machine. And then, the part is on the bottom half of the machine, so it is between 2ft and 4 ft above the ground. Now, I'm not 9 months pregnant yet, I definitely am less limber, and cannot get up off the ground as quickly as I used to. But the height of 2-4ft requires, some hunching over, kneeling on the ground, or limber strength to unscrew bolts that are in hard to reach places. So clearly, I am NOT the ideal candidate for this project. But the thing is, J is a very nice gentleman, however he also has a limp and an issue with his knee or hip (I did not ask, just pure observation, as he walks with a bit of a hobble).

Normally, I am all for respecting my elders, and offering to get down on the floor, get dirty, and pull this machine apart. But frankly... 3 days in court made my back hurt really bad. Plus not to mention the round ligament pain had been a real killer that week, so standing is less than comfortable.

So there we are, pregnant me and inflexible J trying to hover over this machine, that requires pulling every last piece out to get the dumb part out. (Nevermind that Mr. Co-worker Helper man is not only strong, and limber, he is in fantastic shape for a mid-late 30's man) But I digress.... which is worse, prego me or hobble him? I was feeling like those pathetic women who complain about every little thing when they are pregnant (inspite of my determination to continue normal life as much as possible during pregnancy). I just wanted to go whine to someone and tell them to do the hard labor themselves!

Well, another hour has passed, the bad part still had not been completely removed, and I was really thinking, we might be better off with having bad hardware. But alas, J was able to remove the part, and put the new one in. He miraculously remembered where everything went, and put the machine back together in half the time it took to take it apart. So, almost 3 hours later, the new part is in and the machine is powering it on. J excuses himself, while I sit and watch power do its job. Over 3 hours later, my co-worker, K, runs the scan on the machine to find.... OH YES! Remember, those multiple parts that were complaining, which made us think that we needed to replace the sensor? They are reporting BAD... AGAIN! UGH!

So now here we are, Friday night, the weekend taunting me as I watch the errors on the machine continually come up. As if they are laughing at me one by one, telling me I can never go home.

And you would think this is a one time thing? NO! Computers know when its Friday, and they KNOW when you want to go home. And they KNOW when to break!

So thus HAPPY STINKING FRIDAY is anything but at this point! And either you go home in PURE frustration, and take it out on your spouse, kids, dogs, etc. Or you stay at work all night, fix the problem, and go home to a frustrated 'spouse, kids, dogs, etc.'!

Happy Friday, INDEED!

(there have been numerous times I have needed an air bag)