Appreciate it!! Part 3

Scene 8
Day 2 1:00pm
As Linda was discussing the issue in detail with Perry, she advised me to send across a mail to all the users to let them know that we are working on the issue and also she would let me know once the issue has been resolved. Similar stance I had taken with Rajinder I thought and trudged back to my desk to send out the mail. As I sat my desk, Sukhi came to my cube, as he had heard from Linda about the problems we were having. Though he did not know much about the application, I explained to him the situation just to see if he could get some pointers. Though he too did not have any idea he gave me the news that Linda spoke with our Manager(Onsite) Vijay about how I am not resolving the issues at my end and running to her. This explained the smile when I had gone to her cube. It was just 5-10 minutes between the time I contacted her and reached her desk, but she had done enough in those 10 minutes to pull me down in front of my Manager. Though eventually she herself has not been able to resolve the issue, but I knew she would never mention that to Vijay. Sukhi wished me good luck and went back as I sat staring at the monitor thinking now what all would be the reactions of Vijay and Manas. Thats it, I decided, now this issue has been escalated enough and its time for me to resolve it and thus I started looking into the servers.

Scene 9
Day 2 3:00pm
I spent some 20 minutes checking the files and then opened the config file and removed the extra characters in the area where the parameters were defined. Then restarted the application and lo-behold the application was back up and running. I went up to Linda's desk and announced to her that the issue has been resolved. She could not believe and wanted to check the application once more from her side. Once she was satisfied she asked me for explanations and that's when I opened the old config file and showed the extra spaces. Her face went Red because as per the log before I had got to the file, it was modified by her login and guess she had inadvertently put the blank spaces in the file. She did not want to own up the mistake and kind of mentioned that somebody must have played around with the file. I too agreed with her statement and went about explaining the process on how in a systematic way I found out the error. She requested me to check with the customer so that the ticket could be closed, while she took up the task of letting Perry and the business team known the latest on the issue and my heroics.

Scene 2
Day 1 1:00pm
I was Linda's desk for the meeting but as usual she was not at her seat. This happens invariably whenever I have a meeting with her, so as usual I just stood outside her cube. As I was standing Bajrang's words were going through my mind and suddenly I noticed that Linda had not locked her computer and she was going through the config file for one of our applications. I started getting weird ideas which led to a small plan. I checked both the aisle's to make sure that Linda is not coming over and entered some spaces into the file. The plan would work only if Linda would save the file before closing it and I just prayed to God that this happens. The application usually restarts everyday at 11:00am and therefore nobody would know about it until tomorrow morning. My mind was thinking about the things to happen Linda arrived and apologized for being late and as she was explaining the reason of being late, she saved the file and closed. For those 20 secs I never heard the words spoken by Linda but my eyes were just making sure what she was doing with the file and once the file was closed I was relieved man. We continued with our discussion for which I was there and once done I went back hoping that my plan would click.

Scene 11
Day 2 11:30pm
Bajrang opened a can of beer while I had my usual Soda. Cheers and thus began a night of our enjoyment. Sukhi, Vishesh and Rajan too joined us and just as the party was brewing one of our's phones started ringing. Though I did not have any alcohol it took me couple of minutes to realize that it was my phone - may be success had gone to my head. It was a call from the Service desk and my party ended because now I had a new issue to deal with. :-(