episode004 – RTFM

Palin read the manual and the problem became clear. It was like his own private Inservice.

He didn’t wonder what possessed them to buy a coffee maker that would only make coffee if it could transmit vital brew statistics to the mothership in the cloud. It wasn’t their fault, he knew. They were pawns in a game, caught between brilliant marketing and desire for excellent coffee, where shnazzy features gave just enough placation to offset any annoyance caused by the steady stream of personalized affiliate engagement opportunities.

The manual, a multifold pamphlet titled “You and your brand new Brwando Coffee Maker,” spelled all this out not only in mostly-English words, but stick-figure iconography. It told Palin where on the unit to look (under the Brwando brand logo) for the slowly pulsing yellow wifi icon. Yellow, the manual confirmed, meant no network connection.

He left the manual on the counter and slipped past the elevator, heading toward the stairwell. Along the way, he instructed Jen:

“Stage a config file commit for the Education firewall to add a row in the isolated tunnels table for their new… Brwando”—he enunciated the brand name—“coffee maker. You should see it broadcasting in the area of the Education Division Executive Staff Lounge.” He thought for a minute, then added, “and let’s do a short-term packet capture just to see what’s going where. Have the config send NetOps the report daily for five days then a weekly summary for the next two months.”

He could have delegated the ticket to anyone on his team. It was the type of task an intern could do. Palin had been an intern once… once. Fresh out of high school, way back in 2020. He had been mostly clueless back then, and free of responsibility. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Over the years he graduated from intern to office monkey and then tech support lackey. He learned the first rule of tech: RTFM. And every day, incrementally, the responsibility added up. It added up until now, fifteen years later, he managed a team. And even though any one of them could have fixed the coffee maker, it was Palin who Lord Stone assigned the ticket.

His team was given projects, but as Team Lead, Palin learned, his job was to run interference. And so he spent his days running around dealing with all the little things, so his team could focus on their particular roles.

Last week he was segregating the wireless network in a homeless shelter so the patrons could surf porn but the staff couldn’t. Lord Stone had written the contract as “wireless network design and implementation.” The week before he’d been next door at the State Office Building arguing with myopic trolls about VPN credentials, or as Lord Stone called it: “partner services workflow design.”

Today, his team’s focus was the statewide School Administrator’s Inservice. “Let’s make sure there’s not a hitch,” Lord Stone had messaged.

Around Alaska, there were more open positions for School Administrators than there were eligible School Administrators. A decade prior, GACIS leadership, seeing the market opportunity, launched School Administration as a for-profit statewide service. Similar to Palin’s team, the GACIS School Administrators occasionally traveled the state, but primarily worked from desks, in meetings all day every day, via VidCon™. (Contractually, GACIS employees were required to use the product name, VidCon™, instead of the more generic term: video conferencing.)

Palin couldn’t imagine any hell greater than being stuck in meetings all day. He was wondering how they ever got any work done when Greg grabbed his arm, a panicked look on his face.

“We. Uh. Need to discuss the agenda.” Greg’s job title included the word Coordinator and this week he was coordinating the entire Inservice. He held out a tablet, the document on display said “Agenda” at the top. “See,” he pointed a shaky finger. “This. Then after that, we have you here at 3:00pm. But, we might need to bump you. The VidCon™ might go long.”

“Might?”

“Well… it’s gone, see?” He waved Palin into conference room 2c. “Jill moved the big screen to make room for breakfast.”

The big screen was indeed gone. Typically it would be found in the corner, but this morning it was gone. Not surprising, since the screen was mounted to a stand with wheels.

“Well it is porta—”

“Jill took it,” Greg interrupted in a conspiratorial whisper.

She did a good job, Palin noticed. Not only was the big screen on its rolling wheels gone, but so was its multimedia hub, the remote controls, and all the cables. It was as if she’d done it on purpose.

“Is she going to put it back?” Palin asked.

“Who?”

“Jill.”

“Do we need it?”

“For your VidCon™ today?”

“Yea.”

“Who are you conferencing with?”

“Well,” Greg referred to the agenda on the tablet. “A classroom, in… Kaktovik. Students and a teacher, it says.”

“Do you want to see them?”

“The students?”

Palin nodded.

“Yea. Definitely. So, I should have her put it back?”

“Yea,” Palin said over his shoulder as he left the conference room. “Definitely.”

Jill was the Education Division’s Office Manager. Nothing was outside of her domain. If a fridge needed cleaning: Jill. A million copies made? Jill. Dead mouse in the mouse trap? Jill. Someone to substitute as a driving instructor? Jill. VidCon™ big screen unit hard-wired into place but you’d like a little more space for breakfast? Jill’s your gal.

Palin didn’t worry about the big screen. Jill was a self-starter, a go-getter. Plus, the VidCon™ unit had a handy laminated user-guide attached, and Jill knew how to RTFM.