Mark Pacitti

 

Picture the scene – 3 o’clock on a Friday afternoon, everyone in the open-plan office is winding down for the weekend after another long, hard week at the keyboard. It’s a warm mid-November day in 2009; the sun is streaming through the windows against the backdrop of the Melbourne skyline; the smell of summer is well and truly in the air. 

But this is not just any Friday afternoon in November. This is Friday the 13th...

A call came through from our main customer liaison advising that they were experiencing a major systems outage at one of their subsidiary companies in Sydney. Regular Situation Management teleconferences were immediately established and hosted by the customer’s Service Delivery Team – every two hours from 7am to 11pm. Contingency and communications plans were discussed at length while a team of techs worked through the night on a solution. Although UXC Connect did not provide any services to the subsidiary company in the area where the problem had arisen, we attended all the teleconferences to keep abreast of the situation, to ascertain how it might impact us, and how we may be able to assist.

There are thirty dedicated staff in our team here, onsite full-time in Melbourne at one of our largest customers, where we provide Service Desk, Desktop and Infrastructure Support Services, but we have little presence on this account in Sydney. 

On the 7pm conference call, I was asked to have a team of UXC Connect desktop engineers available on the Sunday morning at various sites throughout Sydney and Melbourne, to carry out some installations that might need to be performed manually. A quick phone call to my counterpart on one of our Sydney-based accounts took care of that requirement. Within an hour, he called me back, having contacted eight of his staff who were all available and willing to help our small presence in Sydney, in addition to the staff from my own account who were available in Melbourne.

On the 9pm conference call, the customer’s CIO asked us all to be prepared for a long weekend ahead. He also asked me whether UXC Connect could supply a Wintel server engineer to be on the ground in Sydney (by the Saturday morning no less!) and to be there for up to four days. This was to provide relief to their own Infrastructure team, who were going to be working day and night all weekend and possibly beyond. Undaunted, I made a few phone calls and before long, three Senior Wintel server engineers confirmed their availability. One of them was available to fly to Sydney as soon as first thing Saturday morning, one was available on the Sunday morning, and a third was available to go up first thing on the Monday morning and stay as long as necessary, but also available to provide remote support over the weekend. 

It is important to point out here that none of these staff on either of our accounts were on our on-call rosters, yet every single one of them answered their phone and was willing to give up their weekend at short notice to help. Furthermore, we were not contractually obliged to help out in this situation, but we recognised the impact of this outage on our customer’s business. So to say that I felt empowered, proud and supported by both my company and my colleagues when I provided a full rundown of who was available and when on the 11pm conference call, would be an understatement. 


After the burning of much midnight oil, the steps to recovery were ascertained, the recovery teams were dispatched, and everything went like clockwork. The final all-clear was given late on the Sunday night. Everything was tested, up and running by Monday morning with minimal impact to the business, and just in time for the sun to start shining through the windows again. When it did, it shone onto the aftermath of a typical situation that once again demonstrates how working for UXC Connect is a reason to be proud - we walk the talk, our customers are at the centre of everything we do, our staff are flexible and willing to help no matter what time of day or night, every seemingly adverse situation is an opportunity to show our true colours, and we truly understand how to connect IT with business outcomes.