Subj : Re: Kill 'em all; let god sort 'em out
To   : poindexter FORTRAN
From : jack phlash
Date : Tue Oct 19 2021 09:33:55

on 19 Oct 2021, poindexter FORTRAN said...
 
 pF> See my earlier email - you're not alone. I started off managing Nortel 
 pF> switches as part of my job, and once you have that on your resume, I kept
 pF> getting PBXes added to my list of responsibilities.
 pF> 
 pF> The 90s were a good time to be in office telecom.

Ha! Nice. I always really enjoyed working on telecom stuff but I wouldn't say
I developed any *actual* expertise until the switch they got AFTER that. 

SO yeah, they did eventually replace the Meridian, but due to some weird
office politics - basically, they outsourced IT and kept 1 dude to work on
the telephony stuff for them, and that dude always had a massive chip on his
shoulder that he wasn't "IT" after that - they replaced it without our direct
involvement. Eventually when they wanted to get rid of that one guy they asked
us if we could admin and maintain his new Avaya. We told them we could figure
it out... and we (mostly I) did. Major upgrade from the Meridian, but also
the dumbass bought a switch that already at the end of life (and several
components were unsupported by the time I inherited it.) Ugh.

We ended up replacing it (and the phone systems at all of our other offices)
with Asterisk-based VOIP switches not long after that. Nice to work on a
semi-modern phone equipment for once in my career.

 pF> I'm tempted to ditch my landline and run asterisk with some SIP trunks
 pF> at home, but I regain my senses.

I worked on a project to setup a remote call center on the cheap many years
ago. A couple of circuits and some SIP trunks - man, incredibly slick and
relatively easy even though that stuff was fairly esoteric back then.

I did some telephony work at my last job with an extremely out of date
Toshiba Strata (including adding some VOIP phones to it) but now that I work
in a bigger, more silo'd off org I'm completely out of the game other than
occasionally telling our Telecom guys that I feel their pain when they come to
us with networking issues. :P

|08j |15A C K |08p |15H L A S H |08!

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