Russian oligarch's financial network crashed thanks to a crank and a cleaner

ON CALL Welcome to another installment of On Call, our weekly reader-contributed column that shares your stories of tech support jobs that tested your skill, sanity, and sensibilities. This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Nathan" who told us that back in the mists of time, he worked for a small investment company. "Its sole purpose was, and probably remains, managing the European investments of a very rich Russian oligarch who shall remain nameless," Nathan told On Call. As befitted the oligarch's wealth, the firm's premises featured an elaborate entrance foyer with a standout feature Nathan described as "a magnificent chandelier suspended from the ceiling with a clockwork mechanism to lower it down for cleaning." Chandeliers don't need to be cleaned every day, but after cleaners got around to the job, an entire floor of the firm lost all network access - WAN and LAN were both deader than Lenin. Nathan did the usual tests without finding the fault, so he decided to have a look at the clockwork mechanism. "I finally found the access port, peered inside, and saw half a dozen Ethernet cables tangled and shredded around the gears," he told On Call. That mess left Nathan with another problem: who to blame? "The idiot who thought leaving unprotected cables next to the winch was a good idea, or the Muppet who turned the winch without a care in the world about the cables they must have seen shredding?" Nathan could never find the person who designed the winch. "But the cleaners found out I can swear fluently in three languages," he told On Call. What's the weirdest place you've performed tech support? And what happened while you were there? To share your story, click here to send us an email so On Call can run it on a future Friday. (R)