Faulty Connection

 I was on the phone for two hours today at work.

Which is notable because like....working in retail most of our phone calls end up lasting under 5 minutes. 

At most if a customer is being more difficult...it could last up to thirty minutes.

But two hours?? Is a bit extreme.

Except in this case....it was because I was on the phone with our tech support.

As we've been trying to get our Register 4 up and running. 

Why? 

Because corporate came down and was like "Make sure ALL your registers are working."

And Register 4?? 

Hasn't worked in a long loooongggg time. 

Like I've worked there for a decade and....I'm not actually sure it was even working when I started.

Though I think when I started we had 5 registers at that point?? But got rid of one soon after?? But yah...I know Register 4 hasn't worked in at least 6 years or so. Because we've been talking about taking it out for years.

Like that was the plan. To take it out.

And because that was the plan....register 4 ended up being a bit of a Frankenstein creation. As we would take working pieces from that register to replace the broken pieces on the other 3 registers.

So it's been a bit of a....process to get Register 4 up and running.

The main issue was that it wasn't connecting to our store network.

Because we recently had an upgrade in that.

And because Register 4 was planned to be taken out....it was rather pointless to hook it up to the network if it was going away.

Only it's not going away now.

The last I dealt with register 4 and getting it 'fixed' the issues was that. And I'd been told to replace a cord and that they'd 'get back to us' after that was replaced. 

And I never heard back.

But today my head manager was like "Hey, where are we with this?" 

Soooo I got on the phone...expecting it to be like a 30 minute thing at most. Mostly a check in and such.

But No.

So turns out that the computer HAD been connected to the new network. Only it wasn't talking to said network. 

And the tech thought it was because a wire hadn't been replaced.

But the wire he was wanting me to replace was a different one from the one I'd been told to replace.

But it turns out, after testing a couple different things, that the wire itself works, only the phone said wire was supposed to go into....isn't working. 

Which is weird because that phone was working before we started messing wtih everything so who knows why that suddenly stopped working.

In any case, I was told to place the wire that was supposed to go into the phone directly into the register instead basically by passing the phone. 

And then?

Then it became a game of "Off and On" where the Tech had me turn on the register then off the register then on then off then on then off on off on off.

I probably turned that Register on and off like a good dozen times. *exhales*

Why did I have to do it so much?

Because the Register HAD been connected to a new IP address on the network....but every time we turned the register on....it kept trying to connect to the OLD IP address.

And the dude on the other side was struuuuggglllinng to get it to connect. At one point he even had to call in an engineer on his side to figure out what in the world was going on. 

BUT!!!

In the end. After 2 hours of me being stuck hanging out by the machine turning it on and off. We finally got Register 4 connected and up and running! Woot!! 

So we're soooo close to having it be useable in the store now.

The only other thing that is the main concern now is to get our pinpad for that register up and running because it's in a "Maintenance Required" standby phase that means that it's been....locked from tampering?? somethign like that.

Basically we have to get it replaced.

But after that....so long as the scanners and such on the register work....we should have Register 4 up and fully running soon!! 

*fingers crossed* that we get it all worked out quickly.

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves. 
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi