Spent 6 months troubleshooting network drops before I noticed the cable staples

I've been a field tech for about 8 years now. Last fall I kept getting called back to this one office building for intermittent network drops on three workstations. Swapped out switches, reran cables, even replaced a patch panel. Finally one day I was under a desk and saw the cable running along the baseboard. The staples were driven in so tight they were pinching the jacket. Pulled them out, re-ran the cable with just a little slack, and the drops stopped cold. I felt like an idiot for not checking that first. Anyone else had a simple physical issue that took way too long to catch?

2 comments

2 Comments

mila_mitchell2d ago

Isn't it funny how the most obvious things are always the last ones we check? I've noticed this pattern applies way beyond just tech work. Like when my car started making a weird noise and I spent hours reading forums about transmission issues, only to find a loose soda can rolling under the seat. Or when the door wouldn't close right and I was looking at hinges and frames before realizing a rug was bunched up underneath. We get so caught up in the complex possibilities that we forget the simple physical world is still out there messing with us. The cable staple thing is just a perfect example of how we overthink problems when the answer is usually right in front of our face. What other everyday situations have you caught yourself doing this in?

willow7322d ago

My neighbor spent three days trying to figure out why her refrigerator was making this awful humming noise. She had a repairman come out, took the back panel off, the whole nine yards. Turned out she had a jar of pickles that was slightly off balance on the top shelf and it was vibrating against the glass. I mean, I get it, you want to think it's something serious, but sometimes a pickle jar is just a pickle jar.