Graeme Spice's personal Blog

Memoirs part 2

I mentioned in my last posting that I by chance ended up working at BT (more specifically BT International, doesn't exist now) working in Mondial House which up until a few years back was one of the major international exchanges in London where a high percentage of the international voice and data traffic passed in and out of the UK. On the day of my second interview with the Senior manager of the Department I was being proposed for it was the morning after the Marchioness Disaster happened just a few hundred feet down from the office I would be working in. My time working in this building saw me close to 2 IRA bombings in the City - Baltic Exchange and HSBC bombs I walked past within 30 mins of the explosions and the Cannon St Rail crash happened in the station directly next to the building I worked in.

My work at BT was in two different areas. I worked for 3 1/2 years in Mondial House in the International Fault Reporting Centre (IFRC) doing remote test and diagnostics for International Leased lines. At this time it was all FDM High Order cables and sattelite links. So much happened in my time in this group (First Gulf War - the morning of the allied attack first two things to go where the Kuwait City International Exchange and then the equivalent in Baghdad) We got calls from Al Jazera to report faults which made for difficult conversations given the state of war we were in. Some of our guys even went to Kuwait to set up a Satellite link back to the UK after the war - they had amazing pictures of the burning oil wells and an 11 story hole from the roof down into the basement of the International Exchange in Kuwait City - one of the first bombs dropped of the war. I also did a lot of work in Repeat Faults and Special Fault investigations these where reoccuring problems and long term problems.

A Few of these included

Gweru Earth Station going down when Migrating Elephants would rub there back sides against a bamboo tower the 2.5 Meter satellite dish was installed on would lose satellite tracking.

Being on the telex to Moscow discussing a long term data circuit problem for Reuters and have the guy on the other end say "I must go tanks have surrounded the building" when there was a military uprising and Gorbachev took control of the country.

Reuters having the longest ourstanding fault (over 3 years) for their high grade fax line in Beirut where first the Satellite earth station was bombed, then it was replaced with a mobile unit but it neede to drive around the top of a mountain every few hours to avoid being targetted again, The exchange cabling to the Reuters building was destroyed, the engineers where Christians and couldn't go into the offending area for fear of their lives. Cables in the end where run out of the 2nd floor across the road to the Reuters building on the other side of the street. Finally the Exchange was bombed, then the Reuters building. Despite all these issues we got regular complaints form Reuters up until ther building was bombed!

I loved my time in Mondial, I worked with an eclectic mix of characters including hardened drinkers who would regularily drink 8 pints before a night shift then drink a further 4 cans of special brew followed by half a bottle of scotch during their shift. There was a big drinking culture, even afternoon tea breaks where an opportunity for an extra drink. I progressed in skill and experience quickly and with the excellent training courses BT ran in their own training centres in Stone (ask any BT employee about the Wayfarer pub!) I was at a stage where I wanted to progress further. this option wasn't open to me in Mondial in the department I was in so I applied for another job in Docklands working in a Global Customer Service Centre providing technical support for Blue Chip Global Managed service customers. This was a promotion and also got me into packet switched data networks and I became the office Unix Administrator.

More to follow.