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Author's Chapter Notes:

Previously on TFTS:

Carl the phone guy is ambushed coming out of the elevator, and learns that the only way out of an ambush is forwards! 

“So, as I was coming in, Michael mentioned something about the internet being down,” Carl questions as Jim leads him towards the infrastructure room, “When did that happen, I thought just the phones were down?”

Jim reaches the door and opens it for Carl, and they are greeted by the screams of fans and a long beep every 3 seconds or so.

“Oh, about that,” Jim rubs the back of his neck, “Dwight thought that you were a waste if money so he was trying to solve the problem before you got here… so he rebooted the phones… but since he doesn’t actually know which one is the phone system, he pulled that plug,” Jim finishes, pointing at the plug in the wall that goes to the rack.

“Right, well, I’ll look into that real quick first,” Carl says as he unpacks his laptop from his shoulder bag, “Seeing as you had internet earlier this morning, it should come back by itself… Also, you were right about you guys having a battery backup,” Carl says, pointing at a grey box at the bottom of the rack with a flashing yellow light and a rats nest of power cords plugged into it.

Cables can also be seen spilling over from the rack and across the room to where the film crew has set up their equipment. Carl traces the cables by sight and grimaces.

“Well there’s a problem,” Carl points at the cables running across the room, “I am going to bet that your battery backup is not rated to run this rack and all of that,” Carl finishes, pointing at the film equipment.

Jim just shrugs, and Carl shakes his head.

Carl finishes setting up his laptop and plugs in to one of the switches on the rack, “Alright… we’ll have to call your corporate IT and get their opinion on that, in the meantime we have internet,” Carl says with a little fist pump, he smiles at Jim, “I love it when a problem solves itself.”

“I’m just glad that Dwight didn’t break anything worse than it was,” Jim says with a shrug and a lopsided grin.

“Well, we’re not out of the woods yet,” Carl tries to temper Jim’s expectations, “Now we have to figure out what went wrong with the phones, and for that I am going to need some credentials from your corporate IT department.”

With that, Carl shoves his bag closer to the rack with his foot, and then starts towards the reception desk with Jim following.

“Hey Pam,” Carl rounds on the reception desk, “Do you think I could grab the corporate IT number from you?”

“Sure,” Pam hands Carl a sticky note.

“Great, thanks,” Carl says as he starts to dial the number.

The other end picks up, and Carl greets them, “Hey, Carl here from Electric Cit-IT, how are you?”

“Fine, thanks.”

“Actually, I’m on site here at your Scranton branch for a phone outage, I was wondering if you could fill me in on the setup and maybe get me some credentials.”

“Thanks, do you know if you have any backups of the config? It looks like it may have been wiped.”

“Uh huh… You are aware this is at emergency rate, yeah?”

“… Just making sure. Yes, I can do that, it will take some time though. Anything else you can tell me?”

“Right, almost forgot, there is some equipment from a film crew in the IT room overloading your UPS, was that supposed to be there?”

“No, I can tell them, I’ll just ask the staff who’s in charge of that.”

“Right on, thanks, I’ll let you know if anything else comes up, Bye,” Carl says and hangs up. He then turns to angle himself towards Jim, who is by now leaning against the reception desk sharing a laugh with Pam.

Carl grabs Jim’s attention with a small wave, “Hey, Jim?”

“Yeah?”

“Who can I talk to on the film crew, I need to talk to them about the equipment they have plugged in to your battery backup.”

“What do you need man,” A mic operator who had been standing behind a fake plant suddenly asks, nodding at Carl.

Carl turns and addresses the man, “I need the equipment relocated as per corporate.”

“Oh, uh, I can handle that for you,” The man says as he raises the boom pole to rest and comes towards the trio.

“Great, thanks…”

“Brian,” the man supplies, reaching out the shake Carl’s hand.

“Great to meet you Brian, Carl. Let’s get to it, I’m paid by the hour,” Carl chuckles.

Carl, Brain, and the camera operator all head off toward the IT room.

“Do you think that means no filming today,” Pam asks Jim.

“No, they explained to me one time that they use that stuff for editing footage and getting the signal from our mic-packs,” Jim explained.

“Shucks, I was really hoping for the winning combo, no work or cameras,” Pam sighed.

Jim and Pam continued to chat for a bit, but eventually Jim decided he should look at his emails today, so he wandered back to his desk to pretend to work there. After about half an hour Carl returned to reception to explain to Pam that the phone system got wiped, but corporate was able to restore the basic configuration from the time at which the system was first installed. However, all the phone extension settings had been lost, and so he needed to rebuild them.

“So, I need a list of extensions, and then a map of the office showing who has them and where would be great,” Carl explained after he finished updating Pam.

“Can do,” Pam said, producing a copy of her branch directory.

“Great, thanks,” Carl took the copy from her, “I have to write down all of the hardware addresses of the phones, so you’ve got some time before I need that map,” he said as he came around the side of the desk and turned her phone upside down, copying some numbers and letters off the back into a column that he had roughly added to the directory page.

With that, Carl started making his way around the office, painstakingly recording the hardware addresses of all the phones next to the names on his list, and occasionally having to ask people who sat where. As he disappeared to the annex Pam had finished her sketch of the office with all of the phones. Pam heard Kelly start talking from her desk, and grimaced.

Deciding that Carl might be a while back there, Pam started adding details to the sketch to pass the time. She doodled some beets and bears on Dwight’s desk, some cats for Angela, M&Ms for Kevin, and so on around the office, until she was left with Jim’s.

Before Pam got a chance to pick something for Jim’s desk though, Carl approached her desk, “Hey, got that map for me? I’m ready for an IT scavenger hunt,” he said, startling Pam.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Pam yelped, “Just finished.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” Carl took the sketch from her, “This is a lot more than I was hoping for, is this your side gig from doing art or something,” Carl asked with a raised brow, looking quite impressed.

“No, I’m in classes though.”

“Huh, well I think you're doing just fine judging by this,” Carl said with a nod and departed for the IT room.

Pam was ecstatic to have a complete stranger compliment her art and beamed at Jim who was giving her a goofy grin, clearly having overheard that conversation.

All in all, it was shaping up to be a pretty good Monday despite the shaky start, Pam thought to herself.

Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading and reviewing. I hope to have this wrapped up in two more chapters!

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