Chapter 8 — The Creator Cannot Be Erased

All you need is money in your account. As long as the customers don't leave, that's fine. I always think... What I don't compete for is merit. It's only when I look back that I realize... What I gave up little by little... is proof for everyone to remember that I once existed. Thieu Lam was about to say something when the phone suddenly rang. She looked at the screen. His face immediately changed.

"It's Mr. Do."

I took the phone. Mr. Do did not beat around the bush.

"Trinh Thu Ninh, who is responsible for your new batch of machines?"

"Then come here now."

On the other end of the line, the sound of people talking mixed with the machine's error siren kept ringing.

"In my twelve shopping malls, forty-seven machines stopped working overnight."

"General Manager Chu's people just informed me that the company will hold a press conference tomorrow, saying this is just a normal fluctuation phenomenon during the system upgrade process."

Mr. Do stopped for a moment.

"Whether it's normal or not I don't know."

"I just know..."

"Tonight after the mall closes..."

"There's no one left to clean the floor."

There was a heavy "bang" on the phone. Just like the sound of a machine that has just turned off completely.

"Before eight o'clock tomorrow morning..."

"If you can't come up with a solution..."

"Tung Quang's largest annual contract..."

"Consider it over."

6. Press conference after the customer crisis When I arrived at the headquarters of the trading group in charge of Mr. Do... It was twelve twenty minutes at night. The operating status of equipment at twelve shopping centers is displayed on large screens. Forty-seven machines. Thirty-nine lost connection. The remaining eight kept restarting. A red warning strip covers the left to right side of the screen. Engineer Hua, who is in charge of engineering, forwarded the entire deployment log to me.

"The system was just updated last night."

"When switching tasks, the old model lost communication connection and the controller automatically locked the machine."

"The server side can restore the old version, but the device side cannot."

"Which two batches of machines?"

He read the number.

"Production batch for the second half of 2022?"

He nodded. That batch of machines uses a type of communication module that has long been discontinued. To avoid the situation where the device loses its network and stands in the middle of the emergency exit in the shopping center... At that time, we designed a local backup mechanism. If the connection is lost... The machine continues to complete the unfinished area. After eight minutes, it will automatically switch to safe lock mode. New models have replaced other modules. This mechanism is also no longer on the regular testing list. Before this update... The testing team has tested all new models and key batches of the past year. Particularly, two batches of used machines are scattered at the customer's site. In the laboratory, there is only one spare machine that has had its circuit board removed. That's why... Compatibility testing was overlooked. The problem isn't who wrote a single line of code incorrectly. Everyone assumes that the old device will obediently behave exactly like the new device.

"First stop the entire iterative validation process."

I pointed at the screen.

"Remove two batches of old machines from the update queue on the server."

"The scene is not restarted anymore."

"Use offline maintenance to delete all tasks."

Engineer Hua hesitated.

"That program hasn't been used for two years."

"Still in stock."

"At the old maintenance computer."

The early days of making commercial equipment... Network conditions were very poor. Each maintenance team is equipped with an offline computer. Later, the system was completely transferred to the cloud platform. Computer liquidated. But the hard drive is still retained. I immediately called the person in charge of the maintenance depot.

"Find compartment number three."

"The hard drive and connecting wires are all there."

Ten minutes past one in the morning. The warehouse found two hard drives. One set of programs remains open. But the driver only recognizes old operating systems. Engineer Hua immediately repackaged the driver set. The after-sales team divided four used laptops that had not yet been liquidated, and took them to four different areas. I divided the nine engineers into four groups. Two groups went to key commercial centers. One team is in charge of remote support. The remaining group specializes only in handling unrecoverable devices. Every time they save a machine... They must report to the group: Device number. Completion time. No one is allowed to just text two words "done". Twelve shopping malls are scattered in four areas. While field engineers only have nine people. I rearranged the priority order according to the opening time and number of customers of each store.

"Before six o'clock..."

"Recover at least thirty of them."

"Before seven thirty..."

"The whole thing must be completed."

Mr. Do sat at the other end of the conference table.

"What if one is missing?"

"The company will compensate according to the contract."

"Do you have the right to decide?"

"I'm the one in charge of this contract."

"I'm determined."

Two twenty minutes in the morning. The first machine left the charging location in the basement. Quietly run along the wall. Complete a complete cleaning route. When the video was transmitted to the meeting room... No one cheered.