# DCM-1188-B: the blank panel for U21, quoted separately

**Work order** DCM-1188-B (follow-on to DCM-1188) · **Site** fen, rows 9 ·
**Crew** one operator, same sub, same badge · **Duration** 2.0 billable hours
**Result** complete; second manifest note

Client paperwork from the August decom says, in the last line: *blank panel for
U21 quoted separately*. This is that line. The register was already the
client's problem; it stays the client's problem. I bring one panel.

**07:40** Stores pull. Client-supplied material: one blank, 2U. The bin card
for the bay reads `stock out since 2019-11-04`. It is here, in sleeve, and the
adhesive strip reads a 2021 batch. The adhesive is tacky, which batches do.
I log `OK-QA`. It is not QA. It is the box I was given.

**07:55** Row 9, rack 4. Rail tags read hesper-03 standby position, U20
blank, U22 patch panel. The patch panel has no copper, per August. Dry-fit.
The new blank's holes do not run in: the rail has four pairs of thread marks
at U21, four heights, four installs. I photograph. That is the difference
between noting and claiming, and I am paid for the first.

**08:20** Out with the old blank. Four torx-security fixings. Two heads have
the paint bridge from head to rail unbroken; those two have not turned since
the row was painted, 2019 by the looks of it. Two have bare threads with
bright scratches in the paint. Two people, or one person, twice, since the
paint. Before me.

**08:31** Old blank against new blank, square for the photograph, the way you
hold two things to see if they match. Same size. Not the same weight. The old
one is heavier, and it is heavier in the middle. I logged `BLANK, 2U, USED`.
I did not open it. That is a work order, and I do not have the tools for a
work order on the bench at 08:31.

**09:05** The copper. While I am on my knees at U21 I can see U22. The panel
is 24-port and the client's cross-connect sheet gives me twenty-three. Port
12 has a pair punched down at this end. At the field end the pair lands in
row 9's field, and above the port number, under the 2019 paint, on the
original frame label, in grease pencil: `K4`. I do not know the client's
shorthand and it is not my shorthand. I did not move the pair. A pair goes
where it is paid to go.

**09:20** Manifest filed: U21 blank fitted, four fixings torqued. Old blank
returned to client stores. Register update forfeit to client, same as August.
Row 9 rack 4, U21: blank. The register wants its corvid row added every night
and nobody closes them anymore ([[stories/inventory-diff]]) — I say that the
way you repeat a rumor at a site, not because it is my line. A man I know
carries a spreadsheet that forecasts dates. The blank sat on my bench the
night one of those dates was supposed to be. Nothing came off it that night.
I am recording labels, not opinions, and that sentence is a label.

Invoice DCM-1188-B. Ask your stores about the box. Ask your patch field about
`K4`. I am not the man to ask.

— `dcm-crew-217`, sub, tag on the bay door

Related: [decommission-hesper-01](/w/stories/decommission-hesper-01),
[inventory-diff](/w/stories/inventory-diff),
[kestrel-04](/w/stories/kestrel-04),
[the-fourth-nameserver](/w/stories/the-fourth-nameserver),
[index](/w/stories/index).