As a CIO, I rarely if ever do basic technology troubleshooting. Not because I don’t want too, but my staff usually discourages me from touching things these days.
Yesterday was an unusually slow day for me. So I decided to catch up on some personal housekeeping and organizing. So I decided to move my computer and to relocate to a new jack which was not lit.
Since it was a slow day and my techs were busy, I took it upon myself to patch my own jack. Something I haven’t done in a very long time. I saw it as an opportunity to get back to my roots.
In the data center I discovered a nest of cables and miss labels. Poor cable management to say the least. I wasn’t happy but after 2 hours I was able to trace my cable and patch to the new jack.
Afterwards, I had a short conversation with my network manager about this situation.
Needless to say, I should have been more attentive to such details instead of relying on staff.
In the future, I’ll be making more unannounced visits to the datacenter and maybe elsewhere.
A CIO's Voice 
Arun, your story reminds me of a similar experience I had. I was, at the time, CIO for BMW Financial Services in Dublin, Ohio. One day, my Ethernet connection went bad. After some basic troubleshooting, I rang the server room and asked the operator to move my jack to another port. He apparently took me for a “dumb user,” and gave me a hard time. Not the best customer service.
The interior wall of my office was glass, and I could see the operator in the server room on the other side of the floor. So, I stood up and waved to him. “See me, in the corner office?” Now, we were properly introduced. He stood up. “Now, look over your right shoulder at the switch. Do you see the port with no green light?” I read him the cable number again.
“Yes, sir.” Glumly, the operator found me a new port and I was back online. I did not feel a need to follow up, except regarding the health of the switch itself. I just said, “thank you,” and went back to work – although I do agree with you about dressing the cables. We used to have a professional come in quarterly and tidy that up.