“No, we just moved our office, we didn’t change anything except the external IP address. The VPN problem must be on your end. Did you set the new IP address?”.

“Okay, we did install a new NAT router. But the problem must be on your end. Did you set the new IP address?”

“Oh, yes, it’s running a newer version of the OS. But the problem must be on your end. Did you set the new IP address?”

“Here are screenshots of our config. But the problem must be on your end. Did you set the new IP address?”

“Yes, we set it up with IKEv2 instead of v1. But the problem must be on your end. Did you set the new IP address?”

It’s actually been more than eight hours, and they still haven’t fixed their problem, but I at least got some sleep in the middle. We’d still be arguing about what the problem actually is if they hadn’t sent me the screenshots.

Oh, and it was urgent for me to make the change on my end Friday night (which they told me about on Friday afternoon…), but no one at their end actually checked their router for connectivity until this morning. And it’s been nearly an hour since they responded to the message that they’re using the wrong IKE version, but they still haven’t fixed it.

[Update: to add insult to injury, I just got a recruiting email from WalmartLabs. Perhaps the fact that it’s raining in Northern California in late June should have been a clue that the week was going to be a little odd.]