Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 2
Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance
Human Factors; Environment - Non Weather Related; ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings
Around XA:00 pm local I was working Area D mids at sector X when the nightly COVID cleaning crew came through and cleaned half of our area. After they left I asked the other Controller in the area to go set up to bring the sector over to Sector Y; so when the cleaning crew comes back they could clean where I was sitting. Controller went over; opened the position; and took control of the airspace. I then went over to take the position back from at Sector Y so I could sit down and continue working; and at this time we realized that the VCSC [Voice Communication Switch] was not properly configured for the mids position. There were only 5 or 6 frequencies on the panel out of the 16 or so for Area D; and very few random landlines were available for ZZZ; ZZZ1; and ZZZ2 [Airport] towers. We had to scramble to tell other sectors to use only the frequencies that we had up; as the standard frequencies were not available. To make things worse; there was a massive push of ZZZ3 [Airport] departure traffic at this time coming out over ZZZ4 [Airport] and we didn't have the frequency they use OR the landline to ZZZ3 to tell them to use a frequency we had up. The other Controller then went over to sector A which wasn't being used but had all the correct landlines and used it to call the sectors around me including ZZZ3 and tell them to put aircraft on a different frequency. It was a pretty bad situation considering if any of those departures had an issue and had to return to ZZZ3 I would have had no way to communicate or coordinate with the ZZZ3 approach controllers. I had to work like that for 15 minutes or so until the crew came back to clean the rest of the area and we moved the position back to Sector X.This is the third or fourth time I've reported this by now; we need a massive overhaul at this point of the Area D VCSC system to get everything where it needs to be; and have management properly trained on how to format it and be able to quickly fix it when there is something missing.
Center Controller reported trying to move sector positions to help accommodate COVID-19 cleaners but ran into problems with the voice switches and frequencies not being configured correctly.