181 lines
8.2 KiB
Plaintext
181 lines
8.2 KiB
Plaintext
From: spt@waikato.ac.nz (Simon Travaglia)
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Subject: The BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #15
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THE BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #15
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It's a warm afternoon in the computer room. I dunno, maybe I should turn
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the chillers back on, but what the hell, I've got a cold and I need to keep
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warm if I go into the machine room.
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I flip today's excuse card. Magnetic Interferance from Money/Credit Cards.
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Hmmm, vague enough to be plausible. The phone rings
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"Hello, Computer Room" I say
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"Hi!" the caller says "I want to fit some RAM to my machine to upgrade the
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memory. I just bought some 4 meg chips off a guy in town and wanted to know
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if you guys would fit it."
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"Well," I say "normally we would, but today the technicians are busy trying to
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gas axe open our tape safe to see why it smells - You could probably fit it
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yourself though.."
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"Really? I thought that was dangerous?" she says
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"Nah nah, it's safe as houses, just remember to get the chips out of those
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stupid plastic bags before they stuff them up altogether"
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"Really?! How do they do that?"
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"Well, you've heard of static RAM right?"
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"Yes..."
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"Well, Why pack static RAM in an antistatic bag? Sounds really suspect if
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you ask me!!! Yours might even be stuffed already, so you'd better remove
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them.."
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>D.M. ON<
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"Oh >crinkle crinkle< Ok. Now what do I do?"
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"Ok, you'll need to get rid of the charge those bags have probably given
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your RAM, after all, you don't want to blow up your computer, do you? Get
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rid of any woolens that you're wearing and switch to nylon. Run round some
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cheap carpet, then comb your hair a couple of dozen times and then plug the
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chips into the comb to keep them steady. Turn your machine on, then plug
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the memory in and out about 10 times to get the slots warmed up. Then slop
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them back in, flick the power switch half a dozen times and that should
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do it!"
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"Hey thanks!"
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"Don't mention a thing, all part of the service"
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I leave for lunch - after all I have been here for 10 minutes solid - and
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walk past the student labs. I hear a mass of beeping and look round to see
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a user's screen full of garbage. They've either typed an image file or
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fingered my account and got the core file I renamed as .plan. By the time
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he gets his terminal sorted out, his allocation of connect time will be all
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used up. A tragic shame.
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I get back from lunch early a couple of hours later and slip into the Usenet
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news directory tree, slide on down to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica, then
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start deleting parts 3 or 4 of the really long gifs. (After taking a copies
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myself and overwriting them to the last user backup tape, of course).
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Then I get ready to watch the videos I got out from the video shop by taking
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the printers offline and disconnecting the phone, and I notice that the frame
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-grabber video player is gone from the office. Someone has obviously moved
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it while I was away...
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I make some discrete enquiries under the threat of rm -r, and find out that
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the secretary now has posession of it. So I mosey on down and ask to take
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it away. Only I can't because I've got to sign *THE BOOK*, saying when it
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will be back, how many minutes of tape I'm going to put thru it, if I'm
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going to be watching PAL or NTSC etc. Then it's all fed into her *personal*
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computer (which I'm not allowed to touch because it doesn't belong to us) so
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she can produce full colour plots about who's not working in the department.
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I mention that it's not coming back - as I was the person that put the hammer
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through the frame grabber in the first place, I should be the one to hold
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the video. She then tells me that that's not acceptable, and I will have to
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find some other video to use, she needs access to get to the video 24 hours a
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day, in case someone needs it. And because she takes her PC home at night, I
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needn't think that I can fake any borrowing records. All this I see for what
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it really is - a thinly disguised attempt to gain access to the seat of power
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(The Operators Room) by the Bastard Secretary from Hell.
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I decide to let it slide for once, after all she does get the snail mail
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into the correct distribution slots about 20% of the time, so that can't be
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so bad.
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Next morning, I get in about 2pm and find that I have three departmental
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memos about the status of other stuff that is in the Computer Room that has
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been "incorrectly inventorised" as "Awaiting Repair" (The shithead technician
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has been leaking privileged information in an effort to score the secretary
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again - A tragic shame, I used to quite like him..) with a note from the Big
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Boss authorizing the secretary to investigate. Attached to all that is a
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note from the secretary herself stating that to action this she requires a 24
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hour access key to the Computer Room.
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ONCE AGAIN I realise that letting things slide never pays off. I look up the
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secretary's RS232, Ethernet, Appletalk and Phone port numbers and yank them
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from the comms rack. What the hell, I kick the circuit breakers to her power
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points and lighting too while I'm at it. Then I strip off some mains cable &
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plug it in..
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The phone rings a couple of minutes later.
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"WHAT'S HAPPENED TO MY ROOM?!" the secretary screeches at me.
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"Your room?" I say, in a pleasant and innocent manner, using caller ID to
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track down the room she's in. Ah! Just down the corridor
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"Yes, MY ROOM! The power's gone off and everything is dead"
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"Oh dear. What were you doing when the power went off? Perhaps you did
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something stupid?"
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"I did NOT! I was working on *my* PC!"
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The way she says "*my*" is really getting to annoy me.
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"You were working on *your* PC?" I say, reflectively.
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"Yes!" She snarls
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"Not your *own* *very personal* computer?"
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"Yes.." She doesn't know what I'm getting at yet.
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And now I exercise the basic law of Bastard Operating which roughly says,
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Bastard Operators don't just win. Anyone can win. Bastard Operators win
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and totally DEMORALISE. That's *real* winning.
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"I hope you switched your machine off before you called"
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"Why?" she barks, a little uncertain.
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"Well, it's just that personal property isn't covered by the site insurance
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policy. Why, if there was a power surge, heaven knows WHAT could happen to
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an expensive peice of delicate *personal* machinery like..."
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I hear her place the receiver down *very* quietly and sprint on tippy toe to
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the door. As I repeatedly toggle her circuit breaker I start thinking about
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what I'll be watching on video this afternoon... Still on the phone, I hear
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a bang way in the background which probably means her pc has shit itself...
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10 minutes later the phone in the control room. It's the secretary, and she
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sounds a little stressed. I manage to translater her sporadic outbursts
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into a request that her lines be connected to her terminal. I tell her they
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are, and has she got the technician to look at it. She hangs up.
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No sense of humour.
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10 minutes later still, the technician rings up and tells me all the
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secretaries lines are dead. I tell him I'll check them out, then plug her
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ethernet, phone and Appletalk back in. Which leaves RS232...
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Another 10 minutes later I'm startled out of my snooze by the phone. It's
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the technician still greasing the secretary by being super-efficient. He
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tells me the RS232 still isn't working. I make some excuse about dry joints
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on the plug etc, and ask him to put a new plug on the cable. I hear the
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>snip!< as he clips the old plug off, and the receiver rattle as he starts
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to strip the wire in a manly way with his teeth. Then I connect the mains
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cable to my end of the RS232.
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As soon I hear the ">ERRRRRREEEERRKKK!<" coming down the receiver at me, I
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know that the "incorrect inventory" problem won't be repeated.
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Another problem solved by the Bastard Operator from Hell
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It's a dirty, filthy, stinking dog-kill-dog job, but someone's got to enjoy it
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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This is the final chapter (at least for a while). I'm off to find a job in
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Britian somewhere in a couple of weeks, so I'll let BOFH rest. Funnily
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enough, someone sent me a copy of BOFH #1 with someone else's name as author
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the other day - they thought I might be interested in it..
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Live long and prosper! - Simon spt@waikato.ac.nz
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