'That's ok, I'm a tolerant person' I make a mental note to change his password to something nasty in the next couple of days.
'Um, I need to know how to rename a file' he says.
Oh dear... Hang on, it's payday isn't it?! I'm in a good mood.
'Sure. You just go 'rm' and the filename'
'Thanks'
'No worries' (Now I'm in a *REALLY* good mood. I think I just might write that script to make saving impossible on rogue at random times like I've been
thinking about)
The phone rings again.
'Hello?'
'Hi there' I say
'Is this the Operators?'
'Yes it is' I say, nice as pie
'Could you get my printouts out please. I need them urgently, and I printed them over 5 minutes ago'
'Your username?' I ask.
He gives it to me, and I write it down for later. 'No worries at all!' I say, and head to the printers.
There's a HUUUUUUUGE pile of printouts there, and sure enough, his is at the top of the pile. I pick it up, split it out of the rest and pour our ink-stained cleaning alcohol all over it, run it over a couple of times with the loaded tape trolley then slam it in the tape safe door some times as well.
Beautiful.
'Here's your printout' I say 'Sorry about the delay, we've got a few printer problems.'
He takes a look and shits himself.
'Well, can I print it again?' he asks, worried
'Sure you can' I say 'But no promises, the printer's a bit stuffed today'
'Well can I print it on laser – is that working?'
'Yeah of course, but that'll cost you' I say, oozing compassion for the geek
'It doesn't matter about the cost, THIS IS URGENT!'
I slide-on back into the printer room and put in the toner cartridge we save for special occasions – the one that prints thick black lines down the middle of the page and is all faint on one side. It took me quite a while to make it like that too. The printout shoots through and I bring it out immediately – I don't want to miss this!
'W-w-what's happened to my printout?' the geek squeals at me. Lucky I wrote that username down – I'm really starting to develop a taste for torture.
'Well nothing. I mean sure, it's a little soiled, but that cartridge has already done 47 thousand pages and been refilled 17 times. It's quite good compared to some we get'
Geek pays up and starts blubbing.
'Hey now. There's no reason to cry! Have you got a disk with your work on it?'
He gives me a box of diskettes and I step inside and buzz them thru the bulk eraser. I come back out again.
'Sorry, I just remembered, our machine is on the fritz, you'll have to take these to the other side of campus to the machine there, it'll print them ok, and it had a brand-new toner yesterday.'
'GREAT!'
'No worries. Oh, and hold the disks above your head the whole way there, the earth's magnetic field is particularly strong today.'
'Huh?'
'No arguements, just do it.'
He wanders off, hand held high. Shit, I hate myself sometimes!
+–+
| +–+ Digitally Enhanced | This space intentionally blank for notetaking.
| |-O-O-| Portrait of: |
| | % | Simon Travaglia, |
| | – | Analyst/Programmer |
| +–+ Waikato University |
+–+
UNPRECEDENTED PERFORMANCE: nothing we had before ever worked this way
The Real Bastard:
BOfH #5
I'm bored senseless, so I pass the time by reading users email. I must admit that today's lot is PARTICULARLY boring, not one good message in all of them. I was expecting at LEAST some veiled reference to a grope in a storeroom, but nothing. So I'm bored senseless by the usual drivel about some relative's surgery and how the weather is over the other side of the world – that sort of crap.
To relieve the boredom, I remove a e-mail party invite from a user's mail and post it under the senders username to to alt.singles.with.severe.social. dysfunctions on news, and make a note in my diary to be there with my camcorder. Should be a blast!
Next in line is the online medical records database, in which the company doctors store the current medical histories of the staff. I grep it quickly for 'herpes' and 'syphillus' and send the results to the local scum newspaper. I cover my tracks by adding an entry to one of the doctor's online electronic diarys for yesterday saying '$500, Med Recs To Paper' I think that's all it should take.. That'll be the last time he doesn't shift appointments to make room for me..
I move some tapes from the racks to the trolley to make it look like we really use them, then start looking thru archie listings for a hidden x-gif site. I find one then start a batch job running under some user's account to get them all back, charged to him. I make sure he's got enough disk for the job by removing any files not related to the task at hand. Like all those 'Doctorate Final Report' papers that have got quite large in the last couple of weeks.
I go back to the mail now, as something's bound to have happened. I do a grep on all mail files for the words 'pregnant' and 'family way', and post them anonymously to the local general interest newsgroup.
Then, before anything can happen, the power goes out! The next second, the phone rings.
'Hello?' I say, annoyed – the coyote was just about to kill roadrunner again!
'Has the comput..'
I hang up. This is a matter of life or death. Quick as I can I rip the computer power cable out of the UPS and plug the TV in. Damn! Wylie missed again!
Meantime, all the alarms are going off like crazy as the disks spin down, but that's ok, because my Mac and Terminal are hardwired to the UPS in any case; and I'm at the Beer Factory level in Dark Castle too!
The phone rings, so I pull the PABX breaker on the UPS switchboard and it stops. Now to look like I'm working. I break out the puck and the hockey stick and play a little one-on-wall. From the observation window it'll look like I'm being blindingly efficient, as per usual.
10 Minutes later, the power is back and we're two HDA's down, but what the hell, I haven't lost a man, I'm onto the final screen, and there's more cartoons!
The phone rings, it's a luser. (What a surprise)
'Computer Room' I say, being efficient
'Hello, When will the compu...'
I hang up.
I'm doing well in the screen, all I need do is get past the wizard who throws spells at you and I'm in!
