A couple of work-related stories, methinks. I just hope I’m not repeating anything with them. These, obviously, hark back quite a few months to when I wrote them. Just picture a wibbly curtain and “doodle-do-doo” noises as we step back to February…
Mr Who?
First off, last week I had to reset someone’s password on the server. It’s a regular occurence for this user – maybe twice a month. He just keeps forgetting his password every time they’re told to change it. His name? And I **** you not – Mr Careless.
I thought you brought it?
Two of the lads in the office went to site last week. They met up at Leeds/Bradford and hopped on the ‘plane. Alighting at Southampton they left the terminal to get a taxi to… erm… Now. Was it Poole or Bournemouth? Neither one had bothered to bring the customer’s address with them. Cue several embarassed phone calls and a taxi driver rubbing his hands as the meter ran up.
I want to go home
At least they did a good job when they were on site. Many moons before I joined my previous company, one of the engineers was on site with a large customer that I guarantee every one of you will have heard of.
Sat at a UNIX server, he needed to delete the existing code and replace it with the new version. Simple delete statement: rm -fr which just bins everything recursively from where you are “downwards”.
Without asking.
Which is a shitter when you realise that you weren’t in the right folder to start with and you’re actually trashing their entire system from top level down. As this guy is frantically trying to log on to another terminal to kill the process, the phone goes.
“Hey, erm… our system’s gone down? Is this anything to do with the upgrade?”
“Errrr… yes. Yes it is.”
Fortunately, they had given him a full system backup on tape before he started. I don’t know if they ever knew what happened.
