BOFH: Postman BOFH's Special Delivery Service
- Reference: 1619172070
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/04/23/bofh_2021_episode_4/
- Source link:
[1]
The average number of user calls – refreshingly low over the period of lockdown (a time that I like to refer to as "the break") – have escalated exponentially now that staff are heading back to the office.
There's even a queue outside Mission Control!
I'm partly to blame for the "assistance backlog" as I did lose my phone over the side of a bridge during a lockdown walk. Then I accidentally dropped the replacement down a storm grate, and the third phone had some battery issue which looked a lot like it'd been put in a 1,200W inverter microwave on high for 25 minutes. But actually, it was only 20. So now the PFY and I are dealing with six-plus months of secluded user insanity.
[2]
"My email only works sometimes," one of our first complainants says.
"So it worked when responding to... uh.. discount pizza offers, then mysteriously failed when your work deadlines fell due?" the PFY asks, perusing the Sent Items folder on her machine.
"It wasn't just me – my daughter emailed santa@google.com before Christmas and didn't get an answer."
"In actual fact she emailed satan@google.com," the PFY says, digging further into the Sent Items.
[3]
"So at least she got the domain name right," I chip in. "Anyway, it's not working."
"Hmmm," the PFY says, bashing the delete key several times. "I think it's all working – bar the 10 seasons of Taskmaster you tried emailing one of your office mates."
"I split them up!" she simpers.
"Into seasons," the PFY says, shaking his head. Sigh.
[4]
Next up we have a bloke who can't work his laptop. To be fair it's not his fault. When lockdown occurred, the company lobbied far and wide, insisting we were crucial to the nation's wellbeing.
This was then followed up with an application for a hefty government grant to act as a "centre of excellence for working-from-home methodology."
The application itself was full of the sort of new-age "wellness and mindfulness" gravy that passes as science to politicians wanting to show they're decisive but still able to think outside the box. It was completely immeasurable, totally subjective, and came with crypto-mantras like "freeing our isolated selves", "aligning oneself with wholeness", and "we're only truly alone with negative others."
The only trick they missed was not using a semi-famous actress with a double major in platitudes and non-specific eastern mysticism to spearhead the campaign. HOWEVER, in a decision that cannot be explained to – or by – any sane person, the company got the money and spent it on high-spec laptops for any staff not quick enough to steal the good stuff from a fellow worker's office.
And over half of it has sat, unconfigured (due to IT phone breakages), until now...
And in five minutes the PFY has him configured.
"Uh..." he mumbles, gesturing at our corridor, "what do I do with that?"
"What is it?" I ask.
BOFH : Bullying? Not on my watch! (It's a Rolex) [5]READ MORE
"I don't know what it is. It came with the laptop. It says 3KVA UPS."
"Ah well, it's probably the... uh... Update Processing Server. For your laptop."
"It says it was made in 1994."
"No, that's the serial number," the PFY says. "It's painted on."
"Yeah, that's the blockchain tattooing underpinning the cryptoalgorithm. For security. You wouldn't want dodgy updates."
At this point I think even the PFY has lost track of the gibberish he's speaking. The great thing about people who're expecting expensive kit is that they tend to sign for anything in an IT-looking parcel thinking it's more presents. Which it is – but not to him.
In a few short months we shipped every piece of ancient IT rubbish that'd clogged up our storeroom off to unsuspecting users at their homes – under the guise of a technology refresh.
The hardest part of the process was convincing a courier to dump-and-run. However, a short negotiation involving some polymer sheets with the Queen's portrait on them seemed to sort that problem out.
"Well, I don't need it," our user says.
"And neither do we," the PFY says. "We don't need an... Upgrade Server."
"From 1992," I say. "You know you can't just bring your home rubbish into work. I mean there's the dumping fees to consider if we took it. Though I guess you could lug it back home on the tube if you want."
Ten minutes and £40 later, the UPS is being relabelled with the Boss's home address, along with a Microvax 3100 wrapped in several layers of cardboard and labelled "Fragile Audio Equipment."
By the end of the day we have half a van full of stuff for the Boss, including three overhead projectors, an A3 laser printer, and a box full of those keyboard vacuum cleaners that everyone used for about a minute before dumping.
While the PFY puts the label on, I call our courier using the delivery phrase "late night front garden job." I'm sure he'll be pleased with it when he gets back from holiday...
[6]BOFH: The whole shebang
[7]The Compleat BOFH Archives 95-99
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/04/23/shutterstock_ancient_tech_garden.jpg
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bofh&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YILvHjzfMopz4UZtB9IbdQAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bofh&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YILvHjzfMopz4UZtB9IbdQAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bofh&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YILvHjzfMopz4UZtB9IbdQAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/26/bofh_2021_episode_3/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/data_centre/bofh/
[7] http://www.bofharchive.com/
[8] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
I've actually just been doing the opposite - sending back to the office everything that I've accumulated over the last year - it's been a great way of getting rid of all the crap *I've* accumulated over the last 30 years and get the company to pay the recycler ;-)
I donated some of my old gear to my colleague's Museum! Apple Powerbook 12' still runs like a champ!
Cures the Friday blues
Ah, a new episode of the BOFH - the perfect antidote to crappy meetings and some users that I could do with borrowing Simon's carpet and caustic to deal with.
Re: Cures the Friday blues
I could do with borrowing Simon's carpet and caustic to deal with.
I don't think it is borrowing when you use it and can't return it.
Re: Cures the Friday blues
I used to have a bit of 2x4 with a couple of rusty nails in it. It did look like it had been used, with red and brown marks on the nail end, but was only ever waved in the direction of a couple of staff members.
I "leant" my 2x4 to someone one day, and they went away with it, never to return. the person they went to see left the company at the same time ...
I didn't ask questions, but I did miss it for a long time.
Still laughing..
...at the Microvax labelled Fragile Audio Equipment.
Excellent. Brightened my morning.
Re: Still laughing..
Surprised to find I was hoping it would be mailed to me. God I could have done with one of those in 1987 and still want it even though I cannot for the life of me remember why.
Re: Still laughing..
I wouldn't mind one, either. Of course, I collect vintage computers...
Re: Still laughing..
@Trygve Can we have your contact details, please? I'm sure I can send you a large number of items ... none are working but they are vintage and used to be called "computers".
Re: Still laughing..
Same here, I wouldn't mind being sent this kind of "trash". My wife, on the other hand...
'Remote Onboarding'
Thanks to Covid, I was 'remotely onboarded' to my new role and got shipped a big box with a laptop and lots of junk including 2 keyboards and 4 dell laptop power adapters. I suspect my new boss was using me as a place to dump some of the extra stuff he did not need... Everything is still in the box apart from the laptop and I have added a couple of bits of my own junk ready to return it on my first day in the office. Do you think they will mind receiving 2 power packs for laptops I have not owned in years and ink cartridges for a printer that broke 3 years ago?
Re: 'Remote Onboarding'
Just remember to poke a teenie tiny little hole in each of the old laser toner cartridges before you slowly and carefully close the box.
Re: 'Remote Onboarding'
Evil genius is still genius.
Re: 'Remote Onboarding'
Bonus points if some battery powered kit in there has a fan, and just so happens to have the wakeup timer set for just after or slightly before the delivery window.
Re: 'Remote Onboarding'
Flog the ink cartridges on a certain auction website - got £50+ doing the same from ones for SWMBO's old printer that died two house moves ago.
That said it's when you come across old networking kit like the dual socket network fora specific storage server that I don't own..made by a manufacture 12+ years earlier got bought by Dell...
Or the 5 port 100Mbit switch that's never going to get used again (but more than happy to loan if required).
As for the old RBDIMM's, old AMD K6, celaron's, and socket 771 xeon's no-one seems interested to take it off my hands.
Yep
"(a time that I like to refer to as "the break")"
Exactly. A full 12 months of (mostly) "Work from home" in sweats and socks. It's the break I've been working 30 years for.
Pardon me while I apply Crisco to squeeze post-Covid Dave into my pre-Covid bluejeans.
Re: Yep
For Rightpondians unfamiliar with what Crisco is, here is a link from the Huffinton Post
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/meghan-telpner/what-is-crisco-made-of_b_3745634.html
I first came across the term in Calvin & Hobbes and assumed that it was some sort of cooking fat (Calvin had put it in is here to model it). Whenever I hear about it today, it seems to be used as a lubricant.
Re: Yep
Ha C&H is where I first encountered Crisco too! Thanks for the link, I always thought it was something lile Lard...
Peace and quiet
I'm in my newly constructed (May 2020) home office/workroom, with plenty of space, and all the mod cons. As a bonus, it's much quieter than the open plan office I left a year ago, and I don't have cow-orkers on either side of me.
The Bad News is that The Powers That Be have announced "RTO" (Return To Office) will happen soon, and we need to prepare the office for "hoteling", aka "hot-desking", by taking all our personal stuff home. So, I get to commute to work, find my assigned (for the day) desk, unpack all my personal stuff, set it up, get my work done, pack all my stuff up, clean the desk for the next punter, and commute home.
Not loving it. Not one bit. Continuing to work from home seems like a much better idea. We shall see.
Re: Peace and quiet
Yeah, the hotdesk thing will be an issue at my workplace as well. I don't like it. But considering the office space was barely big enough 1BC (before corona), and we hired new people, it will be needed. At least I can be closer to my team! Two new colleagues while we were WFH. Need to grab a beer with them as soon as we are back in the office.
But by Krom, I already hate the prospect of hotdesking.
Re: Peace and quiet
I'm retired, now, so it no longer matters to me, but I'd just like to state for the record that hotdesking is the most ridiculous, unfriendly, painful, inconvenient, annoying (other adjectives are available) idea ever hatched from the mind of an MBA.
/rant
Re: Peace and quiet
And that's against strong competition.
Re: Peace and quiet
@ Neil Barnes
The only part I disagree with is your allusion to MBAs having a mind.
Hot bunking on a submarine at war or even on a top end racing yacht makes sense but anyone who thinks saving money on work space will pay in spite of increasing the stress and discomfort levels on workers, is a moron.
Re: Peace and quiet
OUCH.
Maybe tell the powers that be that you object to arbitrarily coming in contact with other peoples possible contagions?
Something something telephone sanitizers and Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B.
Re: Peace and quiet
"I think I'm running a bit of a temperature"
Without explaining that it's your laptop that's running a bit hot.
Re: Peace and quiet
There's a "thermal throttling" joke in there someplace, right next to the lime, carpet, and cattle prod.
Re: Peace and quiet
Hot desking is an issue where management really ought to lead from the top. Introduce it first in the directors' offices.
Re: Peace and quiet
The place my sister works at is doing this, only they've termed it "agile working" then they get irritated every time someone cuts through the jargon and refers to it (truthfully) as hot-desking.
Re: Peace and quiet
Here in southern US we were all sent home when my company was only days away from installing 500 staff into 2 floors of a totally open office plan designed to make the spread of diseases like Covid19 as easy as possible. The "cubes" have no walls or dividers in any direction, heads are barely 2 meters apart one direction and maybe 3 the other and one can walk down the aisle between two rows and tap shoulders on either side as they go. They spent a freaking fortune on this FUBAR and now have to either tear at least half of it out or only have half of the desks in use at any one time. We we already grousing about the issue with everyone having to shout over each other on the phones and I was worried about flu season, but no chance anyone in management would consider those things to be issues. There's a meeting next week to discuss RTO and everyone is pretty much telling "leadership" to get stuffed.
I need a new keyboard.
It happened in the general vicinity of "late night front garden job"...
Back to work... NOPE
By Crom, I've got into the routine of monday = work, tuesday = at home (AKA being lazy in bed), wednesday = at work, thursday (repeat of tuesday) and friday = at work, bugg'ring orf early for a longish weekend...
If the decision is made to keep this schedule up, I'll be happy. Less money being spent on fuel and all that.
But if they decide to get us back to the orifice full time, then desperate measures need to be called for...
After
Removing keyboard from desk and announcing I was reading "BOFH" on the register , my co worker, who was in the area last time I was reading a BOFH story, decided to clear off... however in doing so, hes knocked over his coffee onto his keyboard.
Hence icon
In other news... I have a new PFY to train up.....
Re: After
I gots a new PFY starting on Monday...
good times!
Re: After
I've been training one since February, he's about ready to solo! Work without a net! I need a vacation from all this every other day in the office, it's killing me!
BZZZZZZZ. Ding!
"[T]he third phone had some battery issue which looked a lot like it'd been put in a 1,200W inverter microwave on high for 25 minutes. But actually, it was only 20."
For reasons that are hard to explain, that one takes the cake.
And the rest is pure gold, as usual.
Icon because I was actually drinking coffee while reading that line, and nearly painted my M13 in a lovely shade of 6F4E37.
Queen's portrait on them
I've found that will solve most problems, no questions asked! Later in the week the courier was back asking if we had more 'Jobs' wink nudge, say no more! The office and storeroom have never looked cleaner!
Hmmm. Possibilites
I wonder if the process could be modified for clearing out 30+ years of junk from my cellar
Funny how.......
Its essential to work from home and when you get to prefer it, then its essential you come back to work in a stuffy office. No more getting beer from fridge before "important" team video call , Init Bro
satan @ google
"It wasn't just me – my daughter emailed santa@google.com before Christmas and didn't get an answer."
"In actual fact she emailed satan@google.com," the PFY says, digging further into the Sent Items.
"So at least she got the domain name right," I chip in. "Anyway, it's not working."
Brilliant!!!
Agile/HotDesking
Does sharing mice and keyboards contravene Covid-19 protocols?
Ah, a new BOFH!
The best cure for (coming out of) lockdown blues!