BOFH: I care a lot ... about onion bhajis
- Reference: 1678447806
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/03/10/bofh_2023_episode_5/
- Source link:
"My... award-winning assistant?" I ask, comforted somewhat by the world returning to normality.
"That was once, and it's over now," the Boss counters. "Anyway, this has come direct from HR. He needs to go on Sensitivity Training course."
[1]
"He needs to go on what now?" I ask.
[2]
[3]
"Sensitivity Training. He's upset a number of key staff."
"Which staff?"
[4]
"That's not for me to say."
"Well, if we're just dealing with rumor..."
"It was Peter."
[5]
"?"
"Peter from PR & Marketing."
"Needy Pete?" I ask.
"Don't you bloody start!" the Boss snaps.
"He is high maintenance," I chip back. "It's physically impossible for him to be in a conversation with anyone for more than 10 minutes without mentioning his radio career."
"Well, PR and Marketing did want someone with media savvy."
"Media savvy? He was a radio announcer on a small rural AM station! The local news would have been dominated by stories of calves born with two heads – and their subsequent marriage to one of the locals!"
"I think regardless of what you say, he was fairly famous."
"If by 'famous' you mean reality TV 'celebrity' status then you're right - though most of them are an unkind comment away from looking up 'words of affirmation' on Google..."
"I hardly thin.."
"He is not key staff. You could replace him with a garden gnome and PR & Marketing would be completely unaffected."
"I'm not going to debate you on this - HR want him to attend Sensitivity Training."
"Will this training undermine his Insensitivity Training?"
"His what now?" the Boss asks, echoing my earlier confusion.
"His Insensitivity Training. It's an operational thing. In times of crisis you want real key staff to be able to keep their heads and ignore the ramblings of the masses. They need to be able to focus on critical tasks and disregard the inane drivel of the uninformed."
"And who are the uninformed?" the Boss asks.
"Everyone but the PFY and me. But that's only in times of a crisis."
"And outside of a crisis?"
"Everyone but the PFY, myself, and the bloke in the cafe that makes the onion bhajis – he's a pretty clued up guy."
One of the basic tenets of IT is never testing for an error condition you don't know how to handle. The Boss only has himself to blame.
I break the news to the PFY when he gets in, but he takes it all in his stride.
"Oh, I've been on one of those before," he replies. "It's a half hour lesson on reflective listening, then an hour of listening to people who you've supposedly maligned telling you how they felt. I've been looking for a reason to test my noise-cancelling EarPods..."
At the duly appointed time, the PFY wanders off to his session and I settle in for some hard work on perfecting my Enemy Territory Rifle-nade skills. Barely an hour later, the PFY's back.
"They've called it off."
"Why's that?"
"Well, Needy Pete was there to share his feelings, and before I could get my EarPods in he said that he struggled with self love."
"Uh-oh. What did you say?"
"I asked him if he meant 'with' or 'during'."
"Ah. So I take they've now booked you in on the half-day Sensitivity Workshop then?"
"Not too sure," the PFY replies. "They asked me to wait outside."
"And you thought here was technically outside?"
"Oh no, I nipped across the road for a pint. Then I came here."
Sometimes I cannot believe how well I've trained him.
"And you changed your voicemail message to the one where we're dealing with a critical network error?"
"I did."
"Well we better generate that now then!" I say, triggering the firmware update of the core router that I've been saving for a special occasion.
"Is there anything you want me to do?" the PFY asks.
"Yes. It'll look better if you're offsite getting some replacement hardware so you may as well duck out pick up something for me that I just ordered from down the street."
The PFY disappears moments before the Boss arrives in the company of one of the HR contractors.
"Catherine has just been informing me of a disturbing situation," the Boss says.
"Mmm," I say, tapping away in a ssh window.
"She says Stephen was... are you even listening?"
"Mmm," I say, typing away, Insensitivity mode on.
"There's been a serious incident."
"Mmm," I say again, still typing.
"LISTEN!" the Boss shouts, as I look up. "There's been a serious problem at the Sensitivity Training."
"Really?"
"Stephen has upset Peter," Catherine says. "He didn't validate his feelings, ignored his complaint and made jokes at his expense."
"But were they good jokes?" I ask.
"This is a serious matter!" Catherine snaps. "Peter has resigned!"
"I shouldn't worry," I chip back to her. "I'm sure everything will sort itself out – possibly even quicker than you think. Oh look, all sorted!"
As if by magic the PFY appears in the doorway carrying my recently purchased garden gnome.
[6]BOFH : The PFY has won an award … for outstanding service?
[7]BOFH : Generating a report the Director can show the Board – THIS is what AI was made for
[8]BOFH : Selling the boss on a crypto startup
[9]BOFH : Bye desktop, bye desk. Hello tablet and a beanbag on the floor
...two minutes later...
"Well that escalated fairly quickly," the PFY observes.
"It did indeed. I expect this time tomorrow we'll find we've been booked into the Full-day Sensitivity and Personal Healing Experience."
"Unless that core router firmware was corrupt," the PFY suggests.
"True – but just in case that doesn't work – where did you get those EarPods from again?"
[10]BOFH: The whole shebang
[11]The Compleat BOFH Archives 95-99
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[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/24/bofh_2023_episode_4/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/10/bofh_2023_episode_3/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/29/bofh_2022_episode_14/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2019/02/22/bofh_2019_episode_1/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/data_centre/bofh/
[11] http://www.bofharchive.com/
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Re: Happy Friday
I thought that would be more a resupply of vital cooling liquids
Re: Happy Friday
Depends on the percentage.
Ssh Window
Is that a noiselessly opening window next to where HR just happen to venture a little too close to the view?
Re: Ssh Window
You have been eaten by grue.
Re: Ssh Window
damn i picked a bad week to quit sniffing glue
Re: Ssh Window
Indeed, just waiting for that Database Normalisation Warning to pop up.
Pints all around!
"Well we better generate that now then!" I say, triggering the firmware update of the core router that I've been saving for a special occasion.
I also need a new keyboard, but since we're only allowed one icon per post--->
Re: Pints all around!
And an additional advantage is that there is no need for change control and all those annoying approvals to obtain.
It's now an incident.
"One of the basic tenets of IT is never testing for an error condition you don't know how to handle. "
Abso-bloody-lutely!
That one did make me chuckle. It's amazing how such a simple sentence in a story can stand out so much and the moment you read it you laugh and pretty much say to yourself fuck me that's spot on. The last time I saw something like that was in Mort by the late great Terry Pratchett. I actually can't remember the quote but it had me laughing for ages. It was something about the universe and LSD I think.
Mort and the unversal logic
“He was determined to discover the underlying logic behind the universe.
Which was going to be hard, because there wasn't one.”
― Terry Pratchett, Mort
Re: Mort and the unversal logic
That seems close but not quite. I'm going to have to read it again now. It might have been one of his other books to be honest it was quite a while back I read them. Thanks though. That is a cracking quote.
The rest of that quote is perfect for everything I.T. "The Creator had a lot of remarkably good ideas when he put the world together, but making it understandable hadn’t been one of them"
Re: Mort and the unversal logic
Sounds somewhat like Douglas Adams' thinking on the subject---
“In the beginning the Universe was created. This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.”
"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
that BoFH was me, 30yrs ago
I can recall getting almost similar feedback.
Our solution was we went to lunch, smoked a few spliffs and laughed our heads off then went back to work.
Re: that BoFH was me, 30yrs ago
Thank you, Me too, that's a happy memory, these days this story just reminds me of an old quote:
"The most important things to do in the world are to get something to eat, something to drink and somebody to love you." - Brendan Behan
Clicked the error away...
I remember one instance of sensitive insensitivity when a green software dev came to complain about an error popping up onto his screen. He promptly made his way into mission control to tell about his grievance.
When he was finished complaining I asked what the error was that had popped up. The answer: "I don't know, I clicked it away.".
You can probably imagine that this answer was taken with utmost insensitivity and a reply was formulated in a very long string of curses and explanations of his incompetence. The whole of mission control went silent in the barrage of my reply words and the poor software dev did not know where to look any more.
Then, as everything went silent, a minute or so after he stood there bewildered in the silence, the dev decided to move along and lick his wounds. When the door closed we all fell to the ground in laughter. Best insensitivity presentation, ever.
Re: Clicked the error away...
My favourite training course question was decades ago in a.s.r when someone said they were having to go on a company mandated sexual harassment course. Then pointed out he worked for playboy.
Almost instant response was enquiring if it was a theory or practical course...
Re: Clicked the error away...
I remember a secondary-school teacher looking at an advert in the Times Education Supplement which asked:
"Could you put together a Youth Offending Team?"
His answer was, "Of course! Give me about ten minutes..."
HR Training
At a former company, we were required to attend a course on sexual harassment. The goal of the training was to teach everyone how to avoid sexual harassment of course, however it actually how to harass people with out getting in trouble. One of the things in the course was if you ask someone/tell someone harassing twice, you would get reported to HR. At the end of the class I asked the presenter if , according to that rule, I could start at the top of the building and working down to the ground floor, ask everyone, once, if they would like to engage in various sexual acts. He had to admit that I could do that and wouldn't run afoul of HR. The presenter didn't seem happy with that interpretation of the HR rules, but more than one person seemed happy with that revelation.
I wonder if they ever changed that rule...
It's all online nowadays
Slide show presentations with interleaved quizzes, all provided by companies that make that stuff.
So you kick it off, pop up another window, and get some work done, checking back occasionally to see if it's quiz time. Wrong answers are flagged and you get a chance to do them over, apparently unlimited times, so you need to be a real thickie not to get though them. And then it's over until next year.
I particularly like the ones on bribery and conflict of interest. I also find that my answers tend to be more conservative than the training is looking for.
Whatever.
Re: It's all online nowadays
The BOFH & PFY would tweak the slideshow to make it more interesting...the wrong answers would become the correct ones. 8^D
Superb episode
Now for some advanced insensitivity training!
(insensitivity to alcohol, that is)
"I'm not going to debate you…"
Sorry, what? The Boss is proposing the motion "BOFH"? Or rather he's proposing not to propose this?
Intransitive verbs (debate, protest, etc.) are intransitive for a reason. If you don't believe this then you must work for the marketing department.
Have I hurt your feelings? Sorry about that… now, cattle prod, please!
Write down 100
times
I must not drink coffee and read BoFH articles
But I'm sure glad we dont have anything like that where I work, because they'd need to send me on the week course..
PS... anyone know where my boss can get a new wireless keyboard.. his one seems to have gone missing
Veterans
Sounds familiar, try working in an armed forces veterans charity, where the only ones who can take a joke are the veterans themselves.
Famous
I worked with a few famous people.
They never mentioned that they are famous.
The PFY could have complained about having his intelligence insulted by the reflective listening traing. But I suppose that's best saved for one of manglements' alleged motivational courses.
Small Rural AM station?
Has the BOFH gone stateside too now? He and the PFY will have to find a bar to frequent before, during and after their lunch breaks if they're moved away from their beloved pubs.
Re: Small Rural AM station?
Strangely yes, and without any issues during the move - you'd imagine the body count could be quite high.
While I like the '. . . what now?' eg 'Decoy family', reply 'Decoy what now?' (Rick & Morty), I dislike the 'wait, what?' that appears in R&M quite a bit, it might not be long before Simon or Steven use that phrase.
Re: Small Rural AM station?
Simon Travagia (the BOFH author) lives in New Zealand, where they have Pints (400 to 500ml), Pubs, and Rural AM radio stations. The BOFH was around before El Reg(UK) and may well outlive The Register(US). Simon worked in the UK for one year back in 1992 but the BOFH was around well before that.
Not Quite A New Keyboard Situation
"Well, Needy Pete was there to share his feelings, and before I could get my EarPods in he said that he struggled with self love."
"Uh-oh. What did you say?"
"I asked him if he meant 'with' or 'during'."
I'm in a (Pointless for me) meeting & I laughed loudly at that, so glad I was muted.
A long time ago in a company that went bust
HR: "$PERSON_1 was very upset by what you said to him"
Me: "Was that when I called him a pillock or when I called him a nobhead" (actually language used may have differed and highly likely to have been far more industrial)
I had put in my notice already...
I got told person_A was upset by something I said one time
So I said , I'm not licensed therapists, and I'm diagnosed autistic.
It is not reasonable or realistic for you to expect me to understand someone else's feelings when I can't even comprehend my own. It is even more unrealistic for you to expect me to attempt to control or misappropriate credit for someone else's personal strategy of emotion generation and choice of expression
Everyone's feelings are their own demons to manage.
Even if I had the powers of mind control to suppress other people's feelings I would not. That is off limits and belongs to them and their therapist if any.
HR didn't know what to say that . HR never bothered me again
Happy Friday
"They asked me to wait outside."
"And you thought here was technically outside?"
"Oh no, I nipped across the road for a pint. Then I came here."
Outstanding! Anyway, almost time to "head offsite to get some replacement equipment", or visit the pub as its also known...