Lock-in to legacy code is a thing. Being locked in by legacy code is another thing entirely
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- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/08/11/on_call/
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Boss put project on progress bar timeline: three months … four … actually NOW! [1]READ MORE
This week let's catch up with a reader we've [2]already Regomized as "Alessandro" , who this time shared a tale from the early 1990s when he worked for a developer of data warehouses.
The product he worked on had accumulated years of coded cruft. So much cruft that it ran painfully slowly, and customers were complaining. Alessandro was asked to sort things out by rewriting some ancient C in assembler and ensuring that one customer got the fix fast.
Alessandro corrected the code, tested it, and felt it was ready for installation on the customer's machines.
Doing so involved loading his code onto a 5¼-inch floppy disk and driving it to the customer's HQ. Once there he installed his work on the marketing manager's PC.
[3]
The manager perceived substantial improvements, at which point Alessandro volunteered to install his fix on more PCs that very evening.
[4]
[5]
His motives were not entirely pure, because it was by then around 17:00 and Alessandro didn't fancy returning to the customer's office the next day.
But after gentle inquiries, he learned that the building was open for another two hours, so decided to stick around and advance the job.
[6]
All went well, and by 18:15 Alessandro had finished and was ready to leave.
But the lifts weren't working. A nasty journey up and down many levels of fire stairs followed, including many dead ends, and even attempts to exit the garage on the ramp used by cars.
Alessandro eventually found his way into the building's lobby. From there he could see the outside world, but was unable to reach it – all exits had been locked.
[7]
Thankfully the lobby included a reception desk with a working phone.
Alessandro dialled emergency services, explained his plight, and was asked – rudely – "What do you want us to do about that?"
Our hero explained that he imagined someone might pop around and force open a door.
He was told Police don't do that sort of thing, so he should find somewhere to sleep. And then emergency services hung up on him.
[8]How to get a computer get stuck in a lift? Ask an 'illegal engineer'
[9]The choice: Pay BT megabucks, or do something a bit illegal. OK, that’s no choice
[10]Bizarre backup taught techie to dumb things down for the boss
[11]Quirky QWERTY killed a password in Paris
A night on a corporate couch is never much fun, so Alessandro called the ambulance service, which told him to call the fire brigade, which asked for his address.
That information produced an unkind description of the building's owner. It transpired the landlord had failed its last fire inspection because it had not provided any keys to the fire department. Another reason for the failure was that the lobby had been clad in bulletproof glass without attendant safety improvements – so while the fire crew quite fancied popping a pane, it wasn't a feasible option.
By this point Alessandro was more than a little worried.
But fire departments are clever, and the chap he spoke to remembered that Alessandro had visited the car garage. Had he seen a bump there, on the ramp near the exit? Asking because jumping on those often triggers the garage door.
Which was how Alessandro walked to freedom.
He quickly drove back to his office and called the fire department to let them know he was safe. That information produced news that "the entire Brussels fire department was rooting for me, and their commander even dropped by with a thermos flask of warm soup (to be poured through the letter box if they saw me)." Alessandro had of course made it out by then, so missed out on the soup.
But he did get something nice from this odyssey: after telling his tale to the boss, he was handed a brand new mobile phone.
The boss told Alesandro it was the first mobile phone he had ever acquired, but "You deserve this more than me."
Have you been locked in, locked out, or rescued while working in tech? If so, [12]click here to send On Call an email and we may feature your feats of escapology on a future Friday. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/09/on_call/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2019/11/29/on_call/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZNYGx66409qwZ1iR@LUSIgAAAYA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZNYGx66409qwZ1iR@LUSIgAAAYA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZNYGx66409qwZ1iR@LUSIgAAAYA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZNYGx66409qwZ1iR@LUSIgAAAYA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZNYGx66409qwZ1iR@LUSIgAAAYA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/04/on_call/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/28/on_call/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/14/on_call/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/30/on_call/
[12] mailto:oncall@theregister.com
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: "You deserve this more than me"
He obviously came from one of the earlier versions of the Universe as mentioned in HHGTTG.
Re: "You deserve this more than me"
But due to a slight miscalculation in size, the whole force was swallowed by a dog?
> He was told Police don't do that sort of thing, so he should find somewhere to sleep. And then emergency services hung up on him.
So they copped out?
Almost got locked in
I was working at what was to become a 6th form college in 2009.
As the new building wasn't ready (still a building site) a temporary server room was created in the existing building.
This included bars over the windows and metal shutters in front of the doors.
I'd been working late one evening* (not that late - maybe an hour) and as I opened the door to leave, a security guard almost jumped out of his skin. He was literally about to pull the shutter down for the night and had been told no one was in the room**
Had I been a mere few seconds later I'd have likely been spending the night in the server room.
*Pre-planned for a while as I wouldn't usually give more hours in the day without good reason
**Apparently he didn't have access to the room to be able to physically check, but one does wonder why he didn't knock on the door first just to be sure.
Happened to me
Working in a new building still being final fixed on the main site putting the network in, finished what I could do for the day - it was about 5:15 and walked out the comms room to a bulldozing with all the lights off.
The builders had all left site and locked the outer doors. I rang the site manager for the rest of the site and spoke to him. Five minutes of laughter later he agreed to come over and unlock the outer door so I could go home.
I think they had words with the builders over the importance of checking the site was empty before locking up.
Just remembered...
Not locked in, but in the mid/late 90's I was doing some work at an HSBC office.
I had a visitors pass for the duration as I was due to be there for about a week, from memory.
It was well run and I was given a bit of a tour - alarms, exits etc.
The site was a bit unusual - the main doors were through a branch so during the day you came and left via them but at night you had to go out via revolving doors as they closed the others to the branch.
It's a long time ago so my memory of it's a bit dim but as I recall the only pad for card reading only opened the doors to go through the branch not the revolving doors - though they were placed as though it'd do both.
Except it was two thin wires in the edge of the door frame that actually read the card.
So on the first evening I swiped and of course it went green because... well even though they were physically locked, I guess the maglocks still functioned on the branch doors, and I managed to blunder straight into a locked door at full chat. Much to the amusement of those around me before someone kindly pointed out how to actually make the doors operate.
I've been locked out ...
... of buildings after driving for an hour or more to fix an "emergency". Not my favorite waste of time. My standard contract now details the charges incurred for such rude behavior (once bitten ... ).
But locked in ? Nope. Here in the Civilized world, we have fire exits. I had (and have!) absolutely zero compunction about this. If whoever is in charge is too stupid to make sure that whoever has the job of locking up has enough clues to check the building before doing so, they deserve the fine for wasting the time of emergency services.
I've lost one or two clients along the way, but usually they apologize profusely.
Yes, I always wait to explain to the emergency folks why I tripped the alarm ... it's hardly their fault.
I had a similar situation
I started a new contract at a regional electricity supplier (this was before UK de-regulation, which was why they took me on, to help commission the required systems for that).
They gave me a temporary badge which gave me access to pretty much everywhere I needed to be, while they sorted out my proper photo ID.
Because it was the regional electricity company for the area I had just moved to, I thought I'd drop off the paper work for the new electricity account for my new house into the mailbox provided for such things, located in Reception. It was just after office hours, and reception was shut, but I could get in (my badge let me through the internal door into Reception).
But it didn't allow me back into the main building, and the external door was shut and locked. This gave me the same problem, because it was before I had a mobile phone, and reception had shutters that prevented me reaching the phone on the desk.
After about 15 minutes of trying to work out what to do, the door into the building opened, and a bemused security guard looked out, and asked if I needed help! Apparently he had looked at this alert screen when finishing a round, and seen the failed authentication attempts when I was trying to swipe my card, but had paid little attention because he knew that reception had been locked up, and nobody had been in there when he'd checked! Eventually, his curiosity got the better of him, and he came to see what was going on.
Shortly afterwards, they put an enquirey button somewhere where it could be pressed, just to prevent the same thing happening to someone else.
"You deserve this more than me"
That must be the first time I have ever even just read about a boss saying those words.
It's incredible, so much so that I firmly believe that, no sooner had he said those words, a wormhole to a different universe opened to return him to whence he came, because that guy didn't belong in this one.