No, no, no! Disco joke hit bum note in the rehab center
- Reference: 1695626828
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/09/25/who_me/
- Source link:
This week, say hello to a reader we'll Regomize as "Gene" who, once upon long ago, worked in the IT department of "a fancy rehab facility." Or perhaps more accurately, Gene was the IT department of said facility.
Gene was given the task of modernizing the phone system and decided that a Voice over IP (VOIP) system was the way to go. The particular system he chose, he discovered, had a rather nifty feature: it could retrieve custom ringtones in mp3 form from an FTP server.
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Immediately the cogs in Gene's mind turned to pranking. Setting up the FTP server and an appropriately formatted file was a doddle, and he configured the system so that the phone of a specific coworker – in the nurse's station – would ring to the strains of the disco classic "It's Raining Men".
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God bless Mother Nature – and whoever built a feature like that into a VOIP system.
[4]Chap blew up critical equipment on his first day – but it wasn't his volt
[5]Watt's the worst thing you can do to a datacenter? Failing to RTFM, electrically
[6]Sure, give the new kid and his MCSE power over the AS/400. What could possibly go wrong?
[7]Polishing off a printer with a flourish revealed not to be best practice
Shortly afterwards, though, Gene got a call from the nurse's station. It was hard to understand the call though, as the plaintive plea for help was somewhat drowned out by the high-energy dance music in the background. Music that played – for the full four and a half minute duration of the song – every time the phone rang.
It transpired that the system expected ringtones to have a specific duration, but allowed files of any length. As a result, the Weather Girls' anthem to single womanhood would continue playing loudly, even after the phone had been picked up.
You can imagine the confusion that ensued.
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Unsurprisingly, not everyone was as amused by the celebration of masculine precipitation as Gene. Indeed he himself started to find it less funny as repeated reboots – and even removing the original file from the server – failed to undo his prank.
Eventually he got the system to download a smaller and somewhat more professional-sounding ringtone file and – hallelujah – it stopped raining men.
Then it was time to explain the whole incident to the boss – who was not a fan of disco.
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Ever been hoist by your own petard, as Gene was? Not necessarily with a prank – though those stories are almost always funny – but just had some clever techie trick backfire on you? Let us know in [10]an email to Who, Me? and we'll share it here on some future Monday.
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You mean he nursed it back to normal?
I suppose he'd have to, unless the Sisters Were Doing It For Themselves
That Matron be an excellent joke...
So the system didn't cut the ringtone when the phone was picked up
Seems a bit sloppy to me. It's not like the guys who created this system weren't familiar with how the phone ring works.
Looks like they just decided to pipe the mp3 to speaker and not bother with cutting it off because, obviously, who would configure a 90-second ringtone ?
And that's where we get the difference between what a system is made to do, and what it can do.
Re: So the system didn't cut the ringtone when the phone was picked up
I'm surprised the nurses didn't hit the phone with their Sister Sledgehammer...
Re: So the system didn't cut the ringtone when the phone was picked up
They only had a Pointer, sister.
Re: So the system didn't cut the ringtone when the phone was picked up
"because, obviously, who would configure a 90-second ringtone ?"
They made an assumption. Any assumption quickly becomes a limitation if not a bug. Assume as little as possible, Even so it should be a requirement of ringing a phone that the ring tone ill be cut off as soon as it's answered.
Re: So the system didn't cut the ringtone when the phone was picked up
Assume as little as possible, Even so it should be a requirement of ringing a phone that the ring tone ill be cut off as soon as it's answered.
But that assumes a sane programmer is at work...
Re: So the system didn't cut the ringtone when the phone was picked up
I'd imagine it was a skeuomorphism. In old-skool phones, picking up the phone didn't result in instant silence, the literal bell continued to be heard reverberating. Similarly if I think back to the DTMF touch tone ones that replaced them continued to play the whole ring after the phone was picked up. Either for simplistic design, or because an interrupted ring sounded discombobulating.
Imagine the mayhem if Gene worked at a fertility clinic and put Buddy Holly's "Maybe Baby" on instead...
Could have used Telephone Line by ELO - that starts with a ring tone, albeit the US one so there’s at least a stab at getting it right. Downside is Jeff Lynne warbling through the remaining 4 minutes of a quite good 70s hit. Ok once in a while but not every time the phone rings.
I know someone who set up "Take the money and run" as the music on hold for the sales department.
And to think that he could've used John Cage's 4'33" instead
poor taste
I'd have uploaded the theme from Mash - Suicide is painless
Sick
Well yes...
Re: poor taste
Cutting Crew - I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight
The Verve - The Drugs Don't Work
But but but
Some seriously shonky coding going on there if it plays the ringtone to its end even though the call has been answered. Forget the jolly jape of It's Raining Men playing to a conclusion on every call, it means that any call will be answered with the chosen ringtone still playing unless the recipient knows to answer it as the ringtone is about to finish.
Hmmm. Not sure if the developers thought this through and tested it to any degree of sanity, or if we’re being misled a little with this Who Me.
Could be worse, of course
Status Quo's 4500 times would last considerably longer (around 10 minutes), and then there's 2112 by Rush at just over 20 minutes.
A secret phone cord?
Eventually he got the system to download a smaller and somewhat more professional-sounding ringtone file and – hallelujah – it stopped raining men.
I don't know if Hallelujah would be a better option tbh.
Hold Muzak
Many, many years ago if you were on hold with a company called D.E.M. who were a software reseller for Backup Exec, they played excerpts from Goon shows.
Eventually he got the system to download a smaller and somewhat more professional-sounding ringtone file and – hallelujah – it stopped raining men.
You mean he nursed it back to normal?