BOFH mans the Helldesk
BOFH mans the Helldesk By Simon Travaglia Posted: 04/06/2001 at 16:56 GMT
BOFH 2001: Episode 17
It’s “Hello, helpdesk, how can I help resolve your call?” The PFY asks - the epitome of compassion and altruism - in response to our seventeenth call of the morning.
“It’s my machine,” the user sighs across the office - thanks to the wonders of hands-free technology. “It won’t start.”
“Booting problems?” The PFY asks, faking the sort of deep concern you only hear in Party Political Broadcasts and reruns of M.A.S.H.
“Yes, the machine keeps telling me that N-T-L-D-R isn’t found.”
“Right,” The PFY responds calmly. “Has someone else been using your machine recently?”
“No.”
“Have you been doing tidying up on your machine - maybe a bit of deleting to free up a bit of space?”
“No” the user responds, “but..”
“But you moved some stuff around?”
”..Well there were files everywhere and it was such a mess that I…”
“Of course I understand completely. And you’ve probably chosen to display all files, including hidden ones, on your desktop?”
“Well yes, I always like to know what’s going on on my system - see if anyone’s put an viruses there!”
“Yes, you never can be too careful. Well, we’re going have to recover some of your system - what version of Windows were you running?”
“Oh, that would be Windows 2000.”
“2000? We’ve not released 2000 to the users yet, as we’re waiting until we have the Service Pack media available for the consultants.”
“That’s OK, one of the guys here bought some copies of it for three quid a disk when he was going through Malaysia on his holidays. He got us all a copy.”
The PFY’s countenance almost cracks for a moment, but he manages to hold it together against tremendous odds - This is, after all, a battle of wills.
“Right,” he gasps, between clenched teeth. “I’ll just transfer you to our Windows 2000 expert.”
Sadly, but truly, The PFY and I are manning the helpdesk after a tragic Giardia epidemic struck down the previous helpdesk, causing them all to be sent home ill. (Those that could be prised out of the toilets, that is.)
The Boss, being unneccessarily vindictive, directed us to helpdesk duty simply because we were the last people seen in the vicinity of the offending water cooler prior to the event.
…The curse of the helpdesk touches us all…
With time on our hands The PFY and I decide to play a couple of days of Good Helldesk Person/Bad Helldesk Person to see if we can completely destabilise the users - swapping roles randomly so as not be predicable.
I meantime, have a call to take over.
“Hello, Simon here. What seems to be the problem?”
“I can’t start my machine.”
“YOUR Machine? It’s the company’s machine!”
“Well yes, but it won’t start.”
“I see. What did you do to it?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me! Did you take the covers off?”
“No!”
“Install any programs?”
“No”
“Run any of those stupid attachments that your friends keep sending you?”
“No”
“What about that Monkey.exe that you got yesterday?”
“How did yo.. No”
“I think you’re lying…”
“I ONLY RAN IT ONCE”
“I see - so you WERE lying?!”
“It was only once!”
“Once is all it takes! Now, have you been stuffing around with your Operating System?”
“No..”
“I think you’re lying again. I bet you tinkered with the Hidden files setting, didn’t you”
“I just wanted to se..”
“So you were lying. Now if Microsoft had wanted you to see the files, they wouldn’t be hidden them in the first place, would they?”
“But..”
“No buts! I’ll pass you over to our Operator, who’ll give you information on where to deliver your machine.”
I transfer him back to The PFY.
“Hello. Operations!”
“Uh, I’ve been told I’ll have to deliver my machine somewhere - but I need to use it.
“Oh I’m sure we can manage to fix it in-situ without a problem, it shouldn’t be more…”
>DING!< The time desktop timer chimes, signalling role reversal time.
”..than six or seven weeks before we get around to popping down to have a look.”
“But I need to use it today!”
“Well I think you should have thought of that before you tinkered around with your software. Which reminds me, do you have a LICENSE for that software?”
“I.. “
“Don’t lie to me, my phone has voice stress analysis and I’ll know.”
“It’s not my software.”
“Well that rings true, but did you install it?”
“No, I got someone else to.”
The PFY presses down on one of the buttons on his phone to send a tone back to the user. >beeeep< “The phone says you’re lying”
“I didn’t mean to. I thought it was NT 4.”
>beeep<
“Would you care to revise your story? Remember, this conversation is being recorded”
“RECORDED? What for?!”
“Evaluation and Quality Control. To see how well I’ve helped you.”
“You haven’t helped me! Can I speak to the other guy again?”
“Why?”
“He was going to get me to deliver my machine…”
“Ok, I suppose so.”
“Hello, Systems,” I blurt.
“Yes, I wanted to know where I could deliver my machine?The Bastard plays with fire By Simon Travaglia Posted: 25/05/2001 at 15:47 GMT
BOFH 2001: Episode 16
It’s 8:30am when I rock into work to find the building surrounded by fire engines with firemen clambering all over the place. More helmets than a gay porn website, in fact.
When the all-clear’s given, I rock on to find the smoke detectors were set off by a small upset with one of the laser printers in the cube farm outside mission control. The almost unlikely coincidence of paper jam, dead fan and dud fuser unit control circuit taking it’s toll…
“Fans overheat all the time,” I say, indicating the wreckage. “But 99.9% of the time they’re made of fairly non-flammable stuff, nowhere near anything else flammable, with no harmful effects. This really was a complete accident.”
The fact of the matter is that it’s true. No external influence needed to be applied - it was just old.
“But it could have been a major fire!” The Boss blurts - concerned more for the safety of the precious prize Rubber Plant in his office than any actual damage to the building.
“It could have been, but it was just a fan and a couple of sheets of paper which set the sensors off. If we’d had heat detectors instead of smoke ones, it’d probably have gone out by itself..”
The fire official agrees with my verdict.
“It’s unusual, but not unheard of,” he agrees. “And in this case there was just a half fed page which carried the flame to the page before it.”
“Well what happened? Who was printing at that hour of the morning, anyway?” The Boss snaps, looking for a culprit.
I pop the printer open and remove the remaining half a page of mildly scorched paper from it.
“It’s…. the bootstrap index from one of our backup systems,” I respond. “Printed every night when the backup cycle completes.”
“Well we should be more careful,” he growls. “Fire in a place like this could cause damage.”
“Very true,” the Fire Official says. “Buildings like this with lots of loose paper can go up like a tinder box in the right conditions!”
I suppress the urge to sarcastically add: “if doused liberally in petrol” - given the fact the building’s majorly concrete, has a temperature- activated sprinkler system, and generally very little “loose paper” laying around to speak of.
“Should we be doing something about this?” The Boss asks.
“Well, for about 500 quid you could get a comprehensive fire risk audit done by a Fire Marshall.”
“I see. And where would I get hold of a Fire Marshal?” The Boss asks stupidly
“Well it so happens that I do a bit of contract work in that area…”
Two days and 500 quid later, we have a “Report” that looks suspiciously like a fire safety document with “Commission exclusively for” and our company’s name slapped on the top…
“See, we should be operating any equipment that can generate heat in flameproof enclosures!” he gasps “And taking measures to protect against overheating in devices with moving parts!”
“I see. When do you think I should do this then?”
“When?!? Well as soon as possible!!!”
“Ah, I think we’d need a mandate to improve safety around the building,” I respond. “People wouldn’t just accept our word that things need to be safe.”
“A mandate! We just had a FIRE! I’m not mandating it, I’m DEMANDING it!”
“Right you are,” I sigh. “Running all the way.”
So off I go..
..for all of 20 minutes, until he calls me up on the cellphone to meet him back at Mission Control…
“What’s up?”
“YOUR BLOODY SAFETY MEASURES!” a beancounter type squeals, emerging from behind the door where he’d been skulking
“Told you so,” I murmur to the boss.
“It seems they think you’ve been somewhat overzealous. So what happened exactly?”
“Well, I didn’t want to just storm in there and tell them what to do,” I explain patiently “It’s dictatorial. Instead I thought we could try a new approach, maybe cure past misdeeds and bury the hatchet.”
“HE BURIED IT IN MY ZIP DRIVE!”
“Well it was a fire hazard!” I respond.
“IT BLOODY WASN’T! IT WASN’T EVEN CONNECTED TO MY MACHINE!!!”
“A potential hazard then. But it would have been connected sooner or later. And prevention is nine tenths of the cure.”
“THEN YOU PUSHED MY MONITOR INTO THE BIN!”
“It was generating heat. The metal enclosure safeguards it in case of combust…”
“Yesssss,” The Boss mumbles, changing sides faster than an Italian war hero. “I think you may have gone a bit overboard.”
“Well it was your report which said to look out for them!”
“Yes, but I only meant you to fix up things in serious risk of causing a fire problem.”
“SERIOUS risk? Ah. You should have said so. Then perhaps I should give the PFY a quick ring - he’s covering the flammable gases section.”
“DON’T BOTHER!” the PFY cries Triumphantly. “I’m DONE! Had a couple of close calls, but the threat of a methane explosion is one of the past!”
“What threat of methane explosion?”
“Gas, trapped in an enclosed space! I’ve bashed vent holes between all toilet cubicles - Gents and Ladies - most entertaining, had the kitchen bins moved to outside the building, and of course, eliminated the risk of rotting vegetation off-gases by throwing all plants into the skip across the road.”
“My Rubber Plant!” The Boss gasps in horror.
“Don’t worry - didn’t touch it. Safe and sound under the UV lamp in your office.”
“Oh thank goodness. It’s a prize winner you know.”
“Should be even better now - I cleaned the leaves with some alchohol I was tossing out and moved the lamp really close to give it some extra….”
The PFY’s words are interrupted by a claxon-like noise…
“I think you’ll be needing this,” I blurt, hastily handing the hatchet to The Boss.
“For the fire!” I add, noticing his unwavering focus on The PFY…
Dangerous places, office Buildings… “
“Your machine?”
“Yes, you told me I could get it re-installed after that software problem.”
>beeeeep<
“Pardon?” I ask, caringly
“After I accidentally moved some files around.”
“Oh, OK. Well if it’s that simple I think I could probably bring a recovery CD down there and do a quick fix. Should only take about 10 minute.s”
“Is this the guy I was talking to before?” the user asks, confused
“I’m sorry?” I respond.
“Nothing. My mistake. So can you get my system up with a stable operating system?”
“Sure I can. I’ll slap Windows 2000 >beeeep< I mean Windows NT4 >beeep<, I mean Windows >Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep<. I’ll sort something out”
“Ok, when do you think you’ll be able to do that?”
“I can pop down now if you like. Sort it out before lunch!”
“ohthankyousomuch!” the user gasps, ringing off.
I grab the CD and make a break for the door as the superhero of the helpdesk, pausing only when I hear the >BING< from the clock the PFY’s just wound forward.
The cheating bastard.
“Chuck us that OS2 install media will you?” I ask, dropping the Recovery disk into the bin.
“You cruel bastard..” the PFY cries.
Special Note: Messages defending OS2 will ONLY be read by the Bastard if written clearly, legibly and succinctly on banknotes. No other correspondence will be entered into. Priority will be given to larger denominations..