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Please enjoy the following.

I have bee thinking about continuing the sagas. Here are some real world responses I have used.

Please enjoy.

luser:
"I was working on an email for two hours and my machine crashed, can you recover it for me?"

Sysadmin:
"No. The email program uses a Dynamic programming algorithm."

luser:
"What's that?"

SysAdmin:
"In this case the dynamic programming algorithm remembers past emails written and uses those to predict when you need to quit writing a fucking novel and get on with your work". By spending way too much time in an application designed to communicate "QUICKLY", You extended the “optimal substructure” and “overlapped the subEmailQueue”.

**********************************************

Boss:
"The company has decided to purchase the software reviewed by the steering committee. Will you be around to install it this weekend?"

SysAdmin:
"Sure, That's double time pay, right?"

Boss:
"Nope, you're on salary, be in by 7 and call my cell phone when you're done, I'll be up north fishing, but should have a signal."

Monday Morning New system is completely hosed (installed over the weekend without reading the manual and half drunk) and no network resources are available to the lusers.

Boss:
"What happened? Why didn't you call me?"

SysAdmin:
"It seems that the steering committee failed to realize that the new "Enterprise software" they purchased imbeads itself into Active Directory by trying to find and reallocate the nth Fibonacci number."

Boss:
"The what?"

SysAdmin:
*sighs*
"Look, you have a degree in computer science, It's basic 101 stuff. n is zero or one, so when returning one; compute fibonacci(n-1) and fibonacci(n-2) Then return the sum of those two numbers. Now this requires O(fibonacci(n)) time; which is equivalent to exponential time, that is, O(2n)."

Boss:
"Yes I know that, why doesn't the network work?"

SysAdmin:
"Because Active Directory maintains internal network time with a process constantly using n, or more to the point O(2n). So you see until I can uninstall that shit "The Committee" bought, the network will be un accessible."

hehe. Keep em coming bastard.

I can remember countless laughs when I was younger reading the BOFH stories - Dino is the perfect candidate to continue them..

I say go for it!

The Bastard SysAdmin Returns – Part I by: Dinowuff

Why do I try? I am a personable individual. I care. I feel for my common man. Everyone should be able to understand and use technology. I will help everyone.

*ARGGGGGGGG* *SCREAM* Cold sweats. Talk about night terrors.

The last few nights I have awoken from nightmares in where I am at some touchy-feely "cum-by-yha" group camp type thing. It’s a good thing my phone rang to wake me from the dream – I’ll just maim the idiot calling me. Least I can do since the luser did end my nightmare. Turns out it’s not a luser calling me, it’s my network.

See, whenever any admin account is changed, my cell phone rings. Now I don’t like to admit this but I have one of those Windows Mobil pda phone things. So I see the administrator account has changed, and know I didn’t do it. I quickly launch a SSL connection to the network and see that my two bosses are logged on. Since they don’t have VPN accounts (that work after 10:30 p.m.) I know they are in the office. I launch a Perl script that changes security templates on the windows DC’s thus disabling all admin accounts (except mine) and all sorts of other things. I think ADC is disabled also – hey there goes email.

It's 0300 Saturday Morning, and some idiot is trying to mess with my network. Even though, whoever it is wont be able to do anything – because the whole damn network is disabled, might as well go in seeing how I don’t want to go back to camp touchy feel.

I stop at the local barf and puke and get a sandwich to go. Now I know it's zero dark thirty, but What THE FUCK? I did not ask for diet coke. /me throws diet coke out the window into a passing car. That will teach them to keep their windows rolled up! WINDOWS ARGGGGGGGGGUH

I am getting increasingly angrier. At least the latest Install has gone PERFECT! Yea, who's the man, I am - I am, dance of joy proceeds in brain. I pull into the parking ramp and notice 8 cars parked in the ramp. And one of the cars is parked in MY SPOT! I got that spot after the company controller expressed "interest" in my IT purchases. Poor guy lost his wife, kids, job and freedom. Got to love those online sex offenders’ lists and the idiot D.B.A.’s that run them. That reminds me. There should be a global link between the NIS and European databases. To do: Ensure FBI database credentials are still in tact.

Entering the west end of the building I see the glow from my date center illuminating the darkness. “Hum”, I say aloud to no one, I know I turned the lights off when I left. Entering the data center the first thing I see is my boss’s boss sweating profusely. Three other guys are running from monitor to monitor trying to… Do something. My boss is in the corner trying to manipulate his palm pilot for; again, unknown reasons.

With a calm but “All Knowing” voice I announce: “What are you doing”? The banter ceases and all eyes are on me. Good. At least they won’t all die instantly.

Someone comes forward and introduces herself.

“I am Rhonda (something). I am a Certified Microsoft blah blah blah”.

“Hello Rhonda, what are you doing here”?

“I’m respon…”

“She’s here to complete the failed upgrade you performed last weekend” Interrupts the boss.

“You mean the one that worked perfect all last week? The one that saved your ass from being fired? Now unless I know what it is you are attempting, I can’t help.

“You will help or you are out of a job MISTER”

Oh yea, hollow threats. And what’s with this mister shit? I don’t reply and find Rhonda. The Big boss is nowhere to be found and my boss has gone back to his corner, thinking I’m about to help.

Rhonda explains that her company was hired to come in and install some kind of home grown software that supposedly monitors employee network usage, emails whatever. They tried installing it with my Boss’ user ID but of course he doesn’t have admin rights on his X-Box, much less the network. So she explained that she changed the administrator password and then in about 25 minutes somehow file, print, and DNS services just shut down and disabled themselves one by one. That’s what the other guys are running about trying to figure out, but none of the accounts they have can access the event logs.

Well, now that I know no damage has been done or can be done, I sit down at my desk and start reading archived copies of last weeks email. Seems while I was busy with my upgrade, the boss was busy contracting this company to install SPY software. Oh and look here, he didn’t get approval from upper management. Oh Oh look! A word.doc from my boss to his boss saying to the effect, if asked just tell them that you knew nothing about this install.

Well I quietly turn on a little known print server, pack up my laptop and head over to the corner where my boss is hiding.

“Listen” I say in a most condescending voice. “You’re the idiot who bought this shit, you fix it” I’m going home, do not call me, do not swing by my house. I will be in around 9 or 10 Monday morning”.

The boss thinks for a second and yells you’re fired as I walk out the datacenter room door. On my way out I turn off the lights and the parking lot security cameras.

I’m going to really enjoy my weekend!

Hahahaha! *Great* job, Dino!

Keep em coming! I refuse to sleep tonight until I have read Part 2

0600 Saturday morning and I get back to my house, walk into my living room, and turn on my Sharp 65" AQUOS LCD HDTV, (Model LC65D90U). Crank Surround Sound and pop in Space Balls the movie. Something about going straight to ludicrous speed always cracks me up. I pop downstairs to the basement and log onto the Springfield city department of public works internal web site. I place an install order to connect to a Mr. Rodger L, Asshole (my boss) at 4387 Langdon Ave. NE to city sewage. See the boss is in a fight with the city about having to pay city workers to connect to city sewage and remove the current septic system. He claims; correctly, that he can contract the job out for half the cost. Oh well - no need for the court system, I'll just settle the matter. Boss will be connected to city sewage in 8 weeks.

I pop over to my main SAN and create a standalone VM. Then I start to query the archive email server for anything I may have missed during my brief stay at the office this morning.

While the query is running, I try to log onto the security cameras at my works parking ramp. Nope! Cameras are still off. I begin to copy the last 8 hours from the security camera video storage array to my local SAN. I know it will take a few hours, but video editing over the WAN is a pain in the butt.

“NO go straight to ludicrous speed” HAHAHAHAHAHA I run up stairs just in time to see Space Ball I go to plaid. The home phone rings and being in Bastard Mode I answer.

“Space Ball City, how can I help you?”
“The consultants say they can’t fix the system that you must have…”
<click>
What a moron. Well at least I know the consultants are gone. I unplug the home phone and head over to the fridge. I notice a few micro brews on the bottom shelf. I grab one and a bag of Cheese Whirls; sit down in the living room and finish watching the movie.

0900 and both beers are gone. I head down stairs and notice that both my query and video download have completed. Nice, I start on the video. Not a whole lot of stuff. Boss and Rhonda pull in at 18:30; big boss gets there at 21:00. Now that’s strange, what the hell were they doing for three and a half hours? Trying to install stuff without admin rights? 22:46 the three other consultants show up. They’re met by Rhonda who seems to be quite agitated. She’s been listening to the boss for a while so I’m pretty sure that’s the case. Rhonda leads the three in then returns to her car and pulls out of the ramp. Returning 45 minutes later, Rhonda re enters the building. 01:02 boss and big boss are in the parking lot having a HUGE argument. Probably about who should call me. That’s great; these shots will do just fine. Oh even better the boss trips and falls on Rhonda’s car on the way back in.

Now I’m not going to get into the difficulty of modifying video tapes, suffice to say I now have video of Boss and Rhonda screaming at each other ending with the Boss pushing Rhonda down on her car and what looks like an action that could be interpreted as sexual assault. The altered video goes on to show Rhonda getting up and driving away while the boss just stands there yelling and waiving his hands towards Rhonda’s car. This is followed by Rhonda’s return 45 minutes and shortly followed by boss and big boss having a screaming match in the garage. I merge a few of the frames where boss is behind Rhonda (who’s bent over the car) and create the illusion of a more “Happy – consensual” event. I save that as a jpg. The only reason I mention the difficulty of modifying video is the time stamps are off. However, they are not displayed by default.

I check to see what all was returned by the query I ran earlier. It seems that this little install is not only a secret shared only by my boss and his boss. But that Rhonda and my boss’ boss are “Close”. So I save the little email from my boss to his boss titled “Conflict of Interest”. Man how stupid can you be?

I copy all the information on the unauthorized installation and purchase of unauthorized software into a neat little folder and upload it to my hidden file server. I then replace the video on the security cameras storage array.

Off to work. I park in front of the building and enter via the visitor entrance. I make my way to the datacenter, seeing the lights have been turned off, I enter. I turn the parking ramp security cameras on and the front security cameras off. I also erase the front security camera back to 18:45 Friday night.

After removing that stupid software; restoring security templates and activating needed accounts, I power off all printers in the building. Then I send all files, stored on my hidden print server, to every printer in the building. For kicks and giggles, I send 5 copies each.

Before I leave, I change the pass code and ACL to the datacenter. Leaving the datacenter, I get that oh so familiar feeling of a good dump coming on. I walk up to the front offices, go into the CIO’s private office and take a magnificent dump in his private bathroom. I do not flush.

Well it’s Saturday night and I’m in a drinking mood. I hop in my car and head downtown, on the way I call a few of my programming buddies – we’re going bar hopping. I wonder what my bosses are doing tonight. I know what they will be doing Monday morning…

The Bastard SysAdmin Returns Part III - by dinowuff

Monday morning, zero dark thirty. The weekend is still kind of a blur. I remember something about either dropping my PDA into my beer glass while taking a leek, or maybe peeing in my beer glass while flushing my PDA down the toilet. I open my eyes completely and realize that I am at home, in my bed. I wonder where my car is. Where is my phone? Who is this in bed with me?

The answer to these and many other questions will be answered after I get some coffee.

In the kitchen I put “the kettle on”. Actually, I just press the on button on Mr. Coffee but put the kettle on sounds better. Coffee is brewing and the sun is just now peeking over the horizon. I open the front door to grab the morning paper and notice my car parked nicely in the drive way. Note to self: One of these days your luck will run out.

I sit down at the kitchen table with a hot cup of joe and glance at the days paper. I’m not really reading it, rather trying to put the past two day’s events in order. Ok Friday night I go out drinking with Steve and Jake. We hit the all the College bars and I remember getting pissed at my phone, but why? That’s right – it kept ringing. There was a group of women at the table next to us. They were having a pre bachelorette – bachelorette party. Now it’s coming back to me.

Saturday night, Jake, Steve and I close the bar and exchange phone numbers with the women at the table next to us. We then took a taxi to Steve’s house and pass out. Sunday we just hung around playing CS:Source and trying to decide who should call the “chicks” we met last night. Finally we decided that Steve was the least drunk and would have the best chance at not coming off as a complete asshead. Steve called the number given to him by someone claiming to be Rhonda. Amazingly, Rhonda answers the phone and after a short conversation Steve says that Rhonda is going to call her friends and then call him back. Jake and I have killed Steve and since he was on our team, he cannot re join the game. Being the bastard I am, “Frag your buddy” is the only attitude needed when playing Counter Strike. Anyway, Steve was a little pissed but no one cared. Then a good point was raised. What if the girls are ugly? Or worse, fugly?

Shit. Now I’m scared to go back into my bed room.

O.K. So what happened last night? I remember Rhonda called Steve and asked him if we would like to meet up with her and her friends from the bar last night. Steve says yes, without asking if we wanted to - like he needed to ask.

Everyone was supposed to meet a Julie’s house at 8. On the drive there Steve calls Rhonda and gets the run down. Julie is married and is also Rhonda’s best friend. Julie thinks I’m cute and Rhonda’s fiancé is a short, bald, fat, rich guy. Too much information but hey, sometimes you just have to listen to the drivel.

We parked on the street in front of Julie’s house and walked to the front door. Rhonda opened the door before we can knock. She’s been crying and asked us to come in. Inside we found all the girls huddled on the couch in the living room. I remember thinking, Oh GREAT, a tear feast. WTF have we gotten our selves into? What? Have these chicks all been sitting around all afternoon watching ‘Beaches’?

Before anyone could say anything, Julie stood up and announced “Fuck HIM! Let’s get this party started”.

So off we went to the bar for a night of drunken debauchery. Julie began to tell me that her and her friends were at the mall and were going to see a movie. But instead, decided to go back to her house and watch some DVD’s. Upon returning home, Julie and her friends were greeted with the site of Julie’s husband getting busy (doggie style) with the neighbor lady on the staircase. Julie continues to describe the scene and recanting all the screaming and yelling and blah, blah, blah. I tried to listen as much as possible and act as if I cared, but I didn’t. Trying to change the subject I began to recant the events of Friday last and another girl named Rhonda, when…

OH SHIT! Rhonda, the boss, the software and cameras! How could I have forgotten that?

It’s now 07:47 am and I need to get dressed. I run back to my bedroom to get my “Professional” clothes and head into the bathroom. Noticing the lump in my bed, I decide to be as quiet a possible. I don’t need any distractions. I quickly shower and get dressed. Standing at the mirror tying my tie a question is posed.
“Did you mean what you said last night”?
Now I have no idea what I said, hopefully it wasn’t ‘I love you’ but now’s not the time to worry about that.
“Of course I meant what I said”.
Now that may have been the first mistake I’ve made in the past 11 years, but the games a foot and I have no time to deal with drunken promises / declarations of love.

“I have some very important things I have to do at work and I don’t have any time to talk this morning. How about we discuss things tonight over dinner? I lost my phone, so you can’t call me. I’ll be here about three of four – six at the latest”.

I walk straight out of the bedroom, avoiding any eye contact with the lump in my bed and make a bee line for the door. Leaving no chance for questions or comments from lump lady, I think the open ended answer will save my butt if necessary.

Having, quite possibly, broken the worlds land speed record on my way to work. I arrive at the parking ramp at exactly 08:58. I walk into my office at 09:00 and at 09:01 the director of human resources and head of security (that’s building security) walk into my office.

“Mr. Morgan”, States the HR director. “I’m sure you know Tony”
“Sure do, what can I do for you guys”?
“Well it seems that there was some activity here over the weekend and we just want to get to the bottom of it”.

“Bottom of what, was there a break-in, Tony”?
“We don’t think so but we want to check the security tapes”.
“Sure no problem, let’s go to the data center. We can review the archives from there”.

As we walk to the data center, I notice that everyone seems to be calm and it’s not exactly what I expected. And that dick head in sales looks at me and smiles. Oh no – someone has a plan! Evil laugh rings in my head.

I explain how I need to reorient the data stream from the camera to a video stream in order to correctly view yesterdays history. I’m then asked if I could go back as far as last Friday night. I say sure, but it will take a little more time to adjust the data stream for that much data.

Logging onto the video system click click click, a itty bitty bat file starts spewing worthless characters on the screen. I tell Tony this may take a while. It will actually take 4.7 minutes.

While Tony and the HR guy are whispering to each other and watching the monitor, I walk over to another workstation and reset the data center pass code and ACL back to what they were Friday. Tony asks me what I’m doing and I reply that I’m monitoring the data stream conversion. Dummy mode on.

I review the morning’s security logs and delete all entries where my boss and his boss have frantically tried to access the data center. I also check the print queue of my little friend and see it’s empty. I turn that print server off.

Just about the time I’m finished my boss bursts into the data center yelling, “Don’t touch anything you little bastard, I fired you Friday night”.

Bastard? I think to myself. Yup you got that right. And actually it was Saturday morning you mental midget.

“What are you talking about – Friday Night”? You said you were going to perform some kind of maintenance over the weekend when I left at 4 on Friday? That I should just take the weekend off since I did such a great job on the upgrade”. “Are you feeling alright”?

“You little fuck; you aren’t going to get away with your shit this time”, proclaims the boss with a soon to be short lived sense of pride.

I ignore the boss and fire up the video software. I search back to 16:00 Friday afternoon and hit play. Hey look it’s me getting into my car – time index 16:18. I fast forward and watch the parking lot empty out. Nothing strange until 18:30, the Director of HR pipes up.
“Who’s that”?
All heads look at my boss. I don’t slow down the playback speed and then with a surprised voice I say,
“Hey what’s this”? I put playback to normal and we all watch as my Boss screams at Rhonda, I ask who the chick is, but before he can reply the video playback shows Rhonda fending off an attack by the boss.

The rest of the tape is reviewed and HR guy asks Tony and the boss to follow him to his office. HR Director says thank you and asks me to stay in the data center until he comes and gets me.

What Luck, alone in my data center – super dummy mode on. I wave to my red faced boss as he gives me the evil eye on his way out. I log into the mail server and see that my boss’s boss has been fired for misuse of company resources and that I am the prime suspect for attempting to cover up the unauthorized install. Not to worry, the only thing that makes me a suspect is the emails and contracts that printed out this morning. No worries, I create a print log and modify the log so idiot in sales and marketing sent the thing to the printers. I also, move my evidence folder to his home directory.

Thirty minutes later the HR director brings me to the executive board room. The CEO, CFO an Executive Vice President, Tony and the boss are all there and ask me to sit down.

I again explain how the boss had given me the weekend off and was not in the building all weekend. My boss tried to explain he couldn’t get into the data center as was evident this morning when neither he nor Tony could get in to stop the print jobs. It was at that point that Tony said, “Well, I don’t know what code you were using, but once you saw Mr. Morgan in the data center, you got in just fine”. By now I know my mental midget boss’ mind is reeling. He looks as if he’s going to pass out, so I throw him a bone.
“Maybe we can find out who printed the documents. I do have logs, they don’t go back very far because the constantly over write themselves. But we might get lucky”.

Once again in the data center; Tony, HR guy and I look at the print log and discover that sales and marketing guy had sent the documents. I explained how it looked like he was having problems and was not trying to expose anything. We found the files in his network drive and I told everyone I couldn’t explain any other way for those to get there unless some one emailed them to him.

This activity went on for a few hours. After which I was asked to look at the front security tapes. Tony discovered the boss entered the building Saturday night via the employee entrance. I was sorry to report that the video images had been erased.

I didn’t see the boss for the rest of the day. I figured that he’d been escorted out the front door. I did watch sales and marketing guy be escorted out the back door to an awaiting police car; stealing company documents and bribery charges – at least that’s my guess.

Around 14:00 I was called to the HR department where I was handed an offer letter for the position of Director of Information Technologies. I told them that I really enjoyed my current position, but I would take the rest of the day off to consider the offer.

Driving home I contemplated dropping by the Boss’ place, but figured I’d save that for another time. As I turned on to my street, I noticed a strange car parked in my driveway. Not thinking too much of it I opened my front door and was meet with a strange smell. Food, cooking food; fresh cooking food – not that microwave food smell.

Going into the Kitchen I found the source of the smell. Walking into the living room I found the reason for the smell. It was Julie, lump lady. Apparently last night I told her she could crash at my place until she files for divorce and can get her own place.

We did the usual small talk. Then as she walked into the kitchen to work on dinner she paused, placed her on my shoulder and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. I asked her what that was for, and she said:

“Just for being so nice to me”. I turned and gazed into her emerald green eyes and shrugged.
“No biggie, just don’t take this to mean we’re going to take warm showers together or long walks on the beach”.

We both laughed and spent the rest of the evening quoting Client Eastwood movie lines and generally goofing around. Towards the end of dinner, Julie told me she forgot to tell me Rhonda had called earlier. She wanted Julie to tell me that my HR director had called her to apologize for the events that happened Friday night. And that whatever I did must have really been the work of a true bastard.

Talk about a small world.

LMAO! That part was excellent, Dino - keep em coming!

The Bastard SysAdmin Episode II, Chapter I - By Dinowuff

Well for those of you, who have been following my return; let me give you a quick update. After the fiasco a few months back with the unauthorized software install, video clips that put worlds funniest to shame and the introduction of fresh food and Julie to my humble yet bastardized existence, I am now the Director of Information Services for Hugh Company Inc.

At first I thought that I may have made a mistake. The first few weeks I interviewed hundreds of applicants for my old position. Covered budget requirements and sat in on mission planning meetings. Now I thought I was the world’s worst bastard. That I could make people feel pain nth times more than the devil himself. I was wrong. The companies CFO, with all his financial prowess and complete understanding of cubes and financial technology – well in short. This guy can make your eyes bleed. Sitting in overview comities with this guy explaining future material costs and justifiable insurance capital investments… Well I almost got to the point of feeling inferior. ALMOST.

I walked in the house one Friday after work only to find Julie in the kitchen humming away to some metal tune long forgotten. I started telling her about my latest round of interviews. After a few minutes she just started laughing and asked why I was being so nice?

Ever been hit on the side of the head with a 2X4? Yup just like that I changed my tune.

Being the head of IT is o.k., but the lusers never complain to me because no one is working under me. I keep everything up and running smoothly. I really can’t screw with the users as I’m the only one here less the Tier I person that has become my ad hoc secretary. So I now need, not only a scapegoat, but an apprentice – if I’m lucky.

Over the weekend I reviewed all the resumes I had received. I searched for phrases like u r and cya. I gathered every resume that did not include a cover page. The more misspelled words the better. Preparing for Monday morning I emailed every applicant whose resume had the phrase u r and no cover letter with the following.

__________________________________________________________________________
Dear Applicant:

This is an automated email – Please do not reply.

If you know the answer to “Life, The Universe and Everything”
please contact me to schedule an in person interview.
_________________________________________________________________________

For all the applications that were so misspelled I sent the following.
_________________________________________________________________________
Dear Applicant:

This is an automated email – P;ease donot send ack

if ur interceded in interviweeing for the position of system admeinistror –

pl;eae bring a coyp of this to your interview monday morning let me know when youcan come for an intervies

do not respone to this email.
_________________________________________________________________________

I used my hotmail account and attached their original resume so they would know what position I was referring to. Come Monday I’m going to have some fun.

ahh...a true bastard

Just my type....

MLF AKA "the bitch from hell"

Can't see why we can't break these up into their own threads and Digg them...definitely good enough...

Looks like Simon's got a run for his money, haha!
Dino, I'd love to be an apprentice, hehe! And no, I won't touch the doorhandle and I'm looking for missing floor tiles, haha!

Doorhandle? Don't touch ANYTHING that conducts oh or use any elevators. An entertaining read Dino, thanks.

I feel a slight breeze ....

Great stuff dino

=C=

Interviewees + closed room = Halon Gas!