back to article BOFH: BOFH vs Bot: Ultimate Smackdown

I love these quiet moments before the storm. Well, technically speaking, it’s between storms, but the fact remains that there’s a certain amount of solace in not actually being in a storm at this point in time. In these calm periods my mind enters a peaceful, dreamlike state where I find my thoughts drifting in anticipation …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Death to middle management

    BOfH PFY and boss need a diversion - this was only going to end one way, great story arc.

  2. Sam Liddicott

    sentient prosthetics

    So the boss will have some prosthetic limbs fitted which turn against him too? Maybe he will be their nemesis in another series. Maybe one of the robots stuffed a chip up the bosses nose to infiltrate the boss.

  3. Andy Hards
    WTF?

    I can't believe it

    took all weekend to decide to throw the boss out there.

    1. Ragarath

      My thoughts exactly

      In that type of situation and when you read the part about the boss being there (AKA the start) there is only one end in sight. Therefore a few hours at most should have been wasted on trying to find an alternative.

      Although the story leading to it was great.

  4. Darren Murphy
    Happy

    Sums up my Week

    “Management” I sigh “There’s some things you can’t explain to them, no matter how clearly you put it..”

    another classic Simon

  5. bugalugs

    They'll have to send the bot back of course

    gawd 'elp the already gassed and trashed robosales mob.

  6. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Simon is really churning them out!

    Great stuff.

    I still sense a resurrection even after this ultimate smackdown

  7. John I'm only dancing
    Thumb Up

    title in here

    Ex-boss. Should be made to compulsory to all who aspire to climbing the corporate ladder.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What # Boss are we up to at this stage?

    Is anybody keeping count?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    There's an escape route you forgot...

    That shark - the one just over there. Jump over it!

  10. D. M
    Thumb Up

    I don't think the boss was alive

    chainsaw and boss doesn't mix.

    Another great one.

  11. DrunkenMessiah
    Heart

    Duke Nukem Forever...

    Bit of a fixation there, Simon?

  12. Jesthar
    Thumb Up

    Never mind the demise of the boss

    "Facebook users" - classic!

    Only reason my desk isn't wearing a layer of tea is because I know enough to put the beverages down before reading a new BOFH :D

  13. Rob
    Happy

    I like your thinking Simon

    I too subscribe to the "don't bother explaining to management, just do it and then let management recuperate afterwards, with your successful results as insurance against any comeback".

    Although I'm not sure what/if the Boss has anything planned for these 2 afterwards so that last part of my statement might not be wholly appropriate.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Rob

      >"don't bother explaining to management, just do it and then let management recuperate afterwards,"

      That must rank as one of the most idiotic statements I've ever read from a yet another tosspot who obviously thinks management just get to where they are by not knowing anything. If you are right your boss will take credit for the work, if you are wrong, and one day you will be, you'll get blamed and shafted for going it alone. Management got be so by knowing this and using it to their advantage which is why they are where they are and the rest just complain.

      The correct way is to get all the ideas out into the open, you put your case and it is documented. Then the boss goes with his idea. If it fails, then you may eventually get to do your bit. Many a time when I was contracting I was effectively paid two or three time for doing the same work. My way of thinkng may also not have worked but at least there'd have been a record showing the task wasn't so straight forward.

      There is nothing to be gained and everything to be lost from thinking youself cleverer than the average bear.

      1. Ugotta B. Kiddingme
        Go

        @AC 16:58 (in reply to Rob)

        actually, my boss (both of us formerly IT and now in Purchasing) is quite the devotee of judiciouisly using ye olde adage "It's easier to obtain forgiveness than permission." Key here is JUDICIOUS use of said tactic.

        While it is certainly true this involves certain risk (no forgiveness = unemployment queue), there have been quite a few times over the course of a career where that strategy has paid off handsomely. (And no, that's not why we are now in purchasing. Twenty five years of IT culminating in a dead-end position were enough for me.)

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Grenade

        We've got a live one here!

        @ AC14:58:

        I can only assume by the posting of this just before 5pm, that you're either (a) not in the pub after a hard (re: kill/loss ratio not in your favour on Counterstrike or at the helldesk) day with your mates be they foreign, domestic, imaginary or otherwise, or (b) not proving your way to be very successful, and having to type your rant in a public library whilst saving the last of your JSA for a feast of clearance goods from Tesco.

        Either way, it would make a fairly good FotW.

        The only thing management need to know to get where they are is how parasites prosper off another species which does enough to support itself and the KPI-boasting blood-sucking monkey on it's back.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: We've got a live one here and others

          FotW? It's not even close to a rant.

          >The only thing management need to know

          A very blinkered view. I've worked for a range of clients from NASA to a County Council and in various countries and can honestly say that all the people who I reported to with the exception of one were extremely competent.

          >You obviously have no clue about dealing with managers.

          Rather the contrary, being a direct contractor I know exactly how to deal with managers and others, including bleating, woe is me, the world is against me, everbody else gets the opportunities permies.

          >Its simple really, as the old saying goes it is better to seek forgiveness than permission.

          Might work for naughty children but when you have a client who stands to lose millions per hour if something doesn't work you'll find people less forgiving.

          >Any tech person will be far cleverer than the average promoted thru brown nosing manager.

          I refer you to the woe is me comment I made earlier.

          >Ah, of course you are a consultant, so naturally you know mothing.

          Oh how wrong you are, I know how to add up quite large numbers but, I will concede, only to two decimal places..

          You lot need to remember BOFH is fiction which takes the popular subordinates viewpoint and exaggerates it out of proportion, it is not real life.

          Oh, one other thing, don't pay attention to the timings of posts. I think it is the time the post was accepted/published not written, but I'm sure you knew that already.

      3. 42
        FAIL

        WTF

        You obviously have no clue about dealing with managers. Its simple really, as the old saying goes it is better to seek forgiveness than permission.

        Any tech person will be far cleverer than the average promoted thru brown nosing manager.

        Ah, of course you are a consultant, so naturally you know mothing.

        TATA.

      4. Chaosechoz
        Flame

        Considering your post... RE: @ROB

        Management have the unalying ablitly to shaft what ever member (wayhey) of staff they feel like. I have worked fot some of the biggest names in IT as a designer, Admin and Technical Support.

        Your statment:

        "That must rank as one of the most idiotic statements I've ever read from a yet another tosspot who obviously thinks management just get to where they are by not knowing anything"

        No no no.. Management get to where they are by bullshitting (+ arse meets nasal interfacing) what ever Director they think has the power to promote. 99% of all management types have about as much insight into a IT related matters as a blind person has seeing their impending doom at the hands of a speeding car....

        The only reason you threw your toys out of the pram is that your abviously a (cretinous) management person.

        I hope I am not alone in the fact that I spend countless hours of my working day making my boss look like a complete an utter failure infront of his peers and it give me great pleasure in doing so. Knowning (As I do) that eventually he will get fired and I will have brought harmony to my work place...

        So your backlash is (as you said) ranks and the most idiotic staments I have ever read :D

      5. Il Midga di Macaroni
        Grenade

        I spy strangers!

        Looks like we have a manager in the house... someone get a fire going and heat up the tar, I'm just going out to the chooks coop to look for feathers.

        Any IT person who accepts a position in management has ipso facto admitted that they were never a true IT person in the first place. The wiring of the brain that makes a person good at programming (or actually anything IT) also makes a person a bad manager - and vice versa.

      6. Anonymous Coward
        Pint

        @AC 16:58

        Two things:

        1) Didn't you used to be called Jim?

        2) Your caps lock key finally broke. Yay!

        Beer, because it's my birthday.

  14. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Leave IT to the XPerts .... or Perish.

    I really shouldn't partake of the BOFH. But what the heck, a little bit of what you fancy does you good, and I don't see any government health and wealth warnings ....... not that they would be heeded, anyway given the parlous state of the nation, which is a reflection of past inglorious bastards personal failings.

    Hit us again, Simon, for the sheer pleasure and hell of IT. :-)

  15. Lee T
    Pint

    1. C|N>K

    2. is is just me or is amanfromMars making more sense than usual?

    pint, Simon, if i ever meet you I'll buy you one.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      He's been at the

      Dried frog pills

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Well done

    Here's one for you.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its not a design flaw

    Its a feature!!! (come on that line covers every IT issue going!)

  18. MichaelC
    Pint

    TFI Friday...

    <Burns>

    Excellent

    </Burns>

  19. Notas Badoff
    Grenade

    I'm waiting for the ultimate robot wars!

    Think "lawyers".

    Think "lawyers" advised by BOFH's.

    Think "lawyers" supplied by BOFH's with inconvenient details the other company never wanted known.

    Think "swarms of lawyers" as everything comes out and everyone sues other company and the papers front page all...

    ... and the BOFH's go back to "quiet moments" with Duke Nukem Forever.

    Heh heh, think SCO and Groklaw was fun? Think "BOFH_law".

    "May it please the court, your honour, BWA HA Ha ha HA!"

  20. D. M
    IT Angle

    management

    The right kind of people in management are those with good people skill. A good manager knows who to ask questions, and what is the right question. A good tech expert does not make a good manager usually.

    In real life, most managers get where they are, by asskissing, bullshitting, playing good politics game.

  21. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
    Boffin

    Don't Mess with IT Bods and Mods for they do GOD and Miracles before you've even scoffed Breakfast

    ">Its simple really, as the old saying goes it is better to seek forgiveness than permission.

    Might work for naughty children but when you have a client who stands to lose millions per hour if something doesn't work you'll find people less forgiving." .... Anonymous Coward Posted Saturday 13th November 2010 18:36 GMT

    That renders to one extraordinary personal leverage, AC, as it would indicate that the client, whilst in need of the service provided, has no idea as to the mechanics of ITs dDelivery, making their leading position a compromised phantom figment of their imagination and BS blustering.

    Strangely enough, I couldn't help and/or stop myself thinking there of Steve "Nail down the Chairs" Ballmer and the cracked and crazed Windows platform. It must have been because of the programming I received from one of his star turns/class acts/executive performances ..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc

    And with regard to "Oh how wrong you are, I know how to add up quite large numbers but, I will concede, only to two decimal places." everyone here on El Reg knows that for success beyond even the wildest of imaginings, one only needs AIMastery of the Mystery that has Binary Digits converting Reality into Digital CodeXSSXXXX for Virtual Presentation of Ternary Projects in Media Promotions ..... Special Operations in Astute ProgramMING.

    "You lot need to remember BOFH is fiction which takes the popular subordinates viewpoint and exaggerates it out of proportion, it is not real life." ..... Oh please, you cannot be serious. What have you been smoking?

  22. mittfh
    Pirate

    Another one bites the dust!

    Although as they called for an ambulance, there's a chance the boss escaped with his life intact (albeit divorced from a limb or two).

    If that's the case, maybe they could send him on a "peace offering" to the robot company... accompanied by the latest batch of returns, of course!

    Of course, Stephen forgot something when programming the robots - configuring them to regard himself and Simon as 'friendly' (while everyone else gets recognised as 'hostile' - plus a third category of 'extreme threat' for bosses / beancounters / robot company employees).

    (Icon - couldn't decide between flame, grenade or pirate. Decided pirate in the end).

  23. LyingMan
    Paris Hilton

    PRINCE 2

    Well, not the prince of persia fame but the guys who have done the Prince 2 exams and then come as bosses.. Them and IT are not just opposites.. they are electromagnetic opposite poles.. actively repelling each other.. not a hyped up comment.. experience from the last 3 projects spanning 18 months.. and oh yes, not millions involved but altogether more than a million pounds in those 18 months.. and every meeting was a BOFH installment and that too on Friday mornings!

    Paris because she would like PRINCE!

    1. Mike Smith
      Troll

      PRINCE2 exam pass != good project manager

      Could you close the door, please. I think a manager's escaped.

      My tuppenceworth on PRINCE2 - I've had PRINCE2 under my belt for the last ten years and am also a techie. I think the problem is not PRINCE2 per se, but the prevalence of keen young brats who pass the exam and completely fail to realise that to make a halfway decent project manager, you have to understand what you're dealing with. That goes double in IT.

      I've seen the same two mistakes made over and over again by young eager beavers with their metal PRINCE2 certificates hung proudly above their desks:

      1. The central question in PRINCE2 is this - "how extensively should this process be applied on this project?" Nine out of ten cluebies ignore this or get it completely wrong because they don't understand it. Or worse, their lack of experience leads them to escalate silly little issues up to the project board, who then demand status reports, presentations, risk assessments, risk assessments, risk assesments and risk assessments. DId I mention risk assessments? The end result is senior management trying to "add value" <spit, spit> to something they are chronically incapable of understanding. And as shit only flows downhill, it's the poor sods in the development teams who get the flak.

      2. And the next big cock-up is failing to define the stages properly. Or worse, breaking the final product down into things that can only be delivered in stages by introducing silly workarounds or weeks of wasted effort all because green PMs can't say no to the gobshite on the project board who calls himself Senior User.

      Oh, and using Microsoft Project for planning. Epic fail, that one. IMHO, of course :-)

      Let's face it, all managers are shit. Good ones are like rocking-horse shit - very, very rare and worth considerably more than their weight in gold. Bad ones are like dog shit - you need to watch your step every inch of the way because if get too close the smell will follow you around for a very long time.

      And I'm also a manager. At least that's what they call me. I hate it. Team leading a group of top-notch techies I can handle. The management game? Yuk.

    2. TSM
      FAIL

      Electromagnetism FAIL

      @LyingMan: " they are electromagnetic opposite poles.. actively repelling each other.."

      Opposite poles attract.

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