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Rogue IT employees - give us the down and dirty
The Reg has compiled a league table of the 10 baddest IT employees - but we are probably only scratching the surface. Tell us about the most dishonest, vengeful IT pro you have worked with...
This topic was created by Drewc.
Re: Technical, if not IT related
Oh I heard worse than that. The booby traps would include lethal dropfalls and explosives in some cases, in a training course we were told of one that took the roof off the whole building.
Hoist with own petard
A story that I am assured is true from the mainframe days (late 70s / early 80s).
Someone was leaving the company under a cloud and decided that he would cause a problem for the other people that were still working there (he was not well liked). He got back into the building and let himself into the server room late on the Friday and removed certain key items that would effectively cause the whole mainframe to shut down and would require many hours of work to re-install.
Unfortunately, at the same time, this caused the lock on the computer room door door to freeze as the swipe entry mechanism was controlled by one of the systems that he had disabled. The guy was stuck in the room until security found him about 6 hours later; he hadn't been able to get the mainframe back up and running. The systems manager was called in and it took another couple of hours to get in and do the repairs.
He got a ride in a police car for that little stunt!
That's "Hoist by" ... (was: Re: Hoist with own petard)
... or "hoise by", if you want to be archaic & petulant. Pet peeve. Dunno why :-)
Regardless, relax & have a homebrew.
That's "Hoist with" Re: That's "Hoist by" ... (was: Hoist with own petard)
Pet peeve. Dunno why
Me too.
Hamlet Act 3 Scene 4
There’s letters sealed, and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged,
They bear the mandate. They must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work,
For ’tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard.
Both 'with' and 'by' are cited, although arguably the former is more correct.
Re: That's "Hoist with" That's "Hoist by" ... (was: Hoist with own petard)
Actually, you are probably correct.
The "Petard" was an early explosive device; after the fuse had been lit, one of the peasants would be instructed to carry it to a position at the base of a castle wall (by a doorway or or other potential weak spot) and then to get the hell away as quickly as possible before it went off. Not always easy; those inside the castle treated attackers with various interesting ways of inflicting pain or death which could make retreat very difficult. The fuses in those days were exceptionally unpredictable and often went off before they were due to.
So the peasant (or what was left of him) would be thrown into the air by the device. However, as the remains of the petard would be heading skyward with him, both could be said to be grammatically correct; although I doubt that the poor peasant would be overly concerned about the niceties of grammar in this case!
Re: That's "Hoist with" That's "Hoist by" ... (was: Hoist with own petard)
"So the peasant (or what was left of him) would be thrown into the air by the device. However, as the remains of the petard would be heading skyward with him, both could be said to be grammatically correct;"
The petard is the tool of the associated action (hoisting), so we might expect 'with' (not used here to imply 'accompanying') rather than 'by' - but this does appear to be a gray area.
"although I doubt that the poor peasant would be overly concerned about the niceties of grammar in this case!"
Very true !
