back to article BOFH: This laptop has ceased to be. And it's pub o'clock soon

You know what it's like. The Boss asks you some technical question, you give him a non-technical answer and he suddenly thinks you're lying to him – or worse – that you don't know what you're talking about. He needs it explained to him in a manner that sounds technical, but isn't too technical for him to stack overflow. ON A …

Page:

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I like the idea of Schroedinger's hosting

      Just a gypsy curse init!

  1. Unicornpiss
    Pint

    Today, at 4:30...

    I had to talk someone out of taking down a server to move it to a different UPS. A server that had been running with at least a year of uptime and no maintenance.

    They were worried the UPS would die and take the server down over the weekend, and I had to explain the futility of doing something like this on a Friday, when assuredly it would fail to come back up, wreck their whole evening, Saturday and Sunday too, and not get fixed until Monday anyway, just like if it were to die of natural causes over the weekend. I had to explain how the universe does not reward cocky behavior such as this except with misery and failure. Finally I managed to talk them out of it.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Today, at 4:30...

      "the futility of doing something like this on a Friday"

      This is actually OK. You just have to budget for spending your entire weekend fixing it. Providing you do that either (a) everything will work just fine or (b) you'll still not have everything fixed by 27:00 hours on Sunday evening. This is the consequence of the uncertainty principle running into time dilation.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Today, at 4:30...

        You just have to budget ...

        This will guarantee a failure - Especially in my case, I can always use all the extra money I can get.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Thank You Simon.... the BOFH rocks!

    Dodgy web security, explosions, a management fatality/maiming and some fatuous physics ..... just what I needed for the weekend

    Make mine a Guiness and please carry on. Keep it gruesome, it's the only thing they understand.

  3. Peter Quirk

    This BOFH article crashes the Register's Windows 10 app

    Clicking on this article in the Windows app causes the app to terminate. Other articles are OK,

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This BOFH article crashes the Register's Windows 10 app

      thanks for the heads-up, Peter. We are no longer supporting this Windows app.

      1. Mad Chaz

        Re: This BOFH article crashes the Register's Windows 10 app

        You should do an article on how everyone is leaving the windows store

      2. Number6

        Re: This BOFH article crashes the Register's Windows 10 app

        Tech support worthy of a BOFH, not our problem because we no longer support it. Have a pint!

        I wouldn't support anything to do with Windows 10 (except uninstalling it) either.

  4. LesC
    Devil

    Laptop solution is about 2'09 in but the rest is very funny. Still.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE94BJg3U1Q

  5. KeithR

    How much shorter would this article have been if the boss' question:

    "So how secure is it?"

    HAD JUST BEEN FUCKING ANSWERED PROPERLY STRAIGHT OFF THE BAT.

    Ha-ha and all - very funny - but this is exactly the smartarse, "you're not in on the joke" bullshit that so many techies are hated for. And rightly so.

    1. Number6

      Wow, the boss has a Register account :-)

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
        Holmes

        Yup, looks like something landed close to home.

        I hope the article was instructional.

        The next question would be "How pointy is your hair, then?"

        (Plus, if the answer had been straight, the boss would just have said "I don't believe you because my nephew says it's very secure and he's in third grade!" and this would just have resulted in an accident in the server room a bit later.)

    2. fajensen
      Angel

      TWACK*!

      YELLING: "Is that a straight enough answer? or do you want to taste the Righteous Fist of Golden Rings too!?"

      About that long!!

      *)The sound of the clue-bat reconfiguring a face into a new configuration.

    3. Richard 120

      Ah, the boss

      The answer to all your questions is "How long is a piece of string?"

  6. imanidiot Silver badge

    The archives down?

    I don't know if anyone notices but the 1995 to 2000 archives site seems to be down. Anybody know if it will come back at some point? Seems to have been down for a while.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: The archives down?

      I can tell you either when it will be back up OR where it will be located...

  7. BenBell
    Mushroom

    2 hours...

    ...into an all nighter upgrading multiple SQL servers. My patience is already wearing thin and this has just bought the next person to phone and ask "when's the system going to be back up?" or "Is there a problem with the server?" or "is the new database hard drive downloaded yet?" an extra 30 seconds of life.

    (yes, all legitimate questions from people today)

    So, from them and me, thank you Simon :)

Page:

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like