I give it
about 13 minutes before the wikipedia entry exists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelboozer
If there's one thing a lifetime in computing teaches you, it's how to cover up your mistakes... "Oopsy," the PFY says in a casual tone mid-keypress - the sort of casual tone which, by its very casualness, means it's not casual at all. "What did you do?" I sigh, fully expecting to hear that some poor user now has a vast …
One of the most essential job requirements of a systems admin is to be able to cover their tracks when they make a cock-up. Some years ago when repairing a crashed Netware server I accidently trashed the email router PC. After fixing the server I waited for the first user to say "The email is not working". So I came up with the explanation that when the server crashed it corrupted the email router.
No-one ever suspected the truth.
""What did you do?" I sigh, fully expecting to hear that some poor user now has a vast amount of space available where their files used to be. "
Epic! I'll use that quote more than once from now on ;-)
Further more, your insight on how to abuse Wiki... how sad it is that it's the truth...
Thanks! It was a long wait, but a wait worth while!
PS: Would like to note the PFY seemed a little off... more like a new PFY who doesn't now how the wheels work yet, in stead of the wintered through PFY we all know and love...
The new techie guy keeps clicking shut down when hes logged onto a terminal, not popular with some users round here at the moment what with lose 2 hours work :)
I think the third time i hit him round the back of the head with my newspaper hes getting the message, i told him the forth time he does it hes cleaning out the IT store room.
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I think they are onto you Simon,
ttfn
In a nutshell - this demonstrates why most IT administrators suck. The article is about a couple of jackas$es who screw up something big, and instead of having the balls to admit their mistakes, they would rather roll back everyone's work from an old backup? What part of that is funny?
For really big mistakes, you don't need to ask what happened. For example, last week, I was running a multi-hour software test session on a machine when the techie in the next cubical mutters "Oppsie!". Immediately, the terminal on the system I'm using says "System going down for halt NOW". Pretty obvious that he'd shutdown the wrong system.
Dave
Still being considered for deletion, but not a speedy deletion any more. (20:05), courtesy of "PhilKnight".
Meanwhile, "Parsonsa123" was the first off the starting blocks, at 11:58
The article's talk page states: "Original post is factually accurate. Modifications since have been inaccurate. Consider reverting rather than deleting" (crafty - IP somewhere in BT's range but no rDNS)
The articles for deletion page:
Notability concerns - lack of significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject. PhilKnight (talk) 17:55, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
* Merge to Bastard Operator From Hell - article's creation appears to have been a forum joke, perhaps it deserves a mention in the BOFH article, otherwise just delete. --GW_SimulationsUser Page | Talk 18:30, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Not only was the story a good one, but going to Wikipedia and reviewing all the edits and the apparent sense-of-humour failure of the admin staff there made it even better. Well done whoever pointed out:
"If this article is deleted or merged, then every article on a movie/soap/play/novel/cartoon character or place or plot device should be deleted or merged too. Which I believe would destroy roughly half Wikipedia in terms of article number, and 80% in terms of views."
Spoil sports, they have deleted it and that link now points to the BOFH entry
@ac- you suck..... We need this persons name and address (Register, leave their details in a unmarked brown envelope in the server room and I am sure the necessary will be done) clearly an infiltrator who needs to “visit” a tall dark lift shaft late at night and should never have been reading the Register in the first place.
Last 'admin' comment
SirFozzie (Talk | contribs) m (Protected Mandelboozer: To keep Reg readers from un-redirecting the latest BOFH excuse *waves* ([edit=autoconfirmed] (indefinite) [move=autoconfirmed] (indefinite)))
" The latest BOFH excuse *waves* " And they try to make out they are an authoritative information repository
Since we can't reinstate the Mandelboozer page, how about adding it somewhere within the main BOFH article, including a mention of the page uptime...
From looking at the history, here are the timespans the article was alive:
11:58 --> 13:27 (1 hr 29 min)
(Redirected for 23 min)
13:50 --> 01:15 (11 hrs 25 min)
So from creation to final deletion was 13 hrs 17 min. Take away the redirect time and it was alive for 12 hrs 54 min.
Look, it's lunchtime and I'm bored, but my linguistic skills aren't up to giving Mandelboozer a quality airing in the main BOFH article - hence I did the maths instead :)
Of course. We would never alter the Squid box to 307 his top five sites to some rather nasty dwarf on contortionist pr0n then "accidentally" find his browser cache and get him the "cardboard box and security escort" treatment, would we? It's just not in our nature to take an active role in disillusioning them of the notion that we're there to serve them by fixing their home computer (which is infested beyond all redemption due to little Jimmy, the CFO's son, being addicted to Limewire and the CFO himself having the clue-level of a cane toad that has just met the Australian national cricket team at a new bat testing session) on our lunch break while they fuck off to the pub with the other bean-counters, is it?
Rule #1: Never tell the lusers it's not real.
Rule #2: Never tell the lusers it's not real. I know that's technically rule 1 again, but it seemed so important that I felt mentioning it twice was warranted.