Following the Memo to the Letter



  • I am responsible for the software maintenance of 12 offsite servers all doing the same thing for redundancy and loads. By offsite, I mean about a thousand miles away from where I work, which is why I am only responsible for the software. Occasionally, the software we use needs to be updated and the machine rebooted.  To avoid conflicts with people actually using the servers, I usually do these after hours, but I do it from home instead of waiting in the office.
    One night, I began the process of updating all the servers and then rebooting. On one of the machines I accidently shut it down instead of rebooting. I called the call center where our servers were located, and a nice gentleman there had it restarted quickly enough so that the total downtime of the machine was less than 5 minutes. I than decided to create a “restart only” script to use so I wouldn’t do it again.
    As luck would have it, all reboots and shutdowns are logged and the logs sent to various people. My manager’s manager being one of those people. And in great Pointy-haired boss fashion, he sent a memo that stated any reboots must be done by TWO persons, his logic being that one person to reboot and one person to watch them to make sure they didn’t accidently shut the machine down.  I replied this was no longer necessary since I implemented new scripts that would prevent accidently shutdowns, which in turn got me send to my manager’s office for “not restarting the machine in the proper manner.” My manager is a pretty good guy and fought the issue, but in the end we had to use the “new way.” He said his manager mentioned “Two heads are better than one,” at least four times during their discussion. And did I mention I had to log both people’s names, complete with signatures for each restart? All because I took one machine down (a redundant machine, mind you) for less than five minutes?
    A few weeks later, I was notified of a software update that had to be done that night.  I was at home that evening, but I managed to get it done anyways, and handed the log sheets to my manager the next day.  He looked at the sheet and began to laugh. He looked at me and nodded with his approval, filing the sheet.  
    The two names, complete with signatures? Mine, followed by my 4 year old son, who can write his own name AND now knows how to read the words “RESTART” and “SHUTDOWN”. The memo only said “two persons”, not “two employees.” My son has been part of the update process ever since.





  •  IT experience at 4? Damn kids these days... I hadn't even seen a PC before I was 10.

    Also +1 internets for fighting the machine.



  • @kraagenskul said:

    I am responsible for the software maintenance of a 12-server cluster about a thousand miles away from where I work. Occasionally, the software we use needs to be updated and the machine rebooted.  To avoid conflicts with people actually using the servers, I usually do these after hours, from home rather than the office.

    One night, I began the process of updating and rebooting all the servers. On one of the machines I accidently shut it down instead of rebooting. I called the data center, and a nice gentleman there had it restarted quickly enough so that the total downtime of the machine was less than 5 minutes. I then decided to create a “restart only” script to use so I wouldn’t do it again.

    As luck would have it, all reboots and shutdowns are logged and the logs sent to various people, my manager’s manager being one of those people. And in great PHB fashion, he sent a memo that stated any reboots must be done by two persons, one person to reboot and one person to watch them to make sure they didn’t accidently shut the machine down.  I replied this was no longer necessary since I implemented new scripts that would prevent accidental shutdowns, which got me send to my manager’s office for “not restarting the machine in the proper manner.” My manager is a pretty good guy and fought the issue, but in the end we had to use the “new way.” He said his manager mentioned “Two heads are better than one,” at least four times during their discussion.

    (And did I mention I had to log both people’s names, complete with signatures for each restart? All because I took one machine down (a redundant machine, mind you) for less than five minutes?)

    A few weeks later, I was notified of a software update that had to be done that night.  I was at home that evening, but I managed to get it done anyways, and handed the log sheets to my manager the next day.  He looked at the sheet and began to laugh. He looked at me and nodded with his approval, filing the sheet. 

    The two names, complete with signatures? Mine, followed by my 4 year old son, who can write his own name AND now knows how to read the words “RESTART” and “SHUTDOWN”. The memo only said “two persons”, not “two employees.” My son has been part of the update process ever since.

    Fixed the Big Wall Of Text, with TRWTF bolded for emphasis. Please use <p> rather than <br> in the future. Thanks!☺



  • @TwelveBaud said:

    Fixed the Big Wall Of Text, with TRWTF bolded for emphasis. Please use <p> rather than <br> in the future. Thanks!☺

     

    TRWTF is a forum software that requires a background in HTML.

    Just sayin. :)



  • Isn't that against child labour laws?



  • Not when you cleverly disguise it as a family trip to see new technologies. Or babysitting. Or a few other reasons. Ahem.

    Nice idea, though.



  • @Spectre said:

    Isn't that against child labour laws?
     

    Only if the kid gets paid.



  • Finally someone winning the WTF. Keep it up



  • Made my day.



  •  Awesome, way to be creative :)



  • My son is 30 and he left the house long time ago. Now what do I do in these situations? sigh



  •  @TheRider said:

    My son is 30 and he left the house long time ago. Now what do I do in these situations? *sigh*

    Baby-sitting? You could even make money on this scheme.



  • @TheRider said:

    My son is 30 and he left the house long time ago. Now what do I do in these situations? sigh

    Make a new one. Or borrow a grandson.



  • @Spectre said:

    Isn't that against child labour laws?

    Under US Federal law, a parent may directly employ their child if the occupation does not include a variety of activities such as driving, manufacturing, mining or anything potentially hazardous.  State laws may be stricter.  Obviously this is a pretty silly example and I'm not sure it would pass legal muster, but if the child was an employee of the parent (and not the company the parent works for), it very well might be legal.



  • Fantastic!

    +1 for using the actual child's handwriting.



  • +10 if you later use this documentation to successfully sue your Employer at some later date for exploiting child labor.

     



  • @Spectre said:

    @TheRider said:
    My son is 30 and he left the house long time ago. Now what do I do in these situations? sigh

    Make a new one. Or borrow a grandson.

    You may first be forced to badger your son about why you don't have a grandson.



  • @TheRider said:

    My son is 30 and he left the house long time ago. Now what do I do in these situations? *sigh*
     

    Leave the damn thing down until 9am, and email everyone concerned that this happened because of a policy that was impossible to implement at 4am.



  • @TheRider said:

    My son is 30 and he left the house long time ago. Now what do I do in these situations? sigh

    Hmm. Do you have a cat?

    Cat Submitting Approval


  • Garbage Person

    Excellent. Reminds me of something I did back when I worked helldesk. We were forbidden from being the only people in the building (for "our own safety" - yeah, because someone might come kill us behind security doors.) but nobody else worked weekends. Since the chance of anything happening on a weekend was so absurdly low only one of us was ever scheduled at a time.

     One time I got called out on being "alone in the building" because my idiotic helldesk manager came in because she left somethingorother in her office. Being the person who made the schedules, she should have been able to see the absurdity of her statement. But no.

    Therefore in the future I brought my girlfriend to work.

     

    This is also the same manager who reprimanded me for not answering the phone when she called one weekend to see what the measurements of the window next to the helldesk were so she could buy curtains. A construction crew had dug right through the lines between our building and the building with our PBX and telecom uplinks in it - so my phone was dead and the line rang through to voicemail. I fucking wonder why I didn't answer the phone? The real WTF is that I wasn't being reprimanded about missing the dozens of calls about the datacenter being totally off-grid. I was reprimanded about an INTERIOR DECORATING PHONECALL.

    I wonder why I quit?

     

     


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Weng said:

    We were forbidden from being the only people in the building (for "our own safety" - yeah, because someone might come kill us behind security doors.) but nobody else worked weekends.
    This is typically a Cover Their Ass Health and Safety reason, e.g. if you have a heart attack/injure yourself - there's supposed to be at least one other person there to attend to you/ring999/911/112/whatever other codes they've introduced these days.



  • @PJH said:

    there's supposed to be at least one other person there to attend to you/ring999/911/112/whatever other codes they've introduced these days.
    0118-999-881-999-119-7253



  •  I get "The video you are trying to watch cannot be viewed from your country or location."

    I was recently on the other end of that same sort of problem when I emailed somebody a link to a YouTube music video and they reported that where they were (in the UK) they got a message that "this video is not available in your country".

     



  • @Weng said:

    Therefore in the future I brought my girlfriend to work.
     

    Did she get paid? If it was a requirement that there be at least two people in the building then being the second person is a job!



  • @dtobias said:

     I get "The video you are trying to watch cannot be viewed from your country or location."
     

    Try this one


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