💾 Archived View for clemat.is › saccophore › library › ebooks › bofh › newbofh › bofh25sep.txt captured on 2022-01-08 at 14:13:10.
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TThhee BBaassttaarrdd OOppeerraattoorr FFrroomm HHeellll
FFeeaarr ooff aa ccoommppuullssoorryy tteeaamm--bbuuiillddiinngg wweeeekkeenndd ssppuurrss tthhee BBOOFFHH iinnttoo hhiiss oowwnn
ssttyyllee ooff tteeaammwwoorrkk ......
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I'm experimenting with some infra-red remote reboot hardware when the
pimply-faced-youth wanders in.
"Who's that?" he asks, pointing at some besuited individual in the next
office.
The face seems vaguely familiar, then the ball drops ...
"Something to do with personnel," I reply. "One of those huggy-feely
types into team-building and customer expectation, if I remember
rightly."
"Our customers already know what to expect!"
"Yes. That could be the problem ..."
"The boss is being a bit brown-nosey," the PFY observes, as the boss
welcomes Mr Huggy.
"Yes, and judging by the crawl-factor, I'd say he's been got at from
above ..."
Two hours later the PFY sprints in.
"There's something you should know," he says.
"What? You've not been eavesdropping on the boss have you?"
"No, just checking the connectivity of his spare UTP lines. True, the
test device has good aural response."
"Almost microphone-like?"
"Ummm ..."
"All right, what is it?" I interrupt.
"They're setting up a divisional retreat!" he blurts.
"A Bloody what!?" I shout, losing composure for a second.
"A divisional retreat. It's not that bad really, is it?" he asks.
"You're joking aren't you? A weekend locked away in team-building hell
with people who think that a benchmark comes from not using a doily
under your coffee mug?"
"Uuuuhh ..."
"They have client representatives there to annoy you night and day with
lame questions like, 'How do you justify your fault resolution policy?'"
"How do we justify it?"
"We don't. Accidental equipment combustion is a proven and documented
phenomenon."
"So what are we going to do?"
"Not go. Unless, of course, you look forward to 'Trust' exercises, where
you fall backwards into the arms of a group of people who have trouble
catching a cold without written instructions."
"Apparently, it's compulsory - or at least the contracting bonus is
dependent on attendance."
"The sneaky bastards!"
"So what do we do?" the PFY asks.
"First things first - when is it?"
"Three weeks from Saturday."
We put our heads together and formulate a battle plan so sneaky it would
make Rommel weep. The next day we're the first to inform the boss that
we'd be delighted to attend. He breaks open a new roll of antacid
tablets.
The PFY handles the fax-interception, reducing the 45 single-room
accommodation bookings to 10, changes the food budget to alcohol and
swaps the light jazz-band evening entertainment to a popular Soho
Cabaret act ...
I borrow Mr Huggy's credit card - carelessly locked in the visiting
staff office - rewrite the personal info track with "Stolen card -
Detain", then crank the rumour mill into action by leaving empty,
alcohol-based cough syrup bottles in his rubbish bin at nights. I then
swap his laptop power adaptor for a dud.
The next day, the offensive begins ...
"There seems to be something wrong with my adaptor," Mr Huggy says in a
surly manner. Apparently, being detained at a garage for an hour by a
burly mechanic until his credit card could be verified didn't improve
his sense of humour.
The PFY gets him a heavier duty replacement and a loud >CRACK!< later,
Mr Huggy walks back in, smelling of smoke.
"Oh dear!" I cry. "The PFY didn't give you a step-UP transformer by
accident, did he? I'll tell you what, we'll sort you out with the
emergency 386 until your machine is repaired. Four meg should be OK for
Windows 95, shouldn't it?"
"Oh, the one with the new infra-red mouse you mean?" the PFY asks.
The next day, the boss gets involved after he receives the query from
the bean counters about Mr Huggy's proposed alcohol bill. The rubbish
rumours have filtered through by this stage and once he finds out about
the cabaret team, the boss calls the PFY and me into his office.
"Have you had anything to do with this?" he asks.
The PFY and I shake our heads.
"Personally," I add, "I've heard the rumours and I think perhaps he's a
little too unstable to be doing team management activities."
The seeds of doubt planted, I wait for the PFY to do a bit of
fertilisation and watering ...
"Is it just me, or is it hot in the office?" the PFY asks, right on cue.
"Yes, I'm a little hot myself," I reply.
The boss leaps to his latest favourite toy, the air conditioning remote,
and adjusts the temperature for us, thus rebooting Mr Huggy's machine
for about the third time this morning. We all watch in silence as Mr
Huggy pushes his replacement machine off the desk in a fit of madness,
then starts taking his office apart.
Ten minutes later, security has carted him away and retreat plans are in
the bin where they belong.
And they say that life isn't fair.
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