Merry god-damn Christmas

Today's wonderful, giving co-worker is IrishBritishScottishGuy, aka IBSG; I can't remember his nationality, but it's somewhere in the UK. He's been here longer than me, but rarely has dumb computer problems - he knows enough to fix little issues, and knows when he's out of his league.

So he decided to give me something else.

---

IBSG: "I've run out of HDD space! It's not porn, I promise!" *why do people always say this??*
Me: "Er...right." *checks, is actually Offline Files going spastic, fix and free space*
IBSG: "Fantastic! Also, wash your hands."
Me: "?!?!"
IBSG: "I've got gastro. It's bad."

---

SHARING IS CARING, FOLKS.
MERRY CHRISTMAS >:|

DO YOU NEED A LICENSE!?

You don't "drive" a computer, you dipshit.

One click for links, two clicks for icons. It's not that hard, is it?!

A single tear, each time.

l33t h4x0r

Today's fucking retard (yup, it's a bad day) is SleazyAlcoholic. SleazyAlcoholic is our new national sales manager, who has moved from the Perth office, in possibly the greatest example of failing upwards ever. Constantly late, red-eyed and reeking of booze, he is possibly the most hated male in the office - he just oozes pure sleaze. His constant bullshit speeches of "saving the company" do not help either.

With the new call centre in place (yup, it was his idea to bring it back!), there's been a whole range of new technical issues to work - this in itself isn't too bad (it's semi-interesting playing with VoIP stuff), but as expected, the human element of it is soul-crushing.

---

SleazyAlcoholic: "HEY!"
Me: ".....................yes?"
SleazyAlcoholic: "Can you hack?"
Me: ".....................why?" *internally - are you fucking retarded? Or just a dodgy fuck? Why do I get asked this all the time?!*
SleazyAlcoholic: "I need to use RandomCoworker's laptop, but it's the login screen."
Me: ".....................so log in as you."
SleazyAlcoholic: ".....................oh yea." 

---

TIME TO FUCKING GO ONE-WINGED-ANGEL ON THESE FUCKING RETARDS

Monday Night Madness

So, it's Monday night, and I'm being a good little geek at home - the last thing I want to hear is about how the Perth office have fucked things up again.

*ring ring*
*cry*

Today, we have a new player: The BigBoss's wife, who works in the office as the Office Admin, and also controls all the money to the other offices. It's a recipe for disaster, but no-one can say anything, because she's TheWife.

---

BigBoss: "I need the password to log into the server so we can do stuff!"
Me: *alarm bells instantly going off in my head* "Er...why do you need the password?"
BigBoss: "We need to log in to restart the server so we can access the shared files and do other stuff, we haven't been online all day!"
Me: *no server access all day, and you're calling me at 7 fucking pm?!* "Why, that's unusual!"
BigBoss: "So, whats the password?"
Me: *Can't really say no to the guy that pays the bills, so I give it to him* "So, why do you need to restart again? Why did it restart in the first place?"
BigBoss: "Dunno, just did. Restarting now anyway, who knows."
Me: *internal rage levels rising* "Um, let me log in remotely when it comes up, I'll get it up and running"
BigBoss: "Yup, whatever, it's working now right?"
Me: *logs in* "Yeaaaaa.....someone shut the server down at Friday 5:45. Any ideas?"

*silence*

BigBoss: "....Anyway, my laptop...."
Me: "......yes?" *ok, I guess we've moved on*
BigBoss: "....yea just click...."
Me: *obviously he's talking to someone in the background, I guess I'll just wait*
BigBoss: "....mumble mumble...."
Me: "Sorry?"
BigBoss: "....ss....ss........ss....."
Me: "?!?!?!"
TheWife: "IS THE SERVER UP YET IT SHOULD BE UP BY NOW IVE GOT WORK TO DO"
Me: "...."
BigBoss: "...."
Me: "...."
BigBoss: "ARE YOU STILL THERE!?"

---

There's more to the story - BigBoss believes that there's no anti-virus installed, because Windows can't find it - but honestly, it's too painful.

Still here....

....just.

It's been an interesting couple of months. First things first - the company is holding on, barely, but it's not healthy. People are leaving (or being pushed) non-stop - most interstate offices are down to 2 people, with my office down to about 10 (on a good day, some people just don't bother showing up). There's projects in the pipelines that will apparently save the company ("Trust me" is the new catch cry), but we can all see the writing on the wall.

IT, in the meantime, is suffering. With the on-going effort to redirect money so employees can actually get paid (it's a struggle every fortnight), other services get the "We'll pay you, eventually" line. This, unfortunately, means PonyGirl, being an outside contractor, is waiting and waiting for money that has been owed for months. It all came to a head about a month ago with PonyGirl essentially quitting (my post in September was going to about that), but somehow the BigBoss had managed to pull money out of nowhere and keep PonyGirl on. iOrgasm has been on the verge of complete meltdowns more than once.

I've still got a job, but I've been told to update my resume and look for other work. I don't think it gets much clearer than that.

I'll continue to update the blog with horror stories (I had one tonight, which inspired me to get off my ass and update the blog), but it looks like the end might be sooner, rather than later.

And then it'll start all over again at another job. Hell is eternal ;)


P.S. Farewell, MidgetGirl! One of the many who have suffered from the company shrinking, but probably the least annoying user in the company (ok, maybe a little annoying, but she gave me a paper notebook with 5"1/4' floppy covers, she can't be that bad).

And then there was 1.

More info coming soon, consider this a teaser post!

(Apart from this, there hasn't been much else going on!!)

edit: ARGH, NEVER MIND >:(

Special! So special!!

Of course, my company isn't the only place where people are stupid. After some server changes, we had to add some info to our DNS records, handled by iiNet - and since PonyGirl loves me suffering, I was the lucky person to call up their support line. 

---

*ringring*

iiNet: "Welcome to iiNet support!"
Me: "Hi, I need to add an A record to our DNS records." (non-geeks: google it!)
iiNet: "Sure, let me transfer you to our domain specialists."
Me: "Thanks!"

*Horrible abc soft jazz hold music*

DomainSpecialist: "Welcome to iiNet domains, how can I help?"
Me: "I need to add an A record to our DNS records."
DomainSpecialist: "Sorry, we don't do DNS, we only do domains."
Me: "......huh?"
DomainSpecialist: "If you need to edit your domain, you need to talk to your IT department. Do you have a server?"
Me: "......You guys manage our DNS records."
DomainSpecialist: "No, we only do domains, DNS is handled by your local network, do you have a server? Any IT administrators?"
Me: "...."

---

"Specialist" just means you're "special". The D in DNS must stand for...um...I can't think of anything funny, it was a bad day :\

Slash Slash Slash

So with the new Perth server up and running (and no-one able to actually TOUCH it this time), things are actually kind of in a good place. There's a few little issues here and there, of course, and this popped up today.

---

BigBoss: "I've lost my network drive!"
Me: "Oh ok, you weren't in the office when we did the swapover, no big deal. Click on Tools -> Map Network Drive etcetc."
BigBoss: "What's the computer name?"
Me: "\\Bird\Data"
BigBoss: "So, www\\"
Me: "Nono, no www, just two backslashes, the word bird, another backslash, then the word data."
BigBoss: "Word? What's Office got to do with this?"
Me: "Er, what? No, nothing. It's double backslash, bird, another backslash, data."
BigBoss: *tries* "......not working."
Me: "Does it give an error message?
BigBoss: "Cannot find server \\\birddata."
Me: "Just two backslashes at the start, and a bac-"
BigBoss: "You said another backslash!"
Me: "I...just...ok sorry, please write this; double backslash bird backslash data."
BigBoss: *tries again* " ......not working again!"
Me: "What's the error message?"
BigBoss: "Cannot find server \\ bird \ data"
Me: "......no spaces."

BigBoss: "Why didn't you say so?!"

---

YES, WHY DIDN'T I SAY TO NOT PUT INCORRECT INFORMATION IN, YOU DUMB FUCK?!

Sometimes....

...the users give back.

Yes, that's 5 1/4" inches of floppy, black love.

If you can't read, it's ST-Budget, Disk 2 of 2. The Front cover is Galactix 2 of 2.

MANLY TEARS OF JOY

Irish Eyes Are Crying.

Another day, another case of fraud. Today, there's two!

The IrishChick in the Perth office - who I've never met in person, but have helped on the phone a few times - has been let go due to defrauding the company. Apparently she wasn't showing up at her sales meets, but was telling us she was. Again, my mad hacking skills (they're not) were called into play, and e-mail timestamps revealed everything. Silly girl!

The bigger story, however, is that a lot of sales (6 figures) have fallen through due to the customer "changing their mind". Of course, after the whole ChocolateStarfish fiasco, alarms bells were ringing - we've heard this song before! So, my awesome skills (seriously, its not hard) were summoned again, but this time, there were no incriminating emails - they must be learning!

After some more fishing around, we made the educated guess that our customers were getting a better deal from a rival company/installer - there was no other explantion that could fit the sales figures dropping so fast. We'd figured that someone (probably a disgruntled employee or rogue sales agent) is viewing our quotes and undercutting us - this kind of thing had happened before (~3 years ago), with a new employee starting at any of our offices, getting access to our database, doing some copy/pasting, then quitting. Obviously, this was just bad IT policy, so we had strengthed our contracts to deter people against this, restricted access for new people, etc. Still, something was very wrong, so I had to double check logs, logins, access times, etcetc. to see if anything bad was going down.

After about 2-3 days of checking and finding nothing, the truth comes out. Our sales manager had lied about the installs done this month, to inflate his sales figures. There was no foul play or dodgyness, just ego.

I want to cry myself to sleep.

Literally.

Ok, this is kind of my fault, I should of been more specific, but...come on.

---

MidgetGirl'sMum: "Help! I've forgotten my database password!"
Me: "Ok, I've reset it. It's blank now, don't put anything in it the password field. It'll ask you to choose a new password upon login"
MidgetGirl'sMum: "Ok, thanks!"

*2 minutes later, she rings, tells me its not working, so I go to her desk*

MidgetGirl'sMum: "See, incorrect password!"
Me: "Ok, try again...why are you typing in the password field? It's supposed to be empty"
MidgetGirl'sMum: "Empty? You said blank!!"
Me: "Exactly!..what are you typing?"
MidgetGirl'sMum: "b-l-a-n-k"
Me: "......................."

---

It's going to be a bad week.

Can't touch this.

We've finally convinced the Perth office that, if we can't have complete IT control of their office, to at least let us install a server that will firewall the office and do some file sharing. It's taken at least 2 years to get this far, so it was kind of a mini-celebration when they finally said "ok". PonyGirl travels to Perth office on Wednesday, installs new server + UPS, and hangs around until Friday afternoon to make sure that everyone is working, no bugs/issues etc. His conversation with the Perth office workers went a little something like this;

---

PonyGirl: "Ok, I'm going home, don't touch anything. Seriously, you'll never need to touch it. I know it looks pretty, but don't touch. Ever."
PerthOfficeMonkeys: "Ok!"

PonyGirl flies home on Friday, we all relax over the weekend.


*Monday morning Perth time*


PerthOffice: "We can't get email!"
Me: "Ok...let me do some checks...ok, your server is offline. Can you check if there are flashing lights on the front?"
PerthOffice: "No lights, no noises, nothing!"
Me: "That's no good, can you turn the server back on? The power switch is on the fron-"
PerthOffice: "Tried that, nothing!"
Me: "Um...can you check the UPS? The big, flat, rectangle thing...any lights on that?" *ohshitfactor rising at this point*
PerthOffice: "Nope!"
Me: "That's weird, turn that on, then turn on server."
PerthOffice: "Should we unplug any of the cords?"
Me: "Nope, only thing running off the UPS is the serv-"
PerthOffice: "Oh, we turned the UPS off on Friday, you know, save money on power."

---

Whatever they had done (PonyGirl flew over this afternoon, crying and sobbing like a girl), it had fried the server.

Makes me cry too :(

I'm so sorry, but email is...up.

Another month, another project, another new employee.

This month's sucker is AnnoyingOldGuy. Somewhere in his fifties (yes, it's old, deal with it), he's part of the new sales promotion we've got going. He calls clients, organises installs, sorts out dates, and REALLY FUCKING ANNOYS ME.

One day, while we're having email problems - it could be any day, they all seem to mesh together now - he calls me on the phone. He has the habit of calling me up and not telling me the problem, rather preferring to explain it in person, like it's so complicated that the low bandwith of a telephone could not possibly handle this problem's complexity.

---

AnnoyingOldGuy: "Are we having email problems still?"
Me: "Yup, it'll be fixed soonish though."
AOG: "This reminds me of my old company, where we-"
Me: "Gotta go bye!" (He's a storyteller, bores me to tears)

*30 mins pass*

AOG: "I've got an email, why?!"
Me: "Because...someone sent one to you?"
AOG: "But you said email was down!"
Me: "...my job is to fix things, you know."

---

Should I be offended? That he was surprised that things are actually working? :(

The Interstate Laptop Saga.

*Friday*

TheFuckingFucker (TFF) has finally received a new work laptop. He's been waiting for this for about 6 months; he's utterly convinced that his current laptop is dying, and that he needs a new one "RIGHT FUCKING NOW". Now that it's finally arrived, he can't wait for us to configure it in our VIC office and then send to QLD - he's asked us to mail directly to him, and let us configure it remotely. I objected, telling him that it would be a nightmare, but he was desperate, so we relented.

Big fucking mistake.

It took me about 5 hours of fucking around just to get it to join the domain (turns out that Windows doesn't like ip6 when joining a domain). When I finally got it on the domain (this was all happening at the same time as we were discovering just how big the fraud was from ChocolateStarfish, so it was a crazy day), I discovered that the new laptop didn't have Office 2007 on it. This was a surprise, but not a problem - I told TFF to look in his office for a Office 2007 install CD, and that we would use his old Office key from his old laptop.

TFF didn't like this, but he had no choice (while tempted, I didn't mention that it was essentially his fault for not letting us double check the laptop here), so he went on his treasure hunt. About two minutes after I told him to look for it, I found the Office installer on the QLD network drive. I was very busy with the ChocolateStarfish fraud stuff, so I let TFF keep on searching - I did my fraud "hacking", got back to TFF, then told him that I had the installer anyway (he couldn't find the CD after ~10mins of searching), and that we could proceed.

He said "Fuck this!!", went offline and stormed out of the office. The QLD admin lady skyped me, asking "What's going on?!". At this point we all (iOrgasm, PonyGirl, and myself) decide that this particular problem can wait until after the weekend.

*Monday*

I'm in, somewhat earlier than usual, waiting for TFF to get online so I can finish this Office install. I'm busy with fraud stuff still - hearing just how much money we've lost really says just how big this fraud was - but since I'm such a nice guy (really!), I'm trying to get this install done ASAP. TFF, when he finally gets on Skype, is actually still in a bitchy mood, complaining that he doesn't have time for this "fucking shit", that we "treat him like shit", etc etc. I phone him to try and diffuse the situation (we're talking about 8 mins of lost work time here with the CD hunt), but he's busy packing up his new laptop to send down to us to finish configuring - he "really just can't be fucking dealing with it" anymore, and wants us to do it, even though it will cost him about 5 days of freight time.

I finally get through to him, and with me playing the diplomat, being all nice, trying to get this done so I can continue with the fraud stuff - I convince him to let me log into his laptop, so I can finish the Office install. As the installer is running - TFF had actually packed up his laptop in a box and was ready to post, I had to convince him to unpack it so I can do the install -  I hear a beep. The Office install had failed, as the installer on the network drive is missing a lot of required files.

As soon as I saw the error message, I knew I was fucked. I explained to TFF the problem, that I could send up a CD within a couple of days/network copy the files up, but he, quite calmly (I knew he was on the edge), explained that the laptop was coming down to us, no matter what.

Not the greatest day.

---

Later on, I found out that the BigBoss's brother-in-law (who works for us, in the same) had informed one of the co-conspirators (yup, it's not just ChocolateStarfish, there's more!) in the NSW office about the fact that we knew about their dodgy second company, thus giving them time to delete important evidence, files, etc.

Just keeps getting better and better.

The F Word.

Today is a good day.

ChocolateStarfish is someone I don't think I've mentioned before. Basically he's a dodgy whore - apart from his questionable sales techniques (his actual job is National Sales Manager), his general work attitude, relationship skills and demeanour have made him pretty much the most hated person in the entire company. Nicknames for him range from quite funny, to full-on insults.  Also, he has rancid breath - petty, I know, but holy fucking balls it's bad.

Anyway, for quite some time, our sales figures have been falling. No-one can offer a good explanation; clients have been backing out on us, or simply not getting back to us. We haven't been finding out why, and we're losing a lot of money because of it. As the National Sales Manager, it's his job to find out why - but he's always been avoiding the issues. Since he's the favoured employee of the BigBoss, there hasn't been much we can do.

Until now.

One of our clients called us up about a credit card charge enquiry, asking why they had been charged from Company X instead of Company Y. MidgetGirl'sMum (assistant to ShakespeareAccount) was also very confused - she had never heard of us trading as Company X, and had no knowledge of who they are. She mentions to iOrgasm about this, who goes onto Company X's website - which has ChocolateStarfish's details

It all snowballed from there. ChocolateStarfish had been full on rorting us - stealing our customers from our database, undercutting our quotes, ripping off templates/documents/etc, and has set up his own business, directly competing with us while working for us. To top it off, there was some real credit card fraud - he had charged a customer's CC for his first class flight international flight.

All of this came via reading his emails; he had used his work account to run his other business, thinking that nothing could go wrong (giggle). iOrgasm had asked me to get into his account, to find out what he was doing - instead, I showed him how to "hack his emails" (reset his password, log in via the webmail interface). iOrgasm now thinks I'm an awesome hacker, and everyone thinks that I was involved in getting rid of one of the most hated employees ever to come through here.

Now we just have to fnd out just how deep this all goes, but still - it's always good to do something good for your employer.

$MONEY*3$

PonyGirl isn't a real employee with my company, he's a external support tech that has a contract with us -  he pretty much runs his own small business from within our office. It's a win win; he gets to use our space for his other clients, and if something explodes on our end, he's here just in case. He serves as a safety net for me, in case something weird comes out.

At least, most of the time.

---

Me: "One of the Sydney users is having this annoying problem, keeps on coming up, do you-"
PonyGirl: "Don't care."
Me: "Oh...er..."
PonyGirl: "I haven't been paid in 2 weeks. I'm owed $55,000."
Me: "Oh. Er...going to play golf?"
PonyGirl: "Yup, cya!"

---

The $55,000 isn't just salary, it includes computer hardware, software, labour costs, etc. He buys the equipment with an implict understanding that we'll pay him back within a week to cover the costs - unfortunately, office politics over who controls our cashflow have been getting in the way.

Worst part? It's not the record, the previous amount owed was over $80,000.

Blacklists are racists!

So, it's getting towards the end of the tax year, which means that everyone is trying to look busy / make sales to inflate their figures - no doubt to avoid the giant cut that's incoming. To this end, we're starting to increase our outgoing catalogues - essentially an image detailing all our specials, products, etc etc.

Getting this made is a major hassle - people are exporting from Publisher 03, for christ's sake - and e-mailing it out has turned into a bigger problem. For some reason, they don't tell IT about any of this, even though they know (or at least, were told) that it can be a big drain if it's done incorrectly.

---

*ring ring*

OldOfficeLady: "Everyone's net is slow!"

Me: "Oh ok, yea I'm noticing it too, um, let me chec-"

OldOfficeLady: "Is it the batch emails?"

Me: "......batch emails?"

OldOfficeLady: "HumanBlob got me to send out 3000 emails in batches of 50"

Me: "That's...ok, I guess, what was in the email?"

OldOfficeLady: "1mb attachment, that's ok though isn't it?"

Me: "..."

---

Turns out there's 1200 messages in the mail queue and a whole bunch of bandwidth raping. I have no doubt that we will end up on some blacklists very, very soon. Again.

Keep Calm and Carry On

Well, that was scary.

Thankfully, no-one knew about the blog. To be sure, I locked it for a few weeks, and only people I had added could see it. I've convinced the RandomSydneyUser that the blog doesn't actually exist - that it was just a bunch of emails I sent to some friends (which, of course, is how it all started). Combined with avoiding the subject at all with PonyGirl, I think I've convinced people that it's just a silly prank.

Crisis averted!

In the downtime, I still collected my horror stories, so I'll be slowly filling in the blanks. In the meantime, I'll backdate this post, and keep the flow somewhat normal.

We now return you to your scheduled misery.

OH SHIT

FUCK

FUUUUUCCCKK

---

Random Sydney User: "Blahblahblah, thanks for fixing for my problem.......so, whats the address to CapsLock?"
Me: "...huh?"
RSU: "Caps lock address! You know!"
Me: "The fuck you on about.............wait.............."

RSU: "Yea, PonyGirl told me about it!" (PonyGirl saw the Blogspot editor page a couple of weeks ago while I was adding stories. Didn't see anything, the site was locked at the time, but still saw the name)
Me: "Er.......ummmmm..........not sure what you're on about?"
RSU: "Right right, just email it to me then!" (I could feel the *wink* through the phone line)

---

FUCK

(p.s. Not April's Fools!)

The Sunshine State

I'm working in the server room, and I miss a call from the Human Blob. Since I'm a wonderful IT support technician and always get back to my missed calls (lies), I called him back.

Me: What's up?
HumanBlob: MY COCK!

Professionalism abounds! I want to get iOrgasm to call him one day, I wonder if he'll get the same response. Queenslanders, they're all crazy.

Rock Bottom

It's a wonderful feeling when you walk into your office, and PonyGirl tells you that there's a walkout planned today if people's pay didn't go through.

Sigh.

I guess it can only get better!.........right?

Article Dates.

If article dates are slightly wrong (or wildly incorrect), it's due to some issue with Blogspot and Google. I'm trying to fix now.

Groundhog Day.

Remember OldOfficeLady and the tipping site?

The story is here.

Another year, another competition, EXACTLY THE SAME FUCKING PROBLEMS.

DO OLD PEOPLE STOP LEARNING?! LIVING ONLY DAY-TO-FUCKING-DAY?!

HNNNNNNNNNN

Adelaide really is a horrible place.

Why the hell would anyone want to work in Adelaide anyway? It is, by far, the most boring place in all of Australia. At least Canberra has porn!

However, the powers that be have decided that change is a good thing.

---

*yesterday afternoon*


GeneralManager: "Ok, the Adelaide office has 2 people left, and it's costing us $xxxx per month. This is stupid, turn it off!"
PonyGirl: "Ok, I'll disable all remote access to the server, then I'll fly over in a few days for physical disconnection."
GeneralManager: "Do it!"


*this morning*


PonyTail: "Ok, Adelaide's offline, I'm going to play golf, bye!"
Me: "Adelaide cut off from the world, got it!"


*ringring*


AdelaideAdminLady: "Help, I can't get e-mail!"
Me: "Er...yea..."
AdelaideAdminLady: "Why not? Is there something wrong with the server?"
Me: "Um...must be! I'll call you back!" (I certainly didn't want to be the one to tell her that her job is now gone. Why can't people communicate before this kind of thing goes down?)


*after this call, I head off to speak to my bosses*


Me: "So, um, do the Adelaide workers know their office is essentially dead and buried?"
GeneralManager: "Nope, we were going to see how long it took them to notice."
Me: "Er...right. Um, I just had a call from AdelaideAdminLady, and she wants to know why she has no email or not"
iOrgasm: "Meh, lie to her, tell her that you're working on it."
Me: "Really??"
GeneralManager: "Yup!"


*after deceiving AdelaideAdminLady, a few hours pass - I called called into the meeting with GeneralManager and iOrgasm*


iOrgasm: "Well, if we give the Adelaide office just their e-mails and net access, but no access to any other state's files, that should be ok, right?"
GeneralManager: "Sounds good! Let's see how long it takes for them to notice!"
Me: "Um....ok.....I'll try and get access to the server-"
GeneralManager + iOrgasm: "Great! Solved! Don't tell Adelaide anything!"
Me: "............."


*can't get access to Adelaide server, PonyGirl has turned off DHCP, DNS, Exchange, remote access, basically everything, just like he was told, so I have to call him*


Me: "PonyGirl! They want Adelaide back online"
PonyGirl: "WHAT THE FUCK YOU'VE GOT TO BE FUCKING JOKING!"

---

In their defence, it's only Adelaide.

Valentine's Day

So, since it's Valentine's Day, today's lunch was dominated by talk of love, romance, and all the bad things that go with it. It's amazing how girls feed of this gossip.

Today's fresh new face is MidgetGirl. She's not an actual midget, but is rather sensitive about her height (which isn't that short, to be honest, but I tease her relentlessly about it. It is no surprise that I am single).

---

FrazzledMum: "Yea, so, my ex is an asshole, I hate him. Being single is much better."
Me: "Agreed! Freedom is awesome!"
MidgetGirl: "What, you're single?" (she's taken, don't read too much into this)
Me: "Yup, living the dream!"
FrazzledMum: *snort of derision*
Me: "What was that?"
FrazzledMum: "I've seen your Facebook wall, you've got your ex-girlfriend totally in love with you!"
MidgetGirl: "OMG who's what how huh huh?!"

*FrazzledMum explains the entire saga*

FrazzledMum: "So, yea, she posts on his facebook and stalks him!"
MidgetGirl: "Wow, what a bitch. Why the hell did you hook up with her?"
Me: "...There were a couple of reasons."
MidgetGirl: "Oh, tits, I see. Yea, don't go back to the crazy woman, she's called the ex for a reason!! Also, I can't log into the database."
Me: *sigh*

---

My co-workers are awesome when they're not in front of a computer.

Sinner.

It's server pics time!!

This is ServerRack2 in our primary office. Since our secondary office (which houses ServerRack3) no longer has a lease, we're moving ServerRack3 into our primary office. This gives me the chance to clean up years of laziness and bad, bad upkeep.

Apologies for the red flash, these pics were taken on an iPhone.
Double apologies for the cabling :( Blue is for network ports, yellow is for phones, red is for servers....at least, that was the original plan, so long ago.

Now that we've moved some stuff out, we've actually got some space to put ServerRack3 in the server room, when we actually move it. For now...yea. That's our modem for our internet, and our Untangle box. Yes, no UPS, no mounting, no nothing.

If there is an IT Hell, someone's going there. That bottom machine is a file server for all our users nationwide. The top lid had been removed because we forgot what we had installed in it (documentation? HAH), and the front lid was kicked off by the electricians.

This monster was removed from the server room - it was sitting between the two racks. I have no idea what it's original function was, only that it was powered and running for 4 years, and was working fine until we forced open it's door with a hammer.

REACTOR IS CRITICAL

More cabling horrors.

Pretty lights.

Incoming phone lines and stuff. Covers? Pshaw, that's for professionals!

---

I'm posting this now to actually get some content on here, and to show that I am far from perfect myself. While a lot of this was already as-is when I started here, I've not done much to improve it. Idle hands, etc etc.

CapsLockGirl finds an apprentice.

Another day, another new employee to contend with.

Where do they find these people? I wonder if there is some kind of Anti-Computing-Knowledge-Persons club that exists only to torment me, and that my company hires exclusively through them.

Since CapsLockGirl is gone, this new girl is forever known as her replacement, and by the sounds of things, she will live up to her title.

---

CapsLockGirlReplacement: "When I log into my e-mail in the mornings, it comes up with a user/pass prompt." (note: she didn't say this, it was more of a "ugh the internet is asking me for another password I just want to check my mail", real fucking helpful)
Me: "Ok, just type in your use-"
CapsLockGirlReplacement: "Nah, I don't do that, I just escape it away and it goes away! Easy fixed!"
Me: "But you're not auth-"
CapsLockGirlReplacement: "Yea, it still comes up with the little message in the bottom about the password, but I ignore that!"


I think I let out a little sob over the phone. I sort out her problem, but no less than 2 minutes later, she calls again! 


CapsLockGirlReplacement: "I typed it in, and it didn't work!"

Me: "Please tell me what's in the user name field."
CapsLockGirlReplacement: "The box? DomainName\"
Me: "...Yes? \what?"
CapsLockGirlReplacement: "Nothing, that's all"
Me: "..."

---

Maybe it's just a Sydney thing.

Farewell, dear user.

Alas, CapsLockGirl will be leaving the company.

I'm actually a little sad. For all the horrible support calls she inflicted upon me, she was a nice person, and was always apologetic when she called. At least she knew she was annoying, she just couldn't do anything about it.

For this fact alone, she rates higher than quite a few other users in the company, who only expect and demand things. If they learned some basic manners, I'm sure they'd achieve so much more in life, let alone IT support.

Farewell, CapsLockGirl. Of all the users I had, you were the most...most.

I had it coming.

Today's retard story, care of......me.

---

PonyGirl: "See that mobo over there with the heatsink, RAM, etc already in it? Build a machine from it!"
Me: "Roger!"

*cue an hour of pain troubleshooting this fucking thing which won't boot*

Me: "It's not working! I'm going to re-seat the HSF......hey, where's the CPU?"
PonyGirl: "Oh, yea, you'll need one of those"
Me: "...so we're both retarded?"

---

We are :(

Stain my soul.

Call Centres truly are the bane of my soul. How can something that seems so awesome in theory, be so terrible in practice? 

With the company going through it's ups and downs, the BigBoss has decided to get involved from interstate. This saga takes place over a few days; our company has never been really know for speed (unless it's a bad decision, then woo!).

---

BigBoss: "The Perth office wants a call center. We have some spare GSM phones left over from the last call centre in Vic, yes?"
Me: "Yes, they're all spare, and still active."
BigBoss: "Good, send them over!"
Me: "Er...these are GSM landline phones, they need special hardware to work on a telep-"
BigBoss: "SEND! CALL CENTRE IS UP IN 3 DAYS!!"
*I head over to the other office to take some phones*

LetsDoCokeMan: "HI MAN HOW ARE YOU I'M FUCKING EXCITED ARE YOU READY TO MAKE MONEY?!"
Me: "Hi. I'm here to take some of your old un-needed phones, and the required hardware. I'm 0% sure what this will do to your existing phones." 
LetsDoCokeMan: "THATS COOL TAKE THEM I'M HIGH ON COKE" (ok, he didn't really say that, but jesus its the only explanation)


*Disconnect 1 GSM box, phone network fails*


LetsDoCokeMan: "OH SHITS LOLOLOL WE'RE DEAD!!!"
Me: "Sigh, sorry, I'll reconnect and tell BigBoss that he's going to have to spend money after all."
LetsDoCokeMan: "AWESOME LOL WE'RE GOING TO MAKE MONEY HERE HAVE A JELLYBEAN AND SOME FUCKING HEROIN BRO"


*I e-mail BigBoss, tell him he has to spend money to get this to work, considered it closed on my end*
*2 days pass*
*ring ring*


BigBoss: "Where's my phones, I have a call centre to run!" (this entire conversation is at, LITERALLY, 200% volume, he is shouting hard)

Me: (placing phone about 1m away from ear): "You didn't get my e-mail? We can't partially dismantle this GSM network without killing the call centre here."
BigBoss: "WELL FUCK THAT, JUST SEND THE FUCKING PHONES!"
Me: "Does Perth have a GSM capable phone network?"
BigBoss: "A fucking what? They're just phones!! I thought you IT guys could handle it, its networked yea?!?!"
Me: "YOU ARE RAPING MY FUCKING SOUL YOU FUCKING DIPSHIT" 

---


Ok, I didn't really say that last part, but I felt it.

Golf is for sissies, seriously.

FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUU PONYGIRL

---

*yesterday*

PonyGirl: "You've gotta come in at 7am tomorrow, we have server hardware upgrades to do! Gonna be busy, gotta do it all before people come in at 9!"
Me: "Yay, overtime money!"  *thinking* oh god gonna seizure with hard drive in hand and poop my pants, happy days, totally not worth the money

*bright and early, 7am, ready to fucking kill anyone who smiles at me*
*cue hours of work, complete with fuckups, oh god why isn't this server isn't booting, oh god why, oh god this one too, oops cable fell out*
*finish at 8:55am, just as people get in*

PonyGirl: "Whew, that was close!"
Me: "Yup, just in time!"
PonyGirl: "Got that right, I gotta leave right now or I miss out on my golf round!"
Me: "...........I hate you."

---

FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUU

I'm going to try!

WORST. WEEK. EVER

Walk in, sit down, check servers, "Hey, what's up with remote deskto-"

BAM!

Raid controller failure -_-

I WANT TO FUCK MY OWN EYES

Happy God Damn New Year.

Today's my first back after the New Year break (Happy 2011, etcetc). I haven't been contacted over the break (I was interstate, visiting family), so either the office is fine, the office is wiped off the face of the Earth, or people are just waiting for me to come back and inflict misery upon me.

Option 3 is nearly always the winner.

---

OldOfficeLady: "Hey! We can't get into finance server! Oh yea, welcome back." 

Me: "Um, yea, hi, what's wron-"
FrazzledMum: "Hey! Phones are down! Nice haircut!"
Me: "Oh? Phones really aren't my area-"

*mobile rings*

CapsLockGirl: "Hey! Can't get into remote desktop! I heard you got attacked by a lawnmower!"
Me: "How the f-....ok, I'll call you back."

Turns out the new UPS installed over the holidays by PonyGirl couldn't handle those 3 systems. Research?  Testing? Pfft, that's for professionals! 

--- 

Epilogue

The remote desktop server cooked itself later that day :(