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Quick Reference

Know Your Sysadmin

From: szielins@us.oracle.com (szielins.US1)

There are four major species of Unix sysadmin:

The TECHNICAL THUG.
Usually a systems programmer who has been forced into system administration; writes scripts in a polyglot of the Bourne shell, sed, C, awk, perl, and APL.
The ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST.
Usually a retentive drone (or rarely, a harridan ex-secretary) who has been forced into system administration.
The MANIAC.
Usually an aging cracker who discovered that neither the Mossad nor Cuba are willing to pay a living wage for computer espionage. Fell into system administration; occasionally approaches major competitors with indesp schemes.
The IDIOT.
Usually a cretin, morpohodite, or old COBOL programmer selected to be the system administrator by a committee of cretins, morphodites, and old COBOL programmers.

HOW TO IDENTIFY YOUR SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR

SITUATION: Low disk space.

TECHNICAL THUG:
Writes a suite of scripts to monitor disk usage, maintain a database of historic disk usage, predict future disk usage via least squares regression analysis, identify users who are more than a standard deviation over the mean, and send mail to the offending parties. Places script in cron. Disk usage does not change, since disk-hogs, by nature, either ignore script-generated mail, or file it away in triplicate.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Puts disk usage policy in motd. Uses disk quotas. Allows no exceptions, thus crippling development work. Locks accounts that go over quota.
MANIAC:
# cd /home
# rm -rf `du -s * | sort -rn | head -1 | awk '{print $2}'`;
IDIOT:
# cd /home
# cat `du -s * | sort -rn | head -1 | awk '{ printf "%s/*\n", $2}'` | compress

SITUATION: Excessive CPU usage.

TECHNICAL THUG:
Writes a suite of scripts to monitor processes, maintain a database of CPU usage, identify processes more than a standard deviation over the norm, and renice offending processes. Places script in cron. Ends up renicing the production database into oblivion, bringing operations to a grinding halt, much to the delight of the xtrek freaks.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Puts CPU usage policy in motd. Uses CPU quotas. Locks accounts that go over quota. Allows no exceptions, thus crippling development work, much to the delight of the xtrek freaks.
MANIAC:
# kill -9 `ps -augxww | sort -rn +8 -9 | head -1 | awk '{print $2}'`
IDIOT:
# compress -f `ps -augxww | sort -rn +8 -9 | head -1 | awk '{print $2}'`

SITUATION: New account creation.

TECHNICAL THUG:
Writes perl script that creates home directory, copies in incomprehensible default environment, and places entries in /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, and /etc/group. (By hand, NOT with passmgmt.) Slaps on setuid bit; tells a nearby secretary to handle new accounts. Usually, said secretary is still dithering over the difference between 'enter' and 'return'; and so, no new accounts are ever created.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Puts new account policy in motd. Since people without accounts cannot read the motd, nobody ever fulfills the bureaucratic requirements; and so, no new accounts are ever created.
MANIAC:
"If you're too stupid to break in and create your own account, I don't want you on the system. We've got too many goddamn sh*t-for-brains a**holes on this box anyway."
IDIOT:
# cd /home; mkdir "Bob's home directory"
# echo "Bob Simon:gandalf:0:0::/dev/tty:compress -f" > /etc/passwd

SITUATION: Root disk fails.

TECHNICAL THUG:
Repairs drive. Usually is able to repair filesystem from boot monitor. Failing that, front-panel toggles microkernel in and starts script on neighboring machine to load binary boot code into broken machine, reformat and reinstall OS. Lets it run over the weekend while he goes mountain climbing.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Begins investigation to determine who broke the drive. Refuses to fix system until culprit is identified and charged for the equipment.
MANIAC, LARGE SYSTEM:
Rips drive from system, uses sledgehammer to smash same to flinders. Calls manufacturer, threatens pets. Abuses field engineer while they put in a new drive and reinstall the OS.
MANIAC, SMALL SYSTEM:
Rips drive from system, uses ball-peen hammer to smash same to flinders. Calls Requisitions, threatens pets. Abuses bystanders while putting in new drive and reinstalling OS.
IDIOT:
Doesn't notice anything wrong.

SITUATION: Poor network response.

TECHNICAL THUG:
Writes scripts to monitor network, then rewires entire machine room, improving response time by 2%. Shrugs shoulders, says, "I've done all I can do," and goes mountain climbing.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Puts network usage policy in motd. Calls up Berkeley and AT&T, badgers whoever answers for network quotas. Tries to get xtrek freaks fired.
MANIAC:
Every two hours, pulls ethernet cable from wall and waits for connections to time out.
IDIOT:
# compress -f /dev/en0

SITUATION: User questions.

TECHNICAL THUG:
Hacks the code of emacs' doctor-mode to answer new users questions. Doesn't bother to tell people how to start the new "guru-mode", or for that matter, emacs.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Puts user support policy in motd. Maintains queue of questions. Answers them when he gets a chance, often within two weeks of receipt of the proper form.
MANIAC:
Screams at users until they go away. Sometimes barters knowledge for powerful drink and/or sycophantic adulation.
IDIOT:
Answers all questions to best of his knowledge until the user realizes few UNIX systems support punched cards or JCL.

SITUATION: Stupid user questions.

TECHNICAL THUG:
Answers question in hex, binary, postfix, and/or French until user gives up and goes away.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Locks user's account until user can present documentation demonstrating their qualification to use the machine.
MANIAC:
# cat >> ~luser/.cshrc
alias vi 'rm \!*;unalias vi;grep -v BoZo ~/.cshrc > ~/.z; mv -f ~/.z ~/.cshrc'
^D
IDIOT:
Answers all questions to best of his knowledge. Recruits user to system administration team.

SITUATION: Process accounting management.

TECHNICAL THUG:
Ignores packaged accounting software; trusts scripts to sniff out any problems and compute charges.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Devotes 75% of disk space to accounting records owned by root and chmod'ed 000.
MANIAC:
Laughs fool head off at very mention of accounting.
IDIOT:
# lpr /etc/wtmp /usr/adm/paact

SITUATION: Religious war, BSD vs. System V.

TECHNICAL THUG:
BSD. Crippled on System V boxes.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
System V. Horrified by the people who use BSD. Places frequent calls to DEA.
MANIAC:
Prefers BSD, but doesn't care as long as HIS processes run quickly.
IDIOT:
# cd c:

SITUATION: Religious war, System V vs. AIX

TECHNICAL THUG:
Weeps.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
AIX-- doesn't much care for the OS, but loves the jackboots.
MANIAC:
System V, but keeps AIX skills up, knowing full well how much Big Financial Institutions love IBM...
IDIOT:
AIX.

SITUATION: Balky printer daemons.

TECHNICAL THUG:
Rewrites lpd in FORTH.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Puts printer use policy in motd. Calls customer support every time the printer freezes. Tries to get user who submitted the most recent job fired.
MANIAC:
Writes script that kills all the daemons, clears all the print queues, and maybe restarts the daemons. Runs it once a hour from cron.
IDIOT:
# kill -9 /dev/lp ; /dev/lp &

SITUATION: OS upgrade.

TECHNICAL THUG:
Reads source code of new release, takes only what he likes.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Instigates lawsuit against the vendor for having shipped a product with bugs in it in the first place.
MANIAC:
# uptime
1:33pm up 19 days, 22:49, 167 users, load average: 6.49, 6.45, 6.31
# wall
Well, it's upgrade time. Should take a few hours. And good luck on that
5:00 deadline, guys! We're all pulling for you!
^D
IDIOT:
# dd if=/dev/rmt8 of=/vmunix

SITUATION: Balky mail.

TECHNICAL THUG:
Rewrites sendmail.cf from scratch. Rewrites sendmail in SNOBOL. Hacks kernel to implement file locking. Hacks kernel to implement "better" semaphores. Rewrites sendmail in assembly. Hacks kernel to . . .
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Puts mail use policy in motd. Locks accounts that go over mail use quota. Keeps quota low enough that people go back to interoffice mail, thus solving problem.
MANIAC:
# kill -9 `ps -augxww | grep sendmail | awk '{print $2}'`
# rm -f /usr/spool/mail/*
# wall
Mail is down. Please use interoffice mail until we have it back up.
^D
# write max
I've got my boots and backpack. Ready to leave for Mount Tam?
^D
IDIOT:
# echo "HELP!" | mail tech_support.AT.vendor.com%kremvax%bitnet!BIFF!!!

SITUATION: Users want phone list application.

TECHNICAL THUG:
Writes RDBMS in perl and Smalltalk. Users give up and go back to post-it notes.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Oracle. Users give up and go back to post-it notes.
MANIAC:
Tells the users to use flat files and grep, the way God meant man to keep track of phone numbers. Users give up and go back to post-it notes.
IDIOT:
% dd ibs=80 if=/dev/rdisk001s7 | grep "Fred"

OTHER GUIDELINES:

TYPICAL ROOT .cshrc FILE:

TECHNICAL THUG:
Longer than eight kilobytes. Sources the output of a perl script, rewrites itself.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Typical lines include:
umask 777
alias cd 'cd \!*; rm -rf ching *hack mille omega rogue xtrek > /dev/null &'
MANIAC:
Typical lines include:
alias rm 'rm -rf \!*'
alias hose kill -9 '`ps -augxww | grep \!* | awk \'{print $2}\'`'
alias kill 'kill -9 \!* ; kill -9 \!* ; kill -9 \!*'
alias renice 'echo Renice\? You must mean kill -9.; kill -9 \!*'
IDIOT:
Typical lines include:
alias dir ls
alias era rm
alias kitty cat
alias process_table ps
setenv DISPLAY vt100

HOBBIES, TECHNICAL:

TECHNICAL THUG:
Writes entries for Obsfuscated C contest. Optimizes INTERCAL scripts. Maintains ENIAC emulator. Virtual reality .
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Bugs office. Audits card-key logs. Modifies old TVs to listen in on cellular phone conversations. Listens to police band.
MANIAC:
Volunteers at Survival Research Labs. Bugs office. Edits card-key logs. Modifies old TVs to listen in on cellular phone conversations. Jams police band.
IDIOT:
Ties shoes. Maintains COBOL decimal to roman numeral converter. Rereads flowcharts from his salad days at Rand.

HOBBIES, NONTECHNICAL:

TECHNICAL THUG:
Drinks "Smart Drinks." Attends raves. Hangs out at poetry readings and Whole Earth Review events and tries to pick up Birkenstock MOTAS.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Reads Readers Digest and Mein Kampf. Sometimes turns up car radio and sings along to John Denver. Golfs. Drinks gin martinis. Hangs out in yuppie bars and tries to pick up dominatrixes.
MANIAC:
Reads Utne Reader and Mein Kampf. Faithfully attends Dickies and Ramones concerts. Punches out people who say "virtual reality." Drinks damn near anything, but favors Wild Turkey, Black Bush, and grain alcohol. Hangs out in neighborhood bars and tries to pick up MOTAS by drinking longshoremen under the table .
IDIOT:
Reads Time and Newsweek -- and *believes* them. Drinks Jagermeister. Tries to pick up close blood relations-- often succeeds, producting next generation of idiots.

1992 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION:

TECHNICAL THUG:
Clinton, but only because he liked Gore's book.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Bush. Possibly Clinton, but only because he liked Tipper.
MANIAC:
Frank Zappa.
IDIOT:
Perot.

1996 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION:

TECHNICAL THUG:
Richard Stallman - Larry Wall.
ADMINISTRATIVE FASCIST:
Nixon - Buchanan.
MANIAC:
Frank Zappa.
IDIOT:
Quayle.

COMPOUND SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS:

TECHNICAL FASCIST:
Hacks kernel and writes a horde of scripts to prevent folk from ever using more than their fair share of system resources. Resulting overhead and load brings system to its knees.
TECHNICAL MANIAC:
Writes scripts that SEEM to be monitoring the system, but are actually encrypting large lists of passwords. Uses nearby nodes as beta test sites for worms.
TECHNICAL IDIOT:
Writes superuser-run scripts that sooner or later do an "rm -rf /".
FASCISTIC MANIAC:
At first hint of cracker incursions, whether real or imagined, shuts down system by triggering water-on-the-brain detectors and Halon system.
FASCISTIC IDIOT:
# cp /dev/null /etc/passwd
MANIACAL IDIOT:
Napalms the CPU.

Stephan Zielinski

The Life of a Sysadmin

From: tfarrell@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Thomas Farrell)

Magneto (magneto@news.epix.net) wrote:
: Why do I get the feeling that alot of you guys are sorry you became
: Sysadmins? Personaly I would love the job. Or what I've seen of it so
: far. But if anyone can help a kid without a degree find a unix
: job...I'll appreciate it greately and name my first console after you! ;-)

The life of a sysadmin goes approximately as follows.

8am:
Your pager goes off and wakes you up. The message says it's the office, and it's a crisis. You roll out of bed moaning.
8:15am:
You are now sufficiently awake to phone the office. Your pager has gone off three times already. You get through to the office and the receptionist is frantic. She says nobody in the entire office can print and they have a major proposal that has to be faxed out before 9am and if it isn't the company could lose a million dollars in new business. You try to get her to explain what's wrong, but she's incoherent.
8:30am:
You're dressed in yesterday's dirty clothes (they were all you could find in time) and running out the door, sipping a Jolt cola and hailing a cab to the office.
8:45am:
You arrive at the office.
8:46am:
You determine that the problem is that the printer is turned off, and you turn it back on. 10,000 pages spew out from the hundreds of multiple failed attempts by all of your coworkers to print.
8:47am:
Your boss reams you out for "not having fixed that printer problem last time when you said it was all taken care of." You spend the next hour explaining that there's nothing you can do to stop people from turning off the printer if they really want to. You don't bother to mention that you happen to know that the person who did it is your boss's spouse.
9:45ish:
You finally convince your boss to release you and make your way to your office, assaulted all along the way by people demanding that you must help them fix things right now that you know are going to take weeks and really aren't priority.
10am:
You finally arrive at your office and shut and lock the door to keep out the users. You start to read the 40 or so email messages you find waiting every morning, which include about 5 new requests, 34 or so messages demanding to know why such and such hasn't gotten done yet, and one message from your boss denying your request to have an assistant and demanding that you justify how you spend your time yet again.
10:30am:
You realize that you're never going to finish getting through your email if you keep getting interrupted by these damned telephone calls from the same people who sent you the email asking the same questions, so you put your phone on do-not-disturb and go back to your email.
11am:
You've just finished responding to all of your email, including the umpteen millionth justification of your existance for your boss. Unfortunately, the secretary has figured out how to order the phone system to override your do-not-disturb on your phone, and is now routing all the angry phone calls from your coworkers to you.
11:30am:
You finish talking to everyone on the phone and calming them down.
11:30am-4:30pm:
You work your ass off on whatever projects have the most urgency to the company. Usually this involves a lot of work with software, crawling around on the floor several times, tearing a hole in your clothing, and banging your head (hard) on the bottom of a desk.
3pm:
You have your lunch delivered to your office.
4:30pm:
You finally get to touch your lunch, and realize that Burger King french fries do not taste good cold. You're on about your 15th coke since arriving in the office.
4:35pm:
Your lunch is over. You're not finished eating, but your boss has just phoned you (he knows how to override the DND on the phone too) and demanded that you drop everything and go fix some assinine problem which you know is caused by the user and which you fix every week and which you have warned the user about but about which they just don't listen.
6:30pm:
You finish the project your boss set you to and decide to try to sneak out of the office and go home. (Not that you have a social life or anything, but you haven't had 8 hours sleep in a month and a half.) In the elevator on the way out of the office you encounter a coworker, who grabs you by the ear and drags you back to the office to fix something that's bugging them.
6:30pm-8pm:
Somehow, despite repeated attempts to leave, the moment you try to actually do so, someone else appears to force you to work.
8pm:
You're about to depart when you're suddenly informed that there's some vitally urgent data processing that has to be done and that only you know how to do and which can't be performed until all of the data entry people have left for the night at 10pm.
8pm-10pm:
You try to nap in your office but the phone keeps ringing so you finally give up and put in several more hours of working.
10pm:
You try to do your data processing but can't because there are still people logged into the data acquisition system. You spend the next fifteen minutes running around begging them to log out, and they reply that "yeah, I'll be out in a minute..."
10:20pm:
You get sick of waiting, walk over to the server console, issue commands to kick off all the users, and disable logins.
10:30pm-2:30am:
You perform that data processing which nobody else could do because they won't let you teach them because they know what kind of hours you have to put in doing it.
Midnight:
Your blood turns to coca-cola.
2:30am:
You realize that the data processing isn't QUITE done but you're about to pass out so you re-enable logins so you won't get paged about THAT in the morning, scrounge a taxi voucher out of your desk (they've given you your own pad because you use them so often), call a taxi, and leave the building.
2:45am-3:15am:
You freeze your ass off waiting for a taxi.
3:15am-3:30am:
The taxi takes you home. The driver seems to have decided to take the scenic route for the hell of it.
3:31am:
You collapse in a heap on your bed and fall asleep face down with your shoes on the pillows and your clothes still on because you're too tired to remove your clothes or even orient yourself properly on the bed.
8:00am:
Your pager goes off.
Repeat ad nauseum until your boss doesn't like your response to one of his "justify your existance" demands and fires you or you die of caffine poisioning. Oh, and don't bother factoring in any weekends or holidays: You'll be expected to work those too.

Now do you have some slight understanding of why I don't like being a sysadmin? I really lived like this for about a year. I'm amazed I survived it.

Tom

How to Please Your IT Department

  1. When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies and children's art. We don't have a life, and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.
  2. Don't write anything down. Ever. We can play back the error messages from here.
  3. When an I.T. person says he's coming right over, go for coffee. That way you won't be there when we need your password. It's nothing for us to remember 700 screen saver passwords.
  4. When you call the help desk, state what you want, not what's keeping you from getting it. We don't need to know that you can't get into your mail because your computer won't power on at all.
  5. When I.T. support sends you an E-Mail with high importance, delete it at once. We're just testing.
  6. When an I.T. person is eating lunch at his desk, walk right in and spill your guts right out. We exist only to serve.
  7. Send urgent email all in uppercase. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.
  8. When the photocopier doesn't work, call computer support. There's electronics in it.
  9. When you're getting a NO DIAL TONE message at home, call computer support. We can fix your telephone line from here.
  10. When you have a dozen old computer screens to get rid of, call computer support. We're collectors.
  11. When something's wrong with your home PC, dump it on an I.T. person's chair with no name, no phone number and no description of the problem. We love a puzzle.
  12. When an I.T. person tells you that computer screens don't have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.
  13. When an I.T. person tells you that he'll be there shortly, reply in a scathing tone of voice: "And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?" That motivates us.
  14. When the printer won't print, re-send the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes.
  15. When the printer still won't print after 20 tries, send the job to all 68 printers in the company. One of them is bound to work.
  16. Don't learn the proper name for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by "My thingy blew up".
  17. Don't use on-line help. On-line help is for wimps.
  18. If the mouse cable keeps knocking down the framed picture of your dog, lift the computer and stuff the cable under it. Mouse cables were designed to have 20kg of computer sitting on top of them.
  19. If the space bar on your keyboard doesn't work, blame it on the mail upgrade. Keyboards are actually very happy with half a pound of muffin crumbs and nail clippings in them.
  20. When you get a message saying "Are you sure?" click on that Yes button as fast as you can. Hell, if you weren't sure, you wouldn't be doing it, would you?
  21. When you find an I.T. person on the phone with his bank, sit uninvited on the corner of his desk and stare at him until he hangs up. We don't have any money to speak of anyway.
  22. Feel perfectly free to say things like "I don't know nothing about that computer crap". We don't mind at all hearing our area of professional expertise referred to as crap.
  23. When you need to change the toner cartridge in a printer, call I.T. support. Changing a toner cartridge is an extremely complex task, and Hewlett-Packard recommends that it be performed only by a professional engineer with a master's degree in nuclear physics.
  24. When something's the matter with your computer, ask your secretary to call the help desk. We enjoy the challenge of having to deal with a third party who doesn't know anything about the problem.
  25. When you receive a 30mb (huge) movie file, send it to everyone as a mail attachment. We've got lots of disk space on that mail server.
  26. Don't even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller chunks. Somebody else might get a chance to squeeze a memo into the queue.
  27. When you lose your car keys, send an email to the entire company. People out in Pofadder like to keep abreast of what's going on.
  28. When you bump into an I.T. person at the grocery store on a Saturday, ask a computer question. We do weekends.
  29. Don't bother to tell us when you move computers around on your own. Computer names are just a cosmetic feature.
  30. When you bring your own personal home PC for repair at the office, leave the documentation at home. We'll find all the settings and drivers somewhere.

Support, Santa Cruz Style

or Where Do These People Come From?

by Jeff Liebermann (jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us) 07/09/94
(All these really happened to me since 1983.)

  1. "My hard disk won't boot". I suggest they take the floppy out of drive A:. Later when I arrive, they have successfully removed the floppy drive from the machine (with the floppy disk still inside).
  2. "My dog goes nuts when I run Windows. No problem with any DOS programs". Her monitor had a cracked flyback transformer. When the multisync monitor switched scan rates upon entering Windows, the high frequency audio produced by the broken flyback was heard by the dog.
  3. "Michaelangelo virus ate my hard disk, but I have a tape backup. Can you help me restore the system". No problem. When I arrive, I find the data on the tape was 18 months old and that she had never run a backup. "I thought you just shoved in the tape and it sucked up the data".
  4. "How do I get on the national data information super highway?".
    I ask if he has accounts on any bbs's. He has Netcom, Compuserve, and others. I tell him he's already on the highway.
    "Is that all there is?" I hangup.
  5. "What's the fastest way to move 500MBytes of data daily from Santa Cruz to Los Angeles?". Answer: FedEx.
  6. How many RJ45 connector does it take to build 8ea 10baseT cables?
    Answer: 45. I put the first 16 connectors on with one end backward. I then chopped off the good ends. Chopping off the other 8 connectors and effectively starting over consumed another 16 connectors. The 2nd try resulted in one end being mirror-imaged. Chopping of 8 more connectors I finally got them wired correctly. Then I tested them for continuity and found 5 bad crimps. Total=45.
  7. "What kind of hard disk do you have?" Well... It's black with a little red light ... (groan).
  8. Most common support call. "I lost my CMOS setup. How many heads, cylinders, and sectors does a _______ drive have?".
  9. "I move the mouse in any direction and the cursor only moves an inch or so on the screen and stops".
    Take the foam shipping ring out from around the mouse ball.
  10. "My systems on fire. What do I do?".
    Ummmmm. Turn it off? "(Click)"
  11. Most hated support call: "I'm not sure if we need a computer system. Can you give me the relative advantages of Unix, DOS, Windows, Novell, MacIntosh, Sun, etc...?".
  12. Favorite software support call: "I just installed Word 6.0 for Windows. It's really big and slow. How much will it cost to upgrade my machine?"
  13. "My floppy drive won't read disks". I suggest they clean out the dust from the drive. "I can't". Huh? "The dust won't move".
    I find that they were using spray glue near the machine and that all the dust was glued in place.
  14. How to impress a new customer: I walk into the computer room and knock the fire extinguisher off the wall which immediately sprays everything with dust.
  15. "My printer stopped working". Turn it upside down and shake out the staples and paper clips. Works every time.
  16. "Can you teach me how to use a computer?".
    I answer: No. I just fix the machines, I don't use them.
  17. The company motto: "If this stuff worked, you wouldn't need me".
  18. From one of my smarter clients:
    "Why is something broken every time you're here?"
  19. "I'm trying to install a 2nd IDE drive. Support told me to take out ALL the jumpers". How many did you take out? "12".
    (What they meant were the two easily accessible jumpers).
  20. I call a manufacturer to order a manual on some junk I picked up surplus. The receptionist asks my name and company. She notes that I'm not in their database and could she have my address and phone numbers. No problem. I'm then transfered to the customer service department which notes that I'm not in the database and asks for the same information. The customer service person transfers me to the the parts department which notes that I'm not in the database etc... Since the manual will take a few days to arrive, I ask for tech support who notes that I'm not in the database etc... The manual arrived promptly followed by 4 identical envelopes of promotional literature with exactly the same name and address.
  21. Question LEAST likely to be answered correctly by support:
    "What is the current version of your software/hardware/firmware?"
  22. Pacific Telephone Support Dept (Dial 611 for repair service), now asks you to punch in your phone number, and then warns you that you will be asked to verbally recite the same number when the service operator answers. I wonder what happens if they're different?
  23. Email from a friend: "CanYouFixTheSpaceBarOnMyKeyboard?"
  24. Fax back information service for additional information from one vendor requesting just one item returns a copy of their catalog page plus 10 pages of promotional garbage.
  25. Email autoreply from support@_______.com
    Thank you for your support request.
    (drivel deleted)
    Please refer to support request number:
    Error: cannot create /u/something/filename
    (4 lines of garbage deleted)
    in future correspondence. Your request will be processed
    in the order received. (more garbage with Out of space on hd(1,41) mixed in.)
  26. Conversation with support at a certain controller manufacturer.
    "I can't answer that, please call your dealer".
    "I am the dealer."
    "Then call your distributor"
    "He said for me to call you"
    "Then have the customer call us"
    "AAAAAGH!" (click)
  27. Modems and payphones don't mix. I hotwired my laptop into the mouthpiece of a payphone and proceeded to do system maintenance on a customers machine. The sheriff arrived shortly and proceeded to interrogate me. Someone called complaining that I was using a computer to steal money from the payphone.
  28. Having my system page me when it does an unscheduled reboot was a good idea. Having all my customers machines do the same was a mess after a power failure and 100+ pages.
  29. "My hard disk has a virus!". How can you tell, I ask? "When I type DIR, it says VIRUS (DIR) and some date stuff". (Hint: Never name the directory for virus scanning software VIRUS).
  30. Some monitor manufacturers suggest using alcohol to clean the screen. They forget to mention that the monitor should be off. (Boom).
  31. I told a customer to take his machine to a gas station and have them blow the dust out. The gas station hands him a 150psi air nozzle that belches rusty water and oil. I got to clean up the mess for free. He also mangled the floppy heads with the high pressure.
  32. Oxymoron candidate: Disk Protector. That's the cardboard disk they shove in the floppy drive for shipping. More drives have been mangled by shoving in the wrong shape, backwards, or bent than have ever been protected by them. Use a floppy disk instead.
  33. What's the difference between a Van DeGraf static generator and a belt driven vacuum cleaner? Answer: Not much. Don't use a vacuum to clean your computer.
  34. After the cleaning service crashed the computer for the 4th time by plugging the floor sweeper into the UPS, I decided to take action. I suggested they install "child proof" plastic plugs in any outlets deemed worthy of protection. The order went though the chain of confusion, and I was soon blessed with 1000 child proof plugs hot stampled with "Protected". I gave instructions to install about 10 of them on the protected outlets. However, the maintenance person assigned to the task knew nothing and proceeded to plaster every outlet in the building with the plugs. Mutiny was averted by spending all night removing the monsters. Three years later, they are still appearing.
  35. Hint: Do not allow long hair black cats to sleep atop laser printers and tape drives. The black hair is almost invisible in black pattens, gears, and rollers.
  36. Forensic filth analysis is a new part of computer repair. I now carry a microscope and some chemicals which are used to determine the exact nature of the filth I remove from keyboards, mice, computers, light pens. While nobody pays me to do this, it definately adds to the entertainment value.
  37. Why do customers think that I maintain a document and device driver library for every conceivable board ever made?
  38. From a hard disk drive manufacturer: "The drive stopped working. I popped the little plug and noticed it was awful dry inside. I added some oil but it didn't help".
  39. Which arrow key? There are 17 arrows on the keyboard.
  40. Favorite error message: "Out of paper on drive D:" This was produced by a timeout error on a slow WORM drive and a defective AT/IO card.
  41. At one time, I was into antique furniture. When I purchased my first computer (IBM 4.77 PC), I decided that it deserved a suitable antique table. I ask the local antique dealer: "Do you have an antique computer desk?". He looks at me with a strange look and says: "They didn't have computers when this stuff was made".
  42. When 3.5" floppies first appeared, some users were confused with the operation of the write protect window. One user wanted to be doubly sure that the disk would be safe from his mistakes. He correctly opened the window and just to be sure, covered it with one of the magic write protect tabs from a 5.25" floppy.
  43. Favorite Windoze game: "Guess what this icon does?"
  44. A video store installed the computer on top of the cash drawer. Every time the cash drawer would open, the hard disk would get a good bouncing. I decided that this was technically disgusting, and moved the machine. The next morning, the drive wouldn't spin up (stiction). Solution: Put it back on top of the cash drawer and let it bounce.
  45. The curse of the mad labeler. Some of the clone cards I see have stick on METALIZED labels that a quite good at shorting traces. I've fixed a few by just removing the stick-on short. A variation on this effect is the tendency for some distributors to put stick-on labels on TOP of their 486 chips. Then they smear on some silicon grease and bury the mess under a heat sink and fan. The air gap produced between the chip and heat sink severely degrade its cooling value.

--
# Jeff Liebermann
# Box 272, 1540 Jackson Ave, Ben Lomond, CA 95005

How To Do Support

From: sykesp@senlac.demon.co.uk ("Peter R. Sykes") 
In article <3avod0$1c1@sunforest.mantis.co.uk>
           olly@mantis.co.uk "Olly Betts" writes:
> I got a phone call from the sales department last month.
> "Olly, my machine seems to be running slowly."
> So I walk round and press the turbo button.
> 
> Olly, alleged Tech Support guru

Rubbish - you don't know a thing - you're useless. The correct way to do this goes...

User: My machine isn't working as fast.

Olly: Oh dear, I'm not sure we can do anything about that. There's a big panic on at the moment about the network server - these sort of problems can take a lot of effort to track down. Obviously, I can't say for certain but it might be that your data is severely fragmented, you might even have got a virus onto your system.

(user panics)

User: Oh but Olly. Please help, I'm going to be in real trouble if I don't get this report done by lunchtime.

Olly: Well, I'll get shot for it but I'll see what I can do for YOU (look in the eye at this point).

(Olly dons on anti-static wrist strap and plugs it straight into the mains - always good for effect, takes case off the PC and makes a show of poking around inside)

Olly: Do you know whether this machine is set up to use INT 13 for disc access?

User: ?!?! <panic>

Olly: Ok, not to worry. What I/O port address is your COM1 port on and does it have a buffered interface?

User: ?!?!?!?! <even more panic>

Olly: Well, never mind - I still think I might be able to do something.

(Olly surreptitiously presses the Turbo button, removes and replaces a SIMM or two, stares worriedly at the motherboard, pokes around a bit more then powers up the machine.)

Olly: Try it now but be careful not to touch anything in the PC case.

(User, tentative and worried, tries their application)

User: Oh Olly you're wonderful!

End result is 500 million brownie points, a fair chance with that user at the office Christmas party (optional) and a useful reputation as an indispensible and helpful chap to have around. An identical approach also works with senior executives (the more senior, the better) but the chat should be amended a bit.

A Real Idiot

"Hello. Tech Support, may I help you?"
"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."
"What sort of trouble?"
"Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away."
"Went away?"
"They disappeared."
"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."
"Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"
"How do I tell?"

[Uh-oh. Well, let's give it a try anyway.]
"Can you see the C:\> prompt on the screen?"
"What's a sea-prompt?"

[Uh-huh, thought so. Let's try a different tack.]
"Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?"
"There isn't any cursor: I told you, it won't accept anything I type."

[Ah--at least s/he knows what a cursor is. Sounds like a hardware problem. I wonder if she's kicked out his/her monitor's power plug.]
"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"
"What's a monitor?"
"It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?"
"I don't know."
"Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?"

[Sound of rustling and jostling] [muffled]
"Yes, I think so."
"Great! Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall."

[Pause]
"Yes, it is."

[Hmm. Well, that's interesting. I doubt s/he would have accidentally turned it off, and I don't want to send her hunting for the power switch because I don't know what kind of monitor she has and it's bound to have more than one switch on it. Maybe the video cable is loose or something.]
"When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?"
"No."
"Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable."

[Muffled]
"Okay, here it is."
"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer."

[Still muffled]
"I can't reach."
"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"

[Clear again]
"No."
"Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"
"Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle--it's because it's dark."
"Dark?"
"Yes-the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window."
"Well, turn on the office light then."
"I can't."
"No? Why not?"
"Because there's a power outage."
"A power--!?!" ...[AAAAAAARGH!] "A power outage? Aha! Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?"
"Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."
"Good! Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."
"Really? Is it that bad?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it is."
"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"

"TELL THEM, YOU'RE TOO STUPID TO OWN A COMPUTER!" [Slam]

Unrecovery

By SteveD (cynic@thelanddownundef.com):
Sung to the tune "The Hunting Song" by Tom Lehrer.

I always will remember
That eternal dark September
Unrecovered I became
As I played again their game
Arrived and saw the hardware list, it stopped me in my tracks:
Just one Sun box, two Alphas and a VAX.

This employment was no thriller
I took out my etherkiller
And jumped right into the fray,
What a mess I found that day!
I photographed the crusty junk that lurked upon the racks
Of the Sun box, the Alphas and the VAX.

The job it ate my brain, and
Drove me quite insane, and
The worst part of all - I had to endure
All the crufty cruddy scripts run-
ning their old encryption
But none of the protocols were secured!

People ask me why I do it
And I say there's nothin' to it
"Just remember that you're root
And if lusers whine - reboot."
And there's four smoked boards I've now got pinned up with tacks:
There's a Sun board, two from Alphas, and the main board from the VAX!

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