<D> Funny I.T. Jokes and Stories

[redbeacon]

Hello again peeps!

I'm back!

 

Anyways, recently, I have been chastened by one of the forum members as being "one that slams weaker I.T. users, thus bringing out my superiority in this field" ....

 

This comment was brought up because he disapproved the way the funny articles were being presented on this thread...makes it look like it's shaming those who are not I.T. initiated.

 

First, I'll begin by saying a humble "sorry" to those who I might have hurt (as prescribed by the abovementioned person), and I promise to scrutinise every article to remove any potential elements of illiteracy references, or one that brings shame.

 

In the meantime, I've advised the person to come down to Earth and to look up to reality -- that there really are such confused people when it comes to I.T., and that I.T. professionals do share a laugh or two when it comes to those funny incidences.

 

This is why I started this thread for us all (irregardless of what skill) to enjoy and to embarass ourselves, if we find our attitudes matching to any of the articles here.

[redbeacon]

Going Green

By me, and with Mr Baker as a foreign contributer.

 

 

I've worked in an offshore bank where even the I.T. Management advocates going green...y'know, the recycle-paper, switch-off-lights, etc..., mantra.

 

Staff were also seen updating their E-mail templates that will automatically tag a "Save the trees, blah blah..." sentence at the bottom of every e-mail that they send.

 

But as Mr Baker has observed from his company, he says this with a sigh, "Some people take this 'Green Computing' thing way too seriously."

 

http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/5259/saveatreexm4.jpg

 

Editor's note: But when the printer figures out that it is required to spill out everything into 3 pages, that uh.... defeats the purpose of going Green, doesn't it?

 

Editor's note #2: I can read the mind of the person that started this. It seems to me he's holding the poor A4 papers in the printer hostage to those who chose not to Go Green

[redbeacon]

Please Click This Paper To Download...

 

'Enuff said

 

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/3873/macsoundfilesyh6.jpg

[redbeacon]

Richard Bronosky encountered this in his day-to-day computing.

 

"Okay, my password expired, so I needed to change it. But this is what greeted me..."

 

http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/6180/2331433812e9c48576c4yc7.jpg

[jB]

what would the solution to that be?

[jB]

*edit repost*

[kmax]

Feminine or Masculine

 

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine. 'House' for instance, is feminine: 'la casa.' 'Pencil,' however, is masculine: el lápiz.''

 

A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?" Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether 'computer' should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

 

The men's group decided that 'computer' should definitely be of the feminine gender ('la computadora'), because:

 

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic.

 

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.

 

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval.

 

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

 

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ('el computador'), because:

 

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on.

 

2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves.

 

3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem.

 

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

 

The women won.

[WildCard]

Hello again peeps!

I'm back!

 

Anyways, recently, I have been chastened by one of the forum members as being "one that slams weaker I.T. users, thus bringing out my superiority in this field" ....

 

This comment was brought up because he disapproved the way the funny articles were being presented on this thread...makes it look like it's shaming those who are not I.T. initiated.

 

First, I'll begin by saying a humble "sorry" to those who I might have hurt (as prescribed by the abovementioned person), and I promise to scrutinise every article to remove any potential elements of illiteracy references, or one that brings shame.

 

In the meantime, I've advised the person to come down to Earth and to look up to reality -- that there really are such confused people when it comes to I.T., and that I.T. professionals do share a laugh or two when it comes to those funny incidences.

 

This is why I started this thread for us all (irregardless of what skill) to enjoy and to embarass ourselves, if we find our attitudes matching to any of the articles here.

 

Dun worry.

Its not your fault.

Actual problem lies is the fact that many (if not all) organizations treat IT and its supporting departments as a fancy department, a department which is providing a Value-Added Service and is optional when comes to priorities. That an IT department is like a black hole, never generates revenue but sucks in a lot of budget.

Not being pompous or anything, but unfortunately, these organizations fail to realize that IT is an essential service alongside other utilities like water and electricity.

That a network outage or email system failure has the same effect as a power blackout.

That to maintain it or minimize such disasters, money is always needed. It is after all, an investment.

But unfortunately, those that do not understand the functions of an IT organization, fail to see it that way.

And the only way we can just destress ourselves from such ignorance are wbsites / threads like this.

 

Living example:

My organization doesn't have enough Windows 2003 Server and Server CAL licences.

Total cost for acquiring those run up to about $8000.

First question I get when I raised it up: "Do we really need these things?"

My answer, "No, we don't. That is, if you prefer to get sued by BSA and Microsoft for millions of dollars. So either we spend $8000 and solve the problem or we don't and prepare to pay millions. Your choice..."

 

Going Green

By me, and with Mr Baker as a foreign contributer.

 

 

I've worked in an offshore bank where even the I.T. Management advocates going green...y'know, the recycle-paper, switch-off-lights, etc..., mantra.

 

Staff were also seen updating their E-mail templates that will automatically tag a "Save the trees, blah blah..." sentence at the bottom of every e-mail that they send....

 

 

Reminds me of a story an old classmate related to me while working at a premier tertiary institution somewhere in the West (no details).

He works as a senior CSO in the main department, doing admin as well as general office IT for the the VIPs and admin staff.

Happens so, one day, his boss (a lady director) had just given a speech on the importance of conserving resources and saving the environment. She came up to him with a question: "How do I clear my mailbox and still retain all my emails somewhere so I can refer to them in case my computer crashes?"

They use Outlook. So its obvious: PST file saved into a CD-R, right?

Her reply: "Oh, I was just reading about this. What happens if the CD rots?"

For the unenlightened, I happened to read about it too before I chatted with him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_rot

He goes, like, "Well, CD rot are pretty rare. Most good quality CD-Rs can last a lifetime if stored properly. Also, you can always make multiple copies."

Her: "But, what happens if all the CD copies I make rot also? Ah, never mind! I have an idea."

She then proceeds into her office and a few minutes later, the office printer starts humming up. Moments later, the first sheets of paper started coming out. For 1 hour.

All her backed-up email, printed out. Estimated about 600 pages.

The killer line : "Ah, you see. I'm practicing what my speech this morning. I'm printing double-sided...."

 

Richard Bronosky encountered this in his day-to-day computing.

 

"Okay, my password expired, so I needed to change it. But this is what greeted me..."

 

http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/6180/2331433812e9c48576c4yc7.jpg

 

Obviously the sysadmin has smoked too much weed when setting up account / password policies on the domain controller.

[redbeacon]

The Interviewee: How Can You Expect This?!

 

I was interviewing candidates for a Unix system administrator position. One of the "broad" questions I tended to ask was purely intended to get insight into the candidate's problem-solving abilities, but also a way to see what tools and techniques they might suggest (rather than the old "here's a list of tools, have you ever used them?" type of questions, since invariably every candidate would insist they had used them all).

 

This particular candidate happened to be one of those where I was strongly leaning towards a "no" decision at the onset but continued with the interview just to maintain decorum, due to the way the interview started.

 

When Frank (my candidate) came into my office, he stood in the center, sized up the room very carefully, then picked up the chair I had indicated and spent several minutes carefully placing it precisely in the center of the seating area. Precisely. This required perhaps half a dozen adjustments to its position, and several walks around the chair to view it from all perspectives and ensure that it was placed correctly.

 

Once he was satisfied, he sat down... and I opened my mouth to speak I then paused as I watched him go through the same sort of several-minute adjustment process to ensure that his pant legs were perfectly straight on his leg and that the crease down the middle was lined up exactly right down the center of each leg.

 

Okay, I thought, we've established that he's a bit OCD. But maybe that could be a good thing? I'll continue with the interview.

 

I thus began my interview.

 

I explained the current team structure -- a small team and far too many servers to support. This was 12 years ago when mid-range server administration was just being formed, and things were chaotic, to say the least.

 

Our computer environment [at the backend] is haphazard -- the servers are of various brands, have different types of hardware installed on it, ran different types of server Operating Systems, various versions, and a myriad of different applications running on them, sometimes installed by the users themselves and then thrown to us for us to take care of. This meant that every administrator could be called upon to respond to a problem on any machine. I had explained that we had started documenting the purpose and configuration of every server on an internal document server, some initial stabs at naming standards, etc., but that largely it was a free-for-all when a problem call came in. I believe in being up-front about the work environment a person is applying to join.

 

After ending my speech on how messy our systems were, I began my "wide-open" question.

 

"So, Frank, let's say you receive a call from a user in the marketing area, and he says that their mailing is not going out. Walk me through some things you might do with this call, to determine the nature of the problem, and what things you might check to resolve the problem."

 

There are clearly no right answers, but some of the answers which have been provided by candidates in the past ranged from simple user things such as e-mail "housekeeping", getting the information of the contact, what mail-equipped server supported the Marketing department -- all the way through to the candidate jumping to the root of problem resolution: assuming they can identify the problematic machine in question, along the way handily dropping references to checking various system logs, pinging routers, checking mail configurations, DNS settings, etc.

 

Frank, my interviewee, was different though.

 

He sat for two minutes in total frozen silence. Then he burst forth with this.

 

"What server is this? I don't even have a User Account on the servers in your company! How can you expect me to log on if I don't even know where the server is and no one has given me any User Accounts yet? If I had a User Account, I could log on. But I can't. You haven't given me a User Account yet. I don't have a User Account. I know I don't have a User Account registered on that server. I don't know what server that is. How can I log on? How can you expect this?"

 

I tried to calm him down, tried to explain the concept of a "case scenario" question usually posed to interviewees, but he didn't understand and instead, grew more agitated anyways.

 

Despite being vexed, the crease in his pants legs remained perfectly aligned with the middle of his leg the entire time.

[redbeacon]

The Interviewer: Oh, we just say that to...

 

The job hunt:

 

Back in 2004, I saw an advertisement for a PHP web developer. After calling and setting up an interview, I anxiously awaited the next Monday to come around so I could strut my stuff. You see, I did not have job interviews often, and for some weird reason this one just felt promising.

 

It was pretty difficult to find their offices. The company did not list an address on their website, so I called up the receptionist to figure out how to get there. However, she gave me bad directions. And when I say bad directions, I mean she sent me to another office of a similar name but on the other side of town. Apparently, she didn't know their address either, and just looked it up in the Yellow Pages.

 

Obviously, they didn't advertise in the Yellow Pages based on her actions.

 

Fortunately, I gave myself plenty of time and managed to arrived right on time at the correct place.

 

The interview was going smoothly at first: the interviewers, who were the Infrastructure Applications team, asked me about myself, my previous experience, and so forth. Pretty much the preface of any interviews.

 

But then everything turned around.

 

"Do you know ColdFusion?", one of the two men interviewing me asked. I could tell he expected me to say yes.

 

"Not really," I responded, "but I do have a general understanding of how it works. I'm sure I'd be able to pick up enough of it to get by.

 

Seeing that there's a job scope mismatch, I asked a problem-neutralising question, "Do you convert from ColdFusion to PHP?"

 

One of them replied, "Oh, PHP? Oh yeah, from the job ad. Actually, we just say that to attract people; we only do ColdFusion here."

 

The rest of the interview was downhill from this point. Within a few days, I had forgotten about the opportunity altogether and ended up picking up a real PHP job a couple weeks later.

 

Oddly enough, one of the interviewers called me two months later to see if I was still interested in the position. When I told him no, he quickly retorted "Oh, well, we found someone else for the position, anyway!"

 

Um, good for them then?

[Metal Gear]

lol. got some good stuff here.

 

on a personal level; not too long ago when i was designing websites, one of my clients told me to move their company logo from the center of the web page to the top left. pretty normal but then she said that the reason she didn't want the logo in the center was because it's not good feng shui...

[jB]

talk about feng shui, even till an online aspect

[redbeacon]

Ikea also uses the world's most unpopular browser??

 

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4187/206287649144471cb1a9rd2.jpg

[redbeacon]

This happened in the theater where they showed us the usual adverts. Once that's done, this showed up before the real movie did:

 

http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/3623/img0156sl0.jpg

[redbeacon]

While in London's Piccadilly Square, Marten Van M. noticed that something was not quite right with Coca-cola's attempt at advertising.

 

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/8872/tmpphpwn1qjkgv6.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can't find where the problem is? Here's a closeup:

 

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/812/cocacrashzoomwz0.jpg

[jB]

I saw one of those pop-ups at BIKES lane yesterday night

[redbeacon]

Because Hackers and Viruses are bad...

 

"I started work in my new job as Technical Manager full of enthusiasm, only to be thwarted by a flabbergasting array of absurd working practices imposed by the despotic dinosaur of a Development Manager I have to report to," Amanda L. writes.

 

"What makes this more fascinating is that:

 

- "this list is not a collection of experiences or anecdotes picked up from different sources.

- "this list is not an of any existing practices at this company.

- "in essence, this list is a genuine and accurate description of the real working practices currently being practiced at this company — nothing here is invented, it is all true.

 

Facts and weird practices for this company's IT Infrastructure:

 

[1] When you're planning or supporting the IT's infrastructure for this company, always remember:

- "Viruses can be picked up via networks.

- Hackers hack in to computers via networks.

- Viruses are bad.

- Hackers are bad.

 

[2]

Networks are bad. It's obvious when you really think about it! Therefore, there is no such thing as a "network" in our company.

 

[3]

"The company diary is on the Diary PC. We all have to log on to the PC to look at the diary. This means having to walk to another office and hope no one else is using the aforementioned Diary PC. Remember: there is no network.

 

[4]

"There's also an Email PC! This is another walk to a different office: all email addresses are in the same Outlook E-mail session. No one is allowed to have email access on their own PC (because someone might download something from a hacker).

If you are waiting for an important email from a client, you have to lurk around the PC or keep having to walk back and forth between your office and the Email PC Office.

The DM's recommended practice is to ask the person sending the email to call us when they've sent it.

 

[5]

"There is no file server, as that would encourage network usage. Files are transferred using USB drives (each member of staff has a USB stick or drive).

 

[6]

"Backups: not a chance! When I started I asked about the backup procedures. I was told that all the software was stored on the 'software notebook.' Yes, a notebook.

 

Glancing at the abovementioned policies and company IT objectives, as well as being bewildered by them, I then decided to painfully succumb to their odd network practices and began questioning my Development Manager on that "backup" notebook:

 

Me: "Oh. How often is the notebook backed up?"

DM: "Erm..." [ He glances at a developer. ]

Dev: "Ermmmm..." [ Developer glances back at DM like a rabbit caught in headlights. ]

DM: "Ahhhh... er..."

Dev: "I think it was backed up about 3 months ago."

Me: "Riiiight... ok... and how is it backed up?"

Dev: "I think you have to run a script."

Me: "Any idea which one?"

Dev: "I think it's on the desktop."

Me: "Ok, thanks."

 

At that point I decided that notebook itself needed some independent investigation...

[WildCard]

Because Hackers and Viruses are bad...

 

"I started work in my new job as Technical Manager full of enthusiasm, only to be thwarted by a flabbergasting array of absurd working practices imposed by the despotic dinosaur of a Development Manager I have to report to," Amanda L. writes.

 

"What makes this more fascinating is that:

 

- "this list is not a collection of experiences or anecdotes picked up from different sources.

- "this list is not an of any existing practices at this company.

- "in essence, this list is a genuine and accurate description of the real working practices currently being practiced at this company — nothing here is invented, it is all true.

 

Facts and weird practices for this company's IT Infrastructure:

 

[1] When you're planning or supporting the IT's infrastructure for this company, always remember:

- "Viruses can be picked up via networks.

- Hackers hack in to computers via networks.

- Viruses are bad.

- Hackers are bad.

 

[2]

Networks are bad. It's obvious when you really think about it! Therefore, there is no such thing as a "network" in our company.

 

[3]

"The company diary is on the Diary PC. We all have to log on to the PC to look at the diary. This means having to walk to another office and hope no one else is using the aforementioned Diary PC. Remember: there is no network.

 

[4]

"There's also an Email PC! This is another walk to a different office: all email addresses are in the same Outlook E-mail session. No one is allowed to have email access on their own PC (because someone might download something from a hacker).

If you are waiting for an important email from a client, you have to lurk around the PC or keep having to walk back and forth between your office and the Email PC Office.

The DM's recommended practice is to ask the person sending the email to call us when they've sent it.

 

[5]

"There is no file server, as that would encourage network usage. Files are transferred using USB drives (each member of staff has a USB stick or drive).

 

[6]

"Backups: not a chance! When I started I asked about the backup procedures. I was told that all the software was stored on the 'software notebook.' Yes, a notebook.

 

Glancing at the abovementioned policies and company IT objectives, as well as being bewildered by them, I then decided to painfully succumb to their odd network practices and began questioning my Development Manager on that "backup" notebook:

 

Me: "Oh. How often is the notebook backed up?"

DM: "Erm..." [ He glances at a developer. ]

Dev: "Ermmmm..." [ Developer glances back at DM like a rabbit caught in headlights. ]

DM: "Ahhhh... er..."

Dev: "I think it was backed up about 3 months ago."

Me: "Riiiight... ok... and how is it backed up?"

Dev: "I think you have to run a script."

Me: "Any idea which one?"

Dev: "I think it's on the desktop."

Me: "Ok, thanks."

 

At that point I decided that notebook itself needed some independent investigation...

 

 

Is this for real?

A recent company? In this day and age?

 

Dear God in Heaven.....

[kmax]

well, it's good in some way that, u dont need to sit at ur desk all the time..

 

if someone ask "oh, i'm on my way to email pc"

 

"oh, i'm on my way to file pc"..

 

many smoke-breaks and coffee-times :

[Metal Gear]

That would keep everyone healthy. Every few minutes have to move around

[WildCard]

well, it's good in some way that, u dont need to sit at ur desk all the time..

 

if someone ask "oh, i'm on my way to email pc"

 

"oh, i'm on my way to file pc"..

 

many smoke-breaks and coffee-times :

 

That;s the upside.

 

Its just tat... I find DAMN hard to believe such a person of such thinking can be hired into such a high managerial position and have such a concept of IT infrastructure.

 

I guess that's what happens when you put IT under an absolutely clueless admin-oriented Development staff.

[redbeacon]

That;s the upside.

 

Its just tat... I find DAMN hard to believe such a person of such thinking can be hired into such a high managerial position and have such a concept of IT infrastructure.

 

I guess that's what happens when you put IT under an absolutely clueless admin-oriented Development staff.

I mean, hey, if this company with I.T. stone-age practices would wanna pay me some premium salary every month even if I have to succumb to and to continue supporting their "un-networked" PC's and disorganised way of administrating their infrastructure, I'd probably do it

 

Of course ahh...that's not a very good entry in your resumé should the next job demands that you must have had some sort of I.T. infrastructure administration and networking.

 

But I guess it's perks-up for the leg exercise and yeah, the excusable "but I was just wanting to e-mail somebody..." to your boss when he questions your disappearance.

 

That one had me laughing, Kmax

[faris]

hey, you can try to install logmein. it's like pcAnywhere but its free and you can connect via a web browser. pretty cool. i use it to connect to my office pc.

 

Oh yeah LOGMEIN huh! Thats the most horrible thing cos i always leave my PC on at home. Finally one day i was in my office and i log in to my own PC at home finally to found out what my EX wife was doing. Damn cant forget those days....

[redbeacon]

Ship all 8 of em to me please!

 

Jason, a IT System Administrator recently ordered a rather bulky server. When I mean bulky, it meant it was about 40kg, and it required special screws to have it mounted (installed) on the server rack.

 

Without a luck finding the screws that he needed, he rang up Dell to request for some. The team at Dell apologized and sent the screws via Overnight Mail in several foam padded boxes...

 

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/7360/dell1fj4.th.jpg http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/3397/dell2ch3.th.jpg

(click to expand each image)

 

 

...so that the screws wouldn't get damaged in transit.

 

==============

 

A website surfer nicknamed disneumon then sent in this reply to Meneame.com with regards to the above service:

 

¿Y el manual de instrucciones?

 

You amigos go figure that one yourself out.

Con facilidad y esta bueno!

[jB]

Oh yeah LOGMEIN huh! Thats the most horrible thing cos i always leave my PC on at home. Finally one day i was in my office and i log in to my own PC at home finally to found out what my EX wife was doing. Damn cant forget those days....

oh my sounds real bad.

 

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/7360/dell1fj4.th.jpg http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/3397/dell2ch3.th.jpg

(click to expand each image)

OMG what good service they have