BOFH: Blackmail and fine wine

"So which of you is on call over the break?" the Boss asks. "Why are you asking?" the PFY asks. "Just thought it might be an opportune time to do a bit of housekeeping, you know, security audits... er..." "Our firewall has Intrusion Detection built into it," the PFY explains. "So we're safe then?" "As safe as a domain …

[Mark Milaszkiewicz]

what? the boss??

wow.... the boss has come up in my expectations!

awesome as usual!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice one

The autoerotic strangulation bit was very choice.

Pity though... this was the first boss that seemed to play nice with the BOFH...

[Darren Murphy]

Will bosses never learn

OK, OK," I say. "We admit defeat. We do keep some cash in the office."

"In the tape safe," the PFY says "at the back of the office..."

When will bosses realise that attempting to shaft the BOFH and PFY is suicide, funny but suicide none the less!

Mines the coat with the keys to the quicklime storage facility oh and the tape safe

[Duncan Robertson]

To coin a phrase...

As an old manager of mine used to say, "What do we do to prevent this from happening again?"

Answer: Never try and blackmail a bastard!

Brilliant!

[Andrew Hart]

Just when

You think one of them has finally got the best of the bastard, they do somthing stupid like confronting him!!!

Mines the one with the lime in the pockets...

[Paul Stephenson]

for a moment

for a moment there i thought they was about to be outsmarted. shocking.

[Steve Williamson]

Another Christmas break...

....and another new Boss.. *sigh*

[Rosuav]

The PFY, with the Tape Safe, in the Back of the Office

I suggest that this is the solution to the death of the Boss. When did he die? In about ten minutes...

[Oliver Mayes]

Ooh, noob mistake

Dumb boss. Never, ever admit that you're the only person who knows about it. At least lie and say that you've sent a copy of the plans to someone outside the company. got what he deserved really.

[Neil Boulton]

*gasp*

Dun Dun Duuuhh!

[Martin Gregorie]

Yes! The Best BOFH Xmas present...

...is a new boss once the old one passes his expire-by date.

[Trygve Henriksen]

Oops?

Just when you thought you had the Boss housetrained, he goes and does a dodo all over the place.

I wonder what the next one will be like...

[Richard North]

Another one bits the dust...

How big is that tape-safe?

It must be getting a bit full of bodies by now, unless they've done a deal with the cook?

(Paris, because she's always willing to do a deal...)

[David Hendry]

Tapesafe.....

Step away from the safe...

Nothing to see here...

Just another jammed tapesafe....

Locked the keys inside you see..

[Adam Foxton]

Too close!

Oooh, those bosses are getting rather too close these days.

And what about that hole in the wall? What'll they do with that?

[A. Coatsworth]

"be the first to post"? who are you kidding?

Silly boss!

When the boss started to explain his findings,I was expecting a clash of titans, something along the lines of the epic "OutBOfH'd"... Instead, we got a fine example of Peter Principle...

Great read, nonetheless

[Scott Gower]

"gentle probing with a sledgehammer"

The boss wanted to extend his office? Maybe someone should ask his PA about another type of "gentle probing" the boss did.

Aliens know all about "gentle probing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Another gem

So apt....So cruel.... So funny.

"Another beaker of your finest Bulgarian fighting wine."

[Dr. Mouse]

Absolute Quality

This boss seemed much better than the others, shame he had to cock it up by being stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows two-thousand and what?

OK, since no-one else pointed it out:

"As safe as a domain with Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, 2003, XP and 2007 can be."

Windows 2007?

:-)

[Simon Painter]

the boss should know better

you can't blackmail the BOFH

[Anonymous Coward]

lol...

I want their tape safe :D

Thanks alot Simon, I just hope you have a follow up to see us through the xmas break ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

@Trygve Henriksen

"I wonder what the next one will be like..."

Never heard the expression, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss"? Basically it's time to reset the learning curve on the boss front :o)

Predicted timeline - HR episode up next. Head of IT 'gets his hands dirty' by covering temporarily (Or BOFH takes a step up for a while, but already done). Hasty replacement is offloaded quite quickly during induction. New replacement comes in, seems to get better of BOFH for a while. BOFH gets some incriminating material - status quo is returned. 4 monitors are replaced due to coffee sprayage.

Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary :o)

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

missed a trick?

Surely the BOFH/PFY would have managed to get a PO signed for a maintenance contract to repair the fake wall before committing the boss to his justly deserved 'fate'?

I use the word 'fate' in it's loosest sense, as it was less pre-ordained than 'what-does-this-button-do-ained'

Still Merry Xmas

[Garry Mills]

Coloured pencils

"the Macs in the coloured pencil office"

Superb!

[Steven Knox]

RE: missed a trick?

"Surely the BOFH/PFY would have managed to get a PO signed for a maintenance contract to

repair the fake wall before committing the boss to his justly deserved 'fate'?"

What, and start a paper trail? Surely the BOFH and PFY know how to patch up a hole in the wall overnight without leaving any evidence. A PO like that is just begging a beancounter to ask how and why the hole got there in the first place...

[mittfh]

@AC (Windoze Versions)

"As safe as a domain with Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, 2003, XP and 2007 can be."

Oh dear. There's something seriously wrong with this list. For a start, I'm surprised there aren't any '95 boxes hiding somewhere, so that's at least another 3 versions missed off the list. 2000 comes in desktop (2k Pro) and server (2k Server) versions. 2003 is a server version. 2007 might be Vista or Server 2008. And they're sure to have a pre-release Win 7 somewhere...

So, let's re-diddle the list:

"As safe as a domain with Windows 95, 95A, 95B, 98, 98SE, 2000 Pro, 2000 Server, XP, 2003 Server, Vista, 2008 Server and 7 can be."

Hopefully with a list this long, the boss would be starting to doze off. Add in the various editions of XP and Vista that might be around, plus any boxes running other OSes that might be patched in to the network, and the boss should be in such a stupor he'd (quite literally) sign his own death warrant, thus resulting in even more creative ways of 'retiring' him...

[skeptical i]

In the tape safe ... next to the Amontillado, surely?

Drink up, Fortunato.

[Dalen]

Ingenious!

Wow. This Boss looked like the smartest one yet. Possibly even beginning to approach the Bastard in deviousness.

R.I.P.

[Anonymous Coward]

Patch up the hole in the wall?

Just move the tape safe in front of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Darren Murphy

"When will bosses realise that attempting to shaft the BOFH and PFY is suicide"

...well they all realize it eventually. This one, for instance, will probably realize it after the door to the tape safe slams shut, the lights go out, and he discovers that there isn't sufficient food/water/air/bathroom facilities in the safe to last the entire Christmas break.

The problem is that none of them live long enough after their lesson for it to do much good!

[Will Godfrey]

Coloured Pencils - again

Brilliant. The image formed instantly and completely in my mind :)

[Sandra Greer]

You mean to tell me

they got rid of the NT 4 servers already? And every one of those dear little Windows for Workgroups 3.11?

[Rebecca Putman]

That tape safe...

...is getting awfully full, in'it? Or have they built in a "flush" function?

Mine's the one with the BOFH taser in the pocket.

[Bill Cumming]

@AC (Windoze Versions) & mittfh

The "2007" is probably the old Win95 installs with a new desktop that the BoFH & PFY sold to the company via a dummy Channel Island outfit for a tidy profit.....;)

[Kevin Fields]

Good show!

You knock off the boss two weeks before Chrstmas... who takes over the department? Well you know HR isn't going to want to deal with this NOW... so it looks like the BOFH and PFY are once again temporary head of the department.

And going into the holiday season... the company Christmas and New Year's Eve party... I can't wait to see which hepdesk drone gets to be the first to chug a whole liter of eraser fluid on a dare from the PFY. This year's party HAS to be the best ever.

I predict that a financials database will go down three hours before the end of payday, and a swift rescue by Simon will find a huge Christmas bonus for them and less for the beancounters. Rightfully so.

And then... time to hire a new boss. I'm sure they're already charging up the cattle prods and making their lists, checking it twice.

2009 could be the most bastardly of the bastard operator from hell, yet!

[Anonymous Coward]

still funny after all these years

how long does it take to fill a management position two weeks before christmas?

[Nat C.]

@mittfh re: Windows versions

---quote---

"As safe as a domain with Windows 98, 98SE, ME, 2000, 2003, XP and 2007 can be."

Oh dear. There's something seriously wrong with this list. For a start, I'm surprised there aren't any '95 boxes hiding somewhere, so that's at least another 3 versions missed off the list. 2000 comes in desktop (2k Pro) and server (2k Server) versions. 2003 is a server version. 2007 might be Vista or Server 2008. And they're sure to have a pre-release Win 7 somewhere...

---endquote---

First off, no self respecting BOFH would allow Vista within a five block radius of his network. The 95 boxes (both "bloody A" and "bloody B" as Montgomery Scott would say) were dumped into the skip during the last upgrade. I assume (as Simon probably did) that the single mention of 2K is meant to stand for both Server and Desktop products. As for the 2007 reference, it's nice to see I'm not the only one with a nasty habit of calling Server 2008 "Server 2007".

And yes, they do have a pre-release Windows7 somewhere. Two Windows7 boxes in fact. One on the BOFH's desk and the other on the PFY's desk. It's just not something you inform the Boss about. ;-)

[Lukin Brewer]

What he should have said...

"But that's... blackmail!" the PFY says, looking aghast. "Anyway, how do we know that you've not passed this information on others who'll blackmail us as well?"

"I have told no one. And you may rest assured that my solicitors will neither unseal nor read any of the copies of the evidence that I have lodged with them, merely pass them on to the Police, the Inland Revenue and all the company directors in the event of my death."

[jack]

@nat C

dually noted about the crap-ness of vista...there should be an upgrade available where it has a laser guided site that hones in on on account...i mean beancounters when thrown out of a 4th story window end on...that would make for one hell of a vista (i.e. vista is spanish for 'view' remember)

mines the one reaching for the 27 cent underpaid check in the pocket

[Rick Giles]

Is there really such a thing as safe?

"I MEANT upgrade everything to a safe operating system..."

I smell Linux installs a comin'. Ubuntu, maybe.

[mittfh]

@Nat C / Rick and others.

OK, so there may not be any Vista desktops on site, but it wouldn't surprise me if a management type hasn't brought their laptop in...

Of course, it will only take nanoseconds of being plugged into the network for various BOFH/PFY tools to discover it lacks any AV software (or if it does, a trial version of SAV) and to automatically download and install a random selection of malware...

As for '95, there are probably a few boxes lying around, waiting for the next gullible marketing type to be sold them at a fantastically high price...

-oOo-

Ubantu? That's far too common and mainstream for the BOFH/PFY. They're far more likely to start off with something like LOAF, then download and compile everything from the kernel upwards. Installing packages is for (l)users - compiling from source is for real geeks...

(Just don't try it on a standalone box, unless you have easy access to a networked box to download the dependencies!)

-oOo-

Meanwhile, I find it slightly hard to believe that the BOFH/PFY only knew about the Boss' activities after the event. Surely they'd have either (a) got in before the Boss, (b) made darn sure the building plans were unobtainable by the Boss, or (c) noticed the effing big hole in the wall before meeting the Boss?

We're assuming it's early morning, so it the Boss has decided to send copies of evidence anywhere, the BOFH/PFY will be able to resolve the issue fairly quickly. Electronic means - no problem, they can quickly remove the trail. Remember - the BOFH has successfully hacked into the FBI's Most Wanted website and added one luser to the list...

Paper means - post runs are usually done mid-day, and when delivered to the Post Office it will likely remain there for several hours until being taken to the sorting office, so they'll have ample opportunities to intercept the mail

Besides which, you wouldn't seriously expect them to make it that easy for the Boss to discover they were the brains behind the outsourcing company?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hang on a sec...

I'm not convinced the Boss has met his fate just yet. Sure, it seems likely, having tried to outbastard the Bastard, but perhaps Simon has a twist in mind. Just a thought - I don't suppose I'm right, but I won't feel rid of the Boss until I read about his sad disappearance in the next installment...

But good work, Simon, anyway.

[mark]

that boss is gone....

"but I won't feel rid of the Boss until I read about his sad disappearance in the next installment...

"

He's toast. definately. He found the secret room! (not to mention the blackmail attempt)

I thought our boys were gonna do something to sort out the fat-cats at the top for a minute - that'd be great!

[Gordon Grant]

Trying to....

out bastard the BOFH is generally fatal even to other company BOFH's.

I'd be watching out for loose flooring, "live handles" and some choice Photoshop'd photos floating around, or maybe something from that "dutch sex shop" again..

The Boss had better look out...

Oh and I vote for the tape safe having a remote lock / unlock...