BOFH: Trussssst in me

Things have taken a strange turn - the Boss is trying to broker some form of peace between us and the Beancounters... "I'm just trying to understand the animosity," the Boss says. "It's historic," I say. "It goes back centuries." "It can hardly go back centuries - computers have only been around for half a century, and you …

[Reality Dysfunction]

great but why so long

great episode but its been sooooooooo long. Nice holiday?

friday beer time starts now

[Anonymous Coward]

lololol

I love the idea of a trust van in the basement!

Maybe a trail of erroneous change request forms is due...

[Anonymous Coward]

Long time coming....

But worth it just for this line....

"Because they're not experts, just idiots who've not been caught out yet,"

[Fluffykins]

Can we please have............

..........an "I need a new keyboard" icon.

“It was a whole brick when I started, and yes, true.” - Priceless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bravo!

Brilliant as always!

[Nathanael Bastone]

Nice to see the BOFH is still up to the useual...

May he continue to 'trust users to trust him' for many more years!

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

ah trust..

..that old chestnut.

Good old BOFF & PFY on a Friday afternoon, such things should be enshrined in law.

[Andrew Hart]

About Time!!!

been so long with no bofh...

[MartinBZM]

Dupe? No!

FINALLY!

A wan smile upon my face for those happy memories relived...

At first I thought DUPE!

Then I thought "Simon is terminally ill and they dug up something from the archives and fiddled the bits around and we are never going to see a fresh yarn of blatant abus^h^h^h^h re-educati0n again and ... and ..."

*Sigh* I just hope now that the summer holidays are over and done with that Simon will return with freshly inspired new stories.

Thanks for the smile though, brought a little gleam of shine on my dull friday.

[Sir Smokesalot]

Welcome back Simon

Cheered my Friday up no end,

BOFH Vs Beancounters.......always gonna end badly:-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally!

Where ya been?

[neb]

about fucking time too

just not as good as it used to be

6/10 on the chuckleometer

[Shaun 2]

Meh

I miss the Etherkiller - Half bricks are so uninspiring............

Anyway - Does the BOFH now take school holidays? It's been ages since I was inspired to kill some end users and go to the Pub...................

[Russ Williams]

He's back!

Yay! More BOFH!

(Is that icon a brick with the word "Welcome" on it?)

[call me scruffy]

Yeah right,

I can't trust the reg to have made sure that this was a genuine BOFH tale and not written by an imposter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unexpected

When I saw the words "find some common ground", why did I immediately think "...for digging graves in"

[CockKnocker]

Hurrah!

BOFH is back and on form!!

[BenDwire]

A Terrible Episode...

Not enough beancounters were hurt, and none of them died. Now, back to my budget...

[dreadful scathe]

um...

I can't find a half brick icon :(

Paris is about the closest...

[Anonymous Coward]

W00t

Outstanding! "It was a whole brick when I started" :-)

[amanfromMars 1]

Another STPearl of a Perl.

“Well there’s the interesting thing,” the PFY replies. “Before he slipped down those stairs he told Simon and myself that it might be beneficial for us to re-establish trust with all users who feel in some way underserviced by our expertise.”

Sounds advice, nevertheless, for easy success with expertise, Simon., but then you probably knew that already a long time ago.

[Scott 19]

Ding

Is that the bell for the pub can't be i haven't seent the BOFH yet.....yah now wheres my company CC i'm for a Friday beer and then to fiddle the phones so the office phone doesn't ring while i'm dozzing all afternoon.

[max allan]

Reminds me of the time when...

Reminds me of the time when beancounters and IT bods came to an understanding.

The finance system had been a bit over specced. One month end, the finance director actually came over to IT and asked for help. Apparently he'd forgotten to run a really important report just before month end processing started. So, after a few moments and a point in time recovery to a "spare" part of the cluster, we got him to log in and run his report.

Afterwards he said "I was a bit unsure about signing off the very large PO for this system, but now, I'm so glad I did".

His trust in IT's decision to design some spare capacity had been amply rewarded. And we knew we could trust him for a few "upgrades" in future.

No bricks required, just a potential disaster.

[Sartorius]

@ Fluffykins

I refer the honourable member to the previous icon ...

[Anonymous Coward]

This story is lacking something.

I'm sorry, but there weren't nearly enough bricks. *glances round to check* nope, that punchline's not coming here folks.

[alyn]

Could apply to us too

"Because they're not experts, just idiots who've not been caught out yet,"

We're just better at hiding our mistakes. The phrase "the server crashed" hides a multitude of errors.

[Kris Sweeney]

iron filings

I remember the original 'trust' excercises involving waffle irons, iron filings and apeasement engineers or that the saline in saliva will clean the contacts on a kettle lead - would i ask you to do that if it were live :)

Keep up the good work simon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yaaay!

Now pardon me as I bask in the glow, as a good addict is wont to do when they get a taste...

[Dave 129]

Yay! My Friday is finally complete (@9:50am)

At long last! A new BOFH... with an in-probably low Beancounter body count; me thinks the PFY and BOFH are getting old and letting the side down ;) (Especially as the PFY still had half a brick).

Now... just how long until the next one?!?! 24 Jul 11:02 ...[the entire month of August]... 11 Sep 11:02. It's heart breaking that BOFH is getting so thin on the grounds; it's been something I've looked forward to on a Friday for, well, years.

Maybe Simon Travaglia needs a donation drive: send beer tokens his way for more episodes??

[crowsmoke]

The LONG anticipated return of BOHF

lets hope its not this long to the next one

[Dennis]

Waddyamean ?

Waddyamean "Beancounters and bricks don't mix" ?

Yes they do. I've seen it with my own eyes when they were pouring the foundations for the motorway.

It was late at night and I was on my way home from the pub. I saw this cement mixer full of bits of brick and beancounter empty its load into the trench for the foundations. Trust me.

[Anonymous Coward]

I fully expected

Them to tell the boss they would see him after work when he got off the elevator.

Anyway...thanks for the laughs..I needed that.

[Ian Ferguson]

There are two things that make work on Friday afternoon bearable

1. BOFH

2. B3ta

[Anonymous Coward]

It took too long...

...but it was worth waiting.

Trussssst, my preciousssssss

[James O'Brien]

Where ya been Simon?

We've all missed you.

Nice to have a new episode though. Keep them coming.

[Anonymous Coward]

excellent, and so sadly true

"...while I go and talk to the one who wants us to use Gmail as the company email system.”

Sadly, this is one option my (chemical manufacturing) employer is actively reviewing. Worse still, I think the idea originated from WITHIN IT. [shudders]

Mods, we need an icon for "whilst sadly shaking my head, I am forced to concur". Head-in-hands-weeping, perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought BOFH would never return!

“...and so we decided to do a one-on-one trust exercise,” the PFY explains to me moments later as another beancounter is helped from the room. “He was going to lean forward and I was not going to hit him in the head with the first heavy item that came to hand. Only he leant too far forward - because he didn’t trust me - and a brick which I found in my suitcase came into contact with him.”

This is the moment I was asked to quiet down or leave the office. Brilliant work!

[J. Cook]

Yay!

One has to wonder if the van has the words "Free Candy" written on it...

Mines the one with the armor plates in it.

[myassisdragin]

At long last..

At long last we have an "update" on the BOFH. That must have been a very long drive to and from the conference as it has been a month or so since last update...

[Richard Jukes]

hmm.....

For the past three weeks I have avidly checked for a BOFH, I was surprised to see this one, Im not dissapointed - it is rushed and less than optimum, its not as finaly polished as one has come to expect. But lets face it, Simon is not a machine, he's not perfect, the bad one is going to slip through ocasionally. I hope you get over your writers block soon Simon. Perhaps we could all post a few ideas in future.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good one...

.....and goes well beyond the IT world.

Every engineer, social worker, teacher or any other frontline professional has to put up with some damned bean counters who don't have the foggiest idea of what they do telling them how to do it cheaper and with more paper work.

[Carnifex]

Quantitative analysis

In years gone by, Simon would write 40 or more episodes per year. This year we seem to be on course for maybe 15 at best. This is a highly unpleasant turn of events, and a serious disappointment to his fans and disciples.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where have they been?

I've been watching for these guys in my local South Indian papers --- certain that they must have been outsourced to Bangalore, and would never be seen on El Reg again!

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporate Gmail

I actually recommend Gmail Pro or whatever Gmail on your domain is called...

For small businesses only. I.E. generally less than 5-10 employees.

A whole corporation running it is just freaking madness! I mean, $50 an employee a year? Heck, even for 10 employees, you could just trash pick an old P4 and throw Linux/BSD with Sendmail/postix/qmail on it, though I do occasionally enjoy the features of a full-featured PIM suite like Exchange, I've usually found that Exchange just isn't as reliable as good old fashioned sendmail. And it lets idiots spam EVERY PERSON on the network when the secretary is looking for a replacement ink tape for her dot matrix printer.

Sadly, she had an accident last week. Hasn't been seen since.

[Informagic]

Finally!

I was waiting long, too long perhaps. But what a brilliant and fulminant comeback!

Paris Hilton because she stayed out of decent press notes a similarly long time.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather be in Cornwall

So that's just what I needed to lift me out of the post holiday return to work blues, thank you Simon and El-Reg.

I needed that.

Now if I could only arrange it so that I can be in Cornwall and reading BOFH.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I said I'd never read another BoFH

Glad I can't trust myself!

Awesome, welcome back and please don't leave it so long next time, else you really will lose a dedicated disciple.

[night shift]

if only....

i could beat (l)users around the head with a brick my job would be easier. wouldnt have to worry aobut brain damaging them, hell it might make them smarter.

alas BOFH while yes it helps me get through my long hours at work it only makes me long for the ability to do half the things they do to the morons they deal with

[Sarah Bee]

Re: I said I'd never read another BoFH

So you're saying that if you have to wait for the next one, you won't read it when it turns up?

Um, I admire your spirited stand and all, but I don't believe you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, well ...

The worst is when the boss IS the bean counter, AND considers himself an expert in computer hardware requirements as well. The office organization was biggest, fastest system with largest hard drive and largest on board memory on "bean counter's" desk - used for email, document writing, web browsing, and porn, not necessarily in that order. Smallest, slowest system in use by database guy stuck with running sorts and reports overnight, except when "bean counter" turns everything off to save power costs.

[Kurgan]

Welcome back!

Great episode. Please send me more. I whish I had a brick for every beancounter/small business owner who told me that air conditioning in the server room is useless, and then fried two RAID disks at the same time. Doh!

[Chaitanya]

stuck in the lift, eh?

was worried he was dead

alcohol

cigarettes

pouf! spontaneous human combustion!!

Now REALLY we do need a bofh dose more often, Dr Bastard.

[MercDraco]

=) Return of the BOFH (=

Another lovely read from the King of BOFHdom, also i seem to remember in March that a intern was hired to help type these and Sarah needed a steel ruler to get Monthly issues sent out... *Give's Sarah his spare "Insulation Testing Device" * Merciful is the Self test feature please don't go under setting 3 labeled Ragnarok. Thank you Sarah, and Simon please keep ensuring the (l)user have the inability to ruin your masterful systems... and that they keep the coffers at C.A.S.H full.

My Coat is the one with the Coffee Maker built into it.

[Jon Beck]

Finally!!

Now I know where all that cash in my "trust fund" goes to!

BOFH and PFY use it wisely and well to keep the beancounter population low enough for us technical folks to get work done!

[viciouz]

Urgent Announcement

The new episode was published, it just hasn't arrived yet, due to >flick< >flick< a transient phase spike in the >flick< local transformers. Try moving your computer closer to the wall socket, or better still, cut and splice all your power cables to remove redundant extra length. Make sure they're turned on while you do it, or the earth won't be working!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just Beancounters

Not one to pick a fight between online characters :) but did you see what they are saying over here http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2009-09-22/