BOFH: Die, Robot

“A Security Robot?!” the PFY gasps. “Really?” “Really,” the Boss nods. “And we have no say in the matter?” “It’s a security thing.” “But our technical budget pays for it.” “Our Capital budget, yes, but the operational expenses will come out of security’s budget.” “So what sort of robot will it be – something like …

[Marco van de Voort]

Good one

One of the better ones in the recent series.

[Dino]

I was just counting the ways this droid was gonna die...

heh.. neato puts a smile cheers - good weekend everyone..

[Maverick]

awesome

only thing is there's probably someone try to sell one of these already to the government

[Gaz Jay]

Nice one

Lets hope Simon and the PFY get the opportunity to salvage the robot and are able to upgrade it then set it loose into the wild!

[Lottie]

Spot on

Just what I needed before a long meeting.

[bugalugs]

AFAICT

“Our Capital budget, yes, but the operational expenses

*will come out of security’s budget*” ,

and RD22's fate was sealed...

IGMC

[Justin 11]

£17K? Bah! A mere trinket.

Oops! Simon messed up!

If he thinks that wasting 17K to protect some tea bags is bad he should have a look at some of our esteemed public services. (*cough* Home Office *cough*)

No, really!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just the home office?

He should look at the civil service as a whole if he wants to see waste on a huge scale.

Maintenance contracts covering mice that would buy hundreds of mice (massive overspend but not the only one), staff pissed in the afternoons after pub lunches booking themselves 'meetings' to sleep it off, sat on their arses discussing holidays/meals/shopping/boyfriends/girlfriends for hours on end, eBay, booking and getting paid time off to take non work related courses paid for by the tax payer. Easy life if you can get in...

Tony McGuirk was spot on, just a shame nobody in a position of power has got the balls to stand up and be counted alongside him.

Good BOFH btw.. A little reminiscent of MiB perhaps but all the same..

[John Angelico]

Sir Humphrey Appleby protests...

"But the public have no idea about wasting money. WE'RE the experts!"

[wim]

hm missed oportunity

to hack into the robot some way or another and upload a video of the boss/head beancounter grabbing in the morning supplies on the robot's hard drive.

[Gabor Laszlo]

upgrades

1. plunger - 1$

2. laser pointer - 5$

3. voice synth - 10$

4. EX-TER-MI-NATE!!! - priceless :D

[Jeroen Braamhaar]

once more

... you guys almost owe me ANOTHER new keyboard.

Fortunately, I ran out of my coffee before I got to the end.

Now where's my 360-degree coffee-serving robot for a refill ?

[Hugo S. Cardozo]

Upgrade robot BIOS :-D

“Or maybe the thing with twin miniguns from out of T3!” the PFY gabs excitedly, no doubt thinking how a quick BIOS upgrade could be used to speed up customer relationship meetings.

AWESOME stuff! I want one of those robots for my workplace too! Want to do some more "upgrades" too :-D

[mittfh]

R.I.P.

Rust In Pieces

A fitting epitaph to the robot... but I wonder how long it will take before the Boss also gets a personalised tour of the lift shaft? :)

[George Nacht]

Just the moment...

...the magic word ´lift´ is used in BOFH story, the rest is inevitable.

Good one, by the way.

[Loyal Commenter]

variable $title is not found

Why is it that I get the feeling this isn't the last we'll see of this robot? Particularly, since it would now appear to be 'written off' right next to Simon's hidden basement workshop?

[nichomach]

Beautifully done!

Especially the failed save-versus-lift-not-present.

[blackworx]

More logic... sounds pretty sneaky

Must remember that one!

[Jsmoran]

Ah...

Stairwells and lift shafts - is there any problem they can't solve?

[Nexox Enigma]

' or 1=1;--

"""Stairwells and lift shafts - is there any problem they can't solve?"""

I've yet to see either of them fetch me a pint, so yes, I'd say so.

[The Gopher]

Robot II

I can see this robot coming back, I mean who else is going to reload the cars on to the racing track when they come :D

[Michael Miller]

Where was the overpowered Russian cattleprod?

I had such hopes of a deranged robot randomly zapping executives :(

[Chris Beattie]

@Michael Miller

I was hoping for an Impossible Mission throwback, myself.

"Ah, another visitor. Stay a while. Stay FOREVER!"

"Destroy him, my robots!"

"AAaaaaaAAAaaaaa...."

[SigKill]

Before I even read it...

...the title and sub-title already made me ROTFL. :D

[Dave 32]

Robots

Ah, I remember when the company I work for (which shall remain nameless [1]) replaced the girl who wheeled the mail cart around with a robot, "ElMo". While the robot was quite technologically advanced, at least for the early 1980s, it was generally met with derision from the engineering staff. While engineers do appreciate technology, almost all of them appreciate red hot-pants even more! ;-)

Back in that era, the robots weren't smart enough to navigate the corridors themselves without a bit of tracking help. So, it was necessary to paint a mostly invisible stripe of phosphorescent material on the floor that the robot could follow. Engineers, being what they are, naturally found some of the appropriate mostly invisible phosphorescent paint, and proceeded to direct the robot into various offices.

[1] Maybe one of these days, the company will get a name, but, for now, it's without one.[/1]

Dave

[Anonymous Coward]

re: Dave 32

Ah yes, the chemical trail mail cart. At a former employer we used those replaceable 2" carpet tiles across the building, and every couple of days someone would exchange a few tiles along the mail carts track and re-lay them to lead the cart into someone's cubical -- but I thought it more fun to put the tile that had the "mail stop" command just to the side of my boss's office door so that the cart would stop and he couldn't open the door to get out....

[Laughing Otter]

Nice one!

I thought it could have a couple of fun evenings dealing with accidentally-spilled terminators, loose risers ("Thank goodness the robot found that before a valuable networks employee did!"), electrified lift panels, reversed cubicle walls, or going back and forth between floors 2.3 and 2.7 at high speed overnight before its last accident.

But this was good too! Like Jeroen said, good thing I'd finished my coffee before I got to the end of the story.

I'm with the others. It'll Be Back.

[James O'Shea]

errm...

This is BOFH 10. The last one was BOFH 8. Where's #9? We want #9!

[Daniel B.]

Return of the Killer Bot?

I was expecting Simon to either morph it into a real cattleprod-toting Security Bot, or bringing out *this* from the Basement for an epic battle:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/11/21/the_killer_bofh_bot/

[Big Al]

But...

Can it tell us who stole Episode 9?

[Kevin Fields]

Disappointed

They should have saved the robot for a bonus round of Beancounter Pinball.

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone read that as "I Robot"

The book, not the Converse All-Stars ad.

[Marty McFly]

PFY needs a better looking robot

The robot from T3 with the mini-guns? Bleah.

How about the evil T3 robot from the future with her well placed mini-guns?

[skeptical i]

You have twenty seconds to comply!

Awaiting the recreation of ED-209 and its deployment to customer service.

[MercDraco]

Ep.9

Was in the broadroom safe as it fell so it went to the earlier stories section just just a couple other stories from here however one question to The Overlord, was the boss at the bottom of the the lift before the robot or the safe? I only ask because he owe'd you 17,300 pounds for a camera on wheels.

just let me grab my coat with the detached 360 degree camera in it.

[Adrian Esdaile]

I am having one right now

and so should you, Simon, on me!

Oh, and Charles, sorry I missed you when you were last in Sydney, maybe next time! Bloody deadlines...

Wife! More beer!

[Steve Foster]

Re "missing episode 9" commentards

I refer you to:

BOFH: Lies and the lying liars who lie about them

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/13/bofh_2010_episode_9/

(with the obvious Icon choice)

[Mouser]

...the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here, in our present.

“It learns about its environment and can pass the knowledge on to other units.”

Hopefully it learned to avoid elevator shafts. And perhaps the boss learned about the extended warranty.

[FozzyBear]

@Kevin Fields

Yep that was the scenario i was thinking of too. Armed with a couple of cattle prods. 50,000 volts across the arse cheeks would make for an entertaining video replay and it provides 360 view too, Bonus!

[Anonymous Coward]

@James O'Shea

Tad-da! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/13/bofh_2010_episode_9/

Badgers: 'cause, just 'cause

[fch]

mental disconnect ...

... greatly illustrated. Save a few dozen quid in your own empire by wasting a few thousands somewhere else. The teabags come from the director's budget but the security robot from whoever-else's ?

Now there's me reading this and expecting the robot to drop down the liftshaft, have its fall cushioned by a pile of a few thousand pounds worth of mysteriously reappeared teabags ... well, just before that datacenter watercooling system has hat leak unfortunately flooding the lift shaft.

Mine's the barley malt & hop flower infusion.

[Herby]

Fun with elevators (Lifts in UK speak)

Amazing what you can do. One "project" in a facility I worked at was to completely remote the car controls to a position "above" the car. It included a complete override of ALL controls (including telephone and emergency stop). It was fun. We were preparing for an "invasion" of neer-do-well protesters that wanted to occupy the building. We weren't about to let them have their way. I guess we were all BOFH's then (it was the early 70's). Such fun!

[Fxhero]

Welcome back BOFH

Great to see the BOFH return to work. The office just isn't the same without a scent of fear.

Cheers,

/FXHero