BOFH: I'll get my bonus even if it kills, well, someone "Okay, so we'll just work our way through last year's review and then move onto this year's one," the Boss says, fingering a couple of chunky wads of paper. I hate review time. The only consolation I get from it is knowing that Bosses hate it as well. Everyone hates them - except for the drones from HR for whom this is …
"We even did some statistics on the amount of use the statistics system got too. Zero per cent. No one looked at it - like we said they wouldn't."
Yep- that's so bloody true. In my case, I was able to unplug and decommission all the hardware involved and it was over a year before anyone noticed.
someone noticed?!
I cleaned up a website defacement... one of the vulnerabilities was write access to the content database which also stored the site statistics. No-one had *ever* viewed the statistics.
Yes, the one with the maliciously-placed string terminator in the pocket.
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WTF do so many people begin sentences with "So" without any good grammatical reason? I've noticed it mainly amongst scientists interviewed on the radio, but it seems to be spreading. It's become a bit of a pet peeve of mine.
I can't tell if it's widespread in the general population (having left the UK 5 years ago now) but I wouldn't be surprised. Can anyone confirm?
"Because it adds nothing to what the speaker is saying"
I hadn't noticed the phenomenon, so I'll take your word for it, but this would appear to be a perfectly reasonable explanation.
If you are in a conversation, it is useful to have some way of claiming the "speaking stick" without running the risk of something important being lost in the moments before others give way.
Then, having got into the habit of starting your *first* sentence in this way, it is only a matter of time before you start using it all the time, even though that implies you are constantly interrupting yourself.
Then you start using it in your written work.
Then the angels finally lose your patience and club you to death with a style guide. (Well ... one can dream.)
... will 'Garner's Modern American Usage' do? Fowler (for those from Blighty) says the same thing in different words, but here's Garner on 'so':
"so. A. Beginning Sentences with. Like And and But, So is a good word for beginning a
sentence. Each of these three is the informal equivalent of the heavier and longer conjunctive
adverb (Additionally, However, and Consequently or Therefore).
So... OK I know its a joke but when exactly did the BOFH and PFY transition from those that doled out punishment on deserving meddling twats into just plain lazy murdering thieves?
Don't get me wrong, still funny, but not as funny when there was a more Robin Hood/Justice aspect to their punishments, (funniest of course is when they do it to each other - like Bugs and Daffy)
I have always hated those fscking things. What a complete waste of time. But, cleverly used, they can be a tool to get rid of a fool. Like this one boss I had.
We wanted to get rid of him so bad, we began to employ some `BOFH` like tactics. When we had encountered employees of one of our competitors in public, we implanted the idea that this boss was the best thing since sliced bread; and that he was the singular reason why our department showed such a dramatic change from the year before.{1} That caused them to report back to their HR department, his name, and we learned that there was some interest in trying to get him to `jump ship`. Oh, goody!
So, when it came time for MY annual review, it was time to strike. This Boss (no, strike that, make it - asshole), who wrote up a scathing review and expected me to sign it. Hell would have to freeze over before I would sign that piece of shit. I picked it up, and quickly fed it into the shredder at the side of his desk. To say he was flabbergasted, was an understatement.
You see, we kind of `leaked it` to the `C` levels that our competitor was interested in poaching him. And the `C` levels wanted to know if he was worth keeping (something we clearly knew that he wasn't). So we were asked to review HIM.
My report of his incompetence was at least 10 pages long, citing very specific decisions he made and the deleterious effect they had on both the company, and employee morale. My colleagues also had turned in similar scathing reviews of his incompetence. In an extremely rare case of `C` level management COMPETENCE, they recognized that he was, indeed, an asshole. As a result of those subordinate reviews, he was promoted to a position with another company, hopefully, one of our competitors; so his `special skills` could be utilized to increase our profit margins, at their expense. Time will tell if that{2} was a brilliant move on our part.
{1} Negatively, of course.
{2} Foisting a fscked up boss on a competitor.
The icon (spawn of Satan) is an accurate representation of that asshole.
Throw a tarpaulin over the lot,
Get a letter from your line manager to authorise disposal with funds, if any, returned to your organisation,
Either sell them on ebay (in lots of 1,5, 10 & 20) or, if nothing else, get them posted on freecycle.
Yes - http://uk.freecycle.org/, where people will come along and put your rubbish to use.
And that's not including local charity shops, re-employment workshops (you know the local council retraining schemes), schools, colleges etc.
ttfn
i had a few monitors at my house from last project like this, and I recently decided to remove all the spare CRT tellys from my house.
at the the end of the day, you cant give a CRT monitor or telly
tried free ads the local paper and freecycle , took a while but they eventually went on freecycle, the telly anyway - the perfect working order IBM 20" monitor had to go tip . ( recycle centre)
There are a number of places where my hobbies intersect aspects of my work. So since my last PP I have to spend a portion of my work time researching into technologies I like to play with at home. Still have to do all the work-work bits, but it makes it worthwhile.
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