BOFH: Oh go on. Strap me to your Hell Desk, PFY "So what do you think?" the Boss asks. "You've had more experience than me at this." "Hypochondria?" I say "Yes, I suppose you're right." "There's nothing hypochondriac about repetitive strain injuries!" the Boss snaps. "You mean OOS," the PFY counters. "And of course there is. Have you ever noticed how over-represented …
Book it under User Sensitivity Training.
Hmm.. You've just given me an idea for a module for some anti sexual-harrassment course.. "Basic User Sensitivity Training" aka B.U.S.T.
Now.. To work out how to word it right so HR don't notice.
Then to find a job in a firm with a HR dept so I can try it out...
How am I supposed to get anything done until I've read ALL of them now...?
Wrong question. "How much of my excuse database will I use up until I have read them all?" conveys a more correct approach to the issue.
However, if it's really a problem, the BOFH approach is to schedule your reading as training and hire a room for it at the nearest pub so you can also expense your beer whilst reading.
:)
"Thanks to that link, I've now found the BOFH archive. How am I supposed to get anything done until I've read ALL of them now...?"
Been, there... I guess most of us have. Except jake, of course.
But definitely time well spent, and yes, you do learn a lot that's very helpful.
The good thing about getting all the way to the end of BOFH is that, for the time being, there is the probability Simon will produce more episodes. Once Simon has shuffled off this mortal coil then getting to the end will be too too final.
Or one could always start over and re-read the entire thing again, just like a good book.
I just automatically assumed the BOFH was referring to Benedict Arnold, yeah. (More than anything else, simply because there was no way Simon was going to just toss the PFY's name in there like that, so it had to have some other meaning. America's most famous turncoat was the closest logical fit.) A rare bone tossed to the BOFH's US following!
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Does the PFY actually have a name?
Yup. It's "Stephen".
For your reward (for not having read enough BOFH to know), please be sure to sample the free Onion Bhajis(sp) by the rubbish bin on your way out.
(ISTR El Reg used to have a BOFH icon? What gives fellows? Add that one to the extra lines of icons we need!)
Saftey calls for never crossing (which might include not being so naive as to reveal a potentially profitable line at work in front of the BOFH and certainly never to the boss who is as trustworthy as that moldy stuff in the jar in the back of the fridge). Continued decent working relations require a cut in the action, but that has to be handled very cautiously because clearly the BOFH is no more trustworthy that the boss might be.
I say cart because as far as I'm concerned the thing's too narrow to be considered a desk, so it's a cart. Found its way to me free from someone who had no use for it. Now I have no use for it, but I do have the space so I hang on to it anyway.
It's single-person width, large primary surface, full-width (and full-depth, surprisingly) slide-out keyboard shelf fixed below, couple of shallower shelves mounted far above and below the main surface, and all of it fixed to these two vertical side pillars on wheels.
The pillars are there because the thing's height-adjustable, using these two knobs below the main surface, one on each pillar, that crank the desk upwards or downwards when you turn them both frontwards or backwards at the same time.
It's a nice idea, but the problem is that you can only adjust the height of the "desk" surface when there's no weight on the "desk" surface, and there can't really be anything on the shelf below the desk surface or you won't be able to get to the knobs. So, apparently they expected anyone using this cart as a "desk" to completely remove everything from it, whenever they wanted to adjust the height.
Life's too short for that sort of nonsense. So, now it sits, piled with spare-parts boxes, construction materials, and miscellaneous crap, making itself minimally useful to my life.
Hmmm, as heavy as those over-twenty-inch CRTs used to be, I'm having doubts about their, uh, mind-altering effectiveness via point-blank toppling. I'd have much more faith in one of those Barco ceiling projectors of yore the size of a smaller minifridge, with three separate naval cannon sized lenses for RGB, that would split a mahogany executive desk clean in two if someone were to carelessly install the wrong driver that just happened to contain an "eject" option...
Hmmm, as heavy as those over-twenty-inch CRTs used to be, I'm having doubts about their, uh, mind-altering effectiveness via point-blank toppling.
That's why you use FAST stepper motors. The closer you can get to free fall, the better, after that it's just a matter of backing up first for enough distance to get up to speed. The added benefit of fast motors is that the desk can trap any users that try to escape.
There is always an argument for over engineering :)
I have one of those at the office. It's a pretty big one, too...
I use the adjustments in the summer only.
In the evening I raise it to the top, then slip under it to reach the handle on the window so I can close it. (Desk is too wide to reach by leaning over it without risking to topple over. and the monitors are also in the way)
Then in the morning the next day I slip under again, open the window, get back up and lower the desk for a another day of work in a hot office...
Adjusting the desk for health reasons?
Then I'd need to start messing with the settings of my chair, and THAT ain't happening!
Quite the twist. At first, I thought the PFY was going for his BOFH Masters-levels and was planning to take the boss out by himself. Electrically adjustable desk AND battery-operated adjustable chair fro the PFY's basement? That just SCREAMS "kzzzzzrrrt"-moment. But no, the PFY was just after some cold hard. And now it's war... Considering the recent slowish pace of episodes, this may take us through Halloween before it's resolved.
I work in a fairly large hospital. Beancounter manager has one of these electric desks that can raise and lower at a touch of a button. Rest of the hospital - wooden blocks hand crafted by the estates department's "finest" chippy.... Some one told me that it cost over a grand and took 3 people to carry and install it.
What budget deficit???
Anyway, when I go and visit his office and no one is looking, I lower it by 1/2".....
Think he is on long term sick leave. Must be coincidence?
Especially as I have an electrically operated height adjustable desk that I'm well, sitting at currently.
Better desk at home than in the office but as I work mostly from home nowadays.
Did come from Ikea though and is surprisingly solid.
Was 20% cheaper than 2 months travel on the train into London from just outside the M25 and saves the 3 hour round trip hell that is Southeastern and Thameslink combined.
I got one for my 10 year son. Ordered it after he claimed he could not do his homework since the desk/chair was wrong height for him. I have no metrics on homework productivity before and after. The desk is quite solid though. If they figured out how to provide for the power and ethernet cords it would be perfect.
I've been looking for one for a few years and all the ones I've seen have been damn expensive, saw them in offices in Sweden, everyone had them.
Since I was going to work from home a lot, looking at desks and decided to look at Ikea and saw they were selling motorised desks, they're pretty sturdy, the one I've got has a max weight load of 100Kgs. They're also very heavy and have a 10 year warranty, can't sneeze at that.
Best desk I've bought for the price.
Based on hellish work past few weeks, I would still like a management crushing desk though :)
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having a bunch of these desks wouldve guaranteed epic mayhem.
and I'm kinda disappointed the PFY wasn't really developing this thing solely as a "trap" for beancounters and HR folks anyway.
best thing to do would wait until orders were paid for, then extort what's due. And enjoy the chaos
I was thinking just that - why not hold out until Shortbus Central rolls out an order for a tidy several hundred, then research if the remote option scales gracefully, meanwhile pocketing a tidy "finders fee" in the bug bounty hunt that you successfully challenged the boss and the pfy to after feeding them a good dozen pints on the company account....
Of the evolution of the office desk.
I have an old style desk in the shed which I hope to press back into service once the Tuit is sufficiently round.
Currently using an aircraft carrier sized multi level Ikea desk where at least half of the surface is unusable behind other bits of kit. Built like a brick walled shithouse though.
Not the latest shiny AMOLED 4K UHD Thunderbolt Overdrive Octocore Paperthin Edgeless flatscreen? Several options: 1) Elfin Safety has ordained that this lumbering beast is too heavy for anyone to even just touch, so The Boss is stuck with it. 2) Simon has uncovered an, ahem, incompatibility between the driver for said AMOLED 4K etcetera screen and the Boss's PC, more specifically between the AMOLED 4K etcetera screen and Freecell, whereas any Excel sheet would get visibly and irreversably corrupted. 3) the latest shiny AMOLED 4K UHD Thunderbolt Overdrive Octocore Paperthin Edgeless flatscreen has blown out the window or slipped through a crack in the floor.
Some of the places I've worked, the best excuse for a desk was a 4x8 foot sheet of plywood supported by a couple of crates. If it was too thin, it would sag in the middle.
Wrong height? "Do you have a chain saw?" might be the answer. Of course the use of a chain saw usually wasn't directed at the desk supports, but that is another story.
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