Ah, Threat-Detecting Boots
If only.
BOFH logo telephone with devil's horns The Boss is wandering around Mission Control asking thoughtful but pointless questions to give the impression that he really cares, whilst in reality he has some crazy idea percolating in his brain that he wants us to look favourably upon. “I think the whole building should go mobile — …
What you have to watch out for is that charlie-horse from the military years that just happens to grab, and yank your leg up straight at someone's crotch...
No, it isn't spiffy like the threat detection technology, but you couple that with PTSD, and you're good to go.
Many moons ago, while I was still in the rat race, my manager told me at one appraisal I needed to be less argumentative.
Coincidentally, the placement student we had with us at the time had a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. It was the talk of the office/lab, and people were gushing over it.
I read it, and some of the examples in there - it's mainly examples, after all - were toe-curlingly twee. But what I then did was apply it to the letter (and then some) in every dealing I had with anyone in the office for the next month or so. If I occasionally slipped up, I'd apologise and reverse what I just said.
It drove them nuts. I agreed with everything and refused to get involved in any form of conflict or disagreement. People were saying "Please. Go back to normal".
Trying to generate energy based on the denseness of certain individuals is dangerous. Stupidual holes tend to self amplify until critical denseness is reached and surpassed.
( The actual prototype reactors are called "meetings", some are called "management discussions" or "motivational courses" and many more varieties exist.)
Once the stupidational pull gets too high, the surroundings get sucked in.
So whenever a "brainstorm","meeting" or any other kind of management density reactor is loosing its containment gradually or even bursts spontaneously, the surrounding individuals and companies get dragged down, much too often with dire results.
I tried one once. It worked brilliantly for most of the week, I could focus on the task in hand and got a record amount of work done.
Right up until Friday afternoon. After a week of work and lack of sleep, my own brain entered the Stupid zone. The helmet got caught in an infinite loop, trying to protect my brain from it's own thoughts, before finally realising the stupidity of it's own actions and cancelling itself right out of existence.
Sorta, they just keep spinning it off into new markets.
I hear the Vatican is workshopping their own take, as sort of a fundraising experiment: 'Vestors Vestibule. Supposed to be very fancy. The ventures ride in on their Vespas, the pitching priests don the vestments, and this travesty of a joke is why I'll die a Vestal virgin.
Inhouse ferrets also do the trick. Nice and playful little buggers, as long as there are no violations to the prime directive: dont mess with my family.
We had a nasty occurence when a guests cat thought it would be wise to scratch my son and one of the ferrets witnessed that. You haven´t seen lightspeed until you see a ferret going postal and suddenly switching from lying around straight to "ludicrous speed" AKA attack velocity.
Took quite a bit of effort to help the cat survive.
Still waiting for "bring your pet to work" day. And ferrets dont even require batteries....
Would those idiot cancelling devices come pre loaded with a BOFH-compatible database or would they have to be programmed either by direct user specifications or by "learning" ? Especially the "learning" part would sadly delay the much needed relief.
Bit of an institution and used in much popular culture, possibly most creepily in the series Life on Mars
M.
Dont upgrade your electrical education devices too much. When my flyswatter ceased to function (one of those tennis racket types) i added a few more capacitors on the barbecue side, changed the energy source from normal AA to Li-Ion and the step up and flyback board has also seen some optimisations.
Now any normal fly literally explodes with a satisfying electrical crack sound.
If you do the same to a real cattleprod, dont forget your insulator suit and gloves.
So what shall it be ? Comfortable clothing or reliable deterrent ?
Decisions, decisions....
Burning through annoying individuals with that kind of Bio-EDM could cause trouble with the authorities - or at least the janitor.
If you're going to "heave" a book at someone, I can think of better choices than K&R. At 288 pages, it will scarcely make an impact.
On first looking into K&R, I was equally impressed by its technical value and its monetary cost of about 10p per page. I see the cover price is now £49.49, more than 17p per page.
If they are real collegues, they will actively take part in the idiocy deterrent action.
Somehow i am afraid this might need dietary inconveniences to always have the necessary amount of "ammo" ready to fire.
Then again, BOFH stories often speak of onion bhajis, maybe theres a deeper meaning to this ?
denied my usual round of keyboard destruction by being dragged to a customer's site by the boss for the day("Be nice Boris, and say things like 'That idea could cause some production issues' instead of 'That idea is a load f'ing shite.. who came up with it? a deranged monkey with a box of f'ing crayons?' ")
I could really really do with a set of those headphones.... and glasses however the boots (steel toed) I can provide for myself but have no one to use the cattle prod on as my PFY handed his notice in today :(