BOFH: In the event of a conference, the ninja clause always applies BOFH logo telephone with devil's horns "Uh, I refer you to my decision tree document," I say to the Boss, in response to his suggestion that the PFY and I attend a celebratory event that (and I quote) "no IT person can afford to miss". "What decision tree document?" the Boss asks. "There's a laminated A4 sheet in your …
Many years ago we had an intern wirh those duties.
That intern independently created a fictitious manager who had sole purchasing authority. Klingons were referred to the manager, who never seemed to be in his office. He told me about it when he came to me with a request to create a voicemail box (voice mailbox? voicemailbox?) to help add credibility to the scheme.
Bright kid. I need to look in to where he ended up.
Rhuad,
There can always be laminated rules, if you want them. If they don't already exist, then it can be your pleasure to create them. The rules you write, are likely to be the ones that suit you best.
Proposed rules:
If a meeting doesn't have beer, then there should be decent tea and coffee, plus cakes and doughnuts.
*Else there should be pizza.
Any meeting that doesn't have beer must have a 2-page written exception notice justifying why beer is not provided.
Cidertarians should be catered for equally, when beer is provided. Whiskytarians also.
Bacon sandwiches are a human right.
Sorry, you've already failed at the pizza step.
If pizza is being provided, it must be from a reputable supplier (no Crapper Johns, no Little Caesars, no Pizza Slut).
Said pizza must not be composed of only cheese or any cheese + single topping options.
No more than 10% of available pizza may be vegetarian.
BBQ chicken is NOT a pizza flavor. Nor should any pizza contain pineapple or corn.
If a reputable local artisan pizza shop is within 5 miles of the meeting, no chain pizza whatsoever is permissible.
And when you get to the beer...
No macrobrews. None whatsoever. If it's available nationally, it's almost certainly not acceptable.
No more than 30% of beer available may be IPA. Almost everybody is sick of hop tea at this point.
If a local brewery that doesn't suck exists, at least 50% of available beer will be sourced from there. If multiple non-sucky local breweries exist, 100% of available beer will be sourced from more than one local brewery. No, it does NOT matter if the meeting is in St. Louis, Buttwiper is still a macrobrew and still not acceptable.
If whisky is provided, Jack Daniels is only acceptable if the meeting is within 200 miles of Lynchburg Tennessee. And it's still considered a questionable choice.
If bacon sandwiches are provided, there must be available non-iceburg lettuce and high quality, flavorful tomatoes.
Bacon must be Benton's or other suitable artisan bacon.
You've got to get detailed, or you end up with crappy pizza and Coors Light.
VicMortimer,
Whoah! We're going to need a laminated lever-arch file at this rate. Although I approve of many of your suggestions.
HOWEVER
If bacon sandwiches are provided, there must be available non-iceburg lettuce and high quality, flavorful tomatoes.
What is this sick filth?!?!
The holy bacon sandwhich is a very simple thing.
Bread: Quality bread is nice, but not essential here. Cheap sliced white is fine - I prefer a decent quality soft roll myself: Should be lightly buttered.
Bacon: Cheap bacon is useable in emergencies only. So long as it's cooked properly so the rind/fat has gone crispy. Otherwise decent quality - don't nuke it! Bacon isn't supposed to shatter.
Sauce: None. However ketchup and HP sauce should be available - only to stop people moaning.
Lettuce and tomato are for metrosexual health-nutcases who ought to be sent to run twenty laps of the building, and not to come back until the bacon has been finished. Then they can eat their beloved rabbit food to their hearts' content.
Jebus Freakin Crist Spartacus! What is this sandwich that you proclaim? Anyhow, not much into bacon sandwich to begin with...
Quality bread IS essential and sliced white is - does this even qualify as bread?! And then it simply has to be "prosciutto crudo", preferably from Parma. I agree on the other non-ingredients though.
You've got a good point there.
Nice doing business with you Sir. This agreeing with other people on the internet will never catch on though...
While I like my bread to be nice and tasty, there are some things where the square, cheap, sliced white is OK. For example, if you get one of the toastie makers that crimps the edges of the toastie - those square supermarket loaves are the only things that fit properly. And if you don't crimp the edges, all the melted cheese leaks out the sides. Disaster! Plus I like the egg toastie, which positively requires it - put in bread, single raw egg, slap slice on top close maker as quick as you can and hold down to crimp edges before catastrophic egg-leakage. Gets you a mixed fried/poached egg in toast. Yum.
Crap white seems to be OK for a bacon sarnies too. Whereas it seems to make a cheese sandwich much worse.
A Maria's bacon sandwich was to die for... soggy white bread; catering bacon cooked by her husband, in stained 'white' vest while smoking a ciggy; smear of catering 'butter'; cut by the fearsome Maria herself using a ancient knife like a stiletto due to years of sharpening... heavenly!!!
The place, just off Warren St, is sadly long gone, but it did sustain many a worker back in the 70s/80s
Can I put in a vote for Garibaldi? And a proper ginger nut as the dunker. Both have the advantage of being chosen last by others, meaning more chance there will be some left for me.
And definitely plain chocolate digestives, not the milk kind (ugh). All four have the advantage of being "cheap" biscuits. If budget is less constrained then a Borders chocolate ginger is welcome (but tends to disappear very quickly).
M.
There are many more kinds of biscuits than that, the more that are there the better the chances the one you want left for you to eat :)
Expand you biscuit selection!
Rich tea, Digestives, malted milk ginger nuts can uncoated or with milk/dark chocolate
Fruit shortbread, shortbread and nice biscuits, pink wafers .
There are many many more
This isn't the bloody Dark Ages you know!
The biscuit game has improved since the 1970s! You don't have to put up with dead-fly biscuits, or boring-Bourbons. Let alone the bland-o-thon that is the Rich Tea or the Malted Milk.
A dark chocolate Disgestive is what I consider a plain biscuit now. I have moved from regular biscuit eater, to buying nice ones for when people come round, and only being allowed the left-overs in the tin for myself. Otherwise I'd probably be a 20-a-day man...
There's chocolate covered gingers, Choco Leibnitz, Jaffa Cakes (I know they're not biscuits - but yum!), at Christmas there's lebkuchen and specooloos, the occasional box of super-chocolate covered selection boxes - you can often get cheap before and after Christmas. I am still partial to a Jammy Doger though.
Truth to tell, I think I've gone a bit middle class in my old age. Especially the poncy foreign grub - but that's because I got dragged over to live in Brussels by work twenty years ago - and I've never recovered. I even like roast horse, though obviously I couldn't eat a whole one. Nor is that something you keep in your biscuit tin.
Lidl do a very nice Belgian continental biscuit selection box at Christmas.
banking app!
I see your banking app and raise you new shiny VM hub that won't talk to wifi devices.Eventually gave in. Phoned VM. Techie was meant to come Saturday PM between 1 and 4 - after they decided it was configured wrong. Not happening so we have no wifi till Monday.
...which involves a two-hour drive trapped in a vehicle with a work colleague...
...who believes that Bill Gates is buying all the land world-wide (and the Moon and Mars), who heard the Head of WHO proclaiming the decimation of world population to 10 per cent, and who knows that Covid doesn't exist and in fact was invented to reach the mentioned population target. Before you ask, yes, this colleague did happen and yes, I wish it didn't.
I like those sorts of colleague
Partly because it gives me insight into his/her personality, but mostly so I can add more 'facts' to their beliefs.
I mean who would have guessed all those dashcams on peoples cars can transmit live video back to the government so they can spy on what the population are upto when they drive and indeed how they drive just so they can select a few people at random to get 'due care and attention' fines while sitting at 50 mph in the middle lane of a motorway for several hours.
Or how metal coins interfere with cell phones evesdropping on what we chat about so thats why physical money is steadily being replaced by online apps.
And that aliens secretly rule the world because humans have proven to be no good at it.
ANd the last and most important one is the mind control chemicals secretly slipped into beer to make the world a warmer and fuzzier place..... hic fat potted plants... heh
The sort of person who uses the words "I think" and increases their truth deficit every time they utter them.
I yearn for my old ToughBook which conveniently doubled as a bludgeon and still performed its primary function afterwards, thereby providing a plausible alibi. We did it to ourselves, of course. We let AOL and Geocities happen and it became the Anti-Social Media circus we now know and hate.
《..who believes that Bill Gates is buying all the land world-wide (and the Moon and Mars), who heard the Head of WHO proclaiming the decimation of world population to 10 per cent, and who knows that Covid doesn't exist and in fact was invented to reach the mentioned population target.》
Substitute Musk for Gates and in this business just being the same room these days you will have at least two of these spewing this sort of nonsense and much, much... worse. Verging on Vogon poetry. Although to his (dis)credit Elon is doing his very best(worst) to live up to these ravings.
At the bottom of the article was a survey wrt whether we will be integrating AI into our organisation. I answered 'no'
But I have just thought a use for it - automated responses to sales emails.
Though, in light of the Canada Air court case we would to REALLY screw down the responses before the AI agreed to purchase whatever snake-oil the vendor was selling
We used to buy a particular specialised item available from several manufacturers, but two in particular. The respective salesmen were Gordon and Tony..... The products were not identical, consumed spares and were (relatively) expensive. There was great pressure on each salesman to get their product into our bespoke, rotating machines. The two salesmen were very different: Gordon was gregarious and full of bonhomie, Tony had had a social lobotomy, was pleasant enough but he had an embarrassing nickname (I will refrain from using it but it still makes me smile). But..... he held a key card: his product was cheaper and he knew it.
The decision day was looming and it was clear that Tony was well in the lead. He was invited in to discuss the terms: cost, delivery, stock, response times etc. and most importantly, who the named contact was going to be: Tony himself, as we were assured. As we finished, we agreed to get the proposal written up for mutual signing. Lunchtime loomed and it was thought a celebration was due. Unfortunately, Tony had 'other business' to attend to and had to dash off immediately to another customer. Oh, well. Another time.
Soon after Tony left, Gordon appeared on the scene and stopped for a quick chat. Although aware he was about to lose this contract he looked at his watch and said, "Let's go and have lunch." There were four in our party so this was indeed generous on his part.
At the restaurant, who is sitting in the far corner? None other than .....Billy Nomates! Tony quaffing a celebratory beer whilst eating his Chow Mein. His crest truly fell when we walked in accompanied by his main competitor. Telling fibs at the start of a vendor-customer relationship was a bad move. He didn't get the order and over the years we went on to spend a lot of money with Gordon.
If you don't mind being a social pariah offline, start to sell however tries to sell you something about "A religious retreat you are going next weekend" that includes such marvels as waking up one hour before sunrise, hard breaking labour, praying for two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon, no alcohol or smoking, no tech of any kind and a nearby hill blocking cell phone reception.
I had concerns for PFY's wellbeing when the AED (packerwhacker) was mentioned and retrieved.
Getting a belt from one of those could be life changing. (Yes I know the AED actually tries to detect cardiac electrical activity before discharging but operator incompetence or bastardry might also apply.)
In any case the barman's £20☆ was explained by the more liquid heart starter being substituted.
In the interest of accuracy there was "AI" twenty plus years ago and oddly decision trees in the guise of expert systems were one of its things back then.
☆ legitimate business expense.
And in the interests of dissemination of knowledge, herewith repeated the two links at the bottom of every BOFH story documentary:
The earliest (officially) remaining BOFH, from around 1995 or so: The BOFH Archive
The continued adventures of BOFH since his tenure at Vulture Towers (2000ish): El Reg BOFH Archive.
From the first of the above, the official origin story: BOFH Prehistory, which confirms my dodgy memory of reading BOFH articles at university in the late 1980s.
Hope this helps.
M.
If there's not hot, meat-based food at the event, we won't be going
I got stuck working on a European Social Fund project back in the late 90s, where the working practice was considerably more hippy-dippy than anything I'd previously experienced. The initial icebreaker/team-building event that I was obliged to attend for a full day did not suit my utterly introverted self; the only friend I made was when I got chatting with one of the admin assistants over the buffet lunch table. Neither of us could identify as much as 10% of the oddly-shaped processed vegetarian products on offer so we legged it for the chippie.
This post has been deleted by its author
When I saw the image fronting this story something vaguely familar about the figure ineffectually attempting to conceal himself behind a potted plant which appears to be what is commonly called Mother in law’s tongue (Sansevieria trifasciata) in these parts.
Just came to me that the figure resembles 11th Doctor sporting a decent beard (not the ones in the Day of the Moon, or The Wedding of River Song) looking like he is avoiding her indoors who has got the hump with him and is on the warpath.
Anyway I learnt the PFY's name is probably Stephen. Like the the stoned martyr. :)
The comment about " a two-hour drive trapped in a vehicle with a work colleague " brought back memory of a trip with a coworker from hell. It was a 3 hour drive to a conference with a new coworker who insisted on driving since she would get very car sick if she wasn't driving. Never got over 50mph and the 3 hour drive became 5 - both ways! Plus, she dropped us at the door, went to park and we didn't see her again until the end of the day! Never explained where she went.
...she was going to a very boring convention, so she got completely off her face.
Apparently sales and marketing bods can't cope with a loved up woman dancing half naked on a table at the coffee stand in the middle of a large convention centre.
Yes she got fired, but she didn't care, she landed a dream job a few months later.
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