BOFH: You know something's up when the suits want to spend money

BOFH logo telephone with devil's horns "How are we going with the server replacements?" the new Boss asks, looking down his to-do list. "Server replacements?" the PFY asks. "Yeah, replacing our core systems. Surely we're going to replace the servers?" "Most of our 'servers' are in the cloud." "Oh. What about our network …

[Bebu sa Ware]

a 'Management Abstraction† Layer'

through an open third storey window would be favourite.

_{† sense #6. the act of withdrawing or removing.}

[b0llchit]

Re: a 'Management Abstraction† Layer'

You will need an exceptional intelligent AI to produce

'Hang on a minute, I'll just ask'

responses. Perfect opportunity to add that to the list as well, wouldn't it?

[frankvw]

Re: a 'Management Abstraction† Layer'

I remember the T-shirts from the late 1990s that said "Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script".

Seems that a MAL is not that new an idea...

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: a 'Management Abstraction† Layer'

"very small shell script"

AFAIK The smallest syntactically correct (Bourne) shell script is:

:

Older Unix system would invoke csh it the first character was a # which might replace a bad tempered manglement type.

Arguably even a single character is over-implementation.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: a 'Management Abstraction† Layer'

The smallest shell script is

:(){ :|:& };:

try it !

[stiine]

Re: a 'Management Abstraction† Layer'

re: try it !

I'm not that stupid.

[Paul Crawford]

Re: a 'Management Abstraction† Layer'

Tell them to fork off...

[Jedit]

"Seems that a MAL is not that new an idea..."

But if you put it on a T-shirt, won't you be introducing MAL-wear to the system?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: a 'Management Abstraction† Layer'

Hang on a minute, I'll just ask.

Can I have a raise?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: a 'Management Abstraction† Layer'

I tried that, and fuck me, it worked. I'd never done that before, and probably won't have the nerve to try it again.

[Pete 2]

Too much money to spend

One place I worked, my job description could be called "anti-sales".

When new equipment was needed, and with an IT budget of over £100 million a year, that was all the time, I was tasked with working out what specifications were actually required. That was to counter the suppliers sales teams who considered the company an easy target, since the people signing off on new kit knew didily-squat about MIPs, gigabytes or bandwidth. The closest they got to technical knowledge was "oooh, shiny".

After one carefully prepared, numerically sound, counter-proposal the question of software licensing came up. I told the PHB how many were needed now and what the future would require. However, the wily salesperson had slipped in a bunch of extra licenses. Much like a dishonest waiter will "accidentally" add another round of drinks to the bill.

It turned out that bossy-kins had assumed both numbers were the same and put the order in, with the inflated license numbers. When someone questioned the extra cost, manager-person replied "oh well, it's only £60k" and the audit department was satisfied with that.

[Mike007]

Re: Too much money to spend

We had a junior employee whose role included doing the research and proposing suitable equipment for one-off projects.

I was given approval to purchase myself a new laptop when my position was officially changed to a developer role, as at the time I had an old MacBook that was struggling with some of the more demanding stuff.

Above mentioned employee was twiddling his thumbs that day, so I suggested he could help do some googling for a nice professional looking i7, 32GB RAM sort of spec laptop that would look good when I visit clients as someone with the word senior in my new job title.

That was how I ended up with an i9 with 64GB RAM, 2TB NVMe drive, and 4k touch screen.

Shortly after this, I was tasked with seeing what spare parts we had laying around the office. After checking the specs of a system sitting on the shelf collecting dust, which had been purchased for a one-off event playing a single 512x512pixel video stream, I went and gave our main proxmox server a significant hardware upgrade for zero cost... And his purchase proposals started getting more scrutiny!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Too much money to spend

To be fair to the employee he was obviously trying to ensure machines that had plenty of "headroom" in case initial demands were an underestimate of what would be required.

A distinct improvement on low spec purchases (glares at his work machine with barely enough disk space for one decent sized database once all necessary software is installed and where CPU & memory usage rarely dip below about 90% of max & the fan never seems to get a rest )

[Bebu sa Ware]

"shared equally between the selection committee and the award winners"

Bribery. Old but golden even more so when the readies were more or less "(mis)appropriated" from the party being bribed.

Looking at the risk assessment of Simon's proposal:

Hazard: Award going to another group.

Severity: Catastrophic.

Risk: none.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: "shared equally between the selection committee and the award winners"

<in the voice of Stephen Fry in Absolute Power mode>Bribery is such a strong word. We can see that you're new to this, Morris. What's actually being proposed is a revolutionary shared incentive scheme that will holistically align the rewards with reducing risk to The Company with those assessing those risks, creating new opportunities for synergies across The Company.

Another bottle of claret, Morris.

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

"An early play of the Health and Safety wildcard."

"An early play of the Health and Safety wildcard."

Never a truer word spoken , that and "Data Protection" are the "catch all" jokers in the pack that can be used as a reason to do anything , or to not do something .

[Sparkypatrick]

Re: "An early play of the Health and Safety wildcard."

Indeed. I had a support zombie from MS cite GDPR as to why he couldn't just message me on Teams instead of endless emails.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: "An early play of the Health and Safety wildcard."

Or, more likely, it was a CYA excuse on his/her part. Keep the email trail and not a potentially nebulous ad/or unrecorded Teams conversation/meeting :-) It could also be related to his/her performance metrics record keeping.

[The Organ Grinder's Monkey]

Re: "An early play of the Health and Safety wildcard."

Upvoted for "support zombie".

[Anonymous Coward]

Management Abstraction Layer

replace a chunk of intermediary positions with a web page that just says 'Hang on a minute, I'll just ask' in response to any question submitted to it."

Genious.

We have an "Information Governance" team who's jobs could probably be replaced by a couple of wall posters, or at the max a powerpoint training slideshow

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Management Abstraction Layer

"Genious."

Agreed (well, almost). But it's a line worthy of the late great Douglas Adams.

[Steve K]

"colored pencil office"

"colored" pencil office????

[Caver_Dave]

Re: "colored crayon office"

Marketing/Strategy/etc.

1. They use the crayons to draw all the pretty pictures - usually someone else will actually then convert the drawings to PowerPoint for them to drone in front of

2. Cannot be trusted with anything sharper than a crayon

3. Crayons also used to cross out on the menu of "blue sky" terms they use in every missive - pivot, leverage, etc.

[ChrisC]

Re: "colored crayon office"

Methinks "u" have missed the point the previous commenter was trying to make there...

[FifeM]

Re: "colored crayon office"

Some years ago the original request for a "Cray online drawing package" was mistyped as "Crayon line drawing package".

I once offered a client a fix for their Y10K problems, complete with money back guarantee. They preferred to take the risk. They also ran a competition for money saving ideas. They weren't too keen on a proposal for saving the company $12 million, by not paying the CEO a $12 million bonus.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: "colored pencil office"

"colored" pencil office????

Obviously a typo.

The "colo-red pencil office" is the co-location office for the single colour red pencil team who are in charge of putting that one red line in the email signature which means every email gets printed out in, and charged for, colour

They are in a colo-located office so that nobody can find them and stop them

[M.V. Lipvig]

Re: "colored pencil office"

That's what happens when you sell your company to California liberals. Suddenly the words are changes to the "superior" American spelling, because what do the English know about spelling English words anyway?

I'll get me coat and hat, as my account will probably now be deleted for being SLIGHTLY negative about California liberals.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: "colored pencil office"

Damn liberal extremists

[Excused Boots]

Re: "colored pencil office"

Only the 'red' pencils.

[Number6]

Re: "colored pencil office"

Also in California, I was introduced to someone "from Canada", so I said "Ah, someone else who knows how to pronounce the last letter of the alphabet", to which I got the response "Zed". Then we made fun of various US things.

[herman]

Re: "colored pencil office"

So, I take it that a striped donkey is a Zedbra now?

[HorseflySteve]

Re: "colored pencil office"

"So, I take it that a striped donkey is a Zedbra now?"

It always was. The "d" is silent in pronunciation and people keep forgetting to put it in when they write it down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "colored pencil office"

Letters can be pronounced differently when named than when they are used in a word.

You probably don't pronounce "always" as "A ell double-you A whys"

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: "colored pencil office"

Close. Zeb-brah, NOT Zee-brah :-p

[disgruntled yank]

Re: "colored pencil office"

@M.V. Lipvig

The US, not to say "u"-less, spellings such as "color", "harbor", etc. were chiefly the work of Noah Webster, who lived in the northeastern US, and who died while California was still the property of Mexico. So, sure, a California liberal.

[Slow Joe Crow]

Re: "colored pencil office"

Don't worry, most of the Pacific Northwest hates Californians too. Oregon and Washington have been overrun by Californians fleeing the consequences of bad political decisions and immediately replicating them while driving up home prices, and crowding cities.

As for spelling, several centuries of separation have simultaneously caused drift and preserved languages. Some Appalachian dialects are closer to Elizabethan English than any 20th Century UK speech and similarly Quebecois is is closer to 17th Century French than modern French. I'm still a bit surprised when Brits use American sports metaphors like "step up to the plate" or loanwords like boondocks or boonie which is Tagalog. Then again we use trek a lot, which is Boer, so I guess slang terms from colonial wars crossed the Atlantic.

Back on topic, defenestration seems like a great way to clear dead wood in both personnel and operating systems

[Ropewash]

Re: "colored pencil office"

California liberals and their politically correct policies are the reason there's even a 'colored' pencil office in the first place. We used to just have black pencils, but you ain't supposed to call 'em that anymore.

[Claptrap314]

Re: "colored pencil office"

Yes, you know, the one that wants seven red ink lines, all of them perpendicular, two of them blue and two transparent.

[TeeCee]

"Hang on a minute, I'll just ask."

That's a massive improvement on the old middle-management way of doing things: pull an answer out of their arseholes and then blame their subordinates for not working hard enough to make that answer correct.

[My other car WAS an IAV Stryker]

The old line from "Ghostbusters" is never lost on me

"We may not be talking human sacrifice and cats and dogs living together, but it could be bad," the PFY replies.

A Friday toast ---> to Simon for alluding to Pre-Web "Deep" Geek Culture.

(You want my vote for anything? Quote "Ghostbusters", "Spaceballs", or Monty Python in my general direction.)

[Charlie Clark]

Re: The old line from "Ghostbusters" is never lost on me

HGTTG?

[My other car WAS an IAV Stryker]

Re: The old line from "Ghostbusters" is never lost on me

Yes, that too. Shame on me for omitting it.

[Sam not the Viking]

Re: The old line from "Ghostbusters" is never lost on me

Well, I wasn't expecting that!

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: The old line from "Ghostbusters" is never lost on me

ARE YOU A GOD?

[Hazmoid]

Re: The old line from "Ghostbusters" is never lost on me

When Sigourney Weaver turns into a Hellhound " So, She's a dog?"

[amanfromMars 1]

One small step for a man, one giant quantum communications leap for iMankind

That BOFH post has me pondering and wondering whether El Reg are up for global international and universatile internetional leadership with the simple publishing of novel complex news of emerging situations.

One surely has to admit the present conventional historical and hysterical incumbents have definitely lost the plot and are proving themselves daily totally unfit for future greater intelligence purpose. And one can only ignore and claim not to see the bleeding fcuking obvious for so long before every other man and his dog realise the madness before them and resolve to fix it and revolt ....... with the creation of havoc and mayhem against failed and oppressive systems managers and administrators/prime ministers and collectively responsible colleagues, a premium initial attack weapon of virtually autonomous choice. Let them enjoy the taste of their own medicine and the fruits of their labours so that they can better understand and experience the folly of the past and present ways.

Is that not what you clearly see has led to such as is a current inevitable existential calamity?

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: One small step for a man, one giant quantum communications leap for iMankind

Welcome back. We thought you were too busy with your new job writing press releases for OpenAI

[stiine]

Re: One small step for a man, one giant quantum communications leap for iMankind

You could tell?

[amanfromMars 1]

Re. Prime Timely Virtual Leadership via AIDesignedly Complicated and Simplified Memes.

Well then, El Reg ...... what’s it to be? SMARTR AIMaster Class Edutainment for Massive Programs and Engaging Projects Delivering Almighty Enlightenment to Everywhere and Anywhere ..... or something less wholesome and much more trivial whilst foreign worlds and alienated admin systems elsewhere bask in the glory being recorded and reported of the obscene rewards and exclusive benefits delivered by unfathomable success in the Virgin Fields of Future Perfected Greater IntelAIgent Games Play ...... Juicy Lucy Virgin Soldier Territory.

That’s a Real Live Doozy of an Honest Black Friday type Offer right there before everyone’s eyes, El Reg ..... and it’s freely available to any and all others similarly leading with situations worthy of publication and either wanting or needing to play a great deal more than just nicely.

[Camilla Smythe]

"shared equally between the selection committee and the award winners"

Despite the apparent subterfuge of the story with both BOFH and PFY having to discover about the awards via sleuthing through everyone else's emails I am left wondering if BOFH and PFY were not in fact the Selection Committee.

[herman]

BC to AD

That change from BC to AD really got me…

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: BC to AD

Yes, we may still be in the transition phase from BCE/CE. Or maybe that's just a passing fad. Only future history has the answer. ;-)

[dmesg]

Re: BC to AD

Yes, a superb line so casually tossed off.