BOFH: What physics defines as impossible, sales calls a challenge

BOFH logo telephone with devil's horns The Boss wants a new laptop – believing that you should equip yourself for the job you want, not the job you have. Apparently, he wants to be a physicist for NASA who operates his computer by mind control from the Fortress of Solitude. Or something like that. It's likely he's asked AI …

[Dippywood]

That OS...

...conceivably boot into Windows, Linux, macOS, and a yet-to-be-discovered superior operating system from a cosmic dimension we've not yet made contact with

Plan 9 From [Outer Space] | [Bell-Labs]?

[b0llchit]

Re: That OS...

Ah! You mean Planet 9 [OS^†] from the Kuiper Bell(t) Automation Company.

^{† _{Orbiting System}}

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: That OS...

I was thinking of GNU Hurd, myself ...

(I've had Plan 9 [actually, the 9Front variant] running on real (old) hardware. Has anyone ever gotten Hurd running on real hardware?)

[Korev]

Re: That OS...

I was also thinking Gnu Hurd, a quick google brought up this where they can't agree if it's been developed or maintained...

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Re: Hurd

Actually I had a Hurd system running at some point on an old machine but it was kind of a pain in the neither region to maintain, so when the machine died I did not repeat the experiment. I might try again at some point, especially if I can find a -relatively easy- way to make it run on RISC-V (which I 'm not sure is even possible without a tremendous deal of tinkery today)

[that one in the corner]

Re: That OS...

> yet-to-be-discovered superior...

I was assuming that is the one kmorwath is designing for us.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: That OS...

Only if someone pays him. He doesn't like to think work might not be paid for (even when it is).

[Anonymous Custard]

Re: That OS...

Etch-a-sketch is an OS now...?

[TekGuruNull]

Re: That OS...

Suicide Linux?

[Alister]

Re: That OS...

I was thinking, the one that the aliens were using in Independance Day...

But they'd need to find an Anti-Virus solution too...

[BobChip]

Re: That OS...

The Boss has obviously been talking to the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.......

[Mishak]

Sales

Sales guy came into the engineering office all excited. "I've sold this MASSIVE system to a new client. It's going to need to do X, Y and Z".

I relied with "And when is this being delivered? and got "Six weeks. Tops".

He would not accept that we could maybe get it done in six months if we had another couple of programmers on the job.

"But I've already sold it, so you'll just have to do it".

Company went bust not long after. Luckily for me, I was only working there between years when I was at university.

[SomeRandom1]

Re: Sales

Exactly why you can't trust sales people. Or the marketing crayon brigade.

All bullshit, all the time.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Sales

"It will be a drop in replacement for your existing system."

I knew it wouldn't be and as I'd be the one traooed between the client and the office as soon as about that time I bumped into a former client who offered me a job I left.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: Sales

> "It will be a drop in replacement for your existing system."

Usually, more like "drop-on replacement" . . . like a pallet of bricks.

[Blakey]

Re: Sales

You misheard. It will be a *dropping* replacement.

[BartyFartsLast]

Re: Sales

I think I've worked with him too.

[LBJsPNS]

Re: Sales

We all have.

[Martin-R]

Re: Sales

I may have worked with him too! Or they just all like that?

[Mishak]

They are all like that

Not quite the same, but I was at a rebranding event (so designers/marketing people rather than sales) where the "lead" was enthusing about the wonderful changes to the branding.

"This colour means people with think thus, this wonderful change will excite them to do that, and everyone will be delighted by whatever".

He turned to me and the other technical leads and said "So, what do you guys think? Exciting, isn't it"?

Guy in the middle looked to me, at the guy to the other said and replied "Woosh. We're techies".

Presenter was totally unphased and continued as if nothing had happened.

[Giles C]

Re: They are all like that

Years ago I worked for BGL the owner of compare the market.

We had to deal with a huge file transfer for a new tv advert, it was the first one to feature the meerkats. When we got the file downloaded we had to take a look - we would have been the first people to see the fully rendered version.

Our collective comment was”is that going to really sell insurance” good job we were techies as it was a rather successful branding and we would have declared it rubbish….

[ricardian]

Re: They are all like that

Changing colours will have no effect as 8 percent of males suffer from colour blindness

[Giles C]

Re: They are all like that

Yes as someone who is colourblind they changed the shade of blue on the logo where I work, well I was told they did….

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: They are all like that

We had a "consultant" come in to help us techies get on board with DEI..S.. (whatever it is now!)

'They' had a tool that you 'must' run on your personal phone to help you pronoun correctly etc. (I can't remember all the details as I was reading the inside of my eyelids for much of it.)

I do remember 'them' enthusiastically demonstrating both Android and IOS versions, mainly because 'they' fell off their size 12 (or more) stiletto heals when they first moved over to the projected image.

I asked the question "My phone is Android, but I want to identify as an IOS user, does your app accommodate that?"

'They' stormed out to speak to my manager, who yanked me out of the rest of the drivel!

Anon: I know shoes as all my grandparents made shoes and boots, and drilled into me what is a good shoe. I know the managers of the "Kinky Boots" and multiple high end bespoke shoes and boots factories. I know the shape of biologically male feet. But I am going to get lots of negative ticks from the "snowflake generation".

[the spectacularly refined chap]

Re: Sales

I've seen it done. The example that comes to mind is selling a diesel generator to a dairy farmer up the Pennines.

To be be fair farmers do need backup generators round there, power is often unreliable and cows need milking regardless.

But no thought at all to the track leading to the place, no sorry, you're not going to get an artic up there... Too heavy for a commercial helicopter operator, only way to to do that is with an RAF Chinook.

The air force found it useful, it's a "training exercise", flying hours, and chance to indoctrinate the primary school pupils whose field was used as the loading point, but they do charge commercial rates and then some.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Sales

Too big to tow behind the tractor?

[the spectacularly refined chap]

Re: Sales

Quite possibly. I never saw this instance but the biggest sets they installed were the size of 40ft shipping containers - if you needed bigger than that you would chain multiple sets together since obviously road transport is the usual requirement. I wouldn't imagine we would've talking anywhere near that big but even "small" sets could be perhaps 5x5x20ft. I know my local hospital has several such sets dotted around the site (from the same company), presumably they are distributed to avoid the JCB through an on site power line thing.

[CountCadaver]

Re: Sales

Army would have been another option - Royal Logistics Corp or the Royal Tank Regiment - both have all- terrain arctics capable of hauling well over 70 tonnes on or off road in all conditions.

If the track was beyond those....I'm sure a challenger 2 could be fitted with a tow hitch...and little or nothing is going to stop one of those...

[Caver_Dave]

Re: Sales

Yes, but that includes the walls either side of the too small gateways.

[Alister]

Re: Sales

<I'm sure a challenger 2 could be fitted with a tow hitch>

Anyone else seen the Mr Hewes YouTube channel?

He fitted a Chieftain tank with a plough...

[MachDiamond]

Re: Sales

"Sales guy came into the engineering office all excited. "I've sold this MASSIVE system to a new client. It's going to need to do X, Y and Z"."

Another one of the reasons I left a job..... sales weenie promising customers things that go against nature and societal peace. I expect those "customers" were having him on as none of them became "customers". I tried to get manglement to require him to submit promises through the chain of command before committing to such promises and let engineering give them a good squizz first.

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

"You have my word for it"

That phrase sets off the same warning bells as 'Trust me!'*, and 'Honest, guv!'

Neat return of the chicken at the end.

* except when it's Moist Von Lipwig saying it **

** I'll get me coat. The one with "Going Postal" in the pocket, please

[that one in the corner]

Re: "You have my word for it"

> 'Trust me!' ... except when it's ...

"Trust me, I know what I'm doing"

-- Sledge Hammer

[Charlie Clark]

Re: "You have my word for it"

Let me shake your hand. You can always tell an honest man by the shake of his hand.

Nice parrot you've got there, Mr Gilt.

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Re: "You have my word for it"

You can moor boats on my handshake. Trust me

[UCAP]

Re: "You have my word for it"

"Raising Steam" is even better IMHO. Plus PTerry spent a day on our local steam railway line (actually driving some the trains) before he wrote it.

[M.V. Lipvig]

Re: "You have my word for it"

YOU DARE MALIGN MY WORD??!? Prinzessin! Schnapp ihn dir! Beiß ihm in den arsch!

[the spectacularly refined chap]

Re: "You have my word for it"

I think of that oligarch in Cold Lazarus - the TV series with the cryo-preserved head. After one of the surviving protagonists had destroyed most of the lab (but not the head) and barricaded the door against said oligarch and his armed minions.

"You're in a bit of trouble here. But don't worry, I am here to help you out. You have my word on that."

[Blofeld's Cat]

Futureproof ...

I worked on a site where the company had half a racking bay in their warehouse filled with old, still boxed, 386SX PCs, which had been bought by a technologically-challenged PHB and his purchasing manager despite the protests of everyone involved in IT.

The story was that the salesman had taken the PHB out to lunch and had persuaded him the hopelessly underpowered systems were "state of the art", and could easily be updated to meet "any future requirements".

The deal had apparently been clinched when the salesman offered a discount for bulk purchases.

[Bebu sa Ware]

386SX

PHB: What about floating point support ?

Sales: I can honestly say the 386SX's floating support and performance is nothing like anything currently on the market.

Today you could probably get a few bucks from the poor souls that need to maintain ancient and irreplaceable laboratory instruments. Outside industrial control kit, mainboards that sport ISA slots or EISA slots make unobtainium supplies look like a glut.

[simonlb]

Re: 386SX

PHB: What about floating point support ?

About the only real upgrade to those systems would be when you put a 387 coprocessor in that one empty socket on the motherboard. There literally is nothing else you can do.

[GlenP]

Re: 386SX

Going back even further we had someone "acquire" a software package and then complain it didn't work.

Fortunately he'd also acquired a photocopy of the manual (it was pre-internet) so I was able to point to the bit that said, "This software requires a math coprocessor", which at the time was an 8087!

It avoided us having to also tell him he couldn't load the software anyway without a valid license.

[Evil Auditor]

"...regardless of how stupid the question..."

There are no stupid questions. There are, however, questioners that are extremely gifted in the field of brainlessness. Trust me on this one.

[lglethal]

Re: "...regardless of how stupid the question..."

I prefer the South Park version

"There are no stupid questions. Only stupid people..."

[MachDiamond]

Re: "...regardless of how stupid the question..."

""There are no stupid questions. Only stupid people...""

My chemistry teacher in high school used to ask "Any more stupid questions". I broke him of that by keeping a list. With a vacant stare I'd ask, "Who cuts your hair?" or something along those lines. For a while it was "any more stupid questions..... Except for Mr Smith (not real name)?"

Not too surprisingly , the chem teacher and I got on really well. Our senses of humor warped in the same way.

[Boris the Cockroach]

Lucky

it was just coffee over the keys at the last bit of chicken there

Gawd knows what would come out if I ate chicken al la fridge motor,

FOOD ESCAPE FOOD ESCAPE!

[KittenHuffer]

Re: Lucky

But is it escaping via the front door .... the back door .... or both at the same time?!?

That was nearly half a century ago, but I still have vivid memories of Gastroenteritis!

[the Jim bloke]

Re: Lucky

access exit all areas..

[Martin an gof]

Re: Lucky

I still have vivid memories of Gastroenteritis!

Or Norovirus. Makes the rounds of schools every couple of years. Kids bring it home. Buckets at the ready. Not pleasant if bunk beds in use.

M.

[CountCadaver]

Re: Lucky

Who knew you could get so much custard from one cat/sales rep?

Capt.E Blackadder

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Lucky

You're old enough to know better than to read BOFH and consume food or drink at the same time.

[TekGuruNull]

It's a drop in replacement...

<checks to confirm that one edge of spade has been sharpened into a blade>

[Sam not the Viking]

Sales....

Mid 90's. Our company has new owners: New PCs were to be installed together with a smallish, customised MRP system; this was a good thing. We narrowed it down to two suppliers. One had a really good offer, well suited to our requirements; the other was more of an accounts package, suitable but nothing great. The first system was far more intuitive and 'ready to go', the second would need our existing data converting to the required format. The decision would be made after a presentation to manglement by each vendor.

So confident were Company 1 in getting the order, they went out on the piss the night before the presentation and were clearly hungover, almost disinterested. The second Company gave a really dull presentation but which our finance manager understood. Overwhelmingly, Company 2 were adjudged to have the better product.

We ended up with monochrome screens and dumb terminals. We didn't escape this return to the 70's until, having made a complete mess of a good company, we were sold again six years later. Fortunately, I had escaped by then.

[blu3b3rry]

I'm impressed at the BOFH's restraint here

Often as not the best tactic for salesdroids is ensuring their exit from the building is as short and rapid as possible, ideally via the nearest window.

Bonus points if above the fifth floor.

However the longer-term tactic involving some rapid weight loss inducing foodstuffs is also brilliantly evil.

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

Ooo... Ptomaine Poisoning - a Pestilence for the Putrid Peasants. :)

[Herby]

A rehortical question:

Is there an honest salesman?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[herman]

Re: A rehortical question:

Yes, for a very small value of honest.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A rehortical question:

Q: How can you tell that a computer salesman's lying to you?

A: His lips are moving.

[xasperated]

Re: A rehortical question:

What's the difference between a computer salesman and a used car salesman?

The used car salesman knows he's lying.

[Marty McFly]

Re: A rehortical question:

Computer salesmen only exist so that used car salesmen can have a career path!

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: A rehortical question:

In defence of salesmen, as a customer I always found Leitz microscope salesmen knew their stuff and at least some of them had been service techs. They made a point of visiting on a regular basis although it was unlikely that they'd make a sale on any particular occasion. On one occasion in my QUB days we mentioned that SWMBO's x10 objective wasn't parfocal with the x40. He pertly dismantled it, changed the spacing of the internal elements and used some of her nail varnish to lock the internal threads.

Rather later, after we'd lost our entire lab equipment in a fire we had more or less carte blanche to get back up and running ASAP if not sooner. The day after the fire, a Sunday, I ended up ringing his successor from home to work out out a big order with the paperwork to be sorted out later. I don't know whose orders he managed to divert to us but we had a delivery almost before we'd sorted out a place in the surviving part of the building in which to put stuff.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A rehortical question:

Also to be fair, anyone with these good techie skills is not a 'Sales person' and it is an insult to call them such.

We have all experienced the 'Sales Bod' who thinks they can sell anything and probably sold 'Double Glazing' 6 months ago.

Lots of Techie people move into sales because they are good at it and can understand the requirements of the customers from a technical perspective.

The best Sales Depts have their own technical people who have a foot in both camps, so to speak.

I understood sales from experience BUT did not have the ability to bend & twist reality to get the sale.

I was not of the right temperament and liked to work with facts and truths NOT best guesses !!!

True good Sales is a skill and mixing it with solid technical skills is another rarer skill.

The best Sales people I have worked with had both skills and had moved from a techie role into Sales.

Working with them was a pleasure !!!

:)

[Martin an gof]

Re: A rehortical question:

Is there an honest salesman?

My father was an honest salesman. Genuinely believed in everything he promoted. Unfortunately he believed that all salesmen were the same and fell foul of plenty of slick talkers.

He definitely fell in to the category of ex-techie, though maybe that's not quite the right description given that his technical expertise was newspaper printing, Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasps, motor-driven calculators and heavy duty metal-bashing machinery :-)

M.

[herman]

Osborne

Sounds like an Osborne III

[PRR]

> "It weighs over 5 kg," I point out. "Hardly portable or unobtrusive."

11 pounds? Light!! The Compaq Portable (I or Plus) was 28 lb (13 kg). And there are old photos of humans apparently carrying this lump.

[Doctor Syntax]

I've carried one of those, or something similar myself. As little as possible, of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

What physics defines as impossible, sales calls a challenge.

The title reminded me of the well known YT skit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg [ The Expert (Short Comedy Sketch) ]

This is still 100% true !!!

Been there and suffered the Sales people asking the impossible in front of the customer while I was not allowed to say NO !!!

I got the complaint, to my manager, that I was not a team player ... luckily my manager was a very very good techie as well as a very very good manager and agreed that they were the problem and told them so.

He was senior enough to be able to punch back with no issues.

(We all know that Sales are at the top of the Tree and tend top throw their weight about !!!)

Sales mentality is that the bigger the potential commission the more flexible the physical constants get to enable 'anything' to be possible.

:)

[Pascal Monett]

Oh. My. God.

That was awesome.

Thank you for the link.

[Anonymous Coward]

:=)

Sadly so true to life !!!

Every Techie who has worked with Sales sees this and dies a little inside because it is too true.

To be fair I have worked with Sales people who knew as much if not more than me and NEVER sold dreams lies etc to the customer.

It was so good to spend a day with Sales and actually enjoy it ... Happy Sales / Happy Customer / Nice meal at a nice hotel & appreciated for your expertise ,,, then back to the grindstone the next day !!!

:)

[DoctorPaul]

Re: What physics defines as impossible, sales calls a challenge.

Have to say kudos to the multimedia firm that I freelanced for in the 80s. They noticed that I had a knack of being able to explain stuff to non-teccies and ended up sending me out as "technical support" on sales visits with Sales Director. My actual role was to make sure that he didn't offer stuff we couldn't deliver.

Slight side note, it didn't end well. After a couple of years they persuaded me to become a permie. Nothing changed but I was now an employee. Three months later I was signed off sick with stress and high blood pressure, never worked as an employee again and all the happier for it.

[david 12]

"Chicken Nibbles?"

I laughed. I know that it's not the role of BOFH to be credible, but this I can imagine a bitter and cynical mind rejoicing in.