back to article BOFH: We're an industry leader … in employing idiot managers

BOFH logo telephone with devil's horns "It'll be a major renovation!" the Boss says excitedly. "We're going to use the best of breed technologies to create a showcase work environment." I don't know who the Boss has been talking to, but it sounds like he's drunk the Kool-Aid, had a couple of Kool-Aid ice blocks and ordered a …

  1. MisterHappy

    Nice screen layout

    This was displayed on my screen under the "FTX disarray declared 'unprecedented' by exec who cleaned up after Enron" which pictured a dumpster fire... Possible "Green Upgrade"?

    1. quxinot
      Pint

      Re: Nice screen layout

      The world needs more BOFHs.

      A green revolution is neigh! Do your part! Lock the board in the conference room when the fire alarm goes off!

      And ensure that you're safely down at the pub. With an alibi.

  2. WanderingHaggis
    Flame

    Old and tried methods

    Something breaks then it might take a long time to fix and not as reliable as a new one. Ah yes been there. I will not say what I did.

    1. ColinPa

      Re: Old and tried methods

      Some one said, the best time to plan to replace it is when it is working and due to be replaced. This gives you 3 months for the paper work to go through. If you wait till it breaks, you do not know what you will get (second hand?) and disruption during the emergency.

      1. Mark 85

        Re: Old and tried methods

        If you wait till it breaks, you do not know what you will get (second hand?) and disruption during the emergency.

        Not to mention that you'll have to pay more since it requires the vendor to work on "out of budget" spending to react quickly. Vendors love "emergency" work.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Old and tried methods

      Years ago my work place had an ancient copier someone had given the owner, the kind where the copy required a pink sheet and a paper with a waxy surface. It worked really slowly, made terrible copies and the supplies were getting hard to come by.

      I had to drop the machine on the floor three times before it stopped working.

      1. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Old and tried methods

        Percussive maintenance always works wonders.

      2. tezboyes

        Re: Old and tried methods

        Clearly well made old kit, a newer model would have cracked first time you "dropped" it ;)

    3. Blackjack Silver badge

      Re: Old and tried methods

      Other times they replace something thst works perfecty fine and the replacement is a disaster.

      Like replacing the typewriter that was only used to write stuff in front and back of letters with a computer and a printer. Guess whst wasted more ink and letters? Not the typewriter.

  3. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge
    Trollface

    "Oh I suspect that's the PFY with a tin of petrol – upgrading the Company's fleet vehicles to EVs …"

    Nice! EV's are susceptible to battery fires... I think the Boss may find his allocated company EV getting a lot toasty in the near future...

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      You can also, allegedly, disable them remotely. You know, out with mistress IT trainer and the car suddenly slows to a stop and the doors remain locked and a notification appears: you have five minutes to approve the emergency IT budget…

    2. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge

      Samsung is making cars?

      1. T. F. M. Reader

        Samsung is making cars?

        Just critical components for Tesla. Follow up with your own snarky quip.

        1. el_oscuro

          You mean like this?

          https://youtu.be/_GhODn4FRoE

  4. b0llchit Silver badge
    Happy

    "What about double glazing? We haven't got that!"

    The proper -not published or spoken- response is: It is harder to throw people through both glass panes in one go.

    They should have tested this thesis...

    1. Totally not a Cylon
      Flame

      Actually you just need to make sure the frames are of the 'open outward and turn so outside can be cleaned from inside' variety.

      Have to think about the safety of the cleaners, nothing to do with that window's ability to open wide enough to allow an office chair to exit gracefully........ It might be on fire and need to be 'removed' from the office....

      1. quxinot

        >Have to think about the safety of the cleaners, nothing to do with that window's ability to open wide enough to allow an office chair to exit gracefully........ It might be on fire and need to be 'removed' from the office....

        And to ensure safety, the chair must have adequate clearance to the windowframe to ensure that it fits through easily. Even if there's a CEO-shaped object tied to the chair.

    2. Joe W Silver badge

      What's that "double glaze" you are talking about? That went out of fashion around the K/T transition....

      1. FeRDNYC

        Not the Kanye/Trump transition!!! Nothing good ever comes out of seeing those two names together.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I was expecting "yes we do, after the old board jumped through the windows to escape the fire in the boardroom last year."

  5. chivo243 Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    Shut up already!

    The Boss's disappointment is offset somewhat by his astonishment at my apparent reading of his mind (*and not just his email).

    You're breaking your NDA, stop giving our *operational secrets away!!

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Shut up already!

      Not really, he's just seeing the Boss' Outlook on all those Exchanges...

    2. Karlis 1

      Re: Shut up already!

      What good does it make if you know the secrets ... but still have to take Circle Line back home?

    3. Evil Auditor Silver badge

      Re: Shut up already!

      Sometimes this is not even required. As in a former life when I learnt about the company being sold. There was a non-private appointment in the boss' calendar which took place off-site and involved the CEO, CFO, L&C, and a law firm specialised in M&A... (And yes, my access to that calendar was licit)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Shut up already!

        Or the department at a previous employer which found out they were getting outsourced because someone had to approve the large purchase order to $OUTSOURCING_CO for the outsourcing of $DEPARTMENT...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Shut up already!

          Or at a previous company - some numpty left the documents on the photocopier!

          1. tezboyes

            Re: Shut up already!

            That may not have been an accident...

      2. Joe W Silver badge

        Re: Shut up already!

        You basically have to have access, because of the smooth running of the system and whatnot.

        Now reading mails is one thing. The BOFH once remarked he had a script to send some nasty mail and delete itself and stuff...

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Shut up already!

        We found a notebook in the lab. A co-worker looked at it to identify the owner - our manager - and said, "Isn't that the address for $competitor?"

        He took the job. Nine months later, he offered me one there too...

  6. djack

    Industry Leaders

    I stop short of mentioning that we're already an industry leader in employing idiots in management positions

    Surely very much second in that regard to a certain blue chicken coop.

    1. Rich 11

      Re: Industry Leaders

      The fox in the henhouse is creating even more carnage than expected.

      1. drand

        Re: Industry Leaders

        Fox? More like a stoned badger.

        1. jonathan keith

          Re: Industry Leaders

          *Definitely* not stoned. Possibly bombed on amphetamines, possibly very, very angry, possibly both. But absolutely not stoned.

        2. Caver_Dave Silver badge
          Mushroom

          Re: Stoned Badger

          I've not seen one stoned.

          But I have seen a whole set drunk after eating rotting Apples.

          They had two states: nearly asleep and fighting.

          I only found them due to the noise they were making.

          1. Coastal cutie

            Re: Stoned Badger

            I've worked with some support teams like that...…...

      2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Re: Industry Leaders

        Do you think one of those/a series of those oft vaunted, phantom-like entrepreneurial government grants, to kickstart a moribund and intellectually bankrupt Cabinet executive with the supply and maintenance of a wealth of narrative energising novel ideas and virtually ACTive developments, would be made silently available ie irretrievably paid from targeted flush flash slush funds, to the likes of a FOSS program grandstanding ground-breaking and Earth shattering projects to be shared and reported on in the likes of a Situation Publishing forum for MkUltra High Tech Echo Chamber Applications Realising All Manner of Proposed and Otherworldly Plans for a Great Reset Exercising Powerful Lead with Immaculately Resourced Energies via Greater IntelAIgent IT GamePlay ..... and against which any competition rather than support would be liable to be recognised and treated as hostile opposition and be subject to unrelenting attack for crushing defeat on their defences ‽

        And that would have every chance of being Almighty AWEsome too .... and have UKGBNI MoDified Forces to the fore and able to exercise lead with some practical leverage in a vanguard engine rather than as is of now, their settling for the cold comfort of rotten cuckolded dessert reserved for squatting residents of the caboose.

        J'accuse .... and suggest the stealthy noble engagement of such as be touted as certainly novel and readily available greater alternatives to present calamitous bankrupting stock options.

        After all, it is not as if the system does not have tens and hundreds and thousands of billions to play with and disburse, in the hope that there must be something which works indecently well and excessively to their home advantage and also curry foreign and alien favour.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Industry Leaders

          You really should go into politics.

          Well, anywhere really, so long as it's not IT

        2. Evil Auditor Silver badge

          Re: Industry Leaders

          TL:DR but haven't come across amanfrommars 1 in quite a while. Which must mean: I don't spend enough time at El Reg...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Industry Leaders

            Not much point spending time here since they hired the chick from California. The site is slowly becoming the antithesis of what draws us all here They'll be woke before you know it, BOFH will be gone for being politically incorrect, and the site will be no different from most other US-based tech sites. I just hope Simon continues his story elsewhere once they tell him his services are no longer needed.

            1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

              Pray Tell ..... A Name, a Name, My Kingdom for a Name* when the New Boss is No Old Fart

              Not much point spending time here since they hired the chick from California. The site is slowly becoming the antithesis of what draws us all here ..... Anonymous Coward

              Your concerns suggest more the vulture than a chick from California, AC, or is the bald eagle a more APT wrap? And you don't see The Register's Biting the Hand which Feeds IT Glory Days beckoning ahead in the near future still yet to come furthering outrageous developments with pioneering leads and absolutely fabulous fabless trails to trial and trials to trail?

              You're clearly not paying close enough attention or may have to get out into the wild a lot more, for you're definitely missing out on all of the Code Red Hot Crazy ACTion and Spooky Cyber IntelAIgent Agency Stuff. ........ Beyond Top Secret Classification and Oft Prone to Misrepresentation via a Labelling and Diagnosis of Nonsense which effectively extraordinarily renders to IT and AI ever darker and deeper stealthy cover ...... Immaculate Disguise.

              * ..... Cheers, William [Shakespeare], and thanks for all the florid phishes :-)

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Pray Tell ..... A Name, a Name, My Kingdom for a Name* when the New Boss is No Old Fart

                Reg is a class A site/site with the input one can scarcely find anywhere else but... alright, alright

                not IT things, they say

                we no understand, they say

                well, maybe just because that's IT

    2. Dabooka

      Re: Industry Leaders

      That's more idiot being given money by other idiots to manage a company

    3. Evil Auditor Silver badge

      Re: Industry Leaders

      Surely very much second in that regard to a certain blue chicken coop.

      That'd rather be the industry leader in firing staff indiscriminately and then having to close shop completely because no one's left who knew how the termination procedure worked.

    4. tezboyes

      Re: Industry Leaders

      There's a /lot/ of competition for that award!

  7. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. Scott 53

    "Tin" of petrol?

    Where are you from? I'm curious.

    1. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

      Re: "Tin" of petrol?

      Apparently, 1930 or thereabouts. The author is a Kiwi IIRC, which may or may not explain the usage.

  9. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Coffee/keyboard

    Well

    After the PFY's keyboard died mysteriously earlier today*

    I'm pretty sure the BoFH is setting his whole office building up to be greenified........**

    We had the lights changed to 'high efficiency, low cost ones'

    I was'nt very popular when I pointed out with the power saved we could run the 2 compressors for an extra 5 mins per day...

    *shes somehow managed to aquire the other chair in the office... possibly a black market deal with one of the senior programmers....I'm making sure the new carpet is nailed down and checking the lift when I use it so that its there when the doors open......

    **after being purified by fire of course

  10. Dave314159ggggdffsdds Silver badge

    "neither PFY nor I have worked out a way to set glass on fire"

    Try chlorine tri-fluoride.

    https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-you-time

    1. stiine Silver badge

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckSoDW2-wrc (SciShow)

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "Try chlorine tri-fluoride."

      I think they used all their stocks of that up replacing the halon in the data centre. They're saving that for a rainy day :-)

  11. Ozan

    It's just not the same. BOFH story is still amazing but it's not same.

  12. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge

    "Oh I suspect that's the PFY with a tin of petrol – upgrading the Company's fleet vehicles to EVs …"

    BOFH 1. Keyboard 0.

    BOFH now goes forward to the Regurgitated Half Masticated Cheese Sandwich Cup

  13. Zenubi

    Thank You

    "less likely to change than a basement-dwelling Linux geek with only three days on his t-shirt"

    Thank You So Much.

    1. BenDwire Silver badge
      Linux

      Re: Thank You

      Indeed. I even turned the computer off at that point and put a load of t-shirts in the washer. Thankfully I don't have a basement, but I do have a very untidy office.

  14. bpfh
    Flame

    Have not found a way to set glass on fire.

    Chlorine Trifluoride. ClF3. Lovely stuff. Burns glass, concrete, gravel, sand, bricks, asbestos fireproofing, burnt ash, people…

    https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-you-time

    1. swm

      Re: Have not found a way to set glass on fire.

      Or FOOF which can set dry ice on fire.

    2. Remy Redert

      Re: Have not found a way to set glass on fire.

      I believe it was 'lab assistants', not people in the original write up. It's an important distinction to make.

      1. bpfh
        Joke

        Re: Have not found a way to set glass on fire.

        Very true, but they can be used as a satisfactory human analogue.

    3. EnviableOne

      Re: Have not found a way to set glass on fire.

      I'm a big fan of PtF6 it oxidised oxygen and Xenon

      1. bpfh
        Flame

        Re: Have not found a way to set glass on fire.

        Ooooohhhh this sounds like a good one. Then again, anything that contains fluorine other than toothpaste is always something exciting to work with!

  15. HammerOn1024

    EV's

    The PFY will need to get some nuclear power plants for those EV's while he's at it... maybe a wee bit of a pump fire on those natural gas lines?

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