Project excuse generator

[dory36]

I think this was stolen from someplace I used to work...

The project excuse generator:
http://www.red-gate.com/excusegenerator/Excuses.aspx

 

[yakers]

Is there any of that left in retirement or is this laughing at us working folks expense?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

if it helps, when I look at stuff like this, "the office" "officespace" and so forth, it usually brings forth more of a grimace than a smile. A feeling like recalling an accident you barely avoided

 

[cube_rat]

I live in this crap, day in and day out

 

[BigMoneyJim]

I usually manage to dodge much of this type of , uh, communication, but just now I got an email sent to the entire IT division of my company. I think they might've used this generator to make it. Several paragraphs after explaining what's going on with a particular project they are proud to announce it's now in the Planning Phase (their capitalization). LOL, something gets to Planning Phase and it's news for the entire IT division of a Fortune 500 company!

Actually, I think this email may have spanned two or more operating companies of our conglomerate.

But try to find out who manages the Citrix server experiencing the same problem we've run into umpteen times and know the cause of...

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Unplug it from the wall. You'll find out who owns it pretty quick.

If nobody pops up within 2-3 days, put it in the trunk of your car and take it home with you.

 

[BigMoneyJim]

Unplug it from the wall. You'll find out who owns it pretty quick.

If nobody pops up within 2-3 days, put it in the trunk of your car and take it home with you.

Heh. Actually the Citrix server is in corporate HQ. I'm in the field and therefore don't matter. Citrix can print to the local PC's printer *if* the server has the same print drivers as the client. Having control of the clients but not the servers (4, load balanced) we figured out which drives work and use those. But periodically, without warning, one or more of the servers will drop their drivers and our clients randomly won't print. I call it Citrix printer roulette. I presume the cause of this is reimaging a server or other maintenance as opposed to Spontaneous Driver Dropping, but I could be wrong. You'd think that since this has happend about 20 times with the same group of servers they would have a standard list of drivers for server and clients and make sure the server drivers are reinstalled when they do maintenance to them, but if you would've thought that you wouldn't have known my company. (Sharp techies may ask why the server doesn't print to network-wide defined printers instead of the local PC's configured printer; but my company has several sets of app servers and several network printing systems in addition to 4 directory structures, and almost none of them talk to each other.)

Your suggestion is something I was thinking about for a different project today. I recently relabeled my MDF wiring frame (it's a self-documented color-coded legible thing of beauty now) and noticed in the process one sequence of alleged station runs is actually a 100-pair bundle running to I-don't-know-where, and I should know where. There are two other IDFs where cables go, but I know where those feeds are and this ain't it. Several phone lines and a few ethernet runs are on that bundle. It occurred to me the fastest and most effective way to find out where the bundle goes is to follow your suggestion of unplugging them and see who screams. I may actually end up doing that as it's driving me buggy wondering where the other end of this thing is...I may have a hidden IDF somewhere that I haven't needed to touch in the 5 years I've been there.

 

[Nords]

... and noticed in the process one sequence of alleged station runs is actually a 100-pair bundle running to I-don't-know-where, and I should know where.

This is how the great hacker stories get started-- keep us posted!

 

[BigMoneyJim]

This is how the great hacker stories get started-- keep us posted!

Well, nothing new on that front as I am home now, but I *have* periodically happened upon hidden security cameras while working on premise wiring. To the average person a bundle of cabling and a wiring frame is an unmemorable jumble, but to someone who works on that cabling and wiring frame an out-of-place plastic box cover is quickly noticed and investigated. Turns out to security specialists an unmemorable bundle of cabling is a perfect place to insert a camera cable and small camera, and a surface mount phonejack cover is a perfect hiding spot for the camera as long as the wiring guy isn't around to notice the out-of-place jack cover.

Acoustic ceiling tiles with holes in them are also good hiding places for security cameras. I find these when running new station runs through the plenum.

I'm sure there are a fair number of videos stored at my company of a view shaking, my confused face staring into the lens and then smiling and waving before trying to point the camera in its original direction.

Either the security people in my current building are excellent at hiding cameras from the network guy or they aren't interested in what's happening in my building. (Or they trust everyone who works there...hmmm...) Actually there are a few non-hidden cameras...

That reminds me: one guy in particular is fairly paranoid about the cameras. His coworkers on a different shift mounted a black plastic Wendy's salad bowl to the ceiling beam with a spare piece of cat5 cabling coming out of it and out of sight on top of the beam, and they even rigged a flashing red LED somehow that glows through the thin black plastic. Of course they put it directly above the paranoid guy's work area and he went berserk and complained to management who had no knowledge of a security camera in that area. It cracks me up even more because you don't have to look very hard to read "Wendy's" on the bowl-impersonating-a-camera-cover-sphere.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I may have tipped my hand as to how I ended up with a bunch of servers at home.

One new dual processor XEON system got "delivered" (not such a bad thing in 1999ish), which is to say the box was left in the hallway near my office for two weeks without anyone picking it up. It was subsequently "privatized" for testing purposes.

Re: the citrix servers. Sorry about the problems, but theres a REASON why everyone should have their own frickin computer

 

[cube_rat]

No one ever seems to want to own the Citrix servers, IMHO.  At least in our organization.  I always here "I'm not responsible for this or that..." and then I'm left up to my own devices. 

 

[Nords]

Sorry about the problems, but theres a REASON why everyone should have their own frickin computer

"A computer on every desk."

Gee, that sounds familiar... where have I heard that before?