• (disco)

    It's logical the sysadmin forbade top: the output would never list his name.

  • (disco)

    Wow, sysadmins get unrestricted unquestioned unmitigatable access to everything? That's a pretty big opportunity for abuse of power. Oh wait...

  • (disco) in reply to Tsaukpaetra

    Why would anyone question him? Look at all the problems he MITigated.

  • (disco)

    okay, so we found the BOFH..... but where is the PFY?

  • (disco)

    Performance problems? Were they trying to simulate earthquakes on an Atom server and required 99.9999% of CPU and memory?

  • (disco)

    His black suit and tie

    :vomit:

  • (disco)

    So wait, no-one thought to go to the sysadmin's boss and tell them that the sysadmin is actively preventing them from doing their jobs? That's TR :wtf:

  • (disco) in reply to RaceProUK

    I'm assuming that they did and got a response along the lines of

    Mark is from MIT. I'm sure he knows what he is doing. You will just have to work with him to solve the performance issues. I'm not going to get involved...
  • (disco)

    Am I the only one who noticed the similarity in tone with Directive 595?

  • (disco) in reply to Nocha

    All of which makes me wonder how long it will be before someone notices that no actual work is getting done. Alas, I suspect the answer is “surprisingly long”. :unamused:

  • (disco) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic
    Steve_The_Cynic:
    Am I the only one who noticed the similarity in tone with Directive 595?

    Dear Analytics Team,

    Directive 595 Part 4 is as follows:

    "SAS gives major performance problems with the analytics servers, lack of flexibility, more costly evolution, inhibit the use of the server acting to a service to applications and make it an inhibitor to evolution."

    As such, your positions have been made redundant. Refusal to comply will be reported.

    Sincerely, Chief Sysadmin Mark

  • (disco) in reply to dkf
    dkf:
    no actual work is getting done.

    Well of course it isn't. Didn't you see the emails about the extreme performance issues? Not to worry though, the sysadmin is from MIT and is on the case!

  • (disco) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic
    Steve_The_Cynic:
    Am I the only one who noticed the similarity in tone with Directive 595?

    Or our Global HR Director. (Links to Lounge - not available to all.)

  • (disco)

    "Dear Analytics Team,

    Directive 666 is as follows: After analyzing severe performance problems on the SAS servers, the system management team has determined that the only solution is to remove all users, all applications and all logins from these systems.

    Refusal to comply will be reported.

    Sincerely,Chief Sysadmin Mark

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    PFY

    He is the PFY. A PFY without a BOFH to control him is a scary thing indeed.

  • (disco) in reply to dkf
    dkf:
    All of which makes me wonder how long it will be before someone notices that no actual work is getting done. Alas, I suspect the answer is “surprisingly long”. :unamused:

    And when they figure it out, the blame will fall on everybody but the sysadmin.

  • (disco) in reply to JBert

    He should have started with top. If you ban any tools that can report performance, performance problems disappear.

  • (disco) in reply to anonymous234

    No, if he did that he might have run out of quick-win incremental improvements before his bonus got cashed.

  • (disco)

    PFY vs. BOFH? No he wasn't one of them, usually a proper BOFH attacks "the boss" and leaves the underlings alone.

  • (disco)

    Administrator = Admin is traitor

  • (disco) in reply to BrianB_NY
    BrianB_NY:
    Administrator = Admin is traitor

    But don't worry, I trust Admin2.


    Filed under: No joke, literally a domain administrator account named Admin2. It has the same password as Normal.

  • (disco) in reply to Tsaukpaetra
    Tsaukpaetra:
    It has the same password as Normal.

    At least, on my home network, Normal doesn't even have a password.

    Oh wait, I'm talking to myself. ... And I don't think that's actually an improvement. :facepalm:

  • (disco)

    In his defense it was pretty silly to use a Commodore 64 as the analytics server.

  • (disco)

    This one has a strong smell of frontpagification. It's difficult to guess how far the insanity really went.

  • (disco) in reply to ChoHag
    ChoHag:
    accalia:
    PFY

    He is the PFY. A PFY without a BOFH to control him is a scary thing indeed.

    He's the dreaded DKA: The Dunning-Kruger Admin. (Although that might be how BOFH got his start as a strapping young lad, eliminating everyone who had been in the company before his reign.)

  • (disco) in reply to Scarlet_Manuka
    Scarlet_Manuka:
    This one has a strong smell of frontpagification. It's difficult to guess how far the insanity really went.

    Life, dear @Scarlet_Manuka, is the best frontpagifier.

  • (disco)

    Foreshadowing?

    "I'm sure he'll be a great addition to our team." "Thank you, and hello,"

  • (disco) in reply to JBert

    Every Friday evening Mark runs top to see what the biggest performance bottleneck is, then issues a directive banning it.

    After careful analysis, the systems administration team has identified major performance problems with the analytics servers.
    All these performance problems with the analytics servers. Let's try some troubleshooting and see if we can't pin down the root cause. What is the common factor in all these reports? What if anything changed in the organisation at about the time these issues started being reported?

    (Full disclosure notice: I am a graduate of MIT - no, not that one, another one.)

  • (disco) in reply to Watson

    That's provided there actually are performance problems...

  • (disco) in reply to Maciejasjmj
    Maciejasjmj:
    That's provided there actually are performance problems.

    He just wanted to use the analytics servers to play some high-CPU game, and it's such a downer when some idiot runs Emacs...makes the game all stuttery and everything. And of course the restriction on top was so no one could see what he was running.

  • (disco) in reply to CoyneTheDup
    CoyneTheDup:
    Emacs
    Well, of *course* running a second OS is going to place significant load on the system :trolleybus:
  • (disco) in reply to RaceProUK

    Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping, eh?

  • (disco)

    "He won't budge," Alice replied with melancholic despair. "Performance this, performance that. I guess we'll have to share our login details if we want to get things done."

    That bolded bit is where the dev team screwed up. Sharing login details is a security breach. Attempting to bypass what the sysadmin had done is the wrong way to go about things: you are effectively hacking your work machines. Not good. Correct response is to go "new sysadmin blocked me from doing my job" to the manager and sit on your hands until the new sysadmin deals with it.

  • (disco)

    SystemAdmin says: due to performance problems, the DailyWTF forums will move to a new system. This policy will be effective starting Monday. Refusal to comply will be reported.

  • (disco) in reply to SystemAdmin
    SystemAdmin:
    SystemAdmin says: due to performance problemsraisins, the DailyWTF forums will move to a new system. This policy will be effective starting Monday. Refusal to comply will be reportedresult in an immediate discoban for 12 discomonths.

    FTFY

  • (disco)

    I never met anyone from MIT who had a suit.

  • DiEvAl (unregistered)

    They should've contacted MIT and asked if he really studied there. Real MIT students don't wear suits.

  • Yevhenii Diomidov (google) in reply to Dan_Swinehart

    I heard many MacGregor gents (people from G-entry) have suits. They only wear them on special occasions though.

  • Belzebub (unregistered)

    Actually, the MIT guy was not from MIT, but from MIB. It was agent J on a secret mission to investigate Initrode's possible link to alien drug trade with catfish people of Horseshoe Nebula. Shortly after his arrival, major battle ensued, 3 intergalactic catfish cruisers demasked on Initrode's parking lot and only thanks to agent J's excelent skills the loss of lives was minimal. All surviving Initrode's human employes were neuralyzed and provided with a cover story in which they left the company because of some annoying admin.

  • Ben Thair (unregistered)

    The very first thing an A.F.H. (person or group) does when imposing draconian restrictions is to exempt themselves from their own rules.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Belzebub

    No, it wasn't agent J. Because if it had been the email would have gone something like this:

    The admins would like to thank you for participating in our performance. Had this been an actual performance emergency, y'all woulda been eaten. 'Cause you don't listen. You ignorant. How a man gon' come from MIT-- That's the problem with all y'all developers. "Oh, we seen it all." "Oh, no! A huge performance problem! Save us, Mr. Black Man!" And I come in, I ask ya nice stop using Emacs! Y'all just sit there like... [flash]

  • Belzebub (unregistered) in reply to CoyneTheDup

    well.. that was probably the first version :) - everybody knows agent J sometimes has to do more than one neuralization :)

  • (nodebb) in reply to SystemAdmin

    Was that a good guess or insider information?

  • required (unregistered)

    Uhh, it's just me, but... why all these stories have the same several company names over and over? It feels like ACME cartoon company or Generic Product 'n stuff...

  • GenRincewind (unregistered)

    @required To preserve the anonymity of the companies concerned, so that TheDailyWTF doesn't get sued for slander

Leave a comment on “Admin From Hell”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

« Return to Article