• (cs)
    You mean to tell me we spent millions of dollars building a custom system when we could have purchased an OTS solution for a fraction of the cost, and we couldn’t even build a system that worked without setting fire to the facility?
    US Government Technology Management at its finest.
  • Flo (unregistered)

    Robert: Checkmate.

  • Leo (unregistered)

    And then Robert was fired.

  • Robert (unregistered)

    And Robert still got fired...

  • Ho Miscreant! (unregistered)

    They still fired Robert, however. Management actually taking responsibility for something? Never going to happen

  • tim (unregistered)

    I want to believe this one's true. So it is :)

  • (cs)
    <!-- Robert gasped. They were keeping the President's sick daughter in Zone 3! -->
    Someone please explain this fascination with President's daughter, who's always sick when mentioned, since that last cliffhanger which seems to insinuate something scandalous but didn't quite explain anything?
  • MindChild (unregistered) in reply to syockit

    Resident Evil 4 perhaps?

  • Noah (unregistered)

    Not Resident Evil 4... [url =http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Human-Heat-Sink.aspx] The Human Heat Sink[/url] Read the article and comments, and it'll make sense.

  • (cs)

    This is government work. Nobody gets fired. At worst, a reprimand goes into their file.

  • Hoffmann, Peter (unregistered)

    So less abbreviations would be nice for the uninformed readers

    CAPTCHA: Robert was a haero for standing up against the Admiral, and a martyr as well

  • HTML Commenter (unregistered)

    I don't get it. It needs an Easy Reader version ;-)

  • (cs) in reply to syockit
    <!-- Robert gasped. They were keeping the President's sick daughter in Zone 3! -->
    Someone had accidentally knocked the UPS out of the open window. And I bet after all that interrogation, Robert desperately needed to pee.
  • Spudley (unregistered) in reply to LoremIpsumDolorSitAmet
    LoremIpsumDolorSitAmet:
    <!-- Robert gasped. They were keeping the President's sick daughter in Zone 3! -->
    Someone had accidentally knocked the UPS out of the open window. And I bet after all that interrogation, Robert desperately needed to pee.

    Well, that would explain the burning sensation in the title, anyway.

  • Kasper (unregistered)

    Isn't this the classical example of the NIH syndrome gone terribly bad?

  • QJo (unregistered) in reply to Leo
    Leo:
    And then Robert was fried.

    FTFY

  • (cs)

    Excellent well written article. Nagesh like it very much.

  • (cs) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    Excellent well written article. Nagesh like it very much.
    Message for the site admins: Nagesh likes the article. Delete it NOW!
  • (cs) in reply to HTML Commenter
    HTML Commenter:
    I don't get it. It needs an Easy Reader version ;-)
    That's a Remy-ism, sorry.
  • ¯\(°_o)/¯ I DUNNO LOL (unregistered)

    So TRWTF is the usual one of "rolling your own", only this time it wasn't software being rolled.

    It was President Bean's daughter being rolled into Surgery.

  • Anonymous Paranoiac (unregistered) in reply to Ho Miscreant!
    Ho Miscreant!:
    They still fired Robert, however. Management actually taking responsibility for something? Never going to happen

    Well, obviously, it's Robert's fault as he should have anticipated this turn of events and refused to build a UPS instead of buying an OTS solution. Granted, Robert probably provided reams of paper showing why a home-brew UPS was a Very Bad Idea and would have been fried if he hadn't done it, but that's irrelevant.

    The UPS project probably also took years because, despite being a Top Priority, it was likely never quite as top-a-priority as whatever the Latest Thing that had management excited was.

  • Ben Jammin (unregistered)

    I hope Robert made copies of those docs, cause the ones he passed over went straight to the shredder.

  • iMortalitySX (unregistered) in reply to Ben Jammin
    Ben Jammin:
    I hope Robert made copies of those docs, cause the ones he passed over went straight to the shredder.

    Lucky for Robert, that would have landed someone in jail. Government work may be wasteful, but thanks to everyone complaining about not knowning where tax money is going, all documentation has to be kept for a very long time.

  • n/a (unregistered)

    The owner of the signature doesn't matter, because Robert should have explained to him what he was agreeing to and Robert hadn't (the boss totally doesn't remember that happening, nu-uh). That's how it goes in 90% of cases in my experience, anyway.

  • Valued Service (unregistered)

    Always said lazy people do more work.

    Now I can add to that...

    Cheap people spend more money.

  • (cs)
    TFA:
    The MPs in the corridors screaming, “Move, move, move!” didn’t help.
    Sorry, but TRWTF here is conducting a real event in a manner different than a drill. If drills are handled correctly, and if everyone thinks a real event is a drill, then it will continue to be orderly and everyone will get out safely.

    My kids' school gives unconscious clues on fire drill days (an extra clipboard in the classroom, for example). So if the alarm were to go off and the kids didn't see the clipboard, they'd wonder what's up. But if there were no such clues, they'd think it was a routine drill even if the other side of the school was already destroyed in flames.

    When I was a kid, I never knew when a fire drill was going to occur . . . and I'm not sure my teachers did either, as I had one particular incident where I stopped to tie my shoe and my teacher damn near pulled me off the ground and told me to get going. Reinforced the concept in me that when the alarm goes off, I needed to be quiet and get out of the school quickly, regardless of anything else.

  • (cs)

    This article is obviously made up. Government desks are drab olive green, not battleship-gray.

  • Sailsman (unregistered) in reply to syockit
    syockit:
    <!-- Robert gasped. They were keeping the President's sick daughter in Zone 3! -->
    Someone please explain this fascination with President's daughter, who's always sick when mentioned, since that last cliffhanger which seems to insinuate something scandalous but didn't quite explain anything?

    TRWTF is a daily WTF reader that missed this.... sorry, just kidding. :) Something of a fad here recently. Read "Human Heat Sink" from 2/5th I think every post since has had a few comments about the "President's sick daughter." It will die out. Eventually.

    BTW: site needs new captchas.

  • Mike (unregistered) in reply to nonpartisan

    Well there is orderly and then there is orderly. Most fire drills are slow walking pace to designated areas. I'd think in a real emergency you'd want to up the pace to a light jog (double time should work in a navy building). Drill that way too if you want to keep consistency.

    As for the build your own problem: the money for the electricians was already committed. Parts might have cost more than the full equipment of the shelf but maybe not. Regardless the navy was committed to having X number of electricians around whether or not they needed them so might as well give them something to do. Because one thing bureaucracy hates is giving up underlings.

  • Anonymous Paranoiac (unregistered) in reply to Sailsman
    Sailsman:
    syockit:
    <!-- Robert gasped. They were keeping the President's sick daughter in Zone 3! -->
    Someone please explain this fascination with President's daughter, who's always sick when mentioned, since that last cliffhanger which seems to insinuate something scandalous but didn't quite explain anything?

    TRWTF is a daily WTF reader that missed this.... sorry, just kidding. :) Something of a fad here recently. Read "Human Heat Sink" from 2/5th I think every post since has had a few comments about the "President's sick daughter." It will die out. Eventually.

    BTW: site needs new captchas.

    Yes, of course it will pass! Just like that silly fascination with true, false, FILE_NOT_FOUND.

  • otters (unregistered)

    Oh man, you gotta love the TDWTF tradition of putting a grammatical error in the most important line in the article.

    We will test NOT articles before it ships!

  • (cs)

    ...and what happened next? Did the Admiral get fired or did Robert end up in a blender? I want to either feel the sweet taste of revenge and lift my mood, or the bitter taste of realizing that it always goes this way, and getting one step closer to madness.

  • C-Derb (unregistered)

    I'm surprised they actually went live with the "system". Any U.S. Government entity worth their salt would have spent years developing the custom solution only to finally abandon it and implement the off-the-shelf product.

    And getting upset about wasting millions of dollars? Please. They don't care.

  • (cs) in reply to otters
    otters:
    Oh man, you gotta love the TDWTF tradition of putting a grammatical error in the most important line in the article.

    We will test NOT articles before it ships!

    An error is fonud in every article.

  • Anonymous Paranoiac (unregistered) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    otters:
    Oh man, you gotta love the TDWTF tradition of putting a grammatical error in the most important line in the article.

    We will test NOT articles before it ships!

    An error is fonud in every article.

    What people don't realize is that the errors are really easter eggs providing us a game of hunting them down and then making fun of them. Sort of the TDWTF version of "Where's Waldo?"

  • pbean (unregistered) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    otters:
    Oh man, you gotta love the TDWTF tradition of putting a grammatical error in the most important line in the article.

    We will test NOT articles before it ships!

    An error is fonud in every article.

    They are insreted for you're protectoin.

  • Fenix (unregistered) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    An error is fonud in every article.

    Touché!

  • Mr.Bob (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Paranoiac
    Anonymous Paranoiac:
    Sailsman:
    syockit:
    <!-- Robert gasped. They were keeping the President's sick daughter in Zone 3! -->
    Someone please explain this fascination with President's daughter, who's always sick when mentioned, since that last cliffhanger which seems to insinuate something scandalous but didn't quite explain anything?

    TRWTF is a daily WTF reader that missed this.... sorry, just kidding. :) Something of a fad here recently. Read "Human Heat Sink" from 2/5th I think every post since has had a few comments about the "President's sick daughter." It will die out. Eventually.

    BTW: site needs new captchas.

    Yes, of course it will pass!

    Just like a kidney stone; hence, the burning sensation.

  • Ken (unregistered) in reply to Anonymous Paranoiac
    Anonymous Paranoiac:
    What people don't realize is that the errors are really easter eggs providing us a game of hunting them down and then making fun of them. Sort of the TDWTF version of "Where's Waldo?"
    But with Where's Waldo there's only one. When you find him, you're done.

    With TDWTF, you can never be sure you've found them all.

  • Publius (unregistered)
    The one listless corridors were now choked with an urgency never found in government facilities.
    "listless corridors" preceded by a misspelling of "once"? "Choking urgency"? I think even a Vogon would blush.

    Don't get me wrong, reading the article is still better than going back to work.

  • (cs) in reply to nonpartisan
    nonpartisan:
    My kids' school gives unconscious clues on fire drill days (an extra clipboard in the classroom, for example).
    Geeze, who's been blackjacking the clues?
  • (cs) in reply to chubertdev
    chubertdev:
    This article is obviously made up. Government desks are drab olive green, not battleship-gray.
    Sorry, wrong service. This was most likely some coastal installation (or Great Lakes) you never know.
  • Olly (unregistered)

    An auditor, the VP of Global Purchasing, and the president's daughter stood before the Admiral's battleship-gray desk while he ranted incessantly about Robert, who moments ago had been granted extended leave at the lovely Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In the corner of the room, smoke arose from an overheated shredder.

    "I want to know who is responsible for the UPS fire!" he screamed. "We have enough ammo here to level the town" he added, stomping out the last of the flaming scraps of paper from the shredder.

    "It wasn't me" assured the VP of Global Purchasing. "I approved the request for an off-the-shelf UPS."

    "I just identify risks" said the Auditor. "To ensure repeatable results, I work from the same checklist every time I review the base. There's nothing on my checklist about a homegrown UPS, so I couldn't have been expected to flag it."

    All eyes turned on the president's daughter just as she threw up, Within a half hour, everyone in the Admiral's office was dead from a highly virulent disease previously unseen in human history.

    Gee I love a happy ending!

  • (cs) in reply to herby
    herby:
    chubertdev:
    This article is obviously made up. Government desks are drab olive green, not battleship-gray.
    Sorry, wrong service. This was most likely some coastal installation (or Great Lakes) you never know.

    I thought that I remembered seeing more green than expected at Great Lakes, but then again, that was a while ago.

  • (cs) in reply to Hoffmann, Peter
    Hoffmann:
    So less abbreviations would be nice for the uninformed readers

    I think you mean "Less abbreviations FTW!!!!ONEONEONE

  • (cs) in reply to Zylon
    Zylon:
    nonpartisan:
    My kids' school gives unconscious clues on fire drill days (an extra clipboard in the classroom, for example).
    Geeze, who's been blackjacking the clues?
    My daughter told me that she knows when there's a fire drill because there's a clipboard in the classroom (presumably for taking roll, not sure . . . or maybe it's a checklist).
  • (cs)

    Sorry Robert, but the President's sick daughter is in another zone.

  • (cs)
    Move, move, move!
    Woo hoo! Space Mutiny reference!

    Don't believe me? Check the source. The MST3K joke follows the line.

    Move, move, move! Now breathe! Make your heart beat! Move! No-wait stop.

  • (cs) in reply to Olly
    Olly:
    An auditor, the VP of Global Purchasing, and the president's daughter stood before the Admiral's battleship-gray desk while he ranted incessantly about Robert, who moments ago had been granted extended leave at the lovely Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In the corner of the room, smoke arose from an overheated shredder.

    "I want to know who is responsible for the UPS fire!" he screamed. "We have enough ammo here to level the town" he added, stomping out the last of the flaming scraps of paper from the shredder.

    "It wasn't me" assured the VP of Global Purchasing. "I approved the request for an off-the-shelf UPS."

    "I just identify risks" said the Auditor. "To ensure repeatable results, I work from the same checklist every time I review the base. There's nothing on my checklist about a homegrown UPS, so I couldn't have been expected to flag it."

    All eyes turned on the president's daughter just as she threw up, Within a half hour, everyone in the Admiral's office was dead from a highly virulent disease previously unseen in human history.

    Gee I love a happy ending!

    Is that you, Brad?

  • (cs) in reply to nonpartisan
    nonpartisan:
    TFA:
    The MPs in the corridors screaming, “Move, move, move!” didn’t help.
    Sorry, but TRWTF here is conducting a real event in a manner different than a drill. If drills are handled correctly, and if everyone thinks a real event is a drill, then it will continue to be orderly and everyone will get out safely.

    My kids' school gives unconscious clues on fire drill days (an extra clipboard in the classroom, for example). So if the alarm were to go off and the kids didn't see the clipboard, they'd wonder what's up. But if there were no such clues, they'd think it was a routine drill even if the other side of the school was already destroyed in flames.

    When I was a kid, I never knew when a fire drill was going to occur . . . and I'm not sure my teachers did either, as I had one particular incident where I stopped to tie my shoe and my teacher damn near pulled me off the ground and told me to get going. Reinforced the concept in me that when the alarm goes off, I needed to be quiet and get out of the school quickly, regardless of anything else.

    Until you trip over your untied shoelace and are trampled to death under the 1,000 students evacuating behind you.

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