BOFH - 2007


CHAPTER 1

2007, what a landmark year! A time for striving onward in the pursuit of excellence and a time for putting behind us the upsets of the past year. Upsets like me getting trapped in a lift and having to spend several hours contemplating a bucket-based toilet system in full view of the CCTV camera...

...And upsets like The PFY suffering the indignity of a cavity search so aggressive it took him ten minutes to walk properly and ten pints to get the taste of rubber off the back of his tongue... My getting his luggage 'lost' in Heathrow on the return leg 'because of fog' was really just kicking the man when he was down, but experience has taught me that if you've got to kick someone that's the best time to do it...

Still, it's water under the bridge now and The PFY has agreed to bury the hatchet (Although as there's one in the building somewhere, I'm keeping my wits about me) and we've forged a truce in the spirit of the New Year. In fact, The PFY and I have made so much positive progress that we've made a New Year's resolution to even treat our callers better. And no sooner have we taken a suck on the peace pipe of double-espresso shots than one of our users calls us.

"Password problem?" I predict as The PFY reaches for the hands free button.

"No bet," The PFY replies.

“Hi there, I've just come back from holiday and I seem to have...”

“...forgotten your password over the break?” The PFY suggests helpfully.

“Yes – but only because that stupid expiry made me change it in the last week of work,” she snaps.

“No problem,” the PFY says ignoring the sarcasm. “What's your username – I'll reset your password so you can change it when you log in.”

“Can't you just set it to my normal password?”

“The one that expired?”

“Yes”

“No, sorry, it's expired. But I could reset it and you can choose a new one,” the PFY says,

“Couldn't you just unexpire my old password?” she says, firing up the old whiney interface.

“Not really. Why not choose a password that's easy to remember, like the license plate of your first car?”

“Oh I can't possibly remember that.”

“The name of your favourite beer plus your year of birth?”

“I don't drink beer.”

“Of course not. The address you lived in when you were a kid," the PFY says, with just a touch of testiness.

"We moved around a lot."

"Your first boyfriend's name," The PFY seethes, really starting to lose the plot as far as password security is concerned.

"Ted - but that's too short."

"What about setting it to the reason that he dumped you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well 'difficult' is nine letters long and..."

"Excuse me," I interject, before The PFY can suggest using the names he may have called her or concatenating the words pain-in-the-arse "Why not set your password to a person's first name and their birthday. You must know someone else's birthday?"

"I do... but wouldn't it be easier to just use my old password?"

"Easier - yes, more secure - no. And we do like to keep you people safe from internet crime," I reply, using the old faithful excuse.

"Wouldn't it be better if you made our network more secure so that it wouldn't matter if we used the same passwords?" she asks, twisting the problem around so it's our fault now...

"We could, but then the systems security would be so secure you'd spend half your time on the phone to us to give you access to it," I respond.

"Isn't that what I'm doing now anyway?" she asks.

"Perhaps I should just mention at this point that while my assistant and I appreciate that liberal use of sarcasm may have served you well in the past, it's our position that we can't compromise the security of the company systems to save you the trouble of having to remember something new."

"I..."

"And so I'm going to get my assistant to change your password to 'security' and have it expire when you login. Is there anything else we can help you with?"

"I... no."

"Excellent, you should be able to login in a couple of minutes."

>click<

"What time is it?" I ask the PFY.

"9:13am."

"So, it's just another 359 days and about 7 hours to go. No problems. We can do it."

>ring<

"Password Problem?" I predict as The PFY reaches for the hands free button.

"No bet," he says as mentally prepares himself for the IT Support version of Groundhog Day.

...

You know, I almost feel bad about offering a hundred quid to the person who can drive The PFY over the edge on the first day. But I did organise it before our truce, so technically my conscience is clear...


CHAPTER 2

It's a funny old world isn't it? Strange the way things pan out. Take for instance the New Year's truce forged between the PFY and myself. On one hand we reached a landmark accord which allowed us to work in harmony with each other and the users and on the other hand I'm now locked in a dark basement room that the PFY tricked me into visiting by saying that the PR people's expensive new kit had been misdelivered there - all because he found out that I'd arranged for people to harass him mercilessly on the first day.

I'd have explained to the PFY that this was all organised before the truce between us had been struck, only I was in a bit of a hurry to get my hands on the 25-inch LCD monitors that the PFY had said had just appeared in the basement...

The newly installed large electronic lock on the door of the room should have been a dead giveaway but the PFY had also mentioned in passing that he thought the monitors came with 5.1 surround satellite speakers and I may have been a little overexcited - which goes to show that I just don't learn from my mistakes. George Santayana would be ashamed of me.

The dodgy lighting in the room - which failed once the door slammed shut - also should have rung alarm bells but in my rush to the supposed new kit I didn't think about it.

So now I'm trapped in a room which is almost certainly been hand-picked by the PFY for the density of the concrete and remoteness from human contact...

What would MacGyver do?

Unfortunately I don't have the couple of rubber bands, alarm clock and six feet of galvanised drainpipe which he'd use to create a working masonry drill so I'm going to have to switch into geek mode.

Hmm... It's dark, I'm in a basement... ...

>ADVENTURE MODE ON!<

It's pitch dark, and you can't see a thing.

> I

You have: a small bag, a half consumed chocolate bar.

The bag contains: a lifebook p1000 ultraportable, a Philips head screwdriver, a flat blade screwdriver, a piece of wire.

What I wouldn't give for a shiny brass lamp.... Hmmm...

> OPEN BAG

The bag is open.

> TAKE LIFEBOOK

I don't know what that is.

> TAKE P1000

Taken.

> TURN P1000 ON

I don't know how to do that.

> P1000 ON

The laptop turns powers up and floods part of the room in light. You have 6 hours of battery life remaining.

> EXAMINE DOOR

The door is made of solid wood with steel reinforcing. The steel looks new. The backplate of a large electronic lock is embedded in the wood.

> UNSCREW BACKPLATE

The backplate cannot be unscrewed.

> EXAMINE HINGES

The hinges are the high security, autoclosing welded pin type.

The bloody PFY thinks of everything...

> LOOK

You are in a small room with concrete walls, floor and roof.

There are some empty wooden computer crates here.

You have 5.45 hours of battery life remaining.

> EXAMINE WALLS

The walls are made of steel reinforced concrete and are very thick.

> EXAMINE FLOOR

The floor is made of steel reinforced concrete and is very thick

> EXAMINE ROOF

The roof is made of steel reinforced concrete and is very thick. There is a thermal fire detector on the roof.

> HIT DETECTOR

You can't reach!

> STACK CRATES

The crates are now stacked in an easily climbable pile.

> U

You are at roof level. There is a thermal fire detector here.

> HIT DETECTOR

With what?

> HIT DETECTOR WITH P1000

You hit the detector with your lifebook, partly to damage it and partly because getting a battery and recovery disks for it is proving to be such a royal pain to do.

The detector breaks and you feel slightly better about running XP on a machine with only 128M of memory.

> WAIT

Time passes. You have 4.5 hours of battery time remaining.

> WAIT

Time passes. You have 7 hours of battery life remaining.

> WAIT

Your P1000 switches off - possibly because the battery life has never worked properly with a dud battery or possibly because you used it as a hammer.

It's pitch dark, and you can't see a thing.

> WAIT

It's pitch dark, and you can't see a thing. You hear sounds outside the door.

> BANG ON DOOR

The sounds outside the door get much louder, as if someone were hitting it with a large axe.

> WAIT

The door is open, there is a fireman here.

> QUIT

"That was a lucky call," the fireman says to me as I exit through the wreckage of the door. Ordinarily we don't respond to sensor faults, but the monitoring company said that they'd had someone tampering with your company's config this morning so they wanted to be on the safe side."

"And I'm so pleased they did!" I say.

"Yeah, apparently the person who did the tampering did reset the service-mode switch, which trips an alarm after 4 hours."

"The service-mode switch you say?" I ask. "And how does one reset that then - not that I'd ever need to use it to isolate a room which I would subsequently lock my assistant into."

"Pardon?"

"Nothing, thanks again, and if you'll just excuse me I have to go and see my assistant..."

>F.E.A.R MODE ON!<


CHAPTER 3

It is a cold morning when my assistant and I arrive at our rooms to commence yet another day of solving the problems of the masses.

 "Good Lord," Watson cries upon entering Mission Control. "Whatever has happened?!?"

Entering after him I note overturned chairs, upended drawers and tabletops cleared to the floor...

"Curious," I respond. "It's as if the room has been struck by person or persons engaged in a senseless act of vandalism and bears all the hallmarks of a random disorganised attack."

"I suppose so," my assistant nods thoughtfully, "but...?"

"But first impressions are often deceiving. The casual observer might immediately think vandalism, however, I see a pattern to the damage."

"Which is Sherlock?" Watson asks.

"You will note the contents of my desktop have landed on the floor prior the contents of yours, evidenced by the number of items of yours laying on top of mine."

"Yes, yes, now you mention it, I do," my assistant responds.

"And note also that a path appears to be cleared between the two desks subsequent to the damage which in turn suggests that the culprit started at my desk, went to yours, then returned to mine - which goes to prove my longstanding truth that a criminal will always return to the scene of the crime."

"Ah, isn't that supposed to be much LATER?"

"Could be later, could be sooner - who can tell the mind of a disorganised criminal? And look, over here on my display, an unsent email message of some sort, the text of which would appear to be in some code..."

"Yes, I see - but what does the code say?"

"It's a mystery to me, but could be something simple like a random substitution cipher - note how there are word boundaries and differently sized words - In fact it could be a simple key registration shift cipher."

"A key register shift cipher?"

"Yes, where the letter Q is replaced by W, W is replaced by E, E by R and so on, wrapping around at the end of the keypad. You will recall my case of the dancing men?"

"Ah yes, where we encountered strange drawings of figures which was in fact a simple semaphore based code?"

"No, I mean the time we encountered those men Morris dancing."

"What's the mystery in that?"

"Why they'd do it, how they keep their disgusting pastime secret from their friends, why it's not illegal, er, etc."

"No, I don't recall that, but what has it to do with our current case?" my assistant asks.

"Nothing, I just like recalling my triumphs from time to time - like the mystery of the Rubenesque maiden."

"The time you couldn't figure out how the large barmaid from the plough ended up in your bed?"

"Yes."

"After a night of heavy drinking with some vendors at the pub?"

"Yes."

"Some mysteries are just unexplainable," my assistant responds - and do my delicate senses detect a hint of sarcasm??

"However, back to the case in hand. First, eliminate suspects - where were you last night?"

"At a vendor bash with you?" my assistant answers.

"Indeed you were, and I can corroborate that myself - for part of the night at least. And what time did you leave?"

"About 10 - and you were leaving shortly thereafter to get to the station well before the last tube ran in case you mislaid your tube pass again."

"Indeed I was - which leaves only one possible culprit!" I cry.

"Who?"

"Martians!"

"Martians?!"

"Yes, living for years below the surface of the planet to avoid detection they have finally broken cover to come here and steal our advanced technology."

"Ridiculous!"

"Not so! As I have often said, when you eliminate all possible solutions what remains - however improbable - must be the solution!"

"If Martians had the technology to get here surely they'd have more advanced technology than us earthlings - who can't even land on the moon?"

"You're suggesting we haven't reached the moon?"

"If we HAVE reached the moon, why don't we ever see pictures of the lunar rover from telescopes?"

"Simple! They parked it on the Dark Side of the moon so as not to attract undue attention from the wrong people. Dodgy neighborhoods and all that."

"I think it's all a little far fetched Holmes," my assistant says dubiously. "And there simply must be a more reasonable explanation that doesn't involve extra terrestrials, which we could uncover with a bit more legwork."

"And that explanation is?"

"I'm not sure, but I'm positive we could find something which would shed a littl...But wait! I think I've uncovered a clue!!!"

"What?"

"In the bin, four empty cans of Tennants Extra!!!"

"TRAMPJUICE!" I cry. "So you're suggesting tramps broke into our offices to steal our advanced technology?"

"No."

"They broke in to use our bin?"

"No."

"So they broke in for no reason at all? I suppose it's plausible..."

"How about something a little more plausible?" my assistant suggests.

"Yes?"

"The culprit was attending a vendor drinking session and left without the accompaniment a barmaid. Feeling lowly he stopped in at a friendly off license for a couple of cans of cheap booze to take the edge off the tube ride home. Realising he left his tube pass in his office, the culprit returned to search the office for it, making a mess in the process. Ring any bells?"

"What, you're suggesting I did this?"

"Of course. You do it every six months or so Holmes."

"Really."

"Yes, and remember, you always have vague memories of being in a large waiting room filled with computer equipment?"

"Oh yes, it's all becoming clear to me now!" I sigh. "But how do you explained the coded message."

"I checked the keyboard registration thingy," the PFY replies. "It's you trying to tell me you'll probably be in late."

"Ah!"

"Case closed?" the PFY asks.

"Yes, I think you're right - although I wouldn't open your top drawer if I were you?"

"Why not?"

"I seem to recall using the bathroom. Number twos"

>Sigh<


CHAPTER 4

"I...uh...was wondering if you'd check this over for...uh...accuracy," the head of IT says, handing over a stack of about two inches of paper.

 "What is it?" I gasp, fearing the worst - that it's a business case for a new and inventive way for the company to flush its IT spend down the proverbial crapper.

"It's a personal thing - my autobiography."

"Your...autobiography."

"Yes, it's called Press return to continue and is about my life in computing from the early 60s till now."

"Didn't you used to work in an insurance company?" the PFY asks.

"Yes, and they were one of the earliest adopters of computing! We used to code people's information onto punch cards, then send them off to the central office for them to be batch processed overnight, and the cards with errors were marked and sent back to us, and then we'd have to use a lookup table to find out what the error was with the data that had been..."

"I'm sorry," the PFY gasps. "I think I just went into an insulin coma."

"Oh, are you a diabetic?" the head gasps.

"No, but I think I know what it feels like when the darkness closes in," the PFY sighs.

"Anyway," the Head continues. "Because of the cost of repunching cards I recommended we change to Mark Sense cards which meant that we could simply use a pencil and an eraser and reuse..."

"Wait!" I cry, before the head can continue. "Don't spoil it for me, I'd like to read it for myself!"

"Oh, of course, good point. It's a bit of a read, if I say so myself!"

Which is what worries me...

"You don't mind if I take myself off somewhere quiet to run over a couple of chapters?"

"And I could look at a couple too so we can get back to you quicker," the PFY offers.

"I...I don't see why not - you've nothing important on?"

"Nah, a database recovery, some system tuning and a couple of helpdesk calls - nothing that can't wait..."

"Excellent."

...Later at the pub...

"Listen to this," the PFY says, moving his pint aside and pointing to a chunk of text "...'and it turned out that the engineer had installed the 380-B1 backplane instead of the 380-B2, which took us almost two days to discover because although the 380-B1 was an eight bit bus it had a parity complement option, which the engineer hadn't noticed'."

"Riveting stuff," I concur. "But I think I can top that with three pages of a stack dump that once came off a console printer - which he proceeds to diagnose instruction by instruction..."

...Later that same day...

"So what did you think?" the head asks excitedly as he catches us trying to sneak back into the office to get our coats and leave...

"Well, overall..." the PFY starts.

"..it's a page turner," I say.

"Yes, you can't wait to see how it ends," the PFY adds.

"Anything I should change?"

"Well, maybe go a little lighter on the technical detail and a bit more into funny anecdotes?" I suggest.

"Oh you mean like the system 380 backplane mixup?" he chuckles.

"Not exactly. I think you should be aiming more at funny-ha-ha then funny-I-want-to-kill-myself."

"What are you saying?"

"That the mainstream buyers would probably like to hear more about you pushing a pie into Bill Gate's face," I say.

"Or the time you got rat-arsed at a trade show, hijacked a segway and drove it into a swimming pool," the PFY suggests.

"Or when you gave Richard Stallman a free beer..."

"But I've never done those things?!"

"It's an IT autobiography - you're expected to lie about things," I say. "You know, how you discovered the 'byte' while you were working with some Christmas tree lights one day or how you had a vision for the internet which you accidentally disclosed over drinks at a University pub one day."

"Yeah," the PFY adds. "And when you write about yourself you have to imply that the so-called technologists were really as thick as a VAX architecture guide and how YOU played THE pivotal role in guiding them to their discovery."

"But people know who discovered things!"

"They THINK they do - but once you release your book 'HOW JOBS, GATES, WOZ and ELLISON SCREWED MY KIDS OUT OF THEIR INHERITANCE' people will start wondering..."

"I haven't got any kids!"

"Of course you don't," I say. "Because you didn't have enough royalties from your stolen intellectual property to pay for their lifesaving operations!"

"Put that in the book!" the PFY advises "...then steal some photos of kids off MySpace - ones with a cute dog in the picture work best - and age the image up a bit with Photoshop."

"So you're suggesting I lie?"

"A)It's computing, and B) It's an autobiography," the PFY says. "People know they're going to be lied to."

"And you think it'll sell?"

"Better than you'd think," the PFY predicts. "But publish a couple of chapters on the web first to get a bit of interest going..."

...

Three days later the amount of paper on the head's desk has grown astronomically - and that's just the lawsuits! Who could have guessed the man would embraced the idea of lying so totally.

"And to think," I say to the PFY. "We worked with the man who wrote DOS."

"And C."

"And Fortran. And helped invent the transistor, the microchip and wrote most of Vista in his spare time."

"Ah well," the PFY sighs. "They can't all be winners."


CHAPTER 5

"What's your opinion of this?" The Boss asks, handing over a brochure for a laptop.

"Seems OK to me," the PFY says "Reasonably cheap, good enough specs. I'm surprised you're looking at getting one though as there's no fancy bells as whistles."

"Oh it's not for me!" The Boss gasps, digging out yet another brochure from his briefcase. "Heavens no! Anyway, what do you think of this?"

"Hmmmm, a 64 seat 56k Modem pool - how... er.. last century," The PFY says.

"Last century?! But it's got data compression!" The Boss adds defensively.

"So do most of my smutty pictures," The PFY says, without missing a beat. "But surely we should be living in the Now?"

"Meaning?"

"Meaning we'd expect our people to be using ADSL or broadband of some sort, not dialup."

"And isn't 64 seats a little bit overkill don't you think?" I add. "I mean we'd be lucky to get ten people using the existing pool."

"Yes, but if we implement the new work-from-home scheme those numbers would rise," The Boss burbles with a measure of triumph.

"Work from home?"

"Yes. The company's been considering it for a while now and the Head of IT's asked me to implement it."

"Really, why?"

"It seems that a lot of current research suggests that companies like ours can actually achieve performance gains and associated savings by allowing staff to work from home one or two days a week."

"But surely that research could be reinterpreted to mean that companies like ours have a high proportion of staff who just arse around at work?" I ask.

"I don't think so. The numbers are very positive - In fact in some cases productivity was seen to double!"

"Twice nothing is still nothing," The PFY adds sagely.

"HEY!" I cry, having a brainstorm. "What about if we implemented a work from work scheme?”

"What do you mean by 'twice nothing'?" the Boss asks, ignoring me.

"He means that some of our staff don't do anything anyway - but to look on the bright side at least with the work-from-home scheme they wouldn't take up office space."

"And that's the main point," The Boss says. "We're paying very high rentals for our office space, power, cleaning, etc, and if we got staff to work from home for a day a week and implemented a deskless office we'd be cable to consolidate the office space and relinquish an entire floor"

"Deskless office?" the PFY says

"Ah” I respond before the Boss can get involved “An office where noone has a specific desk and people use available space combined with mobile & follow-me phone technology. It's very huggy feely with everyone being friends and sharing resources"

"So it'll never work," the PFY says.

"Not a chance."

"But it makes perfect financial sense," the Boss Heimi Hendersons.

"Suit yourself," I say.

"So you're not actually averse to the ideal of trialling a work-from-home?"

"On the contrary. I think it's a fantastic idea," I say.

"Really?" the Boss chirps, happy that he's not going to have to defend the idea to anyone.

"Sure! I mean if we get some of the deadwood working from home there's the distinct possibility their wives will catch them browsing porn for half the day and they'll get the kicking they so richly deserve!!!"

“And everyone wins!” The PFY says.

"I doubt that people waste that much of the day," The Boss says.

"I think you'd be surprised. Some of our staff spend about three hours a day posting to a Hi-Tech audio blogsite."

"There's nothing dodgy about that!" The Boss gasps.

"It could be argued that there is when you spend about several hours every working day commenting on Class A & B amplifier design theory!" The PFY says.

"But that's just a hobby, not pornography!"

"Using that reasoning, if I called pornography a hobby could I spend three hours a day on it?" The PFY asks.

"Of course not!"

"Ah well, never mind. But back to the issue at hand. The company wants this to save money on rent, yes?" I ask.

"Yes."

"And they have no problem spending stacks of cash on the deskless office idea, laptops, mobile phone calling and ADSL subscriptions?"

"No."

"Which would still work out at less than they're spending on rent?"

"Considerably less."

"And it's better than just firing people?"

"We can't do that and you know it. The unions would be all over us."

"What about - and this is just off the top of my head - forming an offshoot company and giving everyone the option of 'transferring' to the new 'work-from-home' company which will lease out one of the floors we vacate."

"The deadwood would be in there like a rat up a drainpipe," The PFY adds.

"Then, in three months time say, just send the company bankrupt - or alternatively just let our beancounters run it into the ground..."

"And as a result...we've saved rent and...reduced our non-performing workforce?" The Boss asks. "Hmm. How many people do you think we'll be able to get to go?"

"I'm guessing most of the Beancounters, all of PR and Marketing, about half of the PAs and some business analysts. Maybe 50."

"So we're talking 50 laptops," The Boss mumbles wandering off quickly to get the order in.

"Fifty?" The PFY says dubiously.

"Not a chance, so many middle and upper middle managers will apply that the idea'll be canned quicker than you can say constructive dismissal. Sure, we'll end up with a stockpile of brand new laptops which we will be unable to return because they'll be...shop-soiled..."

"I swear it shall be done!" The PFY chirps.

"Which just leaves..."

"Listing them on eBay with a ridiculously low reserve," The PFY adds, grabbing the brochure the Boss left behind. "I'll get right onto it!"

"Right then, if anyone wants me I'll be... "

"Working from home?"

"Exactly!" I say, leaving for the pub.


CHAPTER 6

One of the stranger urban legends that people harbour about geeks is that we have a deep seated enthusiasm for all problems technical - that the thought of a non-booting PC is our equivalent of a three pipe problem and that we're silently chomping at the bit to discover some problem to pit our skills against.

True, I enjoy a challenge as much as the next card-carrying furry tooth with low social skills, but in my case the challenge tends to be more like: "How do I shoot the armoured guy in FEAR using only a pistol, without slowmo, at advanced difficulty?"

And as a result it always comes as a little bit of a disappointment when the Boss rolls up with some 'challenge' for me to have a look at....

"Have I got a problem for you!" the Boss burbles happily.

"I'm not sure, do you?"

"Yes!"

"In that case, it seems you do."

"Don't you want to hear about it?" he asks.

"..."

"It's my daughter's laptop!"

"Your daughter's laptop?"

"Yes."

"So not a work laptop then?"

"No. Well yes, it used to be. It was my old work one which the company sold me."

"But you've only worked here a couple of months..."

"My old company."

"So you want me to look at a machine that's not work related, not for a worker, and didn't even originate here?"

"Yes."

"Sure bring it in - I'm sure we can do something with it," the PFY says. "And your toaster - is that working good too?"

"Why?"

"We may as well fix that at the same time!"

"No, it's fine," the Boss says, missing the sarcasm. "But I will bring the laptop in - although it's not that portable."

"It's a laptop!"

"Yes, but it's heavy."

"How heavy can a laptop be?"

. . .

The next day dawns and the boss drags the machine in. At first glance it looks like your normal ancient oversized laptop (thankfully not one of those awful luggables with a CRT inside) but a closer inspection reveals a machine made in a time when robustness and impressive weight meant something to a manufacturer.

"Honestly, this thing weighs about 35 pounds!” the PFY gasps, levering it up onto his desk. "What's it made of, lead?!"

"I... don't know" the Boss says, still getting his breath back after the walk from the lift.

"Oooh, inbuilt power supply," I say, stroking the case lovingly. "Always good for an extra pound or so - or ten as it's a transformer based one."

"You're joking," the PFY blurts, looking down the vent holes. "Wow!"

"Yeeees," I say, pushing the power button. "Oooooh, A P2 with 2 memory banks containing... 64 Meg."

"A scorcher - oh, and is that the battery warning light?"

"And after just 12 minutes - I bet it's lead acid".

"Or just lead," the PFY nods. "What are you running 98?"

"Windows XP," the Boss replies.

"Slower than a 5 day cricket test is it?"

"I..."

"You should go to Vista."

"So you like Vista?"

"Not really, no. I run a Vista simulator."

"Virtual Server?" the Boss asks.

"Nah, I just turned on all the flashy crap in XP, changed the background image, took some memory out of my box and clocked down the CPU. Then broke Media player. Works like a charm."

"So you don't like it?"

"No. But it has does have one advantage."

"What's that?"

"It causes a clean reinstall of XP which is generally good from a defrag point of view."

"So you're not really suggesting I install Vista?"

"No. Even if you could you shouldn't - not with this baby/"

"So I should keep XP?"

"No."

"Downgrade to 2000?"

"No."

"Windows 98?"

"No."

"95?"

"No."

"What am I supposed to do with it then?"

"Take my advice," the PFY says. “Nail a couple of planks to either side and use it as a bedside table."

"But... I thought you could do something with it."

"Yeah - the bedside table idea!"

"But it's a perfectly good laptop."

"No, it's a craptop - there's a subtle difference."

"What?"

"About 30 pounds."

"But it's perfectly good."

"Okay, tell you what. Pop it on the front seat of your car, wind the window down and take a walk around the block. I'll bet you 50 quid it's still there when you get back!"

"50 quid?" he echoes.

"50 Quid!" the PFY responds, taking the aforementioned sum out of his wallet and handing it to me.

. . . Two hours later . . .

"It was still there wasn't it?" the PFY says, reaching for his cash.

"Yes," the Boss sighs. "But my car stereo and internal door handles weren't. The stereo's useless to anyone as it's coded to the door key - and who the hell needs door handles?"

"It's a strange world," the PFY agrees as the Boss exits Mission Control shaking his head.

"So this is worthless then?" I say, tossing the Boss's car stereo into the bin. "But why did you want the door handles?"

"Just for the chuckle when he gets home."

"I... Oh! ...So that's why you wanted the fuse for the electric windows."

"Electric Windows Vista - just like the real thing!" the PFY smirks, chucking the handles after the stereo.


CHAPTER 7

The boss is late and everyone's noticed.

And when I say everyone's noticed I really mean no one's noticed, but it has been two days and when someone's been on a weekend junket then doesn't show within a day or so word gets around...

...

It's day three before the boss finally wanders into work with the unpressed clothes and vacant expression that can only mean one thing...

"Lost weekend syndrome!" I murmur to the PFY while the Boss works out which office is his.

"Lost weekend syndrome?"

"Yeah. It's such a beginner's mistake!" I comment, shaking my head sadly.

"Going on a junket at a vendor's expense is a mistake?" the PFY asks, surprised.

"In some cases, yes. Rule one of going on a Vendor Bender is always play on your home ground so you know how to get home - or at least where home is. At the VERY least you should be in a place where you can ask a local where your hotel is. Rule two, three and four are Never, EVER go to Amsterdam with a Vendor!"

"I don't see how it would..."

"Ok, so you're out with vendors. What are they going to do?"

"Buy you drinks!"

"Yes. And it's overseas, so they're going to buy you..."

"...A LOT of drinks."

"Right. And it's a weekend, so they're going to buy you..."

"...An OBSCENE amount of drinks."

"And when you've had a lot of drinks, what are you going to want to do?"

"Chat up women?"

"Yes...And..."

"Go to the toilet?"

"Excellent, one more bodily function to go..."

"Have a curry!"

"Precisely. So you're at a curry house - what will you need?"

"Kingfishers!"

"More drinks, right. And somewhere along the way, you're going to pay up and go back to your hotel. Only you won't remember where it was."

"True..."

"Or what its name was."

"Right..."

"And you're in Amsterdam, so you'll run into some kindly person who will mention the coffee shop just down the street, and you will think...?"

"'I could go for a coffee!'"

"Indeed. Three days later when your money runs out you'll leave the coffee shop and lie to the person at the airport about the family emergency that caused you to miss your flight and you'll get to Heathrow."

"With no money."

"Indeed. And you'll bludge a phone to call to the Mrs to pick you up and on the way home she'll ask how it went, you'll make up some pathetically unbelievable story because you can't remember, which will inevitably lead to..."

"A fight!"

"Yes, and she'll make up some equally unbelievable story about hearing some funny engine noise and pull over. You'll get out to check the engine and she'll drive off, leaving you on the M25 with tons of time to make up your mind about where you're going to walk to - work or home.

"And work is nearer, and everyone there doesn't hate you at the moment for whatever it was you did in Amsterdam that you felt it necessary to lie about," the PFY finishes.

"Correct."

"And you can tell all this from his appearance Holmes?" the PFY asks.

"Nah, he rang in to say he'd be late and it all came out. Still, it's a familiar story. Which is why I keep this on hand," I say, pulling a sports bag out of my cupboard.

"?"

"A towel, shaving kit, hotel toiletries, aspirin, a bottle of IRNBRU, 100 quid and the key to the sick room. Enough to clean yourself up, buy a cheap shirt and trousers, and get yourself into work state," I say, to the Boss, as I hand it over.

...three hours later...

"That was a bit good of you. I have to admit I had you pegged as a kick-a-man-when-he's-down sort of person," the Boss admits.

"Don't get me wrong," I respond. "If you're going to be kicking a man, then when he's down is probably one of the better times..."

"Then why...?"

"Because I've been there. I too went on an overseas junket which turned to custard, if I'm not mixing my desserts."

"You?"

"Yes, a Berlin 'Wall shout'. Started going pear shaped when the Absinthe came out just before lunch," I say, recounting all I know.

"So we're okay?"

"Indeed, welcome to the Brotherhood."

"The Brotherhood?"

"The Brotherhood of the lost weekend. It's your duty to refill the bag and hand it to the next person who needs it."

"The next person?"

"Yeah," I say, dropping my voice to a whisper. "I've booked the PFY onto a tour of a PC assembly company in Luton tomorrow which has a large number of shares in an Absinthe company in France."

"Oooh," the Boss says. "So I'd better get a move on!"

"Nah, five days should just about do it..."


CHAPTER 8

"It's a takeover," the PFY murmurs, entering Mission Control after his recce of the top floor - or more accurately, the spade work he's been putting in with the CEO's PA.

"A takeover, I should have guessed," I say, thinking back to the feverish activity which has been occurring in Beancounter and PR Centrals. "Who?"

"No idea," the PFY says. "It's all very hush hush and she won't tell me."

"Hmmm - I think you'll need to break out the big guns. Do you know if we're Mummy or Daddy?"

"Hmm?"

"Giving or getting the shaft?"

"Oh, you mean are we taking over them or they taking over us?"

"Uh-huh."

"NEITHER!" the Boss interrupts, appearing at the door.

"Neither?"

"No, it's going to be a MERGER."

"Ah. So we're Mummy."

"No, we're going to MERGE both companies and form one big company."

"One big company with too many staff and too many office buildings..."

"No, we're just going to merge together and continue as a larger company," the Boss argues.

Sigh.

"Which company name are we going to use?"

"That's not been decided yet!"

"Big guns!" I nod to the PFY, who wordlessly cracks a four pack of Diamond White Cider from the fridge and heads back up to the CEO's PA's office.

...

"We'll probably just keep on going as we have done as separate entities," the Boss suggests.

"Oh, the Compaq myth."

Foryt-one minutes later the PFY's back.

"Mummy," he says.

"What, we're being taken over?!" the Boss gasps as people slowly start gathering in the doorway having witnessed the PFY's Diamond White dash and knowing that there's a crisis...

"Yep. Meetings at high levels about severance packages for senior managers..."

"Does that include me?" the Boss sniffles.

"Survey says...Bom-Bommmmm," the PFY says.

"So that's it then, we're down the road!!?"

"Remaining middle management typically gets cut by about 40 per cent," I say, quoting some statistics I recently perused. "But I doubt they'll get rid of any of the technical staff till they know how out systems and networks work - which could take years!!!"

"Call centre?" the helpdesk supervisor asks, from outside the door.

"Bom-Bommmmmmm," the PFY responds.

"What about database people," a voice from the background asks.

"When we're all integrated into Daddy's existing database?" I ask.

"Telephonists?" another voice asks.

"The ones that were merged into the call centre in the first week? Bom-Bommmmm," I respond.

"And you're not worried?"

"Nah, like I said it'll take years for them to figure out how our systems work."

"So...what do we do?" yet another voice asks.

"Well..."

"What?!" someone demands.

"Job security by job obscurity is the key. Burn all documentation so no one can figure out what you do. Fabricate and post-date memos from HR guaranteeing you 52 week severance payouts as amendments to your employment contracts - keeping a copy for yourself obviously - then get a friendly HR person to sign them and insert them into your file."

"What, they'll just do that for us?"

"I suspect they inserted 104 week amendments as soon as they heard of a 'merger'."

"And that will save our jobs?"

"No, but the thought of large severance packages and huge integration hurdles will give them a few moments of pause..."

"And then?"

"By then my assistant and I will have worked our magic."

"?"

"We get some acquaintances in the City to circulate rumours that the company's taking us over just to get out of their asbestos riddled building before the class-action lawsuit is filed."

"Really?"

"Who cares? If the company denies the rumours it'll start a whole new round of rumours of cover-ups - either way the share price will dip, their investment capital will disappear and suddenly the takeover becomes less likely..."

"And...we'll still have our jobs?"

"Oh yeah."

"So will you do it?"

"It'll cost you a pint."

"Each," the PFY says.

...Later, after an extended lager lunch...

"So are you really going to do it?" the PFY slurs as we stumble back to work.

"Already made the calls. And just before lunch I'm going to 'leak' some 'memos' indicating the company knew the asbestos was there and estimating their liability to be in the billions - 'IF anyone finds out'."

"Why?"

"To ensure the most favourable share price when I start buying just before close of business tonight."

...late morning the next day...

"What are the odds?" the PFY asks, suppressing a chuckle.

"I know," I sigh.

"Yes," the PFY says. "Who could've known they really had covered up asbestos in the building?"

"Noo ne could have known," I concur. "You didn't buy shares then?"

"No, I was too busy posting those comments saying the shareholders should be made liable for investing in a morally bankrupt business."

"What? When?"

"Yesterday afternoon. Last night. 10 minutes ago."

"But you knew I'd invested. You knew I'd put all my available cash in there!!!" I gasp.

"Yeah, but I got to thinking about how much I like that little holiday place of yours in Spain with the potentially unserviceable mortgage..."

"You?"

"Oh yes," the PFY says. "Who's your Daddy?"


CHAPTER 9

Scene: The rooftop of the building at dusk

"Ahhhh smell that," I say to the PFY as we look out at the London skyline. "The fresh London air tinged with a touch of diesel, a hint of autumn chill, and a liberal dash of the kebab shop down the road."

"Greatest city in the world!" the PFY says.

"And you know, standing up here, I can't help but think of the fateful words that Hillary said all those years ago."

"'What's Monica doing?'"

"No, EDMUND Hillary."

"Oh HIM," the PFY nods.

"Yes, the words he spoke as he at last reached the summit of Everest."

"Oh, you mean 'Pop down and get me a roll of bog paper will you Norgay, I think the devil's brew you whipped up has given me the runs'?"

"No, now you're thinking of Prince Philip. No, when he said those words, 'One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind!'"

"I think you'll find that's Armstrong."

"Louis Armstrong said that?!"

"JUST GET ON WITH IT!" the PFY snaps.

>toss<

.. ... ....

..... ...... ....... ........

>crash!< >weeoh< >weeoh< >weeoh< >weeoh< >weeoh< ...

"You were right, the thing just vapourises!" I say, looking at the debris of the laptop six floors below.

"Told you," the PFY says. "Pay up."

I hand £10 over and we go back to the office...

...The next day...

"I'm sorry," I tell the Boss. "We were running some tests on your laptop and it failed."

"Oh, well I suppose I can make a warranty claim!" he responds.

"I think you'll find the warranty was voided when you tampered with the protective devices from the machine."

"I didn't remove any protective devices!"

"You mean you didn't take the plastic layer off the screen?"

"The protective layer?" the Boss asks.

"Exactly."

"But you can't see the screen properly otherwise!!"

"Still, a void is a void."

"Can it be repaired?"

"Uhhmmmmmm, not really," the PFY says, handing over a shopping bag with the pieces we retrieved.

"What the hell did you do to it?"

"We tossed it off the building."

"WHY?"

"Because it had to be fully tested."

"That's not a real test!"

"Of course it is - it's a test to see if your device would survive being tossed off the top of a building - as we're now required to do because of the new 'Security of Workplace Data' directive which requires us to ensure that machines don't fail during normal work practices and/or lose data which may be of value to the company."

"It's not a normal work practice for me to throw my machine off a roof!"

"Ah, but isn't it?" the PFY counters.

"It's NOT!"

"What about in the situation where a zealous operational type was taking a backup of your machine - in line with the 'Security of Workplace Data' directive' - and notices that there is a file locking error in the backup. Being the professional that he is, he investigates the error and finds that the affected file is a video and that the cheap playback system installed on the machine - presumably because it's one of the few that doesn't report back what you're looking at - has locked the file for read. Say this professional, having not seen the video hotchickbj.mpg PRESUMES that it's a workplace safety video for instance and remotely forces the application to close so that he can get the backup system to open the file before it's viewed again. Say all that happens, and this zealous operational type realises that and offsite backup of this user's data would be a good option and sends the DVD backup to the person's home address. And maybe his wife chucks it in the DVD player thinking it's a movie and the only thing renderable on their DVD player is the safety video. And she decided to confront you at work and look at your laptop."

"Fair enough," the Boss says, realising he's both cornered and busted. "In THAT situation, MAYBE I would want to test my laptop for it's ability to fall from the roof of a building, but that's hardly li.."

"Oooh look, it's your Mrs!" I say, pointing behind the Boss. "...Made you look."

"Did you send a DVD to my home."

"Of course I did, I was ensuring data safety. What time does the post come round your way?"

>SLAM!<

...two hours later...

"You're for it now!" the Boss wheezes, all pretence gone after his cross town dash. "Why the hell would you want to take a copy of my porn - it's not data of value to the company?"

"It is if they want to fire you," the PFY says.

"Not when I do THIS," he says, snapping a DVD sized envelope in half.

"Why?"

"Because now there's no evidence - no laptop, no backup."

"What about the onsite backup?" the PFY asks.

"What onsite backup?"

"Well there's two really - the one we keep in the tape safe and the one that I must have accidentally put in the Head of IT's DVD drive..."

>SLAM!<

"...or was it the AV system in the boardroom - I can't remember exactly."

"Never mind about that now," I say. "I need your help testing the duplexing Multifunction printer with the additional stapling and perfect binding unit."

"Is that a computer?"

"It has a hard drive..."

"Oh yeah..."

"And get a jiggle on, the Boss is in the 30 minute parking zone."


CHAPTER 10

>Swipe< >bip< >bip< >bip< >bip< >BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEEP!<

>Swipe< >bip< >bip< >bip< >bip< >BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEEP!<

>Swipe< >bip< ... >bip< ... >bip< .... >bip< >BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEEP!<

"There's something wrong with the door," the Boss announces.

"Which door?" the PFY asks, apparently oblivious to the fact that the Boss is standing outside the entrance to the computer room.

"THIS door."

"What's the matter with it?"

"Cards don't work on it."

"Really?" the PFY says, wandering over. >SWIPE< >bip< >bip< >bip< >bip< >Clack!< >SLAM!< "No, seems to be fine..."

"It doesn't work with my card!"

"Ah, so it's more of a card problem than a door one. It's probably just that you're not permitted access to the computer room."

"Ridiculous! Why wouldn't I have access to the computer room?"

"Let's rephrase that as why WOULD you have access to the computer room?" I ask, weighing into the conversation. "Given that your IT 'expertise' is about 15 years old and involved changing PABX batteries?"

"I..." the Boss says, realising that at least ONE person at the company can read between the lines of his CV.

"And so you see there really isn't any real reason why you would need to have access..." the PFY adds.

"Well I would LIKE access anyway!"

"And I would like unbreakable Oracle, but you have to pick your battles..."

"I'll just get security to do it!"

"The inline filter in the door control circuit that rejects certain updates..."

"Why would you put a filter in?!"

"Because we've had issues with people doing inappropriate things in the computer room."

"What do you mean?"

"Running, eating, drinking," the PFY says reading from the 'unacceptable activities' list."

"I'm hardly likely to do any of those things."

"Not with no access."

"I...This isn't finished!" he snaps storming out.

Three days later the Boss attacks on a new front by rolling on up accompanied by a weedy bloke struggling under the weight of a 1U rack-mount server.

"We need to install this," the Boss says.

"?"

"It's your portal appliance," the weedy guy responds.

"A portal appliance?"

"A dedicated server which will act as the gateway to all your internal and external processing."

"Oh, you mean like a single point of failure!" the PFY gasps.

"No, this is state-of-the-art - a fault free turnkey solution."

"Fair enough, hand it over then," the PFY assents.

"No, I need to install it," the geek says, looking to the Boss for affirmation.

"But it's a turnkey device," the PFY argues.

"It might have some startup problems the first time."

"You said it was fault free!"

"Initial configuration options?" the geek suggests.

"Tell you what, do them here and we'll install it later."

...10 minutes later...

"So I'll just..."

"...hand it over and we'll install it."

"I'll need access to the console if it fails!"

"AND it's a critical portal application so he's going to need to have access at all hours - DAY AND NIGHT in case something happens when you're not around," the Boss adds.

"And I'll need a pager," the geek adds. "Connected to your monitoring software."

"Because?"

"It...might have a hardware problem...as yet undiagnosed."

Eventually I am talked around to giving the geek access to the server room, much to the PFY's disgust.

"It was just a cover story so he can let the Boss into the machine room."

"Of course it was," I concur.

"And he's not going to be able to do anything even if it does go down, just power the thing up again."

"Uh-huh."

"And if it does go down it's going to take user visibility to our systems with it."

"Indeed."

"It'll be a critical outage!"

"Uh-huh."

"And someone's going to have to respond."

"Yes, you're right. And who will that person be?"

"Not me."

"Or me. No, it looks like every outage will be dealt with by our geeky new acquaintance."

"Who could be in and out of the room all the time. And you're not worried?"

"Nah, he'll crack first," I say. >CLACK!< "Oh dear - it looks like the circuit breaker to the portal machine has tripped," I add, closing the switchboard door.

One higher rated breaker later...

>wiggle< >clunk< ... >wiggle< >clunk< "Oh dear - it looks like the power cables have vibrated loose from the portal machine!" I gasp.

Two cable ties later...

"And your next plan is?" the PFY asks.

"A simple combination of the effects of the lunchtime curry and repeated Pings-of-Death."

"Pings-of-Death? Nothing's susceptible to that any more!"

"Nessus says yes," I say. >tappity<

...Twenty Ping-of-Deaths, pages and geek visits later...

"We'll have to turn it off," the geek whimpers. "I can't keep coming in to reset it every minute or so."

"We can't turn it off!" the PFY responds. "It's the gateway to all our internal and external processing and we're starting end-of-financial-year processing!!!"

"But I can't keep coming in!" the geek whines. "I need to go to..."

>beep< >beep< >beep<

...

With the number of outages the head of IT was pretty much obliged to take a look at the situation for himself sooner or later - it was just coincidence that the PFY rang him to visit the exact moment that the effects of the curry, cold environment, and bowel pressure had the geek dispatching his lunchtime curry into a cardboard box within reach of the portal server's reset button.

Suffice to say there's a new entry in the unacceptable activities list and the inline filter is no longer necessary...


CHAPTER 11

"We should get a server for podcasts," the Boss announces, breezing into Mission Control under the influence of a new idea.

 "What for?" the PFY asks.

"So we can deliver podcasts and video to our staff and customers."

"What podcasts?"

"Podcasts about what's happening in the company."

"Where are these podcasts at the moment?"

"We don't have any at the moment, but if we had a server for them people would do them."

"Which people?" the PFY asks.

"Anyone with something to say."

"You mean anyone with nothing to say - like blogs," the PFY says.

"What do you mean?"

"That most people don't have anything useful to say but feel obliged to say it anyway. I'm also saying we shouldn't be promoting a forum for them not to say it in."

"I..." the Boss pauses, working out the double triple negative.

"LOOK," I say trying to demystify the PFY's words. "Your average beancounter for instance, what's he going to say to the masses?"

"I..."

"He's going to say that thanks to his ingenious plan of importing pens directly from a former Russian state he's saved the company a couple of thousand pounds a year."

"It doesn't sound all that ingenious," the Boss murmurs.

"No, the ingenious part will be the bit he doesn't say - that he bought the pens knowing that most of them will fail and people will start bringing their own pens in and the company won't have to buy pens any more."

"I guess that's sort of ingenious."

"No it's not, because we paid for the dud pens in the first place! Ingenious would be to have a competition to see how many free pens staff can obtain from vendors clients and suppliers, with a 10 quid movie voucher as a prize!"

"I..."

"And even that is boring."

"I don't get your point..."

"My point is that what people think is interesting really isn't. For instance, you might believe that there's people who'd like to know about the refurbishment of the steam locomotive once used to drive the royal carriage between Walthamstow and Leeds..."

"No, you can't get a direct run from Waltham..."

"Woah there - I think I lost nine minutes of my life - I must have been abducted by aliens! No, no, that's right, you were telling one of your train stories again - I can tell the difference now because aliens only steal nine MINUTES, not NINE HOURS!"

"So the train thing was a demonstration of something you find uninteresting?" the Boss says drily.

"Its something everyone finds uninteresting. So if you're going to podcast something we should find something that people WANT to watch and make some of that."

"Porn," the PFY blurts. "Everyone likes porn!"

"You'll have to forgive my assistant," I counter. "He dropped a bottle of isopropyl this morning and stayed to clean it up."

"So what would people find interesting?" the Boss asks.

"Porn!" the PFY repeats.

"I don't know," I say, ignoring the PFY. "But that IS the point - the real work is in finding out what people want to see..."

"PORN!"

"...then once you've found it, make some of it - or hire someone to make some of it."

"Isn't it a little... twofaced... to get someone in to make videos which are supposed to be made by us?"

"You'll never regret using a professional."

"Are we still talking about Porn?" the PFY asks.

"Regardless," the Boss says, following my example and ignoring the PFY. "I'd like to set up a server so that anyone in the company can publish stuff."

"P..." the PFY starts.

"EXCEPT for him!" the Boss interrupts.

I quickly realise that the Boss is going to want this to happen and that any advice to the contrary is going to be ignored...

"I guess we could use one of our recently decommissioned servers - till things pick up - that way we'd probably have everything up and running in a couple of days," I suggest.

"Excellent."

...three days later..

"How many podcasts have we got?" the Boss asks anxiously.

"Hang on, I'll just count... ...uh ...and... ...None"

"But someone must have something to put up."

"I could..." the PFY starts.

"It's to be used for things pertaining to the company, its staff and business, and things of interest to them!" the Boss snaps. "Nothing else. And we need to get some stuff up soon because the Head of IT and the CEO are keenly interested in it as a medium for morale and recruiting."

...a day later...

"How many podcasts today?" the Boss whispers - with just a touch of pleading to his voice as I notice the CEO wander into the Head of IT's office.

"Four," I say.

"Ohthankgoodness," he gasps. "Although I knew it would catch on. Any viewers?"

"Stacks."

"What's been put up?" the PFY and the Boss ask simultaneously.

"One of the beancounters has an interesting video on recycling paperclips and staples."

"..."

"And the mail room has one about how to fill out shipping labels - although my personal favourite is the security fire drill procedure..."

"I thought you said there were stacks of viewers!?" the PFY says.

"Yes, but not for them."

"What are they watching?"

"An instructional piece contributed anonymously entitled how to get a shag at the office Christmas party."

"Porn?" the PFY asks hesitantly.

"No, more a morale and recruiting piece aimed at people who might otherwise not get a shag in the normal course of events. It meets all the prerequisite criteria by being of interest to the company and featuring footage of actual company Christmas parties... >DASH!< >SLAM!< ...Featuring actual staff. And, in a couple of cases some clients."

"PORN!" the PFY sighs happily, sitting himself down.

So the Boss was right - it was good for morale.


CHAPTER 12

"So if we go to your website and build this software, download and deploy it through a group policy over our domain - the machines will all report on the OS, software and version information that they have installed?" the PFY asks.

"Yes," Sonya, our friendly root-of-all-evil sales rep says, with the Boss nodding happily in the background.

"And the information will be stashed in a database so that we can get pretty reports for our managers - and no one else?"

"No one," evil says.

"And you're not going to use it to just have a peek to see if we're violating our software licenses for your products?"

"Never!"

"Not even so that you can tell how many people are using someone else's software instead of yours?"

"No."

"Not even to tell which software you should be developing in the future?"

"Not even then."

"Not even to tell which companies you should be buying in the future?"

"No."

"Not even if it saved your company millions and millions - and millions - of dollars?"

"No, it's a client service," our rep says - in the same tone of voice the proctologist uses when he tells you that you'll hardly notice the maglite and tree felling wedges he'll be using in the next procedure.

"Not even if Beelzebub himself asks for it?"

"Still no," our rep says.

"...Liar, liar pants on fire!" the PFY responds.

"Look," the Boss snaps, wading into the argument. "This is a fantastic opportunity for you to offload some of your more onerous tasks. They're doing it to help you! You can install this program and then when we need information about what software we're running, what we should be buying, and what needs upgrading, we can just go to their website and look - and it's all up to date!!"

"It's a waste of time. And an invasion of our privacy," the PFY says defensively.

"I think you're just exaggerating - it's a wonderful opportunity for us, and I'd like you to at least trial it. If we don't like it we can just uninstall it later. We'll take a look at it and see if the information it provides us is worth the effort."

...half an hour later when Mission Control empties...

"This is bad!" the PFY mumbles, pacing about the place. "Really bad!"

"What do you mean bad?" I ask. "We'll deploy the app, it'll come back and tell us that we have about 600 machines and maybe we'll discover that we need to get a few licenses for stuff which shouldn't in theory be running."

"What about if it came back and told us that we had about 2,000 machines?"

"No, it doesn't look at license keys issued, it looks at actual machines."

"That's what I mean," the PFY says, looking around furtively.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know when that bloke from across the road needed some help in setting up their domain a couple of years ago?"

"I...vaguely."

"And you know how I did most of the donkey work for him..."

"Uhhmm, if you say so."

"You know, bought and installed the domain controllers, bought the client licenses, bought and installed the CALs for all their office prod..."

"You didn't!" I gasp.

"I...."

"You joined them to our domain with the site license."

"Yes."

"And DIDN'T SHARE THE CASH!?"

"I...think we have bigger problems."

"What do you bloody mean, WE? WE implies some form of partnership - consultation - profit sharing."

"Well if this is just about the money..." the PFY begins.

"That's right," I nod.

"And not about the harsh personal consequences that might befall you as the signatory of the site license documents and chief administrator of the systems concerned..."

"You bastard! You had this all worked out didn't you?"

"No, no, it was just luck that you were the one doing the signing this year. As opposed to the planning that went into ensuring that the ownership of the OU concerned was you - which will probably show up when I click the deploy button," the PFY says, finger hovering over his mouse.

"Okay, okay. Truce," I say. "It's a simple problem - deploy the app tonight, then drag a DC over to their building early tomorrow. Isolate them from the world and tell them there's been a network outage and they won't get the software or show up on the scan."

"That'll only buy us a couple of hours - we need at least four hours apparently."

"If you need an extra couple of hours, set a skip bin on fire and fan the smoke into the ventilation system - then break a stack of sprinkler heads inside after everyone evacuates," I say, recalling an old favourite.

"I suppose it's a plan."

...the next evening...

"Did you see the place across the road had a full blown evacuation today?" the Boss asks as the PFY enters Mission Control, pausing momentarily upon seeing Sonya back in the office.

"Really?" I say. "I was out collecting some gear from offsite."

"Bid scene," the Boss burbles. "Anyway back to the review - so we're pretty much A-OK for licenses and our software's mostly up to date. There was just the one problem."

"Problem?" the PFY asks.

"Yes, a bit of...well...piracy going on."

"Piracy? I thought the tool wasn't going to be used as a stick to beat us with?" then PFY snaps.

"It's not," the Boss says. "I called Sonya in because someone's installed a stack of games on a couple of machines and Simon suggested she could tell me if she could help me track them down."

"YOU suggested?" the PFY says, looking to me.

"Well yes," I say innocently. "Because of course piracy is everyone's problem."

"Piracy?"

"Yes," the Boss says. "Sonya was able to find out that the license keys used were ones available on a pirate website."

"But the good news is," I say. "That they're not work machines - they are personal machines, and shouldn't even be plugged into the network. These machines in fact."

I point to a box with a couple of portable gaming rigs which look as impressive now as they did when I stole them from the PFY's front room this morning.

"And we were just discussing that since the machines have no identifiable owners there's no one to be referred for prosecution."

"Oh," the PFY says, masking a measure of relief.

"And as there's no identifiable owner Simon felt that perhaps Sonya's company might want to clean the machines up and donate them and some software to a suitable charity..."

"Did he?" the PFY seethes.

"And he suggested that you might be able to donate some of your time to helping erase them..."

"I don't thi..."

"Hey - why don't we check with the hardware vendor to see if the warranty card was filled out?" I suggest.

"Oh I suppose I can do it now," the PFY says.

"Isn't it great when everybody wins?" I ask.


CHAPTER 13

"So let me get this straight," I say to the PFY. "You want me to give you a reasonable amount of time to make a suave first impression - and engage her in some meaningful conversation about one of her interest topics - then bust in with some huge problem that only you can fix which will make you look like someone pretty bloody important?"

"Yes - a problem that I need to go offsite for so that I can arrange to meet up with her later to continue the conversation over a couple of drinks, yes."

"No problems - but are you sure she's worth the spadework?"

"Positive. You remember the temp from PR a couple of months back?"

"Oh yeah," I sigh happily.

"A two bag special in comparison."

"I find that rather difficult to believe..."

"True story," the PFY says, grabbing some office install disks and exiting. "She's a stunner, so just remember - 20 minutes then emergency time."

...

Ten minutes later I'm still trying to think of the right emergency that would require the PFY to go offsite. Then it comes to me, Core LAN switching problem. In a telco network - that's affecting emergency services - and they need the PFY because of...the paper he once presented on...repairing core LAN switching problems in Telco environments...where emergency services are affected...

True, it's not my best work and about as believable as the old weapons-of-mass-destruction chestnut, but we're talking about a user who can't even install her own copy of Office, so I don't think we need to go into too much back-story.

...Five minutes later...

>CRASH!<

"There you are," I gasp, muttering excuses as I turn to...

"What is it?" the PFY asks an indeterminate amount of time later.

"Is something the matter?" the PFY's companion - an absolute vision of radiance - asks.

The mental tyres are spinning in sand as I realise that the PFY had understated her beauty somewhat and that it was a bit like calling Michaelango a painting contractor.

"You have some emergency - for me?" the PFY prompts "Something important that only I can fix?"

"I...uh...yes," I say, still a little gobstruck but mentally turning over options. Bingo! "Your wife called and said her water's broken and she needs you to come home and take care of the triplets while she drives herself to hospital again...And she said that if you're not home in 20 minutes she's going to burn your porn and flush your viagra down the toilet."

That last bit was just a touch cruel but I figured that the PFY still had a bit of credibility from "sharing the parental workload" and all...

"I...I'd better go then," the PFY says, uncommonly subdued now he knows the death blow has been dealt. "I...can you finish the install?" he says, feigning distraction.

"Course I can," I say. "What stage are we at?"

"I...haven't actually got around to putting the install CD in yet," the PFY says.

The sly dog, dragging out the install so he'd need to come back repeatedly - one of my favourite ruses, it has to be admitted.

"Ok then, I guess I'll do that and get started as soon as," I say, slapping the CD in the drive as the PFY exits. "Sorry, I suppose I should introduce myself - the name's Simon."

"Katherine," she says in sweet melodic tones.

"And you're new here?"

"Yes, a mutual friend suggested I apply for this position," she says.

"Oh really, someone who works here?"

"Yes, he works in HR and noticed the vacancy."

"Partner?" I ask.

"Sorry?"

"Your partner?" I ask pretending to be too deeply immersed in setting the install options to be probing for details of her private life.

"Goodness no," she says. "No, I just know him from dancing."

"Ah, you mean like ceroc?" I ask having kept vaguely abreast of social trends.

"Wha, oh, no no, line dancing."

"Line dancing?" I gasp.

"Yes yes, I know what you're going to say, but there's nothing nerdish about it at all - it's great fun. I was put onto it by some friends in my D&D group."

"D&D Group?"

"Yeah, I got into it when I was a student. One of the people in my book group was a D&D-er."

"Book Group!?!" I say, surreptitiously prodding feverishly at my cellphone keypad.

"Yes, we read the classics - you know the Bronte sisters, Solze..."

>BEEP< >BEEP<

"Excuse me," I say, drawing my phone into the open and pretending to read a text message. "Oh no! There's been a...core lan switching problem - at the Telephone Centre and...half of London is affected. I have to go!"

"Oh, that's a shame - would you like to perhaps meet up later - there's always room for another at the book club!"

"I'd like to but there's no telling how long this will take!"

>Dash<

"WHAT A GEEK!" the PFY gasps as soon as I get back to Mission Control.

"I know."

"Did she show you her photos?"

"What, line dancing, D&D, or book club?"

"What a waste," the PFY says. "And so sad too. So, what's up now?"

"Well, I thought I'd spend the rest of the afternoon playing Stalker, get 10 pints in at the pub, a quick curry chaser, then fall asleep in the tube and wake up in Snaresbrook five minutes after the last train."

"Now THAT's a hobby!" the PFY says.


CHAPTER 14

"You want to WHAT?!?!" the PFY gasps, beating me to the draw by microseconds.

"Move the computer room?" the Boss responds, surprised that there's any objection to his latest brainwave.

"You've got to be kidding!"

"Not at all," the Boss asks, still not aware of the enormous upheaval he's proposing. "I've been talking with the head of IT and the architect and they both agree - it's prime office space wasted."

"But it takes MONTHS to move a computer room – properly," I respond.

"Why, we just need to fit out a room with a raised floor!"

"And air-conditioning."

"Yes, air-conditioning, we've thought of that. As space is a little limited we thought we'd install the unit in an alcove on the floor above and duct chilled air down into the room."

"What about UPS power?" the PFY chimes in.

"Can't we just leave the UPS here and run power down from it?" the Boss says.

"I doubt the people using the 'prime office space' will consider a 120KVA UPS with noisy inverters to be a desirable roommate."

"Point taken. I suppose we could move it to the sub basement and just get a smaller unit for the critical users left up here."

"Sorry, are you proposing we move as well?" I ask.

"Well yes - you'd need to be close to your machines wouldn't you?"

"THE SUB BASEMENT!" the PFY cries, having lost his love of dark, enclosed spaces during one of those weekend-in-a-lift practical joke sessions we enjoy so much.

"It makes perfect sense!" the Boss replies "A computer room has very few visitors - it doesn't need a second floor office space - and you don't even like visitors."

"We'd need fire suppression," I add.

"Not a worry, we can install that in the basement along with the air-conditioning. I've been promised three car park spaces in the basement to house air-conditioning and other services."

"Emergency lighting?"

"One at each end of the space."

"Offices?" I ask. "Assuming of course that you weren't proposing we work in the computer room itself."

"I... not a problem, we'll have an office built."

"Cabling?"

"What cabling?"

"The fibre and copper network cabling, the patch frames, the rack cabling."

"Oh... Do we really need them?"

"You mean could we fit wireless lan cards to every server and cover a wall with Wireless Access points?"

"I... yes."

"No."

"Oh. So how long would it take to get the network installed?"

"You mean repatch the fibre and copper distribution components down there, put in PBE frames, fibre termination points, racks and rack cabling? A couple of months."

"I... guess that would be ok. It affects the time frame a little but it shouldn't be too bad - should we go and look at the room just in case we see anything else we might want to consider?"

. . . Five minutes and several unhappy gestures from the PFY later. . .

"So this is the room," the Boss says, showing us into a large clinically clean concrete room.

"It's big," I say.

"What's that smell?" the PFY asks.

"Oh that, that's just a... two pot leak-sealing compound the contractors used to make the place completely watertight - because I knew you'd be concerned about leaks and flooding in a sub basement area," the Boss says smugly.

"So you've started work on this already without discussing it with us?"

"I... well yes, we're under a bit of pressure for the space so I thought I'd get a headstart by organising some of the work that I knew would be needed - like the leak sealing and the access for the air-conditioning - see up there?"

"Where?" the PFY asks, gazing into the roof space blankly.

"There, to the right. That hole corresponds with the alcove at the back of the car park where the bin normally sits. The bin will be moved outside and the air-conditioning and fire gear can be ducted through that hole into the room."

"Sorry, to go back to a previous point - you said something about pressure for space?"

"Uh... yes. Yes we need the space on the second floor - as soon as possible."

"For..."

"For a... uhhhm... video conferencing, multimedia and fishbowling centre," the Boss blurts.

"A multimedia centre!" the PFY cries. "You're planning on moving us so you can chat to mates and watch movies! Whose bright idea was that?"

"I... Well it's not like you interact with people anyway," the Boss says defensively.

"And let's face it," I add. "This is a greenfields computer suite - we could build the perfect computer room here."

"What?" the PFY gasps.

"It's perfect - below ground so not subject to wild variations in temperature, watertight so not prone to flooding, overhead services so we don't need to sacrifice valuable computer room space for non-computing use, isolated and secure - it's perfect!"

"PERFECT!?!?!"

"Sure - well, almost perfect. I think the aircon ducting run might be a little long from ceiling to underfloor though - a little lossy," I say, pulling a seemingly valid criticism out of my nether regions.

"It should be ok," the Boss says, not wanting to ask what the hell 'lossy' means.

"Are you sure - it's a little long. Have you got a measuring tape?"

"Sure," the Boss says, handing one over.

"Okay, I'll feed the tape down and can you just hold it about 200mm from the floor - where the subfloor would start."

"Okay then," the Boss says as the PFY and I exit.

. . . two minutes later . . .

"How's that?" the Boss asks from below us.

"Fantastic," I say. "11 feet three inches. And what's the size of the room again?"

"Thirty feet by twenty feet, why?"

"And what rate does water come out of one of these babies?" I say dropping the fire hose into the hole a little while the PFY turns the handle.

>GUSH!!!<

>rattle< >rattle< >RATTLE!!!<

"The door's stuck!!!" the Boss cries as the PFY pushes the bin back over the hole

>indistinct rattle<

"Completely watertight you say? So I guess he'll get to try that fishbowling going WAY ahead of schedule..." the PFY sighs.


CHAPTER 15

"Ah, Simon, Steven, there's a man here from security wants a word with you?" the head of IT asks nervously.

"Really?" the PFY says. "What's he want?"

"Found a body," security says, stepping into Mission Control from behind the head.

"A body?" the PFY says, in his well-practised innocent manner.

"A body," security repeats.

"Where?" I ask.

"Third floor showers."

For a moment there I'd wondered whether the PFY really was the hard faced bastard he sometimes appeared to be and hadn't made the anonymous call to security about the Boss' sub basement predicament, but even our ducting system isn't watertight enough to push someone up four floors...

"And you're coming to us to see if we have security footage?"

"No."

"Swipe card records?"

"No."

"Motion sensor logs?"

"No," security repeats. "I popped up to see if you knew something about it."

"Showering?" the PFY asks, acting slightly offended.

"The body."

"Oh, I shouldn't think so. Who was it?"

"Bloke from accounts payable. Henderson."

"And you thought of them why?" the head of IT asks.

"We thought he'd died from natural causes," security says, nodding at the PFY.

"Natural causes?"

"Yeah, electrocution, drowning, poisoning..."

"They're not natural causes!" the head gasps.

"They are if you call me at 4am whining about the quality of toner," I snap. "Not that this bloke...uhm..."

"Henderson," security supplies helpfully.

"...did that."

"So you thought of them because?"

"Because he was a beancounter and because he had one of these in his hand," security says, holding up a USB key.

"A USB key," the PFY says. "What's on it?"

"I was hoping you'd be able to tell me that – it's encrypted."

"Ah...shouldn't the Police be doing that?" the PFY says, choosing the cautious route.

"They should be, but I've been asked to take a look at it because Henderson was being monitored internally. It seems he was a little enthusiastic in processing the payments he's been authorising the last few months. Paying them two or three times in some cases..."

"And THAT'S why you thought of us – you thought he'd been overpaying us?"

"No, the payments were all to an auditing company for 'consultancy' fees," the head of IT says, getting in on the act. "But our company doesn't want its name in the E-Crime reports since the CEO's a charter member of the E-Crime Awareness Committee, and it might look bad..."

"So let's get this straight – your sole reason for suspecting that we had something to do with it was because the guy was carrying a USB key?"

"He was naked," security adds.

"Oh please tell me he was 'carrying it' in his hand!" the PFY says, dropping it on his desk while suppressing a gag reflex.

"Yes."

"Oh, right then >PLUG!<" the PFY sighs. "Okay, >clickety< so it's a USB Key-based encryption system with... >tap< >tap< hundreds of trillions of possible keys and >clickety< would most likely take several weeks of computing time to crack."

"Really?" the head of IT gasps.

"Nah, it's a raw image of an encrypted ZIP file – >tap< >tap< and an very early version of ZIP at that.""

"So when will you have it cracked?" security asks.

"Now," the PFY says, opening a spreadsheet onto the window. ">clickety< Hm... >tapity-click< It's just a spreadsheet of payments – hardly worth putting into a zip file at all – certainly not worth encrypting >tappity<"

"Nothing else hidden on the device?!?"

">clickety< Nnnnooo, doesn't look like it. >tappity< By the look of it the key was brand new – or newly low-level erased and the Zip file raw copied over it – the rest is blank. So it looks like you're back to square one – perhaps someone at the audit company thought he knew too much?"

"Yes, it's possible – but at least we know we're not going to be handing over any data which might embarrass the CEO," security says. "We can hand this over to the Police safe in the knowledge that no further invoices will be triple paid. And now that that's cleared up.. >RING< Hello... Yes... Yes... really? Okay, yes... good, goodbye then."

"What is it?" the head asks expectantly.

"A friend of mine keeping me posted about the coroner's report – it was natural causes."

"You mean electric..."

"No stroke. The coroner reckons he probably dropped the key, bent over to pick it up and BAM, lights out matron!"

"So it wasn't them?" the head asks dubiously looking at the PFY and myself.

"Nope, just a random event – could have happened to anyone," security says, grabbing the USB key and wandering off sheepishly with the head of IT in tow.

...

"So you opened your own auditing office," I say to the PFY once they're gone. "Ballsy! But the stroke thing – a piece of luck or overdose of blood thinners in the water fountain?"

"ME?!"" the PFY gasps. "I thought it was you?"

"Hell no. But the double payment stuff sounds good!"

"Yeah, all the rage in Iraq. Apparently Henderson was paying the same bill on successive months by appending a suffix to the invoice number. On the third month he'd divert suspicion simply by paying the bill plus the overdue penalty so the numbers didn't recur. And the best part was he had a set of SQL statements which he'd trigger from his desktop to do it without leaving an audit trail in the finance package."

"That's pretty bloody clever...But how do you know all this?"

"It was all in that ZIP file on the USB key."

"But that was only a spreadsheet!"

"No, that was off the Beancounter's fileshare. The real ZIP file was much more interesting – he's kept notes and everything!"

"So..."

"I think it's time we got our names on the employee list at that auditing place..." the PFY says, picking up the phone and bashing in a number...


CHAPTER 16

"...and this is Simon and Steven. Simon, Steven, this is David, he's our new hardware technician," the new Boss says, entering Mission Control.

"New hardware technician? What about our old one?"

"I was under the impression we didn't have an old one."

"That's right," the PFY says defensively. "Because we didn't need one."

"It seems you do. I was looking through the write off statistics and it seems that our equipment has some of the worst expected lifetimes around. In some cases we write off equipment that's almost new."

"Plasma screens have only recently settled down stability wise," the PFY counters. "And the larger sized ones had the worst failure rate."

"Still, probably worth a warranty claim though," David chips in.

"Too late, it was disposed of," the PFY says before someone starts thinking about looking for it. At his place...connected to his DVD player...

...Five minutes later...

"I don't like it," the PFY says. "He's going to be a problem."

"Nah, he'll be fine," I say. "The boredom will get to him."

...The next day...

"Have you guys got an oscilloscope?" Dave asks, with the Boss closely in tow.

"What for?"

"Need to check the data lines of the IDE interface on that machine you're going to toast. We may not need to chuck it out as it may just be a faulty cable," he says.

...Two minutes later after Dave's departed with the scope...

"The bastard!" the PFY fumes. "It took ages to pull that connector to bits and break off some of the data pins. I was going to use that as a home cinema!"

"Yeah, he's good. Strange he didn't just swap the cable out though."

"Mmm," the PFY says thoughtfully. "So he's just showing off?"

"Bound to be..."

...Two further minutes later...

"Yeah, it's stuffed," Dave says, popping his head back into Mission control. "Must be a dud motherboard."

"Ah well," the PFY says. "Sling it in here, we'll dump it later."

"No need," Dave says. "I've got a contact who does sustainable recycling."

"Yeah, but we might be able to use some bits."

"Nah, they're all stuffed," Dave says.

"It's true," the Boss adds. "He checked them all with the ozziscope."

...

"THE BASTARD!" the PFY snaps.

"Oh, he IS good," I concur. "But lets see how good he is after a few midnight callouts..."

...

So it's 2am and Dave's just put a machine back into a rack after replacing a couple of failed hard drives that the PFY and I had fitted a couple of hours ago prior to tripping the SNMP alert.

"Odd losing two in one go like that," he says cheerfully. "Still, it happens from time to time though. So if that's all I'll let you guys get onto the data recovery."

"Thanks," I say, letting Dave out.

...Three hours later...

"Sorry for getting you back in again Dave, but it looks like another drive's failed," the PFY says, pointing to the machine.

...Ten minutes later...

"That's funny."

"What is?" the PFY says.

"This drive looks exactly the same as one of the ones I replaced earlier."

"They all look the exactly the same don't they?" the PFY says.

"No, see how this one has a gouge in the label just before the brand name - I think I did that when I pulled the old one out of the drive tray."

"You must have done it twice," the PFY proffers.

"I don't think so. Say, do you have the old drives, I'd like to take a look at them."

"Oh, sorry, I didn't realise you'd want them. I sent them off to a sustainable recycler," the PFY replies, with more than a little sarcasm in his voice.

...Later that day...

"...and then Dave replaced the third drive and we >yawn< recovered the data," I say, recounting the whole thing to the boss.

"Did you keep that drive then?" Dave asks. "Didn't send it off for recycling in the middle of the night?"

"No, we kept it in case you wanted to check it against the next faulty drive," the PFY snaps.

"Which will probably occur tonight," Dave chips. "Once around 2am and another at around...5?"

He IS good!

"No, I'm sure it'll be ok," the PFY says. "Besides, I'm so tired I'm unlikely to hear the pager."

"Yes, David mentioned you might be a little tired so I've had security give him access through your office to the Computer room 24x7."

"The bastard," I murmur before the PFY can say anything.

"Pardon?"

"Hmm?" I respond.

...

"So we need to make ABSOLUTELY SURE that nothing goes wrong tonight so as not to justify his access."

"Should I check all the machines and do a bit of preventative maintenance?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of disabling the fault reporting system," I say...

"ONTO IT!" the PFY snaps.

...

The next day dawns without incident - which I confirm when I run into the PFY while waiting for the lift.

"Not a tinkle - the pager was silent all night," he affirms as we enter Mission Control. "MY DESKTOP!" he gasps, seeing his monitor sitting on his chair.

"What did y... *MY* Desktop!" I cry. "And my laptop! And my reserve desktop and reserve laptop!"

"My laptop!" the PFY gasps, opening his second drawer to find an empty space.

A quick scan of the room tells the story that the trolley scuff marks in the carpet should have told us before we walked in.

"WE'VE BEEN RIPPED OFF!"

"And we know whose fault this is!" I say, turning and heading to the Boss' office...which is completely empty.

Completely. Not even a phone.

"They're good," I say, as the PFY looks under the Boss' desk for any evidence.

"There's a note," the PFY says pointing behind the door.

"It's to us!" I say slamming the door and ripping down the note, "It says 'Thanks for the memories, the kit and the plasma screen - Dave and John.'"

"Who's John - and what plasma screen?"

"John is the Boss and the only plasma screen they knew about is the one you've got at - "

"What?"

"You don't still keep a spare house key in your desk drawer do you?"

"Yes, but it's loc.. THE BASTARDS!!"

"Oh, they're good," I say, noticing the blanking plate where the door handle should be. "They're BLOODY good."


CHAPTER 17

"Impressive," our recent ex-new-Boss says nervously, edging towards the back of the room. "How did you... find us?"

"Simple," the PFY says, entering from the door behind him, cattleprod in hand. "One of the laptops you took wasn't exactly what it looked like."

"Bitlocker?" the ex-new-technician asks, halting his in-tandem retreat along with the ex-Boss.

"No," I respond, fingering my own modded prod. "The machine had built in wireless and GPS and used scripted netstumbler to peer with any access points it could find and report its location."

"Really?" the ex-boss asks.

"Nah, the PFY lifted your wallet the day you started and stole your credit card details and personal information. We followed you here from your home."

"Ah," the ex-Boss says. "Which was why I found my wallet on the floor behind my desk last week."

"Indeed. Why steal a wallet when the cards would be deactivated within the day? No, it's far better that you feel you mislaid it for a moment and give us the opportunity to order a month's worth of crap to be delivered to your home."

"Crap?"

"Gym gear, PC games, porn, and diet products."

"Ah," the ex-Boss says knowingly. "All stuff which is very hard to return..."

"And you might have made donations to a number of internet based organisations with anti-democratic viewpoints – so I wouldn't do any flying in the near future."

"Either of you," the PFY says nodding at the ex-technician. "Those messages you were posting about Western infidels are almost certainly being read by anonymous men in a grey building somewhere in the city..."

"Which is why returning home is probably not your best option," I add.

"Not with the three sacks of fertiliser under your stairwell anyway..." the PFY adds.

"I..."

"Have our equipment and are only too willing to give it back to avoid a nasty incident?" the PFY asks.

"Yes?" the ex-technician suggests.

"And compensate us for our time with a couple of hundred quid?" the PFY adds.

"Fifty," the ex-Boss says.

"Each," the PFY counters.

"Done!"

And a deal is struck. Being consummate professionals they know a lost cause when they see it. Moments later the PFY and I have keys to a North London lockup, a little cash, and an agreement that the company will have learned some valuable lessons from the incident.

"So how did you manage to get the gear out so quickly?" the PFY asks as we have a post-truce pint with the ex-Boss and ex-tech.

"We got some magnetic signs made for a fake PC repair company then slapped them on a rental van," the ex-tech explains.

"Then we got a couple of lab coats, a clipboard, and started loading up gear. Amazing what people will fall for."

"And security didn't say anything?" the PFY asks.

"Nothing apart from 'this is heavy'."

"You used security to help steal stuff from the company?" I sigh.

"Oh yes, they were most helpful."

"Ah well, I suppose the company will learn something from this..." I say.

"Although not much," the PFY adds.

"No?" our ex-Boss asks.

"No, the current brainwave of the head of IT is to fit out our Madrid office with kit that we configure here - network, desktop and server - and just talk them through the install on the phone!" the PFY snaps.

"Really? Much kit?" our ex-Boss asks eagerly.

"A bit - but don't even think about it - it's being shipped privately. It SEEMS that the CEO's bought a villa in Spain and is going to get the company to pay for his shipping container by putting the computing gear in with his stuff."

"Sounds like someone needs to be taught a lesson..." our ex-tech says.

"You mean..." our ex-Boss asks.

"Uh-huh. We could rent a van full of empty computer boxes that need to be put into the container at the last minute."

"50/50 on the proceeds?" the PFY asks.

...Late the next night at the Cargo terminal...

"They must employ the same security staff as we do!" the PFY gasps. "I mean who's going to believe we're Rabies inspectors!"

"What was the container number?" the ex-Boss asks nervously, knowing we've got a fairly small window to do this in.

"Here," I said, handing over a shipping receipt.

"Okay... " he responds, driving slowly past rows of containers waiting to be loaded. "... BINGO - and it's at ground level!"

>Creak< >Clank< >Groaaaan<

"That's odd," the ex-Boss says. "There's computing boxes here but the furniture's complete crap."

"Well you guys go in and grab the stuff while the PFY and I grab the 'replacement' kit," I say.

"Okay... hang on, these are just empty b..." >GROAN SLAM!< >CLANK<

"Amazing what people will fall for," the PFY says, shaking his head and screwing up the shipping receipt.

"Still, a holiday in Spain can't be all bad," I say.

"True," the PFY says. "And I made sure to put the sacks of fertiliser next to the torch - so they know what to expect when we dob them in to the Coast Guard..."

"Okay then," I say. "We're about done. But before you return their van to the hire company..."

"Yes, I know," the PFY sighs. "Back into a solid object a couple of times, use up all the gas and wait outside a kebab place until someone's sick on the passenger seat."

As they say, vengeance is a pre-digested meal best served on pseudo leather...


CHAPTER 18

"I've lost some documents!" the Head of IT gasps, bounding into Mission Control with beads of sweat dotting his puffy red brow.

"Documents?" the PFY asks.

"Yes, I scanned our licence agreements into the computer and now they're gone!"

"Gone from your computer?" the PFY sighs, firing up the backup software.

"No, no, I put them into the content management system."

"Ah," the PFY sighs. "So they're gone alright."

"But I only put them in last week!"

"Uh-huh."

"It sent me an email telling me they'd been added to the system!"

"Yep."

"There was a link to the documents!!"

"Mmmmm."

"I TESTED IT!!"

"Course you did - and it worked the first time around didn't it?"

"Yes."

"And maybe you checked, a day later, just to be certain?"

"I did - and they were there! But they're not now!"

"No, they wouldn't be would they?"

"WHY NOT!?" he snarls.

"Because we bought a budget content management system. The one based around a relational database that the developers designed themselves."

"I..."

"The one we repeatedly told the company not to buy a couple of years back," I chip in.

"Yes, but it was..."

"The one that the developers abandoned development on six months later because we were the only UK customer to buy it."

"They weren't to know th..." the Head pleads.

"The one with the referential integrity of an Alzheimer's patient meaning a document will be there one day, gone the next and back - briefly - at some indeterminate time in the future?" the PFY says, really labouring the point now.

"Yes, yes, well it's done now, so how do we recover the data?"

"Recover?"

"Get it back into the content management system."

"It's already back," the PFY says. "It's in there somewhere, just the database indexing is corrupt."

"So can you uncorrupt it?"

"You mean do an index rebuild?"

"Yes," the Head sighs, seeing a happy ending.

"Sure - though there's only a small chance we'll get your docs back in the index but a large chance that we'll lose other documents from the index."

"How? Why?"

"Ok," I say, going to the whiteboard in lecture mode. "The database >scribble< >squeak< will rebuild indexes which are corrupt. The indexes got corrupt >scribble< >scribble< somehow, which means there's every chance that there's duplicates >squeak< >squeak< in the database - which in turn means that when you rebuild the indexes one of the dups will disappear >scribble<. Alternatively, because the integrity's so bad, we could delete >scribble< documents that the database can index in the hopes that when you rebuild the indexes >squeak< >squeak< the missing licence documents will reappear."

"We need those licenses back, so do what you have to!" the Head snaps.

"Which licences were they exactly?" the PFY asks.

"All of them."

"All... uh even the ones in the document safe!?" the PFY gasps.

"Yes - especially those."

"Our site licenses... for... everything?!"

"Yes, but if you get them back you ca..."

"You destroyed the originals didn't you?" I sigh.

"Of course. What's the point in scanning them if you're going to keep the documents?"

"What was the point in scanning them in the first place?"

"We needed space in the document vault for some new contracts."

"So you destroyed licence documents - some of which are proof-of-purchase, some of which are one-time licences and will not be reissued by the vendor."

"But as you say, they're still in the content management system somewhere. Can't you just do a search on the content management server and find them?"

"Don't be silly - no content management server allows that - or you'd be able to change systems to some cheaper vendor. No, a proper content management system makes it next to impossible to extract your content in any automated manner so that you're forced to use their product and pay their licence fees no matter how crap it is."

"But you said this wasn't a proper system."

"No, we said that this was a budget system - so it's worse. In their wisdom the designers adopted a file system model and split the files into 128K chunks with a pointer to the first chunk and a linked list thereafter. Once you lose the first pointer, it's gone - unless of course you rebuild the database and the right pointer wins."

"So we should delete some documents from the system?"

"In theory we should delete all the documents from the system to free up pointers then rebuild the indexes which should retrieve all the missing documents. But it'd take ages to do that..."

"Not if we work together," the Head gasps. "But - how do we get the existing documents back?"

"When we've rebuilt the index we extract all the recovered data files. Then we just recover the content management system from backups and reinsert the documents into it, safely."

"Right," the Head says, dashing off to get deleting.

"So when do we tell him that there's no index rebuild function?" the PFY asks.

"AFTER I ring that company that gives you £50 for dobbing in companies who pirate software..." I reply, picking up the Yellow Pages.

"But that would be after I discover that the backup utility on the content management system has been silently failing for months...All of which would be a week or so before we tell him that the licences were only colour photocopies of the originals in the tape safes..."

"It's a plan!" the PFY chirps.


CHAPTER 19

Sometimes things get a little crazy - no one knows that better than me. Take bastard rivalry for instance, with the PFY and I staking the company's wellbeing against a paltry couple of pints...

"Ten quid says the server will clap out once the temperature hits 80," the PFY says.

"You're on!" I blurt, knowing full well that I had it up to 85 a couple of nights ago before orchestrating this wager.

. . . >click<

"And that's ten quid you owe me," I say smugly.

"Double or nothing that the SAN will falter under destructive diagnostics!" the PFY counters.

"No bet!" I say, recalling the PFY spending a bit of time in the computer room recently, obviously doing some orchestration of his own...

"Double or nothing I can make the Boss cry before lunchtime?"

"If it's double or nothing I'd want him crying before morning tea," I say. "AND no pretending to be his wife with the good news about the Nigerian Oil Company investment she put their retirement savings into - this has to be a technical cause."

"So it's a deal then?"

"Sure."

Half an hour and some tears later my winnings are voided...

"Impressive," I say. "How many hours of Photoshop was that?"

"None," the PFY responds. "It was a lucky find on MySpace."

"So they're real?"

"It would seem so. The Boss's daughter is a rising star in the... uh... entertainment... industry."

"Ok then, so how about shouting a couple of pints with your winnings?"

"It was double or nothing - there weren't any winnings," the PFY says. "But what the hey!"

Ten minutes later in the pub.

"Cheers," the PFY says, raising a pint. "Hey, isn't that Gary?"

I look to where the PFY's pointing, and sure enough Gary, a bastard acquaintance from the financial district, is having quiet pint in the corner. Responding to his wave, the PFY and I wander over and take a seat.

"A little out of your home region aren't you?" I ask.

"Yeah, but I thought I'd pop over and introduce you to my new assistant," Gary says.

"Really, who's that then?" I ask looking around.

"Me," the PFY says.

"You?" I gasp, realising the orchestration was a little more detailed than I'd thought.

"Yep, Gary's offered me a better deal."

"More money?"

The PFY rattles off a figure that the average Beancounter would be pleased to see as a departmental budget and I can't help but be a little upset.

"You earn more than that here!"

"Yes but there's more opportunities at Gary's place."

"But surely you're better off here?" I sniff.

"Nah."

"What about loyalty?"

"Eh?"

"But I set you up with your first girlfriend," I gasp. "In fact, I also set you up with your latest girlfriend!"

"Yeah, well, that's over as of last night," the PFY sighs.

"Really? What a shame, I quite liked her. You don't still have her number do you?"

"You were saying something about loyalty?" Gary asks.

"It doesn't matter," the PFY says. "It was over."

"So you have got her number then?" I ask with what I now realise was unnecessary enthusiasm.

"I'm leaving," the PFY says, with some finality.

"I see," I say, noticing the glee on Gary's face.

And that's how it is with bastard rivalry - when you've run out of users to torture, you turn on your own...

"I have to say you're taking this well," Gary murmurs half an hour later as the PFY empties a few personals from his desk and tips the rest into the bin.

"Yeah, well, this day was bound to come - it's time for him to spread his wings and maybe do something important with his life," I admit.

...

What a load of crap! If Gary things I'm going to take this one bending over, he's got another thing coming. Several in fact.

...Two days later at 7am...

"Hello," Gary snorts, picking up his cellphone on the third ring.

"Gary, Simon here, just thought I'd ring and see how the PFY's doing?"

"Bloody fantastic," Gary gushes. "No hard feelings about me stealing your guy?"

"None at all - and I take it that you're ok with me stealing your UPS batteries?"

"Pardon?"

"Your UPS batteries. I happened to notice them just laying around doing nothing. In your computer room. Very early this morning."

"There would have been an alarm!"

"There SHOULD have been an alarm, yes, but there wasn't - which reminds me - I think the piezo speaker in your UPS is damaged. Looks like someone hit it repeatedly with the edge of a full drive tray that someone removed out of one of your RAID sets last night. They might not even have put it back into the same slot."

"I'd have been paged!"

"Oh yes, I think someone might also have opened the Telco pit outside your building, smashed the copper and fibreoptic cables repeatedly with an axe then filled the pit up with quick setting concrete."

"Is that all?" Gary sighs.

"I hear there might be a power shutdown in your area and I do believe that the tank on your diesel generator may have sprung a leak..."

"When?"

"The power cut?"

"Yeah."

"How long does it take you to get into work?"

"35 minutes."

"Oh, that's a shame, I think the cut is 34 minutes away..."

>sigh< "So I just send him back then?" Gary asks.

"If you like. Though you should probably warn him that the market's pretty buoyant at the moment so I don't know that we'll be able to offer the same as he was getting..."

...and I can't help thinking as I ease open the door of Gary's main switchboad, that this rivalry business might be getting more than a little crazy. But as a wise man once said...'What the hey!'

>CLACK!<


CHAPTER 20

The world is full of great duos focused on a common goal - Hillary and Norgay, Armstrong and Aldrin, Sooty and Sweep - and so is the world of computing.

There's nothing like having a good backup guy, and for me the PFY was that man. My go-to guy, the PFY could be trusted to know what I was looking for almost before I did myself and have it ready and waiting when I got there. I could send him off on a task in the full knowledge that he'll see it through to completion with no hitches or questions.

And so it was a bit of a wrench when PFY forsook the comfort of the home pitch to play for another team - made worse by the two-month reemployment stand-down period which the department apparently has on contractors for some reason. This all means that in the meantime I don't have the ability to delegate those run-of-the-mill everyday functions that plague the life of a systems professional - in turn meaning that I end up having to do them myself...

...

"What's the spade for?" the Boss asks wandering into Mission Control.

"I...uh...gardening," I reply, scanning the helldesk database for a recent complaint.

"And this...uh...sack of...whatisit, lime?"

"Gardening again," I repeat. "Great for...uh...composting."

"The roll of old carpet?"

"Still gardening."

"What do you use carpet for?" he asks dubiously.

"Flip it upside down and use it as weed matting," I say, having prepared for this question earlier.

"Ah right, of course. You know I used to be a keen gardener," the Boss burbles, setting himself up for one of those directionless monologues that seems to plague the social interaction of so many members of middle management. "I used to have brassicas, and leeks."

"Speaking of which, I'm busting for one myself," I add, getting out of the room before I get a run down on the basics of fertiliser application in small gardens...

...

When I get back from the visiting the Gents the situation is even worse. The head of IT and the Boss are engaged in a conversation about the benefits of crop rotation to avoid systemic plant illnesses.

"Riveting as this is, I have work to do, what with my assistant being away and all," I say, pointing at the screen. "So if you'd just move on I could get down to the problem at hand. >clickety< Ah, here we are...the complainant was...M Easton."

"We could lend you a hand to catch up on your work if you need," the Boss suggests, much to the Head's surprise. "And we could chat about gardening at the same time."

!!!

I blame the PFY. Had he not left in the pursuit of career advancement none of this would have been happening - M Easton, whoever the hell he is, would be safely wrapped in carpet in the back of a van speeding towards a disused allotment in the middle of nowhere and I'd be deleting a complaint about the speed of our data recoveries from the helldesk system.

>clickety< >DELETE!<

"I'm sure we could give you a hand," the Head agrees.

"Could you?" I ask. "I need a bit of help digging a hole."

"What sort of hole?"

"I dunno, six feet by two feet by, uh.. six feet deep." "You mean like a grave?" the boss asks, then pauses anxiously.

"Sort of - I'm using the deep-cache method of liming."

"Deep-cache? I don't think I've heard of that?"

"It's a new-age Biodynamic thing," I say. "Quite new but showing some good results."

"Oh yes," the Boss asks dubiously. "How does it work?"

"Well, you dig a large hole, line it with a large quantity of lime, then a layer of compostable matter, then lime. The groundwater will seep up through the cache and distribute lime through the upper water table of the land as the compostable material breaks down."

"And what compostable matter were you going to use?" the Boss asks, interested now.

"Oh, just anything biodegradable I found laying around the office - foodscraps, newspaper...M Easton."

"You're not going to get US helping you with THAT," the Head of IT snaps.

"Yes well, an alternative I have been considering recently is a deeper hole with several layers of lime and compostable matter. Three maybe, depending."

"Depending?"

"On how many old carpets we have in the basement and whether the van's being used tonight - you won't be missed will you?"

"Look what's the real problem?" the Head asks, attempting to defuse the situation.

"The real issue - this moment - is that I'm recovering some data for this M Easton character as fast as I can change tapes and he's complaining about how slack we are."

"So the real issue is the lack of an assistant."

"That's part of it, yes."

"So what if we agreed to waive the stand-down period in this case?"

"That would certainly help yes."

"And you'll abandon this...uh...several layers...option."

"Yes."

"And leave this M Easton person alone?"

"Sure."

"No retaliation at all?"

"None."

"Ok then," the Boss sighs, easing towards the door with the Head of IT. "We'll get that sorted straight away."

...three hours later...

"Ahhh," the PFY says, plopping down into his chair. "Back in the saddle."

"Indeed."

"What's the spade, lime and carpet for?"

"One of the users, M Easton, called you a tosser."

"Right. I'll book the van!"

See, it's like magic having an assistant!


CHAPTER 21

"You're stuffed," our friendly Sparky says, stepping back from our switchboard and putting his clamp meter away.

"Stuffed - and that's a technical term?" the Boss asks sarcastically.

"Yep!" the Sparky replies.

"So what does it mean then?" the Boss continues.

"It MEANS," the PFY says, "that there's no more capacity in the switchboard."

"Just add another circuit breaker, there's plenty of room!"

"I could" our Sparky responds. "But you're using more power than the distribution breaker should be handling - already. If I add any more circuits you'll probably trip the main breaker and bring down the computer room the next time a power supply blows."

"It's on a UPS!" the Boss says drily.

"Yeah," our Sparky says, pointing out, in turn, the parts of the power circuit diagram. "Power Supply to Generator/Supply changeover switch >tap<, to UPS >tap<; to Switchboard >tap<; to Computer Room >tap< - with a couple of Isolating switches >tap< >tap< thrown in."

"Which means?"

"The problem is after the UPS," the PFY says helpfully.

"Exactly," our Sparky adds. "A 100 KVA UPS breakered with a 80KVA circuit breaker which feeds a board currently running at 76KVA."

"?"

"It means you have to replace the switchboard circuit breaker," the PFY says helpfully.

"And busbars to be on the safe side," the Sparky adds.

"What would that cost?" the Boss asks.

"Ffffffffffffff.... " our Sparky sighs - in the way sparkies tend to do when they're trying to work out whether to go first or business class on their next holiday... "I'd have to get some prices."

"Prices?"

"Yeah, circuit breakers, new switchboard, busbars, cable - which is a nightmare now with the price of copper - and cutout switches."

"Ballpark figure?" the Boss asks.

"You're not going to have much change out of eight grand," he says, opting for the first class seats to Switzerland. And the expensive prostitute...

"£8,000," the Boss chokes.

"Can't we keep the old switchboard - what would that cost then?" the PFY suggests, conscious that the boss is borderline stroke material but the camcorder isn't charged...

"I suppose you could," the Sparky says sadly, seeing a downgrade to a ferry to Spain with the missus. "But then you'll move the problem to your breakers because you can't get that type any more - which means when one fails you're going to have to rig up some form of alternative - which can't be done live."

"So we'd need to shutdown the computer room if one breaks?"

"You'd need to shut it down every time one of them breaks," the Sparky responds, not giving up on Switzerland just yet.

"We can't do that!" the Boss gasps.

"Perhaps we could increase the capacity of the main breaker to 120KVA which will allow for a little bit of leeway in the switchboard. Then we ASSUME that none of the breakers is going to fail in the next two years or so, and admit that as the busbars are overrated anyway we should survive."

"I... suppose that might work."

"How much will that cost?" the Boss asks.

"A grand," our sparky says, barely allowing himself enough profit to take a cab to and from work for the next month...

"Well lets do that then!"

"Okay," the Sparky sighs. "So onto the UPS maintenance."

"What UPS maintenance?" the Boss snaps suspiciously.

"Your annual UPS maintenance - what I came here for when you sidetracked me for more powerpoints."

"What's that going to cost - and for what?"

"A grand or so," the Sparky says. "I change the coolant, do a discharge test, retune the time-remaining figures, scan the batteries and electronics with a thermal imaging camera, check the error log, reset the error log, upgrade the UPS and monitor BIOS if necessary and then produce a site report."

"And you want a grand for that?"

"That's actually a pretty good deal," I say to the Boss.

"No it's not!"

"It is," the PFY adds.

"We can't afford it!"

"You're actually contracted to it for five years," the Sparky says.

"Well in that case we'll terminate the contract," the Boss snaps.

"Ah... that's not such a flash idea," the PFY says worriedly. "He will have bought that contract off the UPS company. He would be losing money, personally."

"I don't care," the Boss seethes.

"So I take it you won't be wanting your generator serviced either."

"Yes please," the PFY says nicely.

"Not if it's going to cost a grand I don't!"

...A day later, in the dark, silent computer room...

"Well you showed him didn't you?" the PFY says.

"He can't just turn the power off!" the Boss snaps.

"He didn't, he turned the UPS off!" the PFY responds. "Course if I was him I'd dial in and turn the UPS on and off a stack of times in quick succession to ruin some of our power supp >WHHIIRRRR< >Click< >WHIRRRRRRR< >CLACK< >click< >WHIRRR< >click< >WHI< >CLACK< >click< >WH< >CLACK< >click<..."

...

...

"He can hear us can't he?" the Boss asks.

>WHIRR< >click<

"It would seem so," the PFY whispers back. "Probably through the UPS monitor microphone."

"We can bypass the UPS can't we?" the Boss asks.

"Oh I wouldn't do that," the PFY says uneasily.

>WHIRR< >click< >WHIRR< >click<

"Why not?"

"Well if I were him, I'd wait till we went into bypass mode, then dial in to the Generator control system and toggle the changeover switch about 100 times."

>WHIRR< >click<

"I...So what do you suggest?"

"I suggest you pay the bill."

>WHIRRRR< >click<

"THREE BLOODY GRAND!!!?"

>WHIRRR< >click<

"Make it an even five," I suggest.

>WHIRRRRRRRRRRR<

"I'm not paying five grand!"

>click<

"Make it six grand!" I snap.

>WHIRRRRRR< . . . . . . . . >click<

"What, you want more?" the PFY asks.

>WHIRR< >click<

"Money?"

>WHIRR< >click< >WHIRR< >click<

"Ah. Leave it with me," the PFY says, reaching for the cattle prod.

>WHIIRRRRRRRR<

Professional Tradesmen - you've got to know how to talk to them...


CHAPTER 22

"Simon, Stephen, this is David and uhh... " the Boss says, petering out as his memory fails.

"Carl," David says.

"Carl. And they'll be running the new Multifunction Printing Device rollout."

"I... What multifunction printing device rollout?" the PFY asks.

"The Multifunction Printing Device Project? There was a whole project team looking at it!"

"A whole project team?" I ask.

"Yes, to change all our printers for Multifunction Devices. The project was running all through last year apparently - Surely you knew about it?"

"No one told us!" the PFY asks.

"You must have known!"

"Nope. Whose idea was it?"

"Yours?" the Boss asks, scanning a well worn project brief he must have just come across on his desk somewhere. "'To cut down on duplication' it says."

"Really?" I ask. "It's an admirable concept but it didn't originate with us. I mean if we'd known there was a chance that we were going to be replacing our printers we most certainly wouldn't have ordered a thousand toner cartridges at the beginning of the year."

"You ordered 1,000 toner cartridges!!!" Carl gasps.

"Yeah, but I suppose we can send them back - I don't know what the restocking fee's likely to be tho..."

"Twenty per cent of purchase price for large orders," the PFY says.

"So how much are we talking about?" the boss asks.

"Dunno, maybe six grand" the PFY responds.

"You bought SIX THOUSAND POUNDS WORTH OF TONER CARTRIDGES???" the Boss gasps.

"No, we bought about thirty grand worth of toner cartridges, but the restocking fee'll be about 6k."

"We can't waste that sort of money!" the Boss gasps.

"Course we can!" the PFY says - being a glass-half-full sort of guy.

"I'll be crucified if they see that! They'll think it was my fault!"

"As our manager you are supposed to sign off high value orders!"

"I wasn't even working here at the time!"

"And I'm sure the board will realise that," the PFY says dubiously.

"The BOARD!"

"Yeah, word's bound to get out. Unless..."

"Unless?"

"Well in the normal scheme of things we'd just use the toner cartridges and no one would be the wiser."

"And?"

"Say the toner cartridges were to run out real fast - because someone printed thousands of pages of printouts every night for about a month?"

"You're proposing we waste both toner cartridges and paper?!"

"Hell yeah! If you send the toner cartridges back a credit'll be sent back to the company tied back to the original invoice which will cause the auditing beancounter to show an interest. If we just chuck the toner cartridges into the bin then the auditor will notice an anomaly in his spreadsheet between the consumption of paper and toner cartridges, but if we use toner cartridges and paper simultaneously it'll look like we just had a run on printing!"

"But won't people notice the huge volumes of printouts and wonder why?"

"Not if we get people to initiate the printouts themselves - with some pointless activity. So say we implement five or six new IT policies that all staff are supposed to familiarise themselves with, make them a bit geeky so people don't want to read them off the screen and cram them full of screenshot examples so they chew through the toner..."

"There's got to be a better way!" the Boss sniffs.

"Well we could..." the PFY starts.

"Could what?"

"Just chuck paper and toner cartridges into the bin at the same time."

"You're just going to toss them out?" the Boss gasps.

"It'd look like they were just used up - no tricky questions..."

"I... no, I can't! It's such a waste!"

"Alternatively..." I suggest.

"What?"

"You could simply remove cartridges and paper, take them to another company who uses the same printers, sell them the discounted consumables for cash and then use the cash to buy new consumables for the new devices. No money comes or goes from the company's books and the company doesn't lose as much as the restocking fee"

"Let me think..." the boss says ".. . I wouldn't know how to find out who's using the same printers as us."

"Sell em on eBay then!" the PFY suggests.

"I...yes I suppose that would work," the Boss says.

And so the plan is formed.

The Boss shoots off to setup a repeating sale on eBay. The next part of his mission will involve him slipping into the loading dock with the company van under the cover of darkness and moving several of pallets of consumables to a hastily organised lockup.

"I feel bad that we're not doing anything," the PFY says. "I mean after all it was our idea to use MFDs."

"Yes, I know what you mean," I reply. "We should have some part to play in this. Hang on, I know what you can do!"

Early the next morning, in the loading dock...

>Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr< >clunk<

>beep< >beep< >beep< >beep< >beep< >beep< >beep< >beep< >beep< >beep< >squeak< .. >Clatter< >slam!<

"THAT'S HIM OFFICER!" the PFY snaps. "Come to steal some more office supplies."

The rest, as they say, is history...


CHAPTER 23

"Water!" the PFY gasps, entering Mission Control from the computer room.

"Where?" I ask, to which the PFY responds with an urgent wave to his entry point.

"F%**" I say moments later as I survey the steady stream of water coming down the computer room wall. "Where's it coming from?"

"Dunno," the PFY says, shaking his head wildly. "Upstairs somewhere."

"Go and find it - stop it. I'll pull the floor bung so that the water can drain out!" I snap, grabbing the tile lifter.

...Several tiles later...

"What's happening?" the Boss asks, tiptoeing around the lifted tiles.

"I'm trying to find the floor bung!" I say, continuing my work.

"What floor bung?"

"The floor bung which drains water out of the computer room in the event of a flood!" I snap, indicating the computer room plan. "It should be about three meters from that pillar, but it's not."

"Are you sure you're looking at the plan the right way around?"

"There's only one pillar in the middle of the room - the others are at the corners or on the other side of the wall in the Control Room" I snap.

"Maybe they drilled the hole by the wrong pillar?" the Boss suggests.

"Nah, it's clearly marked on the plan, you'd have to be a complete id... I'll take a look."

Reentering Mission control, I lever up one of the floor boxes in the middle of the room and shine a torch toward the pillar...and find the computer room drain.

"They put it in the wrong room!" I seethe.

"They put what in the wrong room?" the PFY asks bouncing through the door.

"The drain - it's in this room, not the bloody computer room."

"How is it you haven't found this out before?" the Boss asks.

"Until now no Beancounter's ever brought an electric drill in from home to make a hole to feed a cable through a wall and subsequently put a hole in the main water riser pipe..." the PFY responds.

"There's a hole in the water riser!" I gasp. "But that's a bloody high pressure pipe! It'd take ages to drill through that - AND there must be water everywhere!"

"Not so you'd notice," the PFY says. "Most of the water is just filling up the wall cavity - which is what we're seeing down here."

"Okay then," I snap. "It's going to take ages to fix and the wall cavity's going to keep leaking into the computer room for ages after they turn the water off so we're going to have to create a new bung hole."

"But how do we do that?" the Boss whines.

"Let's think," I say. "Who do we know that has a drill??"

...Ten minutes later I'm back from the hardware store and present the apologetic beancounter with a masonry drill large enough to find oil...

"I... Err. Where should I drill the hole?" the Beancounter mumbles as we lead him into the waterlogged computer room.

"Three metres from that pillar over there, in line with the... WOAH! Where the hell did you get that drill from?!!?" I gasp, catching sight of a ginormous power drill with surface rust from where Noah left it out on the deck...

"I...it was my fathers?"

"Not your grandfather's then?" the PFY asks, looking the monster.

"Waste not want not," the beancounter simpers.

"Soooo..." the PFY says, surveying the computer room. "How about that old double insulation stuff then?"

"What?" the beancounter and boss say in unison.

"Nothing," I say. "My assistant and I need to go into the other room to shut a few systems down, but meantime you should probably drill as fast as you can before the water reaches the underfloor electrical outlets..."

"Oh, good point" the Boss says, nudging the beancounter on.

>Whirrrrr< >GRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDD!<

... A minute later, in Mission Control ...

"It's no use, I can't do it" the PFY sniffs.

"Can't do what?"

"Can't let them get zapped" he mumbles.

"What? Of course you can!"

"I can't, I just can't do it!"

"Why not - are you getting soft?"

"No...You'll just make me clean it up. And finish the hole!"

"True. So you're just going to isolate the UPS and computer room with no orderly shutdowns?"

"Uhuh"

"Fair enough!"

>Clickety< >Click< >Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep< >Clack!<

"What happened?" the Boss asks, bursting into Mission Control.

"You must have shorted out the power somehow!" the PFY says, obviously having thought this through.

"But the drill's still running!"

"The wall plugs aren't on UPS supply" the PFY counters.

"Ah, right" he says, going back to supervise the work.

"Dodged that bullet," the PFY says. "The last thing I want to be doing is hiding bodies on a Friday afte... >KZZZZZERRRRRRRRRT!< >CLACK!<. ... Oh crap!"

.. half a minute later in the computer room ..

"THAT'S WHY THEY DIDN'T PUT THE DRAIN HOLE THERE!" I gasp peeking through the hole to the smoking - and very wet - building transformer below.

"And I suppose you want me to clean this up?" the PFY sighs.

"Nope," I reply. "Get security to call an ambulance - The raised floor mesh absorbed most of the charge and they're only stunned. Though you might strongly suggest that no one reset the building breaker any time soon."

"Meantime...pub o'clock?" the PFY asks hopefully, helping himself to the wallets left carelessly laying around in the Boss' and Beancounter's pockets...

"WHY NOT!"


CHAPTER 24

"How's that job going?" the Boss asks hurriedly, ducking into Mission Control.

"Which job?" I ask.

"The installation," he responds, obviously believing that I have some idea of what he's talking about.

"The installation?" I ask.

"The server installation."

"What server installation?" I ask, beginning to wonder if the Alzheimer's is kicking in.

"The WEB server - for PR."

Okay, so it's Alzheimer's - which is a bit of a shame actually as I could have kept all those aluminium pots I threw away a year ago. Unless...

"Are you doing the server install for PR?" I ask the PFY.

"What server install for PR?" the PFY asks - and I KNOW he can't have Alzheimer's because he eats takeaways and avoids deodorant like vegetarian food.

"The Web Server," the Boss repeats with more than a touch of frustration. "The new Public Relations Web server!"

"WHAT NEW PUBLIC RELATIONS WEB SERVER?!" the PFY and I snap.

"It's in your helpdesk queue!" the Boss says, FINALLY giving us a bit of useful information.

"Ah, the SERVICE desk queue," I say, being ITIL compliant. "When did that go in?"

"This morning," he replies.

"Ah, and what priority did you give the Job?"

"High."

"High," I say to the PFY. "What's the response time on that?"

"One working day," the PFY says.

"Oh, ok, so we'll probably get back to you on Monday," I say. "Unless of course we fail to meet our response target in which case the job will escalate to you and you can follow-up with us Monday lunchtime."

"So... the server's not going to be ready by the weekend?!" the Boss gasps.

"No, no," the PFY says, calming the Boss down a little.

"Oh good."

"No," the PFY continues. "What he's saying is we don't have to get back to you to have the whole 'What server?' 'The Web Server' 'What Web Server?' 'The PR Web Server' 'What PR Webserver?' conversation until monday. If we meet our response target."

"B-But... we need the server up and running before the weekend!" the Boss gasps. "The company's running an online promotional competition which they've advertised in a mailout!"

"Hmmm," the PFY says. "And they waited until now to worry about the server?"

"Not exactly," the Boss says, guilt oozing from his pores.

"YOU waited until now to worry about the server?"

"No," the Boss blurts. "The developers said it would run on any web server, so PR put it on their web server last night but overnight it had a meltdown and we need a replacement server!"

"What sort of meltdown?"

"The whole thing collapsed - the disk filled up and the database log thing went berserk and the web server crashed and they can't fix it," the Boss gabbles. "So we need a server before the weekend!"

"In that case you should ring the service desk and get the priority changed to Urgent," I say to the Boss. "Because then the response time drops to two hours."

"Just look at it now pleeeease," the Boss pleads.

"I'd like to," I lie. "I honestly would, but if I do that then I'd be resolving a non-urgent call before an urgent one - which would show up when they analyse the KPIs which are set as part of our annual bonus calculations. I need to fix the urgent call first or get your job made urgent."

"So what's the other urgent call?"

"Someone wants us to put SNMP into the coffee machine so the know when the beans need to be refilled," the PFY responds.

"THAT'S NOT BLOODY URGENT!"

"It was logged in the service desk as urgent," the PFY says. "Apparently the CEO was here last week and someone offered him a coffee but couldn't give him one because the beans were out and the refills were locked away to stop people stealing them for home..."

"Well, can't you change my call?"

"Only the owner of a job or the service desk can change it's priority," the PFY says. "Because apparently SOME people thought that we'd deprioritise calls we didn't want to do..."

"I..." the Boss says, getting the guilty look again. "I'll go and change the priority and be right back!"

...two minutes later...

"So when will the server be ready?"

"I think we can probably have it run up by next Wednesday."

"But it's URGENT, you need to get started now."

"I would but I have to deal with the Critical jobs first."

"What critical jobs?"

"The coffee machine job," the PFY says. "It's just been upgraded to Critical. Apparently the CEO asked for a raincheck on the coffee!"

"But you never said there was a critical!"

"There wasn't one then," I say. "It got upgraded."

"So how does the urgency thing work?" the Boss snaps.

"High is priority 2, Urgent is priority 1 and Critical is priority 0."

"So Critical's as important as it gets?"

"Yup!"

"Right!' the Boss says, stomping out.

"Quick," I say to the PFY. "Change the required resolution time of the cof..."

"Onto it!" the PFY snaps, updating his service desk call. "but I was just thinking - have you looked into the urgency mapping to see if it supports..."

"Negative numbers?" I ask. "Already onto it and it does...One Super Duper Critical coming up!"


CHAPTER 25

"Okay, so where are we at?" I ask the PFY as I review plan 32 beta.

"Right then," the PFY responds with the ruthless efficiency of a seasoned professional. "32 Beta is a GO! At oh seven thirty and I printed 12 copies of >shuffle< this >shuffle< picture to various printers around the building."

"Ah," I say distastefully. "Nasty. It's a bit sledgehammer-when-a-tack-hammer-would-do isn't it?"

"It's all to do with efficiency," the PFY says. "Nothing says pervert like farmasutra."

"And you';ve printed it with this header info?" I ask.

"Some yes, some no. Some refer to the user's home directory and some will appear to be printed directly from the website."

"I see. And you've dropped this picture into his home directory?"

";That and several others from the series."

"The series?" I shudder.

"Oh yes," the PFY says, shaking his head sadly.

"And?"

"I've modified the file access times so they look like they were downloaded just after morning tea yesterday and modified the web log entries to back that up."

"And?"

"And what?"

"It's hardly incriminating is it?"

"I... sure it is!"

"No. He could fall back on the 'it must have been a virus' defence, or the 'I think something went wrong with my peer-to-peer app'. Look, pop down to Boots, grab a large packet of tissues and a tub of moisturiser. Chuck half the tissues and half the moisturiser out and make sure the moisturiser jar is nice and greasy. Appearance is everything. Then slap it into his desk drawer, third one from the top."

"Third from the top?"

"Yeah, he's a beancounter. The top one will be full of pens and the one below it will be full of reserve pens and stapler refills. The others will be empty. AND?"

"And what?" the PFY asks.

"The website?"

"The website? OH, yes, the website. I've established a history of posts to a blog over the past two days under an alias of his surname backwards, expressing my abiding interest in meeting other men with a love for... the animal.. kingdom. So to speak."

"Okay, so it's all systems go then!" I blurt.

"Or not!" the Boss snaps, creeping into Mission Control from where he must have been hiding.

"Or not what?" the PFY asks innocently.

"Or not... to frame someone."

"Eh?"

"Your plan, to print pictures like this >shuffle< to frame one of our accountants. THIS GUY ONLY STARTED YESTERDAY - he can't have annoyed you already!"

"It's a pre-emptive strike," the PFY explains. "He's bound to do something."

"No, he's not!" the Boss gasps, reeling from the unfairness of it all.

"He is," I counter. "He was brought on with the brief of examining asset management, inventory control and depreciation."

"But maybe he's not interested in you!"

"...Azariah," the PFY adds.

"Eh?"

"Nothing, just a bit of antipodean humour. But we digress, because of course he's going to be interested in us - IT assets are some of the most poorly recorded around because beancounters traditionally didn't know whether you were buying an item in its own right or an item which was part of an item."

"Huh?"

"In our asset database will be graphics cards from thousands of years ago when 32 Meg of onboard memory was worth more than Posh Spice's underpants on eBay. And they were typically issued an asset number because of their book value, then slapped inside a machine with it's own asset number. When the machine was binned, it was written off, but the card wasn't. Same with large monitors, disk drives, etc."

"Which will in turn will mean," the PFY continues. "That we'll get all the asset inventory and depreciation track down work which will take weeks of wandering around the building checking stickers, working out what we have and don't have..."

"...Trying to remember what you've stolen you mean..." the Boss suggests, unkindly.

"Alternatively, it's far simpler for us to plant the seed that all beancounters are secretly perverts with a fetish for donkeys."

"So you're going to send out a stack more of these are you?"

"Why not?" I ask. "We'll keep framing beancounters until the company stops appointing them."

"Of course not, no that's just dealing with the symptoms, the real problem is the inventory system."

"And your solution to that is?"

"Plan 32 Alpha, totally destroy the asset database."

"It's backed up," the Boss says.

>BZEEERT< >BZEEERT< >BZEEERT< >BZEEERT< >BZEEERT<

"Not any more," the PFY.

"It's on RAID!"

>Clatter< "Not with that disk removed it's not."

"But it'll still work with one disk removed."

>Clatter< "But not two."

"It will if you put it back in."

>CRUNCH<

"Not now it won't."

"It you put the other disk back... >CRUNCH<"

"Oh dear," the PFY says, putting his hammer down. "We appear to have lost the asset management system."

"I... suppose it's pointless asking you to have a look at my laptop then?"

"Of course not!" the PFY gasps, picking up the hammer again. "Bring her in - it may have depreciated so much you need a new one..."


CHAPTER 26

>clickety< >clickety< >tip< >tap< “

>clickety< >tap<

>clickety< >clickety< >tap<

>clic..< >tap<

>tap!<

>TAP< >TAP!< >TAP!<

"Financials server's not responding again!" the PFY says, looking up from his monitor.

"Hmmm. >click< ping test says it's up - must be just the app."

>clickety< >tap< >clickety< >tap<

"Yep, I can login alright, so it must just... >tap< >TAP!< nope, it's hung."

"DISK!" the PFY and I say simultaneously.

"But it's on the SAN!" the PFY says.

"So's the HR server, and that's still working," I respond.

">tap< >TAP!< >TAP!< ... Nope. It's not," the PFY counters.

...Seconds later in the server room...

"The lights say it's working ok," the PFY says, tapping the SAN box.

"Yeah those two green lamps really tell you a lot," I say. "Course, if the disk activity lamps were doing anything it would probably mean more to me..."

"Ah," the PFY says "I hadn't noticed that. It's crashed then, has it?"

My affirmative response is partially interrupted by the ringing of the server room phone which has a dual purpose - to contact us when we're inside the room and to indicate that the Guild of Idiots has taken up camp outside Mission Control with a view to finding out both what happened and when service will be restored.

Sigh.

We wander outside and to talk to the assembled group.

"So what happened?" the head Beancounter wheezes, being a bit tuckered out after the walk from the lift.

"The SAN has crashed," I say.

"When will it be back?" the head of HR asks.

"After it's been reset and done it's data rebuild," I say.

"Have you reset it?" the Boss (and final Guild member) asks.

"Nope, it's remotely managed - remember?"

"No?" the Boss says.

"They do," the PFY says, pointing at the other two guild members.

"What do you mean?" the Boss asks.

"The companies that produce our HR and finance software merged last year and created a single unified product," I explain.

"Their merger was so successful that they approached a hardware vendor to come up with what would be a complete turnkey solution," the PFY adds.

"A turnkey solution so simple that an idiot could administer it," I murmur.

"Although at the time we didn't realise it was a requirement," the PFY says as an aside, nodding at the two department heads.

"The idea was magic!" I continue. "An administrative web page which would allow the users to tailor, start, stop, backup and recover the application without systems people's intervention. And the plan was good - right up until the new company decided that the hardware merger wouldn't be returning the expected gain in profit and so alternative vendors were sought."

"Vendors who could deliver a healthy additional profit," the PFY adds.

"Vendors who didn't know the meaning of the word expensive."

"Or reliable," the PFY again adds.

"So when the combined forces of HR and finance decided that they wanted this solution we suggested that the proposed hardware might not be great for a production system."

"And we were ignored," the PFY adds.

"And so we now have a situation where the disk hardware appears to be as unreliable as the server hardware."

"The server hardware can't be that unreliable - I can't remember the last time it went down," the head of HR says.

"That's because you don't use it all the time, AND because we have a master reset feature at our disposal."

"Master Reset?" the head of HR asks.

"Indeed. Follow."

The guild follow me into Mission Control and I show them the master reset system.

"Behold," I say pointing high above my head.

"Two pieces of string?" the Boss asks...

"Two pieces of string which go through the wall, through the comms room, through the comms room wall, across the computer room and down to the HR/Finance rack to one of two levers."

"Levers?"

"Yes, levers poised above the reset button on the servers. A quick pull on this and your servers go down faster than Paris."

"You can't be serious!" the Boss burbles.

"Sure am! I'm not wandering into the computer room three times a day to restart one of their machines!"

"Well give it a pull then," the head of HR says. "Because we're supposed to be doing a bank run for the salary payments and we've only got 23 minutes."

"I could give it a pull, but it's the disk that's crashed, not the machines. You want us to install a disk reset as well?"

"I... suppose so," the head of HR responds reluctantly.

"I'll get it," the PFY says, heading off to the computer room with a battery drill and a ball of string...

A few minutes later the PFY's back with a concerned look on his face.

"Yes?" the head of HR asks.

"The SAN was crapper than I thought - the reset button broke off when I pulled the lever and is wedged between the panel and a case so it's stuck in reset mode."

"Take the panel off then!" the head of HR gasps.

"It's riveted on!"

"Drill them out!" the head of HR snaps. "You've got 11 minutes!"

"Yeah well... I don't know that that's the best course of..."

"You're wasting time - just do it. You've only got 10 minutes now!"

...2 minutes later...

"I blame the manufacturer," I say to the PFY as I tap the front of the SAN.

"Yeah... security rivets with hardened faces on a piece of crap kit like this," the PFY says.

"I know. A shame the front panel isn't hardened though."

"Or the front of the chassis," the PFY says.

"Or the controller board," I add, gazing into the newly created hole in the now very dead SAN.

"Or all that cabling behind the controller board," the PFY says looking deep into the hole. "...So, back to Mission Control to fess up? I... Hello?"

...microseconds later, at the pub...

>ring< >ring< >ring< >ring<

"Leave that," I say to the Barman as he reaches for my cellphone helpfully. "It'll just be my assistant - about a technical matter."

"Technical matter?"

"Yeah, how to move faster than blame..."


CHAPTER 27

"Oops," the PFY says, looking away from his screen guiltily.

"What?"

"I think I've just dropped the indexes from the financials database."

"Ok," I say. "No need to panic, we can probably recreate the indexes on the fly from the table data."

"Yeah, no."

"No?"

"I dropped the tables as well."

"So what you meant to say when you first said 'oops' was 'oops I've deleted our financials database.'"

"Yeah."

"Backups then," I say. "You didn't delete them as well did you?"

"No, no, they're automated - the finance people schedule them for 11:30pm from their web interface. The only interaction I have is to change the incremental tape each morning when it's ejected and the full tape every monday when it's ejected ."

"And when was the last time the full tape ejected?" I sigh, fearing that this conversation is dragging a little.

"Uhhh," the PFY says, rolling his eyes a little. "Three weeks ago."

"THREE WEEKS AGO!" I gasp. "You mean those idiot beancounters haven't scheduled a bloody full backup in THREE WEEKS! It'll take days to roll that forward!"

"Oh they've scheduled them alright," the PFY says. "They've just not run."

"WHY HAVEN'T THEY RUN?" I ask, gritting my teeth a little.

"It's because of the financial policy change," the PFY says.

"Policy change?" I prompt, wondering if the PFY has suddenly become unable to form a sentence complete with subject, object, verb, adverb and intelligence.

"Yeah, you know about three weeks and two days ago the Beancounters changed the way in which they would pay recurring invoices?"

"No, but go on."

"They decided that if an invoice was a recurring one that varied in amount month to month the fixed component of the bill could be paid in advance but the varying portion should be paid for in arrears."

"And whatever that means has... some effect on backup scheduling?"

"WHAT IT MEANS contractors like us who are paid in advance would get paid their normal time in advance but their overtime in arrears."

"Uh-huh - and this means?"

"It means that there would be a two month gap between successive overtime payments when the policy was enacted."

"...Three weeks and two days ago?" I reply.

"Yes. Which means that if you operate as I do - on a month to month basis - by then end of the month you have no money left."

"Yes, but you'll still get paid every month, just not your overtime - for one pay."

"But in the case where you commit your monthly income to substantial mortgage repayments on a studio apartment in the West End..."

"Oh!" I say. "So you're broke for a month!"

"Two months actually," the PFY sniffs.

"And because you're broke you can't even afford the time to put a tape in the backup drive?"

"No..." the PFY says.

"You can afford to put tapes in but you don't for... personal reasons?"

"THERE'S A TAPE IN THE BLOODY DRIVE!" the PFY snaps.

"So why haven't we taken a full backup properly?"

"Because the backups are timed to occur at 1:00am on Monday morning."

"Still not with you..."

"Well at 12am, I've been doing some database maintenance which takes about 90 minutes to complete."

"So why not run the maintenance after the backups?"

"I can't, because the accounts payable payments are processed and transferred to the bank at 3am."

"And you wouldn't want to impact my chances of getting paid," I say.

"No. So I run it at 12 and it takes till 1:30."

"Yet still the backups don't start at 1?"

"No, because I have to change the system clock to be 3:01am before I do my maintenance."

>CUE RAT AROMA!<

"What exactly does your database maintenance entail?" I ask, fearing the worst.

"I select all the accounts payable transactions in the database which ran three weeks and three days ago, order them by payee and drop anyone who isn't me."

"And run the payment with the timestamp which would have occurred had it been a legitimate payment going to the bank."

"Yes. And then when that's done I set the clock back to the proper time, which is generally 2:30 or so and the real run goes through."

"Wouldn't that mean you had lots of duplicate payments for the same day."

"It would - if I didn't delete the row when I get into work - from there and the audit table."

"A plan so complicated I need a memory upgrade and a maths coprocessor to understand it. So why did you delete the tables?"

"I was looking through the financials package manual..."

"A manual?! You HEATHEN!"

"...and happened to notice that the audit table has it's own audit table which is available to the auditors..."

"AND THE AUDITORS ARE COMING THIS WEEK!" I gasp, finally realising.

"Indeed," the PFY sighs, confession over with.

"You realise they take a hardcopy of the audit table's audit table every night?"

"You're kidding!"

"Not at all. They made it mandatory last year when I managed to replay a desktop order enough times to build my own Beowulf cluster - though they couldn't prove anything."

"So what do I do?"

"You mean, what do you do now that you've push the company into a possible crisis of investor confidence by manipulating our financial systems and ruining any possibility of a quick backup?"

"Uh... yes."

"Start a small fire with the paper audit logs - they're kept in the head beancounter's bottom drawer, then buzz every second incremental tape with the bulk eraser so they can't roll forward."

"But won't they still be peed off that we didn't do backups?"

"Not when we blame it on the SAN again - because of >flip< >flip< fibrechannel aspherical monochromousity."

"Ah, F.A.M!" the PFY says. "And I'm guessing you'll be faking web pages for Google to find?"

"Already done it. Although that's my second cluster down the toilet.”

"That's what I like about you," the PFY says. "You're a people person!"


CHAPTER 28

So the PFY and I are both on a quick junket to Paris and have managed to score seats in business class thanks to the combination of the Boss' short sightedness and the PFY accidentally stepping on his glasses until the lenses broke.

"So what's this junket about then?" I ask the PFY while making the exact amount of eye contact with the stewardess that was recommended in an ebook on sleeping your way through the service industry.

"Blah blah blah blah blah blah," (or something like that) the PFY says, while I'm finishing off my eye contact thing.

"Sorry, what was that? I wasn't listening," I confess.

"Blah blah blah blah blah blah."

"Sorry. Sorry, she just came back, I'm listening now."

"It's a two day conference on security web applications servers against attacks. Everything from SQL injection through to blah blah blah..."

"Can I get you a drink sir?" the woman of my dreams asks.

"Indeed you can!" I respond happily. "Would you happen to have a glass of The McCallan?"

"The..."

"McCallan," I say. "Eighteen year old by preference, but 12 would be ok."

"Ah whiskey. We've got Johnny Walker?"

"Tape head cleaner!"

"Right - well can I get you anything else?"

"Oh, well, I suppose I'd be alright with eight cans of Tennants Super and half a dozen packets of salt and vinegar crisps."

"I'll have what he's having," the PFY adds.

"I'm afraid we've only got four cans left..."

"No worries," the PFY says. "Just give me the balance in cans of cider."

...A quarter of an hour later...

"You were saying something about SQL injection?" I ask the PFY, now that my chances with the stewardess are as small as her lager, cider, and crisp inventory.

"SQL injection methods are becoming more complex with a blah blah blah.."

"Sorry," I say to the PFY. "She's got a friend."

The PFY and I both turn our attention to a uniformed woman striding down from first class with a worried expression on her face.

"Does... uh... anyone here know anything about in-flight computer systems?" she asks nervously.

"Uh, not in-flight computer systems, but computer systems in general," the PFY says.

"Anyone at all?" she asks.

"I think what my assistant is suggesting is that we may be able to help you," I say. "What seems to be the problem?"

With no other takers our stewardess is forced to make her way through the crisp bags and empty cans that hit the floor once the words 'computer systems' were mentioned. It's a reflex thing.

"It's not serious," she assures us. "It's just that apparently the plane has an... um... three of five cluster quorum - if that's right - and one of the five has gone offline and another has an error. Apparently it can be fixed by in-flight diagnostics but they're not starting."

"Well, you came to the right people!" I say. "We're bound to be able to help. Show us the way!"

We proceed with the stewardess to the flight area and get pointed to an open plate behind a seat.

"You're in luck!" the PFY says, playing with the tiny LCD debug panel. "It's Intel kit and it just so happens that I have a USB key with me with a Knoppix install on it. We could probably format the five machines, get rid of the Microsoft OS and install a much faster Knoppix install in no time."

"I..." the pilot says, not knowing what the hell the PFY just said. "Do you need anything?"

"Five...?" the PFY says, looking at me.

"Make it six - best to be on the safe side," I say.

"Six," the PFY says decisively. "Cans of Tennants Super."

"Each," I say.

"And some salt and vinegar crisps to go with the tramp juice."

"Beer and crisps!?" the pilot gasps.

"BACK OFF MAN, WE'RE PROFESSIONALS!" I snarl, whipping out my Knoppix USB key.

"What do you want us to do?" the Co Pilot asks.

"Get as high up as possible," I say. "We're going to have to reboot them all to change quorum when we go from Windows to Knoppix, so we'll need all the glide time we can get..."

"I... ok"

"And get a wiggle on with those lagers."

...a few minutes later...

"Right," the PFY says, dropping the third empty can to the ground. "I'm ready!"

"Me too," I say. "Control-alt-delete time."

"I was just going to press the reset on the motherboards."

"Works for me!" I say.

>click< >click< >click< >click< >click<

>WHAAAAAAOORRRRR< >WUMPF WUMPF WUMPF!<

"Whoa," I say, turning to the PFY. "That was some turbulence. I was having a pretty strange dream."

"Me too," the PFY says, rubbing his eyes. "We were at the conference and a crisis broke out and they needed someone who knew how to recover a Commodore CBM save tape and it just so happened I blah blah blah."

"Sorry about that," I say to the PFY. "I was momentarily distracted by a uniformed woman striding down from first class with a worried expression on her face. Grab us a six pack of Tennants Super from your carry on will you?"


CHAPTER 29

"What's the timeframe on the install of that videoconferencing device?" the Boss asks, bowling into Mission Control, dressed, as the saying goes, like a pox doctor's clerk.

"Yeah, good," the PFY says looking up from the assorted pieces of hardware on his desk.

"No, I wanted the timeframe till it's in place, not a status."

"Oh right. Well I guess it'll be sorted inside of a week"

"A week?! But I was told it'd arrived yesterday!"

"Yep, so it'll be all installed and configured in a week."

"But you told me that it was a turnkey device, all you'd need to do is give it a network address?"

"Uh-huh, and we'll do that when we rack it up."

"Can't you rack it up now?"

"Not really. I mean it's going to take at least a day to put it back together."

"Put it back together?!" the Boss gasps. "Why? What was wrong with it?"

"Nothing," the PFY says. "We just wanted to see how it works. It's quite good too - it boots off >tap< >tap< this hard drive here, but it's also got a slot for a flash card if you want to make it truly solid state. The kernel's a tiny Linux jobby that does a stack of sanity checking before handing off to the application. You can also set a jumper on this >tap< IO Card to tell the box to silently encode all conferences to one of the two drives in this >tap< >tap< media bay. AND it's got three NICs with inbuilt spike suppression, truly redundant power and the ability to battery backup to RAM >tap< here to hibernate the device should you wish to move it and boot it quickly in a portable configuration!"

"You... took it to bits?!" The Boss finally gasps.

"Yeah, but we take all new kit to bits!"

"But it says 'no user serviceable parts inside'!" the Boss says, pointing at a small label on the lid.

"Yeah, that's just what they tell you to keep you stupid," the PFY responds. "Besides, we're not users."

"But you've voided the warranty!"

"Nah, they'll never know we've been in there, we'll rivet the case back up when we're done."

"Rivet?"

"Yeah, we drilled the original rivets out - they tried to make it tamperproof."

"They'll know you drilled it out!"

"No they won't, it'll look mint!" the PFY says, brushing some metal shavings off the case.

"There's a great big gouge out of the side!"

"Yeah, I sent a complaint in to the vendor saying it came like that. That way if it claps out we'll just claim it was damaged in transit."

"They'll check the box!"

"This box?" the PFY asks, pointing at a box with a large number of boot marks in it.

"But they'll still know you opened the machine!"

"Nah they won't. The final assembly work is performed in Leeds - probably so that the company can bypass some import tariff or the other - so all we have to do is make it look like the last person who had it open was from Leeds."

"And how do you propose to accomplish that?"

"Smear the lid with lardy fingerprints and drop a couple of chips and some pork scratchings inside the case."

"I..."

"Oh, I almost forgot. I'll slip a bootleg of some blurry porn into the DVD drive."

"Uh... why?"

"That way they'll know it's been inspected by quality control."

"You can't seriously believe..."

. . . A week later . . .

"And so we took it out of the box and it's a complete DOA," the PFY says to the engineer, as the Boss looks on nervously.

"Let's just have a look at it then," the engineer says. "It's probably just a power supply fault."

>rattle<

"Have you opened this case?" he asks suspiciously.

"You can open it?" the PFY says. "How?"

"No, no, you can't open it, it must have got damaged in transit," the engineer says.

The PFY points to the Box and the engineer nods.

"It's the shipping agent we use in the factory up north," he says, shaking his head. "Used to be a baggage handler at Heathrow. Okay, lets just open her up."

. . . a couple of drillings later . . .

"Ah, it's the daughterboard," he says, pointing. "It's plugged in one row of pins to the left of when it should be."

"What's that for?" the PFY asks, pointing at a chip laying in the case.

"I... uhhh, that's just some packing," the engineer bluffs.

"It looks like a potato chip."

"Yeah, but it's not. It's one of those enviro carbon things. They're made out of... biomass and hexofibre - good for the atmosphere. And there's another one."

He dumps the food into his pocket, shuts the lid and plugs the unit into a tiny debug console he's brought with him.

"Righty-ho," he says. "Let's see how she goes."

>click< >whirrrrr<

An image promptly appears on the debug device and a self test starts.

"All looks ok," the engineer said.

"So how did it get out of the factory like that?" the PFY says. "Isn't there supposed to be some form of testing?"

"Yeah well, there should be, but it's possible this one got overl..."

He stops abruptly as a flabby backside wobbles its way across the screen...

"...might have just been damaged in transit," he says, pushing the eject button hurriedly.

"So we're all sorted then?" the Boss asks.

"Yep, all up and running."

"Can I get you a coffee?" the Boss asks, as the device is powered down.

"Why not?" our engineer says.

. . .

"So have you learnt a lesson today?" I ask the PFY once they've both gone.

"I have," the PFY says. "Engineers get the best toys. That debug device of his is fantastic."

"It is," I say. "How do you think it works?"

"Only one way to find out!" he snaps, reaching for the drill...


CHAPTER 30

"So what are we looking at here?" the PFY says as the Boss humps a desktop machine into Mission Control.

"It's dead," the Boss says, tapping the cover of the machine gently.

"Dead as in DEAD or dead as in it's not booting properly?"

"I... it's not booting properly."

"Right then, slap her on the desk and I'll have a gander."

>Clunk< >Rustle< >Click< >whirrrrrrrrr<

"Looks fine..." the PFY says, watching the diags roll by.

"No, it's after this, it won't boot."

"You mean after the Windows bit comes up?"

"It doesn't come up," the Boss says. "It just says something about drive no... Oh."

"It's working now," the PFY says.

"I... yes it is, but it wasn't yesterday."

"And you've done nothing till now?"

"It's my home machine. I moved my desktop machine to home and use my laptop at work."

"So you moved the non portable machine and leave the portable machine on your desk?"

"I..."

"And now the drive's failing..."

"Is it?!" the Boss gasps.

"Yup."

"So can you get the data off it?"

"Sure," the PFY says. "We'll just plug in a USB hard drive and copy it all to that."

"Do it!" the Boss says. "As soon as you can. It's got a complete budget breakdown of the company's IT assets and their replacement cycles in a spreadsheet. It's taken about two solid weeks of work to produce, but it's worth it because you can tell when every single IT asset is due for replacement!"

"Sure I'll do it right... Ah. Maybe later, it's crashed."

"Why?"

"My guess is that the bearings in the hard drive are almost dead and so once the drive warms up a bit they start getting a little cranky and the drive gives off read errors, ultimately crashing the machine."

"Can you reboot it?"

"Not really," the PFY says, pointing at the disk fail message on the boot screen.

"So it's gone then?"

"No, no it's probably still there - we could possibly get the motor and bearings replaced if it were worth enough to you?"

"How much would it cost?"

"A couple of thousand quid - and we'd have to send it away."

"Can't you do anything else?"

"We could chuck it in the freezer?"

"Can we be serious?" the Boss asks.

"He is," I say. "SOMETIMES when you put a drive in a freezer overnight the bearings will shrink slightly and allow the drive to be run up for a while."

"Long enough to get the data off?"

"Quite possibly."

"Okay do it!"

... early the next day...

"Alright then," the PFY says putting the chilled drive back into the desktop. "Lets take a look."

"It's booting!" the Boss gasps, pointing out the bleeding obvious. "Windows is starting!! It's UP! QUICK, COPY THE DATA!"

"Yes yes," the PFY says, plugging in the USB hard drive. "Ooooh, USB1, what joy!. Where's the spreadsheet?"

"In my documents somewhere. But there are several versions... let me think..."

"Chop chop," the PFY says. "The drive's warming up."

"Can't you just copy all my files and I'll find it later?"

"Sure," the PFY says, dragging the contents of the Boss' documents folder to the USB drive.

"TWENTY MINUTES?" the Boss stresses.

. . . seventeen minutes later . . .

"Nup, it's gone," the PFY says as the machine resets.

"So we can't get the data off?"

"I didn't say that," the PFY says. "We just have to be a bit tricky. We'll slap the drive back into the freezer to cool it down again then after five we'll move your desktop machine into the walk-in chiller in the cafeteria. The combination of cold drive and very cold air should buy us the extra three or four minutes we need..."

"Okay then!"

. . . That afternoon . . .

"And you think this'll work?" the Boss asks.

"It's the best plan we can come up with," I say. "But if the spreadsheet was that important, why didn't you do it at work and back it up properly?"

"I... because... it might be... unpopular."

"You've lost me."

"This spreadsheet," the Boss says, tapping his machine lovingly as we place in onto a shelf in the chiller, "will revolutionise asset replacement for our company and many others. It tracks asset lifecycles from the moment they come into the company; it reallocates low-spec machines to lower use roles; it tracks upgrades and book values! It will save companies millions in replacing machines that don't need to be replaced and upgrades that don't need to occur! It's the culmination of my life's work."

"Really?" the PFY says dubiously. "I think you're overestimating it slightly, but who knows? Anyway, I'll just plug the USB drive in and let you get copying."

Ten minutes later the PFY and I have left the Boss to it and are returning to Mission Control.

"So do you really think that it'll revolutionise IT asset management?"

"Nah," I say. "These things come and go and they're so tightly linked to a company's financial modelling that they don't easily translate to another company."

"But it'll still cause us some headaches."

"No, no, having an asset tracking and replacement spreadsheet is one thing, but you've really got to have an opening to use it. Still, I think we should be prepared to wake up and see the writing on the wall."

"That asset management is a political issue?"

"No I was thinking more of The systems guys locked me in the chiller carved into ice. Which reminds me, can you pick up a hair dryer on the way to work tomorrow?"


CHAPTER 31

"Just before you go," the Boss cries, waving some building plans at me as I'm ducking out to lunch. "Can you just take a look at this?"

"What is it?"

"We're just looking at making a few small alterations on the third floor," he responds. "And I'd like to get your thoughts on them."

"Didn't we make some 'small' alterations to the third floor six months ago? 'Small' in that case meaning a complete revision of the floor plan, with new offices, aircon and cabling throughout."

"Yes, we apparently did do a few more changes than originally planned back then – scope creep I think they said – but the changes they're proposing now are are just a bit of fine tuning to come up with the ultimate configuration for both staff comfort and work process."

"So we changed from open plan to offices and now we're...?"

"It's a combination of open plan and offices. A hybrid model if you like."

"They're going to move all the walls again, aren't they?" I sigh.

"No, no, nothing as drastic as that," the Boss says, laying down the plans. "We'll keep all these walls here, those over here and of course those."

"Right, so with the exception of the external walls and the load-bearing internal walls, all the other walls go?"

"I... uhhhhhmm, yes, it would appear so."

"So we're only keeping the concrete?"

"Yes."

"The stuff without cavities for faceplates?"

"What's your point?"

"My point is that all the wiring has to be done again – all the comms, all the power."

"It's underfloor, surely!"

"It used to be underfloor looms, sure. Then, when they did the renovations they decided that the floor plates looked ugly and that they caused problems for wheely chairs, so they had to go."

"But the cable looms must still exist?"

"You'd think so wouldn't you? But then one of the CEO's architect mates said that everyone was using solid wood floors for natural heat retention or something so they replaced the integrated tiling with wood, built permanent walls – for their improved sound proofing – and fed all the cabling from the ceiling space into the new walls."

"But surely that would be..."

"Madness?" I suggest.

"No..."

"Hideously expensive?"

"No..."

"The least intelligent method of partitioning offices in a dynamic environment?"

"I.... don't know what to say."

"I do," I say. "We told them so. We told them that on average we 'renovate' about a floor a year in this place – more if there's been a change of head man or head man's PA – and that putting permanent floors and walls in would be a mistake and would cost us a fortune in comms reinstallation."

"Ah well I have some good news there," the Boss smiles. "They said we can reuse our old stuff."

"What, you mean they'll let us reuse the cable that some chippy's yanked out of the wall, tied up in a ball and taped to a ceiling member then untaped, unwound and stuffed back into a wall in another location?"

"I... Well you see the architect hasn't allowed any money for new cables in the renovation budget," the Boss says, scanning over the document.

"Are you sure?" I ask, grabbing the document off him. "Hang on – IT'S THE SAME GUY!"

"What?"

"It's the same guy who recommended solid walls and floors who's behind this and the cabling reuse. I'll kill him!"

"I think we should be reasonable about this."

"REASONABLE?!" I gasp. "If we do this we'll spend the next six months identifying cable faults and organising cable replacements out of my maintenance money!!!"

"But isn't network cable supposed to have a 20 year lifetime?"

"IN THE BLOODY WALL!" I snap. "Your bloody LADA will last 20 years if you leave it in a garage, it's only when you play with it that it stops bloody working!"

"I think you're being a little overdramatic – these builders are professionals."

"Yes, you're probably right," I say. "They're really IT wizards attracted to the building industry by the opportunities of wearing tight shorts and flashing butt cleavage. So when are they proposing to start this work?"

"I.... They started this morning!" the Boss says.

"And we only heard about this today!?"

"Well I might have heard about it a week or two ago..."

"So that dull thumping noise I can hear above me isn't the sound of my assistant encouraging someone to fill in a survey form correctly?"

"That would be the builders," the Boss says.

"Let's take a quick look, shall we?"

...minutes later...

"Well this all looks OK," the Boss says. "The cable's all wound up nicely."

"The electrical cable is, yes," I say.

"What about the data cable then?" the Boss asks, unable to identify the aforementioned.

"It's the thin grey cable," I say. "The stuff they're using to tie the electrical cable together with. Oh, and hold those ceiling lights on with. And to steady that ladder."

"Ah, I..."

"And that bloke over there is using some as a belt and some more of it to run remote speakers off his boom box. But I'm sure he'll join it all back up with strip connectors when he's done."

"I..."

"Oh and look. There's the architect!" I say.

"Now let's not do anything hasty," the Boss burbles.

>KZEERRRRT!< >KZEERT!<

. . .The next day. . .

"And you're sure this room is to stay?" the builder asks me.

"Positive," I say. "I had a chat to my Boss and the architect and we agreed that it should remain here forever."

"But there's no doors!"

"Don't need them, it's going to be a duct."

"But... wasn't there a door there yesterday?"

"There was, but the architect and the Boss popped in last night and had someone put a panel in. The extra soundproofing it provides is priceless," I add.

"Yes, it's good stuff," the builder says. "And you know what they say?"

"In space no one can hear you scream? Or in a duct for that matter."

"What? No, they say no one regrets buying quality."

"So true. And speaking of quality, about that total cabling refit..."


CHAPTER 32

"That's that stuffed then," the PFY sighs, looking up from his screen.

"What, OpenOffice?" I ask, having read the recent blue whale news.

"No, no, an experiment I was doing."

"What's that then?" I ask, peering over his shoulder. "... Actually what IS that?"

"This is a view down an electron microscope."

"At what?"

"All sorts of stuff."

"What's it looking at now?"

"No idea, I just sent them a bunch of stuff and got them to load it on the webscope."

"Why?"

"I'm trying to locate something."

"What? And how did you get someone to put something in an electron microscope for you?"

"I'm looking for a certain atom. And I just sent them some samples in an envelope and said it was related to cheese virus outbreaks."

"Cheese?"

"Yeah, well, the microscope's in Switzerland."

"Virus outbreaks?!"

"It's a government facility, they don't load stuff for the public."

"But they loaded it for you?"

"No they loaded it for doctor Bjorn Snuffstrisse from the Ministry of Cheese."

"The Ministry of Cheese?!"

"A new department aimed at protecting the cheese industry from adverse... uh... stuff," the PFY rambles, waving his hand about distractedly.

"I see, and you're looking for...?"

"An atom."

"And you realise that you can't actually see a single atom with an electron microscope?"

"I know, but I can see the effects of it."

"Right. And what is this actually about?" I ask.

"You know when you push your car lock remote when it's still in your pocket and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't?"

"Uhh... Yeah."

"And if it doesn't it just WON'T, until you drop what you're carrying and get it out of your pocket - and then it works perfectly."

"Yes."

"And you know how you swipe your card to get to the computer room and sometimes it just doesn't work, while other times it's just fine for weeks?"

"Uh-huh."

"And when you type in your password and it doesn't work, so you type it in again and it doesn't work and you type it in SLOWLY and it still doesn't work, but then you type it in quickly again and it does?"

"Yes."

"I think there's a scientific reason. I... think it's because there's a 'lazy' atom in the mix."

"A... lazy... atom?" I say, dubiously.

"Yes, it's like a sort of resistor in the circuit of atomic life. It impedes the work of other atoms and generally stops things happening."

"A bit like the Director's PA?"

"No, it's a dynamic entity, it actually does work to avoid work!"

"Yep, that's her!"

"No this atom becomes involved in things outside of it's molecular bond, it affects things that it has nothing to do with."

"Have you not met the woman?!"

"LOOK," the PFY blathers. "It's an atom, I'm sure of it!"

"So it's a hitherto undiscovered atom - so obviously with a large atomic number? Hmm. Actually if it's really heavy then I'm positive it's the Director's PA! You could name it Angela too! Or Angelanium!"

"It doesn't have an atomic number, it's dynamic!"

"?"

"It's any atom. Any atom at all - it becomes lazy."

"Ah, you mean like it has no protons or something odd? But even if it did exist, what could you possibly achieve by finding it?" I ask, while slowly typing 'straightjacket' into eBay."

"I could build a detector!"

"Why?"

"So I can detect where the atoms come from. It could light up when an atom is present. Then you'd know when IT devices would fail."

"If you built one you could put it on Angela's desk! She could use it as a desk lamp!"

"You're not taking this seriously!"

"You're right. Car remotes fail because water gets in the remote or the button gets pressed down when you sit on your keys - and the battery goes flat. Or you press the wrong button. Swipe cards don't work because every six weeks or so security sends someone around to clean them with a dirty cleaning card and it takes a couple of swipes to get rid of the grime they deposited."

"But my password - it doesn't explain my password!"

"You password stops working because every now and then I disable your account briefly - you know, for giggles."

"So you're saying there's... no... lazy atom?" the PFY sniffs.

"Nope! No lazy atom, no lazy molecule, just a lazy PA. She's good tho. You could study her - she's a bit like a black hole in that work falls into her and pops out in some parallel universe. Hey, she could radiate your lazy atoms!"

"Lets see, she uses the same door, she's used my keyboard and she..."

"She's been in your car?" I gasp.

"I was young, I needed the money! I didn't inhale. I was very, VERY drunk at the time."

"You've been irradiated with lazy radiation!"


CHAPTER 33

"He seemed..." the PFY says, gazing out the window sadly. "...So normal."

"I know," I respond. "But you never can tell what's going on in someone's head."

"But he was such a good bloke!"

"I know," I say again. "You think you know someone, then something like this happens..."

"Something like what?" the Boss asks, entering both the conversation and the room without permission.

"One of our... colleagues... I suppose you could say," I reply. "Seems to have turned out to be a complete basket case."

"Had a breakdown?" the Boss asks.

"Worse."

"Hurt himself?"

"Worse than that."

"Is he dead?" the Boss gasps.

"No, but he probably wishes he was."

"You mean he hurt others?!"

"Uh-huh."

"He was such a quiet bloke too," the PFY says shaking his head.

"Kept to himself a lot?" the Boss prompts.

"Yeah, but he was an IT person, so that hardly counts," I reply.

"So he was... a serial killer?"

"What?! No, no. He was... uh... late... for a Linux users group last week... and so the geeks started to get a bit worried about him..."

"And?"

"And so they went round his place fearing he might have had an accident, you know, open chassis, high voltage, cup of coffee that sort of thing..."

"Yes?"

"So they broke in when there was no answer to the door..."

"Yes?!"

"And when they got to his front room they found..."

"YES?!?!" the Boss gags.

"..."

"WHAT?!"

"Macs. Stacks of them!"

"Macs?"

"Apple Mac 'computers'."

"And?"

"He was a MAC USER!" the PFY said. "For years he'd been living a lie!"

"I don't see..."

"He was a MAC USER!" I say. "I mean it's bad enough being an Apple user, but Macs as well! He'd been at it for years, too. When they broke into his basement they found Power Macs, Quadras... They even found... a Lisa."

"No!" the PFY gasps.

"It's true!" I say. "And it was still warm!"

"So he wasn't just experimenting!" the PFY says in hushed tones.

"Oh he inhaled alright! I talked to his family and friends, but none of them had any idea."

"They're always the last to know," the PFY says, shaking his head.

"So let me get this straight," the Boss says. "You're concerned because your friend..."

"Colleague," the PFY says, but even that makes him twinge.

"...Uses Apple computers."

"I think you mean Apple 'computers'," the PFY says, inserting the missing quote marks.

"And that's a problem?"

"Look, for years he seemed like a normal person!" the PFY says. "He ate with us, drank with us - we thought he WAS one of us. But all along he was hiding a nasty secret!"

"What's wrong with Apples?"

"They're just not real computers," the PFY says. "They're the piano accordion of the computing world, entertaining, but not made for professionals."

"Our Graphics people..."

"Yeah, but they're not professionals. They'd be just as happy with crayons and finger paints!"

"I... So what happened to your friend?"

"COLLEAGUE!"

"Er, colleague?"

"Who knows?" I say. "He might have run away to join the circus or he might have handed himself in for deprogramming."

"Deprogramming?"

"Yeah," the PFY says. "They strap you into a wheely chair and play In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida at 11 through headphones to you while administering electric shocks - until you renounce your faith."

"And they actually have places that do this sort of thing?"

"Yeah, they're everywhere. All you need is a place where no-one will notice a geek twitching, screaming and occasionally wetting themselves in front of a computer."

"In other words the gaming area of an internet cafe," I say.

"...And this works?"

"Who cares?" the PFY says. "They're filthy Mac users!"

. . .

"You'll have to forgive him," I say to the Boss once the PFY leaves to get himself a coffee (and hopefully some form of sedative). "But he has a pathological hatred of Mac users, always has..."

"So you're not so concerned about them?"

"No, no, I think they should burn in hell like the dirty heathens they are, but the PFY has an even deeper dislike of them. It's personal - almost as if he has some axe to grind."

"I see," the Boss says, realising that this conversation will never get any better. "In any case what I ACTUALLY came to ask about was why my machine is dead."

Sigh.

"Lets take a look then," I say, following him to his office."

. . . moments later . . .

"It's dead because your PowerPoint is dead - see your desk phone and speakers are off too."

"Oh."

"We'll just go and reset the breaker and you'll be fine."

. . . a few moments after that . . .

>click-clack<

"Hmmm."

>click-clack<

"What's the matter?"

"The breaker is tripping when reset - something's using a lot of power. Hmm, the breaker info says it's just your office and the one next door."

"That office is empty," the Boss says. "It was used by the auditors and hasn't been used since."

"In that case I'm guessing they probably left their desktop machine on and its power supply has just shorted out," I say, making for the office concerned. "I'll just unplug the machine and bin it an we'll..."

On opening the office door I can't help but let out a gasp of horror... the PFY hunched over the power supply of some ancient hardware... the smell of old, warm plastic... the owl logo on the keyboard... And suddenly the PFY's pathological hatred makes sense!

"An Archimedes user!" I gasp.

"This isn't what it looks like," the PFY gasps.

"So you're not an Archimedes user?"

"Well... I... It was ahead of it's time - with RISC, advanced gr.. >KZEERRRRT<"

"Tell it to Iron Butterfly," I say, dragging the PFY's unconscious body over to a wheely chair...


CHAPTER 34

"Hurry up and get the door open!" I gasp as the PFY fumbles with his swipe card at the back door of the building.

"Ok, ok," the PFY whispers back. "I'm working as fast as I can! >swip< Got it!"

>bip< >bip< >bip< >bip< >bip< >click<

"Right, I'll hold the door, you pick up that lot."

"Okay," the PFY says, hefting up a bunch of machines. "But Archimedes - who in this company would have an Archimedes?"

"No idea," I lie, not wanting to risk refreshing his memories of the whole thing - his secret stash of machines in the room next to the Boss' office, our discovery of him using them, his reprogramming, his subsequent regression, his encounter with the dentist from Marathon Man, the discovery of a second stockpile of running Archimedes in a basement room...

"So what are we doing with these?"

"Dumping them in the skip before anyone notices," I snap back. "So get a move on."

"What skip?" the PFY asks.

"THAT ONE!" I reply, nodding with my head.

"When did that arrive?!" he gasps.

"About 6:30pm, right on the change of security shift so that neither of them will be interested in it," I say.

"So why didn't we chuck this crap out then?"

"BECAUSE," I respond. "We have to wait till there's no one around to ask questions."

"Why not just come in early tomorrow then?"

"Because (a) there's bound to be someone who comes in early to fire off an email to their boss about some work topic before bunking off for a couple of hours kip in the sick room, and (b) leaving a skip unattended overnight is an invitation for people to do what we're doing."

"Which is?"

"Getting rid of evidence."

"Why's this evidence?"

"It's not, but the rest of the stuff we're going to chuck in the bin tonight is."

"What stuff?"

"Those two large SSA disk enclosures that we talked the Boss into a couple of years back."

"The ones that cost 20 grand."

"Yep, and were never used because they weren't compatible with the adaptors in our machines..."

"Oh. What else?"

"The 200 slot tape library that we bought for cheap which ended up having handling errors about 50 per cent of the time."

"Oh yeah, that was another 40 grand. What else?" the PFY asks, as he heaves his load into the bin.

>crash< >crash< ... >crash< >crash<

"I dunno - but I know there's about three cupboards full of our purchasing mistakes that need to be disposed of on the Q.T."

"But won't people see them when they come to work?"

"No chance - I'm going to cover them with a thick layer of ITIL manuals."

"What ITIL manuals?"

"The ones in the helpdesk area, the Boss' office, our office, the consultants' offices, the company library and the IT Library."

>swip< >bip< >bip< >bip< >bip< >bip< >click<

"But... won't people notice them missing?"

"Of course they will - the same way they'd notice a cold sore is missing."

"You mean they won't say anything?"

"Who'd want a cold sore back?"

"But won't people notice them in the bin?"

"They might, but ITIL manuals are like kryptonite to enthusiasm. If someone sees them in the bin they're not likely to delve any further to see if there's anything good in there."

"Point taken," the PFY says, as I unlock one of our many storage cupboards (personally keyed and marked 'Outflow Waste Pumping Station').

"Bloody heavy," the PFY gasps as between us we heft it to back outside. "Just rest it on that will you?"

>swip< >bip< >bip< >bip< >bip< >bip< >click<

"Okay, lets go."

. . .

>CRASH!<

"Who's that?" a voice gasps from the other side of the skip.

Funny who you meet dumping stuff in a skip in the middle of the night. Like the Boss, for instance, with a couple of armloads of recently purchased 'biometric security devices' which have been found to be just as crap as we’d warned him...

... Like the Head of IT a quarter hour after that with some ITIL manuals (bonus!)...

...Like the CEO pushing the multifunction 'smart' whiteboard which has only ever been used as a normal whiteboard but has been ruined by non-whiteboard markers and abrasive cleaning pads...

BUSTED!

The ensuing dumping amnesty was a great thing for forging alliances at all levels of the organisation and will be spoken about in hushed tones for years like a soccer game in Flanders.

…The rest-stops at the pub while security dumped a load of CCTVs with a non-standard proprietary interface…

…the camaraderie as we formed a human chain to help one of the stores guys dump 97 trolley tyres…

…followed shortly thereafter by every man for himself when the Old Bill turned out to investigate a skipful of burning tyres...

. . . The next morning . . .

“OKAY, WHO BURNED ALL THE ITIL MANUALS?” the IT Training contractor bloke snarls, seconds after turning up to his empty office shelves.

“It was him,” the PFY says, pointing to the Boss.

Ah well, camaraderie’s overrated…


CHAPTER 35

It's an exceptionally quiet morning at Mission Control and the PFY and I are killing time by rifling through the director's PA's drawers to see if she left anything good behind when she departed the company.

"Ah... excuse me?" a voice asks haltingly from behind the partition.

"Yep?" the PFY asks, always willing to help out.

"I'm looking for the manager of systems and networks?"

"Ah, well, unfortunately he's gone."

"Do you know when he'll be back?"

"He'll never be back - he's gone," the PFY responds.

"What my assistant is trying to say is that he has left the company following a workplace accident," I add.

"Really? What happened?"

"He unfortunately fell into the path of an oncoming cab."

"What?! When was this?"

"Last Friday lunchtime," the PFY says, gazing into the distance thoughtfully. "I remember because it was the deadline he'd given us to install some patches on our system. It didn't happen and he came to the pub to find out why and get us back onto the job. On exiting the pub I observed a cab, black in colour, coming down the street and that my manager appeared not to have noticed it. I reached out to grab his jacket just as he tripped into the path of the vehicle."

"Really? Was he OK?"

"A few bumps and bruises, a loss of accurate memory of events preceding the event, but apart from that he's ok – but he's decided to move on."

"I... see," the bloke says slowly. "Perhaps then I could speak with his immediate superior?"

"And there's a funny thing," I say. "The IT director, returning to the office that same afternoon, heard of the boss' misfortune and grasped the wrong end of the stick and presumed that the injury may not have been accidental in nature. He immediately sought me out in the stairwell on the floor above preparing to move a trolleyload of boxes of old lineflow paper. As he entered the stairwell below me I realised that (a) I hadn't needed to bring the paper up to that floor to dispose of it in the first place and (b) the lift would be a better way to get it to the basement. In executing a 180 degree turn one of the boxes of paper slipped from the top of the trolley and fell onto the director."

"Oh. How about your helpdesk supervisor?"

"Again, a workplace tragedy. He'd asked us to ensure that all our calls were passed through the helpdesk system so that they could be logged in his database - and in order to do this had our DDI numbers redirected by a telco contractor without our knowledge. My assistant here went to speak to him about how we could facilitate the return of the DDI numbers and accidentally knocked a desk lamp into the fish tank at the exact moment that he happened to be cleaning it..."

"Someone - anyone - FROM the helpdesk?"

"Gone also - but nothing to do with us. They're all on sick leave after ordering a dodgy pizza from the place across town that has a web ordering service and free delivery. Apparently there was some glitch in the webform which resulted in the words 'powdered glass' being entered into the freeform text box under 'additional toppings'. Ordinarily this would have not been a problem as they don't have this stuff on hand in the store except that the exceptionally customer-focused delivery person stopped off on the way and added it."

"That's terrible!"

"I know," the PFY says. "That someone with the dedication to go the extra mile for the customer is treated so shabbily. As luck would have it though, once we heard of his availability we were able to offer him a position in our helpdesk starting next week. And wouldn't you know it – he's just finished a degree in IT!'

"I... see. So is there anyone I can talk to? Your security consultant?"

"Cycling accident."

"Business analysts?"

"They got trapped in a lift over a bank holiday weekend with no water supply. Not pretty, as I'm sure you can imagine. Of course they're both nuttier than monkey crap now and have an extended stay in the dribbling academy..."

...a few minutes later...

"So there's no one?"

"Just us," the PFY says.

"Sigh. Okay, well I'm here to audit the IT portion of your business process for the company's annual business stability rating."

"Which means?"

"Well I'll just need to verify that you're following best practice in change controls, security management, access control, logging, and suchlike. So I'll need to see all supporting documents so that I can check them for completeness."

"Oh right," the PFY gasps cheerfully, having noted my surreptitious nod. "We keep them in a fireproof safe."

"Excellent – if you could just show me to them..."

"Sure, sure, they're upstairs – on the roof."

"The roof?!"

"Yeah they wanted to bolt the safe to some structural element of the building and the only accessible pieces are where the roof meets the outside walls of the building..."

...Two minutes later...

"There's been a terrible accident!" the PFY gasps, staggering into Mission Control.

"Yes, I thought there might be..." I say, kicking the auditor's briefcase under the PFY's desk to join the others we've collected over the years.


CHAPTER 36

"It’s a somewhat unique situation," the HR droid says to the PFY and me as we meet in the IT director's office. "You see we've never replaced an entire department at one time and as such we need to be sure that due diligence takes place."

"Due diligence?" the PFY asks.

"Well yes. From a company standpoint we want to ensure that the successful candidates – especially at senior IT management level – are fully aware of the needs of the company and are of a correct calibre, which is where I come in. We also have to balance that against the technical knowledge that would be appropriate for a person at that level in the IT department – which is where you come in."

"Right," the PFY says, mentally preparing a paraphrase. "So you do the red tape and we make sure they can at least spell IT."

"I... yes, I suppose so."

"Okay," I say. "So where do we start."

"Well, last week I took a look at the shortlisted candidates that you supplied and weeded out the shortlist into a choice of two candidates – with the exception of the helpdesk positions which are..."

"Cannon fodder?" the PFY suggests.

"WHICH ARE PRETTY MUCH THE SAME, so I have six candidates for four positions."

"Right," I say. "So where do we START?"

"Oh I see. Yes. Well, we have interviews for the rest of the day with the first candidates arriving in about 20 minutes. I thought it best we adopt a top down approach, director first, managers next, analysts and helpdesk to finish."

"Sounds ok to me – Where are we interviewing?"

"We'l be interviewing each candidate in the interview room on the fourth floor, although the candidates will be held down at reception until we're ready for them – in case any interview runs overtime. Prior to that though I'll need to see your interview questions to ensure that they're both appropriate and consistent."

"Good idea," the PFY smarms. "So how about we gather our stuff and meet you upstairs in five."

"Okay then."

No sooner has the HR droid left than the PFY is in the lift admin utility, silenced the alarm call buttons, disabled the phone and is waiting patiently to flip the lift into disabled mode.

>Click< "And we're on," the PFY says. "I've sent him to halfway between B1 and B2 and turned the lights out. Phase two!"

A quick call to reception to advise them of the new interview location and phase two is complete.

...Seventeen minutes later...

"Send the first candidate over," I blurt into my cellphone.

...One minute later...

"I must say, your interview procedure is somewhat... informal," the prospective IT director burbles as he carries several pints over to the table.

"Yeah, well, it's a CEO thing," the PFY responds. "His view is that you don't really know someone till after they've had six pints - and you do realise that we only have 30 minutes for this interview though, so you'd better get cracking!"

...Six pints later...

"...bastids!" our first candidate slurs.

"And senior management?" the PFY asks.

"Seenya bastids!"

"User groups?"

"Farkem!"

"Well that's pretty much all my questions," the PFY says. "Simon?"

"Okay, my question is more of a hypothetical," I say. "You enter a room and witness one of your technical persons shoving a roll of carpet out the window into a skip bin. You realise that the auditor that you'd just seen entering the room is nowhere to be seen. What would you do?"

"Isss jus an auditr?"

"Yes."

"Hoogivesacrap?"

"IS THE CORRECT ANSWER! WELCOME TO THE TEAM! And now that you're on the team I guess you'll want to sit in on the rest of the interviews?"

"Yup."

"Okay, well you get the pints in and I'll ring for the next one – manager of systems and networks."

Seven interviews later and I've spotted the slight flaw in our plan in that the first questions we should have asked of our new director were "Are you a violent maniac after you've had a few pints?" and "Did you know that punching someone in the face for using the words 'total cost of ownership' is not technically an approved interview technique – funny though it may be?"

"Methinks we made a slight error in judgement," I say, nodding at the director who's getting some more pints in at the bar.

"Two slight errors in judgement," the PFY says, directing my gaze to the HR droid across the road, steaming towards us with an unhappy expression on his face. "He must have tripped the fire alarm with his lighter."

"What's that then?" the director asks returning with three pints of real ale.

"We told the HR bloke that we'd appointed you but he says the deal's off because he didn't rubber stamp the appointment," the PFY says, thinking quickly and pointing at the HR bloke. "He said that if he wasn't involved in the negotiation it would affect the total cost of..."

>SLAM!<

"Well," the PFY says smugly. "I think that should take care of both our immediate problems..."

>Screech!< >thud<

"Nope, only one," I say, pointing out the window. "In his haste to give the HR bloke a good kicking he's stepped out in front of a cab."

"Didn't the last guy do that?"

"Dangerous business this IT stuff..."


CHAPTER 37

Things are dire in Mission Control. Our plans for company IT domination have backfired on us like a baked bean vindaloo with a boiled cabbage chaser followed by a double helping of pickled onion ice-cream. And 10 pints of fizzy lager...

"So you're saying that we have no operating budget?" I ask.

"None," the head Beancounter nods.

"Nothing at all?" the PFY asks.

"None," the head Beancounter repeats. "And even if you had a budget, which you don't, you couldn't spend it, because there's no one to sign off the expenditure."

"So I can't sign off the expenditure?" I ask.

"No."

"And he can't sign off the expenditure?" I ask, pointing at the PFY.

"Even if he had signing authority, he couldn't because he's your junior."

"So by extension if he proposed something I could approve it?"

"Only if you had a budget, which you don't," the Beancounter says smugly.

"So we've no money at all?"

"Unless there's some in your wallet?"

"Twenty quid," the PFY says. "But that's for my rail card."

"Then you're out of cash."

"But what do we buy consumables with?" I gasp.

"You mean beer?"

"I mean consumables!" I respond.

"Consumables from the Blue Posts?"

"Blue Posts IT Warehouse, yes."

"And not the Blue Posts pub, across the road?"

"Is that what it's called?" the PFY asks, faking surprise badly.

"Yes," the Head Bean counter responds drily.

"I think you'll find we're buying our consumables from a completely different Blue Posts," I proffer. "The Blue Posts IT Warehouse."

"The same IT Warehouse with the beer coasters all over your office?" he asks.

"You mean mouse pads," I suggest.

"Beer coasters."

"No mouse pads. For laptops!" I say, holding one up. "See, they're just the right size for those tiny mice.”

"Or a pint of lager"

"You know I never thought of that, but I think a pint might actually fit on this mouse pad quite snugly..."

"NO budget!" he repeats.

. . .

"It's just unreasonable," the PFY sniffs later after the beancounters have departed. "What are we supposed to live on?"

"You mean how can we afford lager if it's to come from our own pockets now that there's no one left in IT to graft from?"

"Yeah."

"Well I hesitate to say it, but perhaps we can generate income ourselves?"

"You mean sell our servers?"

"No?"

"Blackmail?"

"Nope, done that."

"Theft from petty cash?"

"I was aiming a little higher than that..."

"You mean thermal lancing the beancounter's safe open and stealing some of the blank cheque printing stock!"

"Uh... No. No, I'm suggesting doing what anyone with a mercenary outlook would do when faced with a lack of revenue. Besides, a thermal lance is bound to be noticed by security - even if it doesn't cook the contents of the safe."

"So what are you proposing?"

"Product placement."

"Product placement?"

"Yes, as you know I document our daily intercourse (ooooh err vicar) for the vicarious amusement of others..."

"Uh... yes"

"And those people might be prone to... uh... subliminal suggestion..."

"I suppose so."

"And we could potentially obtain money by suggesting things to them..."

"Uhhhhh... You mean sell out?"

"Precisely!"

"You'd sell your self respect for the price of a few beers?"

"Several beers, but yes. Or alternatively you could dip into your own pocket in future..."

"I see now that it's a complex issue," the PFY nods, standing beside the shiny new Cisco networking equipment we recently ordered because of it's reliability and value for money. It's bloody great.

"Yes," I say, tapping away on my recently installed Microsoft Windows Vista installation (which I must say is a complete pleasure to use and does half my work for me to such an extent that I'm seriously considering buying two and retiring to the Bahamas).

"But what about if we're called upon to promote something which looks to be all glitz and glamour but is actually the lowest form of proprietary consumerist crap?" the PFY asks, while looking a number up on his iPhone.

"In the event of that happening," I say, dropping the aforementioned item into the bin. "We just scratch Apple off our potential list of sponsors."

"And wasn't it you calling a certain network hardware vendor a bunch of cheapskates for not even supplying kit with a standard 12 month warranty on purchase."

"I suppose it was," I sigh, scratching another name off my list. "But it's ok - we'll still have enough cash for drinks so long as you don't say anything derogatory about M..."

"This Vista is crap isn't it?" the PFY interrupts, moments before a 17 inch monitor hits him in the head...

...A lovely 17 inch Philips monitor, with outstanding clarity and screen resolution. In fact, it's probably still working perfectly after its test flight, that's how good it probably is...


CHAPTER 38

"Excellent," the new Boss burbles as the PFY updates the 'days since last workplace accident' sign (put there since the last IT decimation). "Ten days since the last accident."

"I think you'll find that's a binary number," the PFY says.

"Still... 10 days," the Boss counters to much rolling of eyes.

"And that's only because we don't count disappearances as accidents," I add.

"Or people who don't work here."

"Or disappearances of people who don't work here."

"So what are you keeping track of this for – if that's not a silly question?"

"Oh, that's not a silly question!" I say. "A silly question is, 'Why don't the MP3 files I email myself from home turn up in my inbox?'"

"Or, 'Why aren't you adhering to the purchasing policy for blank media which insists on buying the cheapest CDs money can buy?'" the PFY adds.

"Or, 'Why's my desk on fire?'"

"So that sign doesn't take into account people that don't work here?"

"Correct," the PFY says. "Otherwise we'd have to take into account everyone who tripped on the pavement outside, entered the building by mistake thinking it was the pub across the road (after several drinks), etc."

"Not to mention Inland Revenue people," I add.

"True," the PFY says.

"Hmmm?" the Boss asks.

"Inland Revenue people – they disappear on or around the premises on occasion. It's like the Bermuda Triangle for them around here."

"And they're disappearing because... you're evading your taxes?" the Boss gasps, putting two and two together and coming up with 22.

"Of course not!" the PFY blurts. "I don't pay taxes!"

“Of course you do!”

"No he doesn't," I say. "My assistant is contracted to the company out of an exceptionally tiny contracting agency at an overseas location with very lenient tax laws. Not only that, he managed to rent accommodation in the embassies of a couple of African nations who will be exceedingly wealthy if the price of dirt ever follows the oil trend. Meantime, however, my assistant is their non-UK-tax-resident paying-guest."

"I... And what about you?" the Boss asks, looking to me.

"As a registered charity I'm not really required to pay that much tax either – so no financial nightmares waiting for me in the closet either."

"A registered charity?"

"Don't ask," the PFY cautions, not wanting to hear once more the heartrending tales of women who've crossed the line to depravity..."

"So, if it's not you two... then who's getting rid of all the Revenue people?"

"No one knows," the PFY says. "We've had one of their cars in the basement for a couple of years now and there's a whole stack of briefcases in security's offices."

"And no one's tried to contact Revenue about it?"

"I think it's a case of not wanting to draw attention to yourself," the PFY says. "Almost all the security staff are moonlighting other jobs, half senior management have some undisclosed 'consultancy' role somewhere that keeps them in holidays, and all but one of the cleaning staff are under the table."

"And not just cleaning there," I add for the Boss' benefit.

"So what you're actually saying is that if Inland Revenue were to cast their gaze over the company..."

"...The prison sentences would look like a Terry Waite package holiday..."

"Well, from what I've heard about you I'm surprised you've not availed yourself of one of the incentives that Revenue have to offer from time to time," the Boss mumbles thoughtfully. "You could have earnt some kudos - sometimes they even offer cash!"

From the expression on the Boss' face I can see that his thoughts are moving from the theoretical to the practical...

"No, like I said - half the company is trying something on. If one of them went down they'd take others down with them and the whole place would go down the gurgler. Instead, however, we'll just sit astride this gravy train and see where it takes us."

"Yes, yes, I suppose you're right – don't want to rock the boat as the new guy." the Boss nods.

...

"I smell a derailment," I say to the PFY. "Time to keep an eye on him."

"Why?" the PFY says. "I'm watertight – and your charity thing seems to have some prima facie semblance of legitimacy."

"Like I said, when one goes down, they'll all go down. Before you know it someone will be questioning your non-resident status and suggesting that I don't have the best interest of those stringfellows women at heart. Worse still, I have a sneaky suspicion that this isn't going to be able to wait till he trips into the path of an oncoming taxi..."

"What are we going to do?" the PFY whines, starting to get agitated.

"I don't know!" I snap. "Security are watching us like hawks since the last decimation of IT staff, so I don't want to risk a simple electrocution or stairwell fall. WE NEED A PLAN..."

...Five minutes later...

"I DON'T HAVE A PLAN!!!" the PFY sniffs.

"WE NEED TO THIN..." I say, stopping as the CEO enters Mission Control, and flips the chart from 10 to 00.

"I'm terribly sorry to be the bearer of bad news," he says. "But I'm afraid your manager's had a nasty accident. He was just now telling me about some apparent tax dodginess when he accidentally tripped and wrapped my phone cord around his neck several times. I tried to get to him but must have tripped as well and knocked myself out. Next thing I knew security was reviving me to find that he somehow managed to end up with his head in the fish tank..."

"Terrible business," I say. "Which just goes to show that it's not just cellphones we should be afraid of. You'll be needing some alcohol wipes then?"

"What for?"

"Oh, just to wipe the phone cord and fish tank down with – wouldn't want any of those forensic people catching security's germs off them."

"Yes... Yes... Good point. Uh... give us a couple, I might do my desk and the visitor's chair at the same time."

...

So at least we didn't have to do EVERYTHING ourselves...


CHAPTER 39

"Ahhhhhh," I sigh cheerfully. "Smell that?"

"You mean the whiff of cardboard, seasonal green and red ink and just a hint of glitter?" the PFY responds.

"MMmmmm," I mumble.

"Well, it's Christmas season again, isn't it?" the PFY concurs.

"No... It's Christmas CARD season again," I say. "For the next three weeks we can expect the usual deluge of cards from the vendors we deal with on a day to day basis, the vendors we deal with on an occasional basis, and the vendors who've never dealt with us but wish to do so in the future - all wishing us the very best for the Christmas season."

"And presents," the PFY says happily.

"No, not presents," I correct. "Not this week. Have you not noticed that the places that send us cards early in the season never actually send us presents?"

"I... No, I hadn't."

"Just take a look. If you get a nice looking card - and it's not an invite to a party where the booze and women flow like water from a natural spring - then there's no box of chocolates or fancy lager from them gracing your desk at the end of year. If there's no card though, there's a distinct possibility the vendor's going to courier you a hamper full of Christmas treats to keep you going over the break."

"So if we get cards, we're stuffed?"

"Probably. Instead of sending the Christmas contraband to the people who've done the design, specification, evaluation, and acceptance of vendors proposals, they'll give the cakes, booze, toys, and trinkets to some person in middle management whose sole contribution has been to add a signature to a piece of paper that they didn't understand."

"It doesn't sound fair," the PFY simpers.

"Of course it's not fair!" I snap. "It's never fair. You don't see the Boss trolling through technical specs to ensure that some proposed hardware has sufficient capacity for expansion into the future. The director's not reading reviews of hardware reliability on geek blogs into the small hours! No, they just sign bits of paper in the knowledge that come Christmas time they'll be raking in the cakes. AND IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!"

"Too true," the PFY echoes. "So what do we do about it?"

"What do we do?" I snap. "We take steps, that's what we do!"

"So you've no idea?"

"Of course I have!" I respond. "I've gone through the long list of Bosses, Heads of IT, and now Directors that we've had in the past two years and left strict instructions with the mail room, security, and stores that any Christmas mail or parcels destined for them are to be delivered straight to me."

"Why not do it properly and get the current Boss and IT Directors?" the PFY asks.

"Two reasons," I say. "First, they'll notice the drop off in mail and are almost certain to go to some event where they'll be asked if they received their contraband..."

"And secondly?"

"They're new, keen, and have upset a large number of people in the company. There's every chance they'll get a cake or two which shouldn't be eaten.."

"Mmm?"

"Remember that time the Boss got that beautiful Gateau cake the topping of which was in actual fact a thick layer of grated laxative chocolate?"

"No. When was that?"

"Ten minutes ago."

"Oh, I see," the PFY nods. "But won't he be suspicious if it comes this early?"

"No, I just made up an IT company name and put a card in saying that we're celebrating our relaunch."

"So it's a fair bet he won't be taking the tube home tonight then?"

"Or trusting vendor presents any more..."

"Oh, so it's about making them not trust the presents they get!" the PFY says, finally clicking on. "What about the Director?"

"Ah! You know those fold up canvas chairs we got from the LTO3 vendor in July?"

"The tripod ones with the aluminium poles?"

"Precisely. The Head of IT received a pair of these which he'll no doubt test drive."

"And he shouldn't?"

"Not without a proctologist on standby anyway. There might be a slight technical hitch with the rivet in the middle."

"Oooh," the PFY gasps. "Hopefully the rivet won't travel too far?"

"It's unreasonable of you to ask me to guarantee that," I say. "But I feel fairly confident that our Christmas fortunes will be looking up after today..."

"So it's a matter of just sitting back and waiting?"

"Or sitting back and screaming," I say, as a cry from the Director's office indicates stage one is complete.

A few minutes later the Boss and the Boss's PA help the Director struggle to the lift...

"So that's stage two sorted," I say wandering back into Mission Control and tapping away on the keyboard."

"Stage two?"

"You didn't notice the corona of chocolate round the Boss' gob?" I ask. "Looks like he's started on that Gateau already."

"And don't tell me - the lift is about to develop a technical fault?"

"Could be... And I bet we've only sent our lift engineer a card this year..."


CHAPTER 40

It's a Friday afternoon and the clock has stopped. All the clocks have stopped. It's been 2:15pm for the past two hours, I'm sure of it.

"COME OOOOONNN!" the PFY whines.

"It's no use," I say. "The seconds hand is moving but the minutes hand has just stopped!"

"I want the pub," the PFY gasps. "I NEED the pub!"

"Me too," I sigh. "What time is it now?"

"Two fifteen."

"IT WAS TWO FIFTEEN LAST TIME I ASKED!" I whine.

"IT WAS PROBABLY TWO FIFTEEN WHEN WE GOT IN THIS MORNING!" the PFY whines back. "Nggaaaaargh!"

I hate Friday afternoons.

"What's up?" the Boss asks, wandering into Mission Control without purpose - which, if I may say so, is just the icing on the bloody cake.

"Nothing," I sigh. "We're just waiting to go home..."

"That's hardly the attitude!" he cries. "What about sorting out something by the end of the day?"

"Something like what?" the PFY asks.

"I don't know... Surely there's something in your helpdesk queue?"

"Help yourself," the PFY says, turning his monitor around.

"What about that one - printing delays?"

"The one that requires us to refresh the print server and all the print drivers because someone in Beancounter-land updated their printer driver and found that their printer had a hitherto unused duplexing function, then, as a public service updated the drivers on all other printers regardless of what type or manufacturer they were?"

"I..."

"Which would involve us having to do a walkaround to each printer which is now uncommunicative to find its exact make and model, then find the drivers, THEN update the print server with them?"

"Surely it's possible?"

"So's giving yourself a circumcision under local, but you don't find many people doing it," the PFY quips. "If we changed things now it'd cause a major printing outage over the weekend which would mean that half the beancounters wouldn't be able to take their work..."

"...Porn," I correct.

"..home with them," the PFY finishes. "Which means we'd be called in several times over the weekend to fix the colour printers."

"Okay, so maybe that's not a Friday afternoon job," the Boss says. "What about that?"

"Change the access password for the HR documents webstore," the PFY says. "Nope. If you do that on a Friday afternoon you actually decrease security because half of HR have already gone home - which means that the other half will leave notes on their screen about the password change."

"Okay, what about that?"

"Update the BIOS on a stack of desktop machines in Beancounter central."

"Yeah - that seems simple enough."

"It is - if the reason for the update was anything more compelling than a boot screen image."

"Mmm?"

"They want a BIOS upgrade to fix the utility that lets you put your own picture in the background of the boot screen."

"I... Perhaps that's a bad example.."

"They're all bad examples," the PFY says. "And the day is just dragging on and on."

"I hate Friday afternoons," I add.

"Isn't there a bit of housekeeping you could do - some tidying? Some documentation?"

"Nope."

"What about this?" the Boss asks, picking up some install media off the PFY's desk. "Surely this should go away somewhere"

"Sure," the PFY says, taking it and tossing it in the bin.

"It's the eternal problem," I say to the Boss. "You don't want to start a big job because you won't have any time to complete it and you don't want to start a small job because it's Friday afternoon and you just can't be arsed. Half the company's already gone home and the only reason we're still here is because the offsite tape storage guy is late..."

"One of the outside tables has just come free," the PFY says despondently, gazing out the window to the pub across the road.

"So if you can't do a small job and can't do a large job, are there any medium sized jobs?"

"Nope. There's only really one thing which passes the time when you're bored on a Friday afternoon."

"What's that then?" the Boss asks.

"Multiplayer gaming."

"You're not suggesting you play games on the company time?"

"No, no, I'm suggesting we play games on the company machines, the company network AND the company time," I say, scratching around for my headset...

.. only to find that it's in two pieces after what looks like a run-in with a wheely chair.

"DAMN IT!" I snap. "I knew we shouldn't have shot that albatross!"

"Ay?" the Boss says.

"Nothing," I say. "Who fancies a game of I Spy?"

"Okay then," the PFY says.

"I SPY, WITH MY LITTLE EYE... SOMETHING BEGINNING WITH... C.P"

"C P.." the Boss says looking around. "Two words then. Ceeeeee Peeeeee. Cee... >KZERRT!<"

Well, it passes the time...


CHAPTER 41

"Get a jiggle on," I tell the PFY as I clamber into the work vehicle, "or we'll be late."

"Take it easy," the PFY responds calmly. "Stacks of time. The place doesn't even open for another hour."

"Yeah, but it'll take us that long to get there!" I snap.

"I'm sure we'll be ok," the Boss says, clambering into the back seat. "It's not like they're going to drink the place dry before we get there."

"Don't you believe it!" I respond. "Black tie casino evenings with open bars tend to finish quite quickly – especially when half the attendees are on their fifth gin and tonic before the chips are handed out and a vendor is picking up the bar tab."

"Chips?" the boss asks.

"The CASINO evening," the PFY says. "Hence the tux and tie combo."

"Oh, I thought it was just very formal," the boss burbles. "How does it work?"

"You get chips at the door, gamble for a couple of hours, then they'll run an auction of goodies with your winnings."

"And by goodies he means stuff the vendor hasn't been able to shift for the past year or two."

"Like the iPod knockoff with tons more capacity but with a 3.5 inch internal drive."

"Hmmm," the Boss says decisively. "You'd better step on it then."

"Like I said," the PFY counters. "Take it easy. This baby is kitted out like the Bondmobile!"

"Are the guys across the road coming?" I ask.

"Who?" the Boss asks.

"The IT gits from the place across the road – some government outfit. Last year they managed to win big by both cheating and registering stacks of people as attending – so they had stacks of chips. So we need to get in before them!!!"

"It's all taken care of," the PFY says, pointing to a red button on the dash with a small legend underneath it.

"You fitted nitrous oxide to a work vehicle!!" I gasp. "Brilliant!"

Seconds later we're out of the basement car park and barrelling across town

...moments later...

"They’re behind us,"” the PFY says, looking in the rear-view.

"Who?"

"The guys from across the road."

"Where?"

"White van, a couple of cars back, I recognise the driver."

"So it is," I concur. "Lose them?"

"Not a worry," the PFY says, pressing another button on the dash which results in a sudden lowering of the vehicle.

"What was that?" the Boss gasps.

"I've adjusted the shock absorbers to street race specs, changed the computer's fuel injection parameters to peak performance and disabled the redline revs cut-out."

"Uhh... Call me paranoid, but I think they just did that too," I say, noticing a corresponding lurch from the van now immediately behind us.

"Don't panic," the PFY says, pointing to another non-standard button the dash board.

"What does it do?" I ask, noticing no helpful legend.

"It lowers the wheel well under the boot."

"And it's full of waste oil!" I gasp.

"No," the PFY says, hurt. "The boot's full of all hundreds of old install CDs. Once they hit the road..."

"Ah," I reply. "No traction. Well you'd better hit that or the nitrous soon, because they’re about to overtake.."

"Just a few more secs," the PFY says, pointing to the dual carriageway ahead “...any moment now... >WHOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSHHHH< >SCREEEEEEEE<"

"THE BASTARDS HAVE GOT NITROS TOO!" I shout over the engine noise as the Boss almost wets himself and the Van behind us looms large in the back window "THEY'RE OVERTAKING!!!! >Crash< NO Hang on!!!"

"GOTTEM!" the PFY says smugly, taking his finger off the nitrous button as the van disappears into the rear-view in a cloud of tyre smoke...

"Not exactly," I say. "The CDs passed harmlessly under the middle of their vehicle”."

"Then what happened?"

"The spare tyre and wheel well didn't..."

"Ah," the PFY says. "Note to self: Lowered suspension affects the wheel well."

Moments the PFY pulls to a halt around the corner from the venue.

"You can't park here," the Boss snaps. "It's a no parking zone – we'll be towed!"

"I... don't have any cash for the meters."

"Right!" the Boss snaps. "I have - I'll drive."

"How about we meet you inside then?" the PFY suggests.

"Fine!" the boss snaps, getting behind the wheel.

Moments later we're inside grabbing our chips for the evening.

"May as well grab the Boss' chips while we're at it," I suggest, pointing out the Boss' name out to the woman at the desk.

"Sure," the PFY says. "And we should probably pick up the chips for our mates across the road."

"Their company?" the woman asks.

"They're with the Ministry of Defence," the PFY says. "I believe half of their party is... delayed..."

"And the other half?"

"Busy outside detaining a reckless driver with unnecessary force..." the PFY says.

..

"So Mr Bond," I say to the PFY as we watch the Boss being manhandled into an unmarked van outside. "What would you say to an ice cold lager?"

"Hello ice cold lager!!!!" the PFY burbles happily...


CHAPTER 42

"Got a bit of work on I see," the Boss says, peering around the large mound of cartons clogging up Mission Control.

"No, no, things are very quiet at the moment."

"So what's all this then?"

"This," I say, tapping on a carton. "is a... laptop, one of a batch of... nine, while this >tap< is a top-of-the-line workstation, one of... twelve. And those >tap< >tap< are ultraclear extra large flat panel monitors with inbuilt speakers and USB hubs."

"And you're going to install them where?"

"Nowhere," I say. "No, this is part of the annual end-of-year purchasing frenzy."

"I'm not sure I understand?"

"Of course you don't, you came from the real world. You see here, at this company, we use the Government model for budgeting where if you don't spend all your budget in a year you obviously didn't need it in the first place and so next year's budget is cut. If you overspend your budget the overspend gets taken from next year's budget. If you just spend all your budget in a year then that's obviously a good number and one which should be used for subsequent years."

"I... see... And your point is?"

"EVERY department pinches pennies all year and doesn't replace anything unless they really have to. Come the end of the year they all have money left over which will be taken off them by the beancounters - and worse still, removed from their budget the following year - so they rush to spend it on anything that can be purchased and delivered before the end of the year."

"Yes, but I still don't see how this has anything to do with those boxes."

"Okay, so IF the gear arrives here and gets receipted in this calendar year then the department pays for it in this year's budget - and they meet their budget target."

"Yes..."

"But if the gear is delayed and gets receipted AFTER this calendar year then it comes out of NEXT year's budget, which will be significantly lower than last years - because last year's wasn't all spent."

"You've lost me!"

"Okay, say you have a department budget of 30 grand to spend on office and IT products. You scrimp and save all year so that you've only spent 10k by the end of the year. You order 10 superduper desktops with large screens, etc, to spend the remaining 20k so that the beancounters don't cut next year's office and IT budget to 10k."

"Uh... yes," the Boss says, thinking furiously.

"So IF the gear arrives this year you get 10 flash desktops AND you get an office and IT budget of 30K next year - but if the gear doesn't get receipted until January then the beancounters will have cut your office and IT budget to 10k and you'll have a bill for 20k worth of flash machines to pay for in that calendar year."

"And these boxes haven't been receipted yet?"

"Oh no," the PFY responds. "They're still in delivery."

"Until when?"

"Till about 4:45pm on the last day..."

"...What happens then?"

"Generally, we ring the department up and tell them that only part of their order turned up. Like say 5 machines - which they can accept or send back for a refund. Now NO ONE wants a refund because that means they'll get less money next year - so they take the 5 machines. Then, we tell them that to make sure the beancounters are happy we'll SAY we received 10 machines and just fake the inventory system. They get some of their machines and their budget's not cut. Everyone's a winner!"

"And what happens to the other five machines?"

"That's the beautiful thing - we use those to replace our machines!" the PFY says.

"But... don't you have an office and IT budget?"

"Course we do, but we spend most of ours in the first week of January in case there's a budget cut during the year."

"So at the end of the year you have nothing?"

"Nah, by the end of the year we're usually around 20 grand under."

"So you have less money next year?"

"Nah, we just spend the amount we put in our budget for the year."

"But that'll mean that you'll be twenty grand over budget next year - which will be cut from the year after's budget!"

"I think you mean forty grand over budget," the PFY says. "Because we overspend by that twenty grand again."

"It's a game we like to play with the Beancounters," I explain. "They try and curtail our spending by cutting our budget, we get machines from other areas and keep spending regardless. "

"But surely they'll catch onto what's happening and ask for some form of audit of machines, where they came from, and what you're doing with your money?"

"Yeah, that does happen," I admit.

"And surely there's some form of penalty or financial oversight to be answered to?"

"Yeah... not so much."

"But aren't they just going to not allocate you a budget at all and just refuse to pay the invoices you've generated?"

"Indeed they do."

"So what happens then?"

"Whose machines do you think are blocking up our office?"


CHAPTER 43

"You know what your probblim is?" one of the Beancounters slurs, using the ISO certified phrase to indicate that the speaker's had too much to drink "...you're out of touch!"

"Really?" the PFY says, tipping back his drink with one hand while setting his modified cattle prod to 'stir-fry' with the other. "How's that then?"

...

Sometimes I can really get to hate end of year office drinks. Sure, it's a chance to overindulge in company supplied beverages, witness burgeoning office romances (that both parties will be deeply ashamed of in the new year – worse still when the webpage comes out..) and help some jilted office assistant sort through her pocket book for her ex's fax number - but you also have to put up with the crap as well...

Crap like a beancounter telling you exactly what the current market rate of service-level-guaranteed internet is - based on the cost of his ADSL connection at home - and how we're simply paying too much for our connectivity.

"...I mean for that money you could put in dozens of ADSL lines - surely that would be cheaper. You could aggregate them like phone lines," the beancounter burbles.

"Oh look!" the PFY gasps. "It's a laminated photo of the locomotive LNER 4468 Mallard!"

"Wher.. >KZERT!<"

...

But a lot of conversations can't be ended as happily. In fact, an hour later it's far worse. Now that the alcohol has had time to affect people's mental processes their darker natures are starting to emerge...

"...which is why you can't trust software people!" a cretin from the HR department drools emphatically at me. "The information the software gathers is passed from one place to another and then a profile of you is built up in places that you've never been to and never heard of."

"You mean like Leeds?" I ask.

"What? No!"

"Oh, you mean it's like ECHELON?"

"Wa?"

"Echelon - you know, the NSA thing which intercepts phone calls, electronic data, etc, scans them with fuzzy logic for key words or phrases then assigns some weighting as to whether you qualify for an all-expenses-paid holiday of abuse with absolutely no legal recourse in Guantanamo. Codename Democratic Freedom?"

"Huh? I was talking about software vendors!"

"Oh right, sorry. Please, continue..." I sigh.

"They collect information about you with their software then they feed it back to their company."

"Uh-huh," I mumble, looking to see what drinks remain.

"But not just that, they send people to your company to gather information on you."

"Oh you mean Helene and Mike?" I say, pointing across the room.

"Huh?"

"Helene and Mike - over there. Helene's the one by the fax/copier looking through her address book and Mike's the one drinking the alcohol based cleaning products. Apparently last month was a good vintage for window cleaner. Now they work for one of our software vendors."

"Have you told them anything?"

"Only where you live, how much you earn, your bank account numbers – nothing important"

"You what?! Don't you know they us.. >KZERT<"

"Don't mention it," the PFY says as he steps over the cretin on his way to freshen up his drink.

I take it back – a lot of conversations can be ended happily after all. Things might be looking up.

...

An hour later I find they are when I happen upon the PFY helping his half-cut half zapped beancounter victim make a couple of last minute eBay purchases.

"A Beta video recorder!" he gasps over the beancounter's shoulder. "Give it a couple of years and it'll be worth a fortune on antiques roadshow. Click Buy-it-now - you don't want to be outbid and £100 is a small price to pay! Oooh, and look, the same person is selling an eight track player and some Newtons – collectables if I ever saw them..."

You know, I'd almost feel bad if I hadn't seen the PFY scouring the basement for items to list on eBay this morning...

Wondering what the Boss' idle hands are up to and where the Christmas bonuses are, I make for his office and step past our two vendors as they rifling through drawers for a good vintage of tippex...

"Ah, there you are," the Boss burbles."Just handing out the bonuses. Last minute thing so you'll have to make do with cash. Apparently someone tried to break into the cheque safe and broke the lock mechanism. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?"

"Me?" I say. "No, no. But thanks for the cash all the same."

"Can you pass on this to your assistant."

"Sure. And if you have a bottle of tippex with a 733 in the serial number, Mike outside would like it."

Striking while the iron is hot, I shoot straight back to where the PFY is, helping his beancounter make some internet banking transactions to secure his eBay purchases.

"Christmas bonus?" the PFY asks.

"None this year, the bastards," I lie. "Apparently they have to buy a new cheque safe..."

"Ah," the PFY says guiltily.

"Still, not to worry. In any case, I thought I'd toddle off, last minute presents to buy and all that..."

"Okay, have a good one," the PFY says.

So now I have to leave the building and calculate the chances of the PFY running into the Boss. Well, the PFY running into the Boss before I get out of the building... then feed that into equation about how long it takes to get down three flights of stairs versus three flights in the superfast lifts... Hmmm…

Somewhere between 1 and Ground the lift stops and the lights go out..

"Dark in there isn't it?" the PFY's clipped voice comes through the lift speaker. "Do you want to play a game?"

...

Uh Oh.