Science fiction and technology writer

Magus

Fri May 10 04:20:43 2002

That's right, the great Magus is without work. It was decided that a glorified packet sniffer was more important than a part time web dev. Thanks to a dirty sonuvabitch coworker, the boss bought a NetVCR which is nothing more than a PC that "records network traffic and plays it back when we need to". In short, a $45K US packet sniffer.

Tomorrow, I'm s'posed to train a clueless coworker how to maintain my work. So, do I sabotage them, or shall I be good?

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Fri May 10 05:07:53 2002

Be good, it is the honorable thing

sorry, The Mighty AYB knows how it feels to be unemployed :(

Madan

Fri May 10 11:55:39 2002

Sorry Magus.
Your problem sounds EXACTLY like mine except I'm not scarred like you are, yet.

Be honorable. You never know when an opportunity might open up with them again, in the future. Don't burn your bridges.

OTOH, if you can get away with stealing/screwing them over, without them EVER finding out.

Do so.

Uhm, those two messeges are conflicting aren't they?

Sorry. :( Well, you'll be fine. You're tech l33t. The market's gotta come back eventually, right?

HitScan

Fri May 10 14:33:37 2002

Half-ass train them. It's best to intentionally "forget" to mention a couple of important job functions, so that it appears that you were nigh irreplacable, at which time they will either a) ask you back, or 2) be destroyed by their own ignorance or pride.

Either way, you win. ;)

Magus

Fri May 10 16:11:40 2002

Thanks, y'all. I'm definitely not too thrilled, as some of you noted.

AYB: I'm being good... relatively speaking.

Madan: Heh. Read that as "scared" at first. I suppose I can admit that I was, initially. I know what you mean, and yes I'm working on having a bit of fun. Nothing serious, just stuff to irritate them. As HitScan put it, make em realise the error of their ways.

HitScan: Oh believe me, I'm going to. One of my major responsibilities is^H^Hwas to maintain the security webpage, which has almost daily updates, as well as a rather large database of sysadmins. Hmmm, the database is on SQL Server 7. Why, nobody else knows that! The web front end to it is ASP. Why, nobody else knows that! What a pity.

Thanks for the support, guys.

Magus

Fri May 10 16:18:16 2002

Come to think of it, I just realised something. The copy of SQL Server we use is actually mine. Gee, I don't think it'd be right for me to let them keep my license. I guess, that means I'll have to "regretfully" uninstall it and tell them to buy a copy. Oops.

Jeremy Reimer

Fri May 10 16:30:02 2002

When I was much younger, I worked summers at a library in Gibsons, BC, where we used to live. I wrote database programs in dBase/Foxpro to maintain book lists and print out new catalogue card sets, as well as other librarily duties.

Anyway, the librarian was this really stupid woman who treated the library like France and she was Marie Antoinette. Anyway, when it was boiling hot she would close all the windows, and when it was freezing she would open them, that sort of thing. She was also totally anal about using the modem to access the library/bookseller online service.

Anyway, when the summer was over, I put a little extra surprise in the AUTOEXEC.BAT. Nothing nasty, just that when you booted up, a little message would appear, courtesy of a little GWBASIC program I wrote. Things like "It's freezing in here! Somebody close the window! Signed, the Frozen Ghost" etc.

Just to be mean, I set the attributes of all the necessary files, including AUTOEXEC.BAT, to be read-only, and deleted ATTRIB.COM from the DOS directory, so you couldn't change them back (without a copy of the correct version of ATTRIB for that DOS version, which who knows if they had)

Anyway, MONTHS later, I got a call from some "technician" wanting to know about the AUTOEXEC.BAT. I feigned ignorance and went on my merry way.

The moral of the story is: don't fuck with people who know about computers. :D

HitScan

Fri May 10 17:00:14 2002

The moral of the story is: don't fuck with people who know about computers. �:D

Word to Aesop.
:D :D :D

(Edited by HitScan at 11:04 am on May 13, 2002)

Magus

Fri May 10 17:03:03 2002

Do not meddle in the affairs of Geeks, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

Harbinger

Fri May 10 20:51:54 2002

You really needed to use the evilgrin smiley at the end of that post, JR.

:evilgrin:

Imitation Gruel

Fri May 10 20:53:37 2002

Indeed. That or the ;sagrin; smiley,

Witness: :sagrin:

AllYorBaseRBelong2Us

Fri May 10 20:54:46 2002

or you can always use this:

:sailormoon:

Evil Merlin

Mon May 13 12:58:17 2002

You guys have NO clue on how it can be with "former" employees. As most people know the company I am working at is axing 1300 jobs in the next couple of months, in addition to the 1500 or so they axed last year. Well one of them we axed on Friday was more than prepared and let his bomb drop 3 hours later. Too bad we have the logs that traced it's activation right to his ISDN line in his home .... meanwhile it is 3 days later and I am still picking up the pieces...

Magus

Mon May 13 20:01:30 2002

I have no intention of doing anything destructive. The SQL Server copy really is mine; I even told the boss troll how it was, and he's going to deal with it. I don't care how, I just uninstalled it.

Madan

Tue May 14 23:21:01 2002

Reparative BUMP

Magus

Wed May 15 06:42:07 2002

Silly Madan.

Harbinger

Wed May 15 13:43:56 2002

from Magus posted at 2:42 am on May 15, 2002

Silly Madan.

Smam is for kids!

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I have plenty of leisure time now