Damn users.... (Score:5, Funny) 
by Cervantes on 2002.10.04 17:29 (#4390144)  
(User #612861 Info) 


It's been a bad day, so -::begin true it-happened-to-me BOFH-style
rant::::Sorry for the length, but I feel better now::

Yanno, I've been telling my users for years now that the easiest way to
stay safe is to keep updating. I even (choke cough sputter) turned on
"Automatic Update" in Windows, just so it would keep them up-to-date. They
disabled it, claiming "Every once in a while things would get slow for
a bit, but now it's fine" or my favorite "I got funny messages". (PS:
Also had to reimage 7 machines because somebody decided he was a geek
and he could just copy his registry between machines).

So I capitulated, and started sending everyone reminders by email when
they had to update. I included the URL to windowsupdate and copious
instructions. "It's too hard, I don't know what to do", they whined. I
tried sending them the enterprise update exe's. They downloaded them,
alright... put them right on their desktop, and forgot about them. I
rewrote the reminder emails to include a script to do everything for
them. It worked, for a bit... then I started noticing machines not being
updated, and virii floating around that shouldn't. Turns out they'd
started sending my emails right to the trash. "It didn't seem to do
anything", they said, "it just popped up some box and then went away,
so I figured I didn't need it." The box, of course, said "PERFORMING AN
IMPORTANT UPDATE ON WINDOWS, PLEASE WAIT."

Exasperated, I set up the NT login script to push the updates to the
user (which I'd been avoiding, it involved actually getting the NT
server working). It seemed to work fine, until one day I browsed the
network by accident (hit the wrong button), and noticed that I had 65
computers in the group in an office of almost 200. Turns out some genius
had found his way into Network properties and changed the setup to skip
login to the NT server. "It was really annoying", they said, "I'd start
up my computer in the morning, and then I'd have to wait for, like, a
whole minute or two! Sometimes it wasn't even done when I got back from
getting coffee! This is so much easier, we just hit 'escape' when the
login screen comes up. Why didn't you do this in the first place?". It
was at this point that I found out no-one was using the network drives
either ("We have a network? Like an internetwork?"), thereby rendering
pointless my copius virus scans and backups and RAID setup that I'd blown
my monthly budget on. Fine, I say to myself, I'll show these buggers.

So I set up a dummy machine, with which to do nothing but keep running
perfectly and with all updates and latest drivers installed. I burned a
bootable CD image from it, and whenever someone called in with a virus
complaint, I'd go to their machine, pop in the CD, reboot, and go for an
extended coffee break. The image had a boot virus scan to clean everything
else up. Happy, was I, as I noticed the drop in virus calls. Soon, they
dried up. I was actually starting to feel good, untill one day the VP
called me in to find out why we were sending no less than 9 different
virii to our clients every day. Their excuse? "When you did that thingy
with the thingy, it made all our games disappear, and I've almost gotten
to the second level!" Yes, indeed, they were just ignoring the virii now,
even though they were getting messages from the antivirus program. Seems
they believed clicking "Quarantine" would mean that I'd take their
computers away and lock them in the server (clean) room for a while.

So I tried locking down with PolEdit and SysEdit. They brought in their
own windows CD's and reinstalled, because "something was broken and it
wasn't letting me do what it used to". I pulled the CD drives (no use
for them here anyways, except for games), and came out of the IT room
late one night to find one of the file clerks studiously pulling hard
drives from the cases to reimage at home and return the next morning. I
drilled holes in the side panels and put a padlock on them. The users
started bringing in laptops to do their work on from home, which even
made the problem worse. I screamed bloody murder, demanded to know what
the source of these problems were. Everyone played dumb. I felt my brains
rotting and leaking out of my ears.

Then, salvation. The VP mentions that he's seen alot of people emailing
lately, and he wants to make sure that it's all company business. Would I
monitor employee email usage, he asks? I try to suppress my snoopy-dance
of joy as he gives me the escape clause from the moral dilema I'd been
facing about finding out what the problems were. I monitor, I read,
I find out who's sleeping with who (including a schedule for a tryst
in the closet behind my server room. I consider installing a hidden
camera), but most importantly, I find out the source of my headaches. An
industrious middle manager has discovered the joys of wholesale computer
warehouses, and has been joyously selling the employees games to play at
work, and later, the laptops they brought in. I wonder how exactly he
managed to charge people $25 to "upgrade their L4 cache so their games
go faster". I admire his inginuity, but I know he must go. I feel good
about this decision, mostly because I know he's screwing around with my
computers, but also because I can justify it as "doing the best thing for
the company". That, and productivity has gone in the tank, and everyone
is blaming their computers, and at his direction, me. I'll make BOFH yet,
I tell myself.

That was a long time ago, at least in computer years. Once he left,
things bounded back up to normal. People started doing what they should,
not avoiding security so they could play games all day long. Why do
I tell you this long story? Because that is my experience with users,
and that is the pain that is caused when they don't do what they're told
to. So, as someone who's told users for years to do their updates, I feel
no sympathy for users hit by this particular (and moderately ingenious)
virus. If they were good users, they would do their updates like their
SysAdmin tells them to. They are bad users, users like the ones from
above, and so I say "No PC for you!". I wouldn't feel like this, except
the story specifically states that this virus takes advantage of known
vulnerabilities. I don't see it as a bad thing, I see it as a chance
to see who listens to me, and who'll get "upgraded" to a new 486 next
month. I'm in a BOFH mood today, can you tell?

In closing, I reflect on my outing of the middle manager. I printed out
his more venemous emails regarding me, along with copies of invoices for
illegally imported computer components and computer games charged to his
expense account. I wrote a touching resignation letter for him to sign,
explaining how he was leaving for "personal reasons". I left these on his
desk as he was out to lunch, pointed his desklamp at them, turned it on,
and turned off the room light. On top, I left a short note:

It is dark.
You are likely to be eatten by a grue.

-----
Part 2

Re:Damn users.... (Score:5, Funny) 
by Cervantes on 2002.10.04 19:05 (#4390785)  
(User #612861 Info) 

I tried dumb terminals for the telephone POS team. It didn't work out,
for a number of reasons, the most notable being that when their request
for a monitor colour other than "amber" was denied, they started using
coloured markers to make it interesting shades of baby-diaper brown
("The amber hurts my eyes."). When I put "goop" on it (an anonymous,
20 year old bottle of something, picked up from a high school, used
to keep the kids from drawing on the screens. No ink sticks to this
crap), they tried holding unshielded speakers to the monitor to get it
to change colour ("It works at home!"). Even when I spent the time to
explain the intricate details of CRT tubes and colour guns, they still
tried again when I left.

These are the same people who ***COMPLAINED**** when the latest drive
image came with Clippy turned off. How frightening is that?

I should be nice to them and mention that the previous sysadmins stance
was "If you don't like it, fix it yourself", and the only way for users
to get service was for them to hammer their machines to the point where
the didn't work anymore, and then complain to their supervisor. It was
bad, really bad, but even their warnings to me when I took the job didn't
scratch the surface of the evilness this place has.

My current favorite user recently regaled me with the story of how her
new TV's remote had died, and therefore she poured water down the back
of it until it sparked. She was very sure to point out *HOW SMART!* she
was to let the water dry before she returned it to the store to get an
exchange, and she's very happy with her new, functional remote.

The deep, stabbing pain in my head rose to new levels as I commented that
it was odd for the batteries in a new remote to die that quickly, and she
said "What batteries?"  If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade
would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.