Search And Destroy

The Boss : "Did you book reference KLU0014?"

Here's me : "Hang on, I'll check."

I type this into the 'find' box and start rolling a cigarette.

The Boss : "What are you doing? You said you'd look for that reference!"

Here's me : "The computer is looking for the reference."

This shuts her up for all of three seconds.

The Boss : "You should know yourself if you booked it!"

Here's me : "I tend not to commit a couple of hundred strings of digits to memory each week, ta. The computer will find it, if I've booked it."

The Boss : "Look for it yourself!"

Here's me : "Quite frankly, no. Be patient."

Outlook finds the reference but only in a mail from The Boss to someone else that I was cc'd on.

Here's me : "You booked that reference. The search has just pulled up an e-mail from you."

The Boss : "YOU NEED TO STAY ON TOP OF YOUR FILES! YOU CANNOT JUST USE THE COMPUTER!"

At this point, having had an odd week, I stood up from the chair and laid my upper body across my desk. After a few seconds I was, quite fairly really, denounced as a cheeky bastard, and went over to The Boss and explained the situation.

The Boss : "How do you know?"

Here's me, the sarky little shit : "The computer told me..."

Her face says to me that this will not be a good way to proceed.

Here's me : "...so if you take a look, I assure you, you will find details of KLU0014 in your e-mail."

The Boss stares at the screen for a few seconds and then looks at me and says : "But that'll take ages!"







I guess it maybe takes the edge off this a bit but in the interests of fairness I must report that she both asked me how to get Outlook to find the relevant e-mails and also did apologise. 



Enjoy your weekend folks.
x

Koalatron

The Bloody Boss, Her Bloody Computer, The Bloody Photocopier, The Bloody Firewall. My favourite things, they are not, honestly.

OK. *sigh* In case you don't know already, our photocopier/scanner/fax machine links into the network and there are two folders set up on my computer for this, one in her name and one in mine, a shortcut on her desktop points to her folder on my computer and when you scan a document you select which of the folders you'd like to scan it to and it's very simple and very handy. In theory.

The Boss : "My scan folder has gone!"

Here's me : "Have you deleted it?"

The Boss : "No, it's just gone!"

Here's me, who can't be arsed to get up : "It hasn't. I can see it here on mine."

The Boss : "What's it doing on yours!"

Here's me : "It's... nevermind."

I go over and investigate and the shortcut to her 'scans' folder is right there, staring at me. I point this out.

The Boss : "But that's a shortcut! I don't want the shortcut! I want the proper folder!"

Here's me : "You've never had the proper folder. It's on my computer. Just go into that, it'll take you to your document."

The Boss : "BUT I HAD IT BEFORE!"

Here's me : "You did not. Just go into it through there."

The Boss : "I HAD IT BEFORE! YOU'VE CHANGED IT!"

Here's me *sigh* : "I haven't."

The Boss : "Put it back to the way it was before!"

Here's me : "I haven't fucking touched it! Just go into the shortcut! You couldn't possibly have been going into the folder direct because it is and always has been on my fucking computer!"

The Boss : "IT WASN'T! I went in through 'my network places' before and into it that way! I WANT TO DO IT THE WAY I ALWAYS DID IT AND NOT TAKE SHORTCUTS!"

Oh, for fuck's sake. I give up with this conversation, as of right now.

Here's me : "I cannot help."

The Boss : "Fix it."

Here's me, neutral : "I'm sorry, I don't know how."

The Boss : "Is it in the firewall?"

Here's me, I could get angry if this goes the wrong way : "We've talked about... that... word... before."

The Boss : "Would it be in my recycle bin?"

Here's me : "Yes, possibly, yes."

The Boss : "Which one?"

Here's me, reeled back in : "What, you have more than one?"

The Boss : "Yes of course!"

I look. She actually does. How the fuck she achieved that one I do not know.

So anyway I'm at something in the middle of the room. I need to be very specific here. I am not near her computer, I am not even near my fucking computer.

The Boss : "It's back now!"

Here's me, dully : "Brilliant."

The Boss : "YOU SNEAKED IT BACK IN THERE!"

Here's me : "I'M STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING ROOM DO YOU THINK I'M HACKING WITH YOU FUCKING MIND BULLETS!"

The Boss : "THAT WOULD BE JUST LIKE YOU!"

Fight The Power (Supply)

presenting

"Fight The Power (Supply)"

by SK and TB

being an comedic farce of errors 

featuring an cast of idiots

I got drunk last night. By accident. It happens. As a result, I went into work today with a belting red wine headache, not terminal in the hangover stakes but when combined with my daily existence certainly enough to make me wish that I could believe in a deity purely so that I could pray to the bastard in question for the sweet release of death.

The drama started almost immediately, when shortly after nine in the morning The Boss's computer died, with a terrible ratcheting sound. I spent a couple of reasonably pleasant and boring years back in the dark mists of time working in the field of computer repair, and while my knowledge of most things is now effectively useless, I can just about do a diagnostic in reasonably simple circumstances. The power supply was gone. Fan packed in. The terrible amount of fluff, human hair, shredded paper and bits of bacon trapped in it were my primary clues in my investigations.

Here's me : "No sweat. Fan has packed in on your power supply. There's that old PC in the storeroom, I'll just swap it over."

The Boss : "No."

Here's me : "Thought that."

I've given up trying to use "sense" and "logic", as you may have noticed. Five minutes or so passed, until The Boss realised that nothing was going to happen by itself.

The Boss : "EYE-TEE PROBLEMS ARE FOR THE EYE-TEE DEPARTMENT."

I mean, don't let that fucking Hewlett Packard certification on my CV, which presumably you did fucking read before you hired me, in any way make you think that I'm capable of taking out four screws and plugging a couple of cables in. Drown in it you harpy's bastard, drown.

The Boss, after several minutes of trying to figure out how to send an e-mail with a stapler or whatever : "Should I phone IT?"

Here's me, not feeling very helpful today : "I don't know."

If you are in any kind of dire straits, I have to tell you that's one of the most useful phrases in the English language.

The Boss phones the IT guy, who tells her to get me to swap the power supply. She denies him, in similar fashion, and insists that he must come to the office and fix it. She wants it done right. Why get me to swap the power supply in ten minutes when you could wait until next Thursday for him to fly over from Coventry?

The IT guy, commendably, must have told her in no uncertain terms to wise the fuck up, but still she is not having it, and instead of getting me to swap the power supply, insists instead that I fetch out this old PC from the store and set it up for her to use.

So I do, because I enjoy a laugh as much as the next marsupial.

I diligently do as instructed and set up this machine for her at a different desk. Rather disturbingly, it's one that sits opposite me, as opposed to her normal position to my far left; I don't really like having her in my field of vision, but even my depleted mental capacity can recognised that this whole fucking farce is going to be very short lived. To make this even more delicious, The Boss has also set up her phone at this desk, and has got reception to go in and mess about with patch cables in order to connect it up and so on.

The Boss : "Where do I get my files?"

Here's me, as innocent as a bairn : "Files?"

The Boss : "MY FILES!"

Here's me : "What files?"

The Boss : "MY FILES ON MY COMPUTER!"

Here's me, not quite yet wanting to live, but deciding that I don't want to die for at least another ten minutes : "They're on your computer."

The Boss : "So I can't get them from here?"

Here's me : "Oh, in theory, yes, you can."

The Boss : "HOW??!?"

Here's me : "Through the network."

The Boss : "HOW DO I DO THAT?!??"

Here's me : "You can't, without your own PC connected to the network."

The Boss is actually more confused than enraged. Fuck my head hurts.

The Boss : "IT SAYS ANTI VIRUS IS OUT OF DATE!"

I completely ignore this, and the ensuing five minutes of babbled panic as she boots up a PC that hasn't been turned on in a year and it displays various messages, warnings, alerts etc. Finally in a state of utter panic about these alien hack intrusions she phones IT again, talks so much shite I can't even be bothered to repeat it, and then covers the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand, looks at me with daggers coming out of her beady little eyes like I'm a mass murderer, and hisses "HE SAYS HE WANTS TO TALK TO YOU".

Much-put-upon-IT-guy asks me what the problem is and I tell him. He asks me can I fix it and I say yes, and pass him back to The Boss, and she is obviously incredibly pissed off about this but now tells me to fix it.

It is now about half ten in the morning and we have, as a company, achieved a level of fuck-all so immense in it's magnitude you'd need a fucking quantum physicist to work it out.

I take a look at this other PC and find out that the power supplies are in fact incompatible. I tell The Boss this, and she asks me where can she get the right power supply. I foolishly suggest a nearby shop that are both very good, and I am quite friendly with the staff of.

The Boss : "So what do I ask for?"

Here's me : "I'll write it down."

The Boss : "Just tell me!"

Here's me : "I'm writing it down."

I hand her a piece of paper upon which I have written "ATX POWER SUPPLY".

Here's me, because I'm nice : "Look. Do you want me to go and pick this up for you?"

The Boss : "You're just looking for an excuse to skive. I'll get it myself. I'm not stupid, you know, whatever you might think."

Here's me : "Fine."

The Boss : "OK, I'll be back in an hour."

Here's me : "Uh, it's five minutes away."

The Boss : "I have to get the car."

Here's me, thinking I should just grab my keys and my phone and run like buggery : "Wha?"

The Boss : "My phone is in the car."

Yeah. One of my favourite things about mobile phones is that they are mobile, but n'mind.

Here's me : "Wha?"

The Boss : "My phone is in the car and my pin number is in my phone."

Here's me : "Ok, whatever."

So The Boss ventures out and I sit there with glazed eyes and a throbbing head for an hour and a half trying to catch up on about two weeks of work; when she is out of the office is the only time I get to actually work, as you know.

She returns and demands that I perform this task immediately.

This, I do not do. I am mid-flow with an e-mail to a gentleman from Iraq who I am trying, very hard, to get cargo to. You will understand this has it's own difficulties.

Finishing this, I set about replacing her power supply, but find to my dismay that when I put the new one in, it's wrong. That long off-white plug that goes into the motherboard? Too long. I look at the side of the new power supply and see it says "BTX". This is a new one on me; I've been out of the IT loop for many years.

So I go mental.

"YOU could have saved TWO FUCKING HOURS if YOU had let me replace this FUCKING POWER SUPPLY when I SAID TO but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOOOO! You had to arse about! You had to FUCKING ARSE ABOUT! AND nooooooooooooooooow, now you come back with THE WRONG FUCKING POWER SUPPLY and what do we do now, eh? where do we go from here? What would you like me to do, because you're in-fucking-charge and this is BOLLOCKS."

The Boss, with a terrifying calmness : "You'll have to go to the shop and get it exchanged. Thanks to you I've already spent more time out of the office than I can afford today."

Here's me : "Fuck you."

Did I actually say that?

Oh fuck, I actually did.

There is something of a staring competition that goes on, and even while the veins in my head are pounding like pistons I am aware that this is probably on the wrong side of the line.

Here's me : "I'm sorry. I'm wound up. I'll go. I didn't mean to say that, but I'm very wound up, it's been a very bad week, my dog had to be put down (this is true, actually - poor wee fella) and I shouldn't have said that. I'll go and fix this."

So I stomped off through the streets and round to the computer shop, kind of vaguely wishing that someone would try and steal my wallet or something so that I could have an excuse for murdering a person, and entered the computer shop to be greeted by the fella I know quite well who works there.

Here's me : "My... fucking idiot... of a Boss, bought a power supply here an hour ago. She, predictably, bought the wrong one. Can you change this for me please?"

Computer Shop Guy : "Nah mate, she got the right one."

Here's me : "No, she didn't. She needs an ATX. This is something called a BTX."

CSG : "There's no such thing as a BTX."

Here's me, trying to stay upright, losing cabin pressure : "Look. The thingy into the motherboard is a totally different shape. Look."

CSG smirks at me, breaks off the little block at the end of this cable which now makes it the correct fit, and smirks again.

Here's me : "I'm sorry. I am the idiot. I am sorry for wasting your time."

I stomp back to the office, with a sort of red curtain in front of my eyes; I walk in and confess all, that I have made a stupid mistake and she got the right power supply. It's always better to admit when you are wrong; this is my firm policy. If someone will not admit when they are wrong, then why the fuck would you believe them when they insist they are right? and so on.

To The Boss, this is like blood in the water to a shark.

"I thought you said you knew all about this, I thought you knew everything, you think you're so smart" and variations on that theme - which continue, even as I crouch, sweating and feeling like I'm having a fucking aneurysm, underneath her desk replacing the power supply.

As I am down there, she comes over and sits in her chair and wheels it in close to the desk. So I am now under the desk with The Boss's legs, her feet are actually touching me. It's fucking revolting down here. Apart from the rest, there are several hundred ripped of scraps of paper and a pair of fucking shoes. I ask her to kindly fucking back off, and continue with my efforts, then poke my head out from under the desk - now within a physical proximity to The Boss I find incredibly fucking distressing - and say :

"I left the screws on your desk, can you pass them down to me?"

The Boss : "No you didn't."

Here's me : "Yes I did."

The Boss : "Well they're not here now."

I can't be arsed with this, so I emerge and go over to the other computer, and take the screws.

The Boss goes mental.

"You can't just... STEAL!... from one, to give to the other!"

Here's me : "Uh..."

The Boss : "You're just robbing Peter to pay Robin!"

Here's me : "Uh..."

I want nothing so much right now as to be in bed, with an overdose of anadin, and possibly a bucket of wine.

I decide the best course course is to ignore the fucking maniac and just proceed to put the fucking screws in, and the remainder of the day passed pretty much unmolested. Sorry, I know you want a better ending, but often in reality endings aren't all they're cracked up to be. Things are certainly coming to a head and I don't know what will happen, but hey, when it happens, I'll tell you.

Enjoy your weekend readers, I do enjoy having you around, and I do appreciate it. Thanks.

SK

Unaccountable

All was silent in the Halls of the Damned, when suddenly :

The Boss : "FUCK!"

Here's me : "What?"

The Boss : "BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD! God forgive me!"

Here's me : "God doesn't care. What's the problem?"

The Boss, screeching in her sudden panic : "I haven't sent off the accounts!"

Here's me : "Oh."

The Boss : "They were supposed to be with the accountants for yesterday latest!"

Here's me : "Oh."

The Boss : "Can you send them for me?"

Here's me : "Yes. What do you want me to send?"

The Boss : "November 09!"

Here's me : "Just November?"

The Boss, as if I'm stupid : "No, November through to October!"

Here's me, staring at her, eyebrow raised.

The Boss : "WHAT'S THE PROBLEM!?!?"

Here's me, veerrrry sloooowly : "You just said 'November through to October'. November 09 to October... what. Try again."

The Boss : "No, November before! A fullancial year! And I have to go early! I have a dentist's appointment!"

Here's me, ignoring that little pormanteau : "OK. Do you have their address handy, I'll post it to them tonight?"

By 'post it' I refer to posting one of the A4 hardbacked ledgers which I have previously mentioned constitutes our accounts system (along with the pencil and my still-missing shiny new fucking rubber)

The Boss : "You'll have to scan it!"

Sigh.

Here's me : "You want me to scan this whole book?"

The Boss : "YOU HAVE TO!"

Here's me : "If I scan this whole thing it'll be an e-mail the size of Manchester."

The Boss : "JUST DO IT!"

Here's me : "Gah. Give it here."

So I take it, and step up to the plate, and start tinkering with the much-hacked photocopier/scanner device. The book when opened is two sides of A4, naturally I want to set this on the scanner and just scan an A3 sized document each time, yeah? So I'm just checking this is all lining up correctly and so on, running a couple of test copies to check I'm scanning the appropriate area and such...


The Boss is outraged.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING PLAYING WITH THAT THING!"

Here's me, sadly shaking my head : "Never mind."

The Boss : "START SCANNING THEM!"

Here's me, still calm but only just : "Calm. Down. I am spending a couple of minutes setting this up in order to save about half an hour. Just leave me to it."

The Boss is momentarily placated. So I'm standing there at the scanner/photocopier thing, putting a hardback book on it and scanning each page, lifting it, turning the page, repeating this process, and generally wondering just where the fuck my fucking life started to go so badly wrong and thinking it was probably that time me and a friend drink a bottle of his mother's Bacardi one night when we were fourteen.

a reconstruction of the crime scene, for the reader's perusal

So, I race on through this process, and stop briefly to remove the few test copies I did from underneath, which I then drop into The Boss's bin, which regular readers shall know is just beside the copier. 


Mistake.


The Boss was previously merely "outraged", now it is fair to say she is fucking apoplectic.

"YOU CAN'T JUST PUT THOSE IN THE BIN THOSE ARE OUR ACCOUNTS!", she actually fucking yells at me, then reaches into the bin, pulls out the papers I have just deposited there, makes a great show of ripping them up and then actually fucking throws them down the side of the fucking bin.

not a reconstruction. actual scene. FML.

I'm pretty sure my mouth is hanging open and my fists are clenching in a manner that would make most people quietly walk away, there very well may be steam coming out of my ears actually.

The Boss's life and my employment here are both saved by the phone ringing. I return to my desk and froth quietly, and The Boss starts shouting inanities down the phone. The call ends a moment later when she slams the phone down.

"THE STUPID BASTARDS!"

I don't even look round.

"THEY'VE MOVED ME TO AN EARLIER APPOINTMENT BUT THEY PHONED DUBLIN TO TELL ME!"

Can't help myself now - "They phoned who in Dublin?"

The Boss screams our company name at me.

Here's me, once again a perfectly tranquil mask of calm hiding the murder that lies at the heart of me : "That is us."

The Boss : "THEY PHONED THE DUBLIN BRANCH!"

with which she seizes up her bags and runs to the door, leaving me now a bizarre mixture of confused, angry and amused. Not least because we don't have a Dublin branch.








EPILOGUE :

About ten minutes after leaving The Boss phoned me and, very bright, breezy and cheerful, said "I thought I'd just to give you something to do while I was away!" and proceeded to give me instructions on something she needs done which would make a funny entry in and of itself but I'm too utterly fucking pissed off to go there right now.


If you're looking for me, I'll be in the office here, kicking the shit out of everything in sight and screaming myself hoarse.

Get Me The Internet On Line One

The Boss : "There's too much on the internet."

Sigh.

Here's me : "What are you looking for?"

The Boss : "The dimensions for a New Ford 88880."

Here's me : "Google 'New Ford 88880 dimensions'".

The Boss : "But there's lots of them."

Here's me : "Just pick one."

The Boss : "How do I know which one?"

Here's me : "Just pick one of the first results."

The Boss : "Why are there so many?"

I have no idea how to answer that sensibly, so didn't bother trying.

Here's me : "It's just the way it is. Just pick one."

The Boss : "It would be better if they just had one answer, for each thing."

Gulp. Take a breath.

Here's me : "You should tell them that."

The Boss : "Should I tell I.T.?"

Here's me : "No, tell the internet."

The Boss : "Who are they?"

Here's me : "Google them."

Doesn't Scan

The Boss : "How many columns of scans do you have in your inbox?"

Here's me : "Wha?"

The Boss : "In your network."

Here's me : "Wha?"

The Boss : "In your folder?"

Here's me : "What's the question?"

The Boss : "I have seven."

Invent Your Own Witty Title For This One, I Can't Be Arsed

Ah, yes. I'm sorry for the wait. It's all been grinding me down somewhat, but I do have a few tales of mirth for you all, and this one is rather special. I'd apologise in advance for the language contained herein but I was having a shitty day when it happened and I had a rancid fuckrag of a day today, so anyway -

The Boss had to travel over to our head office there, which I imagine was a barrel of fucking laughs for everyone involved. It's never easy, as you must know by now. It commenced when The Boss was trying to book flights. I mean, bear in mind, the company is paying for these, so within reasonable margins, who really gives a shit? But no. The simple act of booking a return domestic flight was, of course, a total headfuck. Instead of just doing the obvious and booking a return flight with one of the airlines that flew to her destination, from either of the two airports in and around this city, which are twenty miles apart - remember this, it might be important - she decided it was important to shop around between low cost airlines for the best part of a day, while complaining about how complicated it all was. Your standard fully-functioning human being can book a domestic return flight in around six minutes, I'm fairly sure, but not The Boss. Oh no. I mean, I did offer to do this for her, but no, I am not to be trusted with such important tasks.

The Boss : "I think I've finally decided."

Here's me, with my head in my hands after a full eight hours of this shit : "Oh, magic."

The Boss : "I'm going to fly out with Easyjet, and back with Ryan Kernoghan."

Here's me : "Who the fuck is Ryan Kernoghan?"

The Boss : "Kernoghan."

Here's me, weakly : "What?"

The Boss : "Ryanair."

Here's me : sigh

The Boss : "It works out eight pound cheaper."

Here's me, more or less demented : "That's fucking great. Fucking great. Really. I'm sure the company will be glad that you spent the entire fucking day fucking around to save them eight fucking quid. Fuck this 'time is money' bullshit, eh?"

The Boss, oblivious : "Only thing is it says you should check in online."

Here's me : "Well.. yeah?"

The Boss : "I don't like that."

Oh sweet suffering fuck.

Here's me : "WHY?"

The Boss : "I don't like giving out information over the internet."

Here's me : "You've already booked the bloody flight over the bloody internet. Confirming that you're going to be turning up is hardly going to lead to the feds finally tracking you down or whatever the hell it is you're worried about this time, is it?"

The Boss, as so often happens, changes tack at this point.

"What if you couldn't check in online?"

Here's me : "In this day and age, who the hell can't check in online?"

You must appreciate, at this stage my head is about three inches from the desk, I'm speaking in slurred tones and probably drooling slightly.

The Boss : "Old people. People with no computers."

Here's me : "OK. OK. I'm prepared to believe such people may exist. Tell me, please, exactly how the fuck such people would manage to book flights online?"

The Boss : "They could have got someone else to book it for them."

Here's me : "Well if they got someone else to book the flights then why wouldn't they just get that person to check them in too oh fuck never mind tell you what have a nice flight, eh?"

So anyway. The Boss went, and quietly, privately, there was much rejoicing. I entered the office and sat down with my coffee, looking forward to a day of relative sanity.

Around 14 minutes after doing so, the peace was shattered by a call from The Boss.

The Boss, indignant, outraged : "They're charging me fifteen pounds to check in!"

Here's me : "Yes. There is a charge for not checking in online."

The Boss : "Well what would happen if I didn't have fifteen pound?"

Here's me : "My day would get much worse."

The Boss : "What?"

Here's me : "I don't know. Do you have fifteen pounds?"

The Boss : "Yes."

Sigh.

So, she did whatever it was she had to do over in England, and I enjoyed a brief respite from the madness. As I was almost certain would happen, the next phone call from Her Madness came in around ten minutes after her return flight was due to land.

The Boss : "Is there a bus from Dublin to Dublin?"

Here's me : "I'm sorry, what?"

The Boss : "Is there a bus from Dublin to Dublin?"

Here's me : "OK, I heard it correctly. Er, are you sure you're asking the right question?"

The Boss is getting irritable now.

The Boss : "Don't be smart with me. I just want to know if I can get a bus from Dublin to Dublin."

Here's me, very slowly : "OooooKaayyyy... you would need to tell me from what part of Dublin, tooooooo what other part of Dublin, mmmmmmmmmkay?"

The Boss is now outright angry.

"Just tell me if I can get a bus from Dublin to Dublin and stop being cheeky."

Take a deep breath and try not to put your head through the monitor young Koala.

Here's me, little lights going on in my head : "Where are you?"

The Boss : "At the airport."

Here's me : "Which airport?"

The Boss : "The City Airport."

Here's me : "And where do you want to go?"

The Boss, after a pause : "The airport."

I'm starting to understand, but I'll be buggered backwards with a brown bread roll if you think I'm going to make life easy for her at this stage : "You're at the airport. You do not need a bus. You are at your destination. No further transport is required."

The Boss : "No, the other airport."

Here's me : "The International Airport?"

The Boss, who is now very small, while I am the very, very big Koala, oh yes : "yes"

Here's me : "Just to confirm, do you need to get a bus from the City Airport to the International Airport?"

The Boss : "yes"

Here's me, oiled, glistening : "Can you not just drive there?"

The Boss : "no"

Here's me : "Is your car at the other airport?"

The Boss : "yes"

Here's me : "Did you, in fact, book your return flight back to the wrong airport?"

The Boss : "BUT IT WAS EIGHT POUNDS CHEAPER!"

Less the fifteen pound check in fee and the tenner for the bus, o'course.

Send help, immediately, I'm losing my fucking mind in here.

Shut it Down? Shut the Fuck Up

The essence of this issue is probably familiar enough to anyone who has worked at all in IT, or even helped a relative with some computer-related issue. Unsurprisingly, herein it has been taken the Nth degree.

I have arrived in to discover my computer is a bit fucked. Just that non-specific kind of fucked that is the Joy of Windows. Our computers are left on 24/7 because during non-business hours the (remote) IT staff do... whatever is they do. I can't really say since we don't run any software beyond e-mail (ooh, it's a lie... I have spreadsheets... but keep it quiet, such things are frowned upon in here) . But anyway the poor bastard of a thing needs reset, so I do this, and sit back to wait for it.

The Boss : "Why are you sitting there doing nothing?"

Here's me : "Had to reset the computer."

The Boss, apparently shocked : "You're not supposed to turn it off!"

Here's me : "Wasn't much choice. I don't think it'll be a problem, like."

The Boss : "It's your own fault anyway."

Now. What the fuck?

Some people, smarter, wiser, better people, at this stage would just say to themselves, internally 'Aye' (or 'whatever', or 'yeah right' or whatsoever your local equivalent may be) and let the matter rest there, but sadly I have all my life been the kind of koala who cannot resist probing the loose tooth, from stirring the hornet's nest if you will. And at times, I will confide this, I feel tested, sorely tested.

Here's me, actually turning round 90' to make eye contact for a change : "Now. Tell me. Explain. Why would that be my fault?"

The Boss : "You don't turn it off at night."

Incredulous, I am. Petulant, I become.

Here's me : "We're not supposed to turn them off at night. You just told me we're not supposed to turn them off. You just said that. Just now."

The Boss : "You're not supposed to turn it right off. But you should shut it down."

Here's me : "Shut it down without turning it off?"

Does she shut down the PC but leave the power supply connected to the wall thinking the IT department can sneak in through the mains supply? Does she?

The Boss, sagely : "On the computer. You should shut it down there."

Here's me : "As opposed to?"

The Boss : "On the hard drive."

Ah.

Here's me, coming the innocent : "So should I shut it down at night?"

The Boss, pleased at having the reins for once : "Yes. But just shut down the computer, not the hard drive."

She demonstrates by pressing the on/off switch on the monitor that sits in front of her.

Here's me : "Ah. Right. OK."

The Boss : "Ha ha, SEE you don't know everything!"

Internal Server Error

For personal-type reasons, The Boss might be working from home for a while; may I have a "woo" with a side order of "hoo", a smattering of "yeehaw" and a quick "hell yeah!" please?

Anyway. Never runs smooth, so here we go, into the negotiations and logistics :

The Boss : "Would I be able to take that spare computer with me, and work from home?"

Here's me : "Yeah, don't see why not. You have internet in the house, don't you? It should be simple enough."

The Boss : "Yeah, I have BT internet."

Here's me : "Fine then, it should be easy enough."

The Boss : "Will I just plug it in and it'll work straight away?"

Here's me : "Depends.. is your internet wireless?"

The Boss : "Don't know."

Here's me : "Is there a wire from your home computer to the phone line?"

The Boss : "No. There's a hub."

Here's me : "But is the hub connected to the computer?"

The Boss : "I think it's connected to the server."

Here's me : "I'm fairly sure you don't have a server at home. Is there a wire between the hub and the computer, or is it wireless?"

The Boss : "No, I think it's wireless."

Here's me : "Is it a laptop?"

The Boss : "No, it's an old PC."

Here's me : "Right, so there's a wireless card, looks like a wee box maybe with an aerial on it, in the back of your computer?"

The Boss : "No, it's wireless."

Here's me : "No no, I mean just plugged into the computer itself, just a little box in the back?"

The Boss : "No, there's a hub."

Here's me : "No, I mean... I mean, how does your computer physically connect to the telephone line?"

The Boss : "Firefox."

Here's me : "Aagghhh... Look, is there a wee box or card or similar that sticks out of a USB socket on the back of your computer, and isn't connected to anything else, and maybe has an aerial or antenna of some kind on it?"

The Boss : "Do you mean the dongle?"

Here's me :"YES! Yes I do! That's the wireless card! Great!"

The Boss : "But there's a wire on it."

Whu?

Here's me : "A wire on the dongle? What kind of wire on the dongle?"

The Boss : "A wee sticky up one."

Deep breaths.

Here's me : "So yeah, just put the, uh, the dongle into the new PC when you take it home, and it should connect to the net... do you have a password on the router?"

The Boss : "There's a code..."

Here's me : "OK, just put that code into..."

The Boss : "...but I don't have it."

Here's me : "Actually it's probably a very complicated process, this, now that I think about it. I think you'd better phone the IT guy."

Wireless Technofail

The Boss purchased a digikal camera recently, and informed me one morning that she was having trouble getting the pictures onto her PC at home.

The Boss : "I can't get it to connect to my PC."

Here's me : "Let's see it a wee second... hmmm.. ok, what's happening when you try it?"

The Boss : "It won't connect."

Here's me : "Well, what happens when you plug it in?"

The Boss : "It won't plug in."

Here's me : "There's no USB socket on your PC at home?"

The Boss : "There is, but it's different."

Here's me : "No, definitely not - USB sockets are all the same."

The Boss : "Mine are different."

Here's me : "Nope, definitely not - USB, Universal. All the same."

The Boss : "Mine are definitely different."

I'm not gonna bother arguing this, so instead -

Here's me : "Ok, let's try it here and see."

So I plug the camera in to The Bosses work PC here, and up pops the folder full of photos.

Here's me : "Ok, do you want these copied to your PC then?"

The Boss : "Go ahead then."

So I did.

And that was all ok, until the following day.

The Boss : "Those photos aren't on my PC."

Here's me : "Did you delete them?"

The Boss : "No, they were never there."

Here's me : "But... we were looking at them on your PC yesterday?"

The Boss : "No, my PC at home."

Here's me : "Er... how the hell would they have got onto your PC at home?"

The Boss : "But you said yesterday you were copying them on to my PC."




HELP.

The (Failed) Pursuit of Excellence

The Boss : "Can you add up a spreadsheet for me?"

I am kind of impressed and pleased, to be honest - this beats the shit out of being handed a chicken-scrawl on the back of an envelope, the usual method of accounting round here.

Here's me : "Yeah, sure. What needs doing?"

The Boss : "Just the totals for each column, then the grand total, and an average across each month."

Here's me : "No bother at all. Where is it?"

The Boss : "On your desk."

Here's me : "Um... you mean on the desktop?"

The Boss : "No, I left it on your desk."

True enough, there it is. Twelve columns and thirty-six rows of tiny wee numbers squeezed onto one A4 hardcopy. I have a bad feeling about this.

Here's me : "Where's the original?"

The Boss : "Don't worry about that, just do it from that."

Here's me, creaking under tension : "Um... if you will just tell me where you saved the file, this will take me about ten seconds, and will contain no errors. If you want me to add this up manually, it will take me an hour, and it will contain several errors."

The Boss : "I don't want you do it that way."

Here's me, staring into the abyss : "You... want me... to add this up.. manually?"

The Boss : "Yes."

Here's me : "......"

Here's me : "WHY?!??"

The Boss : "To make sure there's no mistakes"

Here's me : "That's fucking insane"

The Boss : "If you don't want to help me that's fine"

Here's me : "I have no problem helping you. None. But are you seriously asking me to add this up manually when you've already typed all the figures into Excel? Fortheluvvafuckinggod, WHY??"

The Boss : "TO. MAKE. SURE. THERE. ARE. NO. MISTAKES."

Here's me : "THERE. ARE. MORE. LIKELY. TO. BE. MISTAKES. THIS. WAY. ARE. YOU. MAD."

The Boss : "I've deleted the file anyway."

Here's me on the fucking knife-edge : "You are mad. This is mad. Let's just do it the sensible, normal, usual, sane way that a sane person would do it. I can recover the file, look."

The Boss : "It doesn't matter."

Here's me : "Eh.. what?"

The Boss : "It doesn't matter. Don't bother."

Here's me : "Are you... having some kind of... strop, or something, over this LUNACY?"

The Boss : "No. If you're going to take the huff over it, don't bother."

Here's me :

Hanlon's Razor, Blunted

Oh mercy me but these are trying times.

Allow me to explain.

I arrived into the office yesterday after the 4-day Easter break, to immediate drama. The Boss's computer was not playing ball, not at all; refusing to log on to our little network, it was. By the time I arrived at about 08:55 in the morning, calls had already been made to our head office, our IT company in England, the reception of the building here (whom in turn had called their IT guy in) and in every likelihood the Confidential Telephone and local MP.

My own IT skills are not exactly razor-sharp but I can get by; I'm one of those people who can manage to check a lead is plugged in, or to be talked through something by technical support and be able to obey such instructions as "right click on it" without fuss or confusion. Since the IT folks were in replacing various cables and such over the holidays, it seems to me not unlikely that this is related to our current issue.

So anyway I get down to business and go through the standard run of things that you do before declaring a National Emergency; y'know, checking the cable is in, that sort of thing. All seems to be in order so I then check the PC on a different network point and so on, all the while waiting for the inevitable, and growing increasingly tense as the conversation spirals towards it.

Like so many things this task would not be so bad if I could just get on with it, but we both know that's not gonna happen.

The Boss : "What are you doing now?"

Here's me : "Just gonna see if it works on a different network point."

The Boss : "Will it?"

Here's me : "I don't know, that's why I'm trying it. But then I'll know whether it's the machine or the point."

The Boss : "So why's it happening?"

Here's me : "I don't know. Bear with me."

The Boss Channels The Inevitable : "I think someone's trying to hack into us."

Somewhere inside me a blood vessel explodes.

Here's me : "HHHHHAAAAAAAAAHAAAA NO. First off, who in the fuck would want to? Second, and try to stay with me here, someone trying to 'hack into us' by causing your computer to not connect to the network, d'y'see the logical flaw here, do ye?"

So anyway this went on for most of the day and it turned out to be something called a 'DHCP issue' which sounds a lot to me like 'The IT guy pulled a lead out downstairs' but anyway. By close of business yesterday all was running about as well as it ever does.

Today I arrive into the office and The Boss has that expression on her face again, staring angrily and suspiciously at the screen. I sit down, open up blogger.com, and wait to be fed.

The Boss : "Someone's definitely trying to hack into me."

Here's me : "I bet you a fucking thousand pound, a full fucking thousand pounds, that no-one is fucking trying to fucking hack into your fucking computer. What the fuck does "hack into" even fucking mean?"

The Boss : "There was someone in the Interlink this morning."

Here's me : "The Interlink?"

(note : 'Interlink' are an Irish courier company. Relevance here unknown)

The Boss : "In the internet. There was a fella working in it this morning."

I'm trying to imagine what this might mean, all I can think of is Lawnmower Man.

Here's me : "What the hell are you talking about?"

The Boss : "There was a fella downstairs this morning."

Here's me : "True bill, there was - it was the IT guy, and he was working in the server room downstairs."

The Boss : "I thought that was the internet."

Where do I even fucking begin?

The Boss : "And I had two Interlinks this morning."

And where will it fucking end?

Here's me : "What do you possibly mean, really?"

The Boss : "When I went in this morning, there were two internets."

Here's me : "Two... internets... what what? Show me."

So I stood over there while The Boss re-started her computer and then double-clicked on the IE icon on the taskbar, which of course opens two browser windows.

The Boss : "See what I mean? Somebody's hacking into us."

Here's me : "My God, you're right you know."

The Walls Have Ears

The Boss has just discovered that she can change the ring tone on her mobile phone. Yeah, I know, and yeah, it is 2009 here too. Anyway, she appears to have settled on some jolly irritating samba number, and :

The Boss : "Can..."

Here's me : "oh god no"

The Boss : "Can people who phone me hear my ring-tone?"

Here's me : "Ahem. Not unless they're in the same room as you..."

The Boss : (with great concern) "You mean they'll be able to tell if I'm in the same room?"

...

Send Help

The Boss : "What's the address you use for Niall?"

Here's me : "N Martin at Martin International Dot Com"

Few seconds later:

The Boss : "Undeliverable rate request your message did not reach some or all of the international no intended recip.. recipients subject rate request the following recip..."

If you can imagine a person reading gibberish in an evenly timed flat monotone, sort of the linguistic equivalent of Bono singing, you'll be on the right page.

Here's me : "Woah, woah, woah. So it bounced. What address did you put in?"

The Boss : "What you told me."

Here's me : "N Martin, yeah? N for Niall? No dot. N Martin at Martin International Dot Com"

The Boss : "Is it at Martin International Dot Com?"

I can't take this. Back to the Dark Side. The Boss has had a rejection from the following not-even-an-email-address - nmartininternational.com. I point this out.

The Boss : "You didn't say 'at'".

Here's me : "I did, and anway, it's surely implicit."

The Boss : "Don't be smart with me. No you didn't."

Here's me problem right here folks :



You have two people in a room.

One says "You did say that."

The other says "I didn't say that."

One says "You did say that."

The other says "I didn't say that."

One of these people is convinced that they're always right and will never ever but never entertain the idea of 'well maybe I am mistaken'.

The same one is also completely and totally brainwrong.

And is also in charge.




SEND

HELP

The Non-Appliance Of...

So during that last episode while lingering in The Bosses territory, I noticed that at the end of every e-mail she is typing out the full e-mail signature, which is in this format :


Best Regards,

Silent Koala


Ridiculous Bastard Shipping Ltd.
None of Your Business Centre
Futility House
1 Nowhere Street
Dublin
BT1 1AA
Telephone: xxxxxxxxxxx
Fax: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx



All business of the Company is transacted under the Standard Trading Conditions of the International Freight Association (IFA STC) that restrict or exclude the Company’s liability, a current edition of which is available upon request.






For real!

I was momentarily tempted to advise that it is not actually necessary to manually type this at the end of each e-mail, but... I don't want to 'blind her with science', y'see.

A Little Knowledge May Be Lethal

The Boss : "I think someone's been into my computer."

I seriously doubt it. There are only two of us working here and the chances of anyone wanting to 'hack' into your computer when you only use the thing as a typewriter and a handy block to stick post-it notes too - it seems unlikely.

Here's me : "Ahh.... hmmm... what makes you think that?"

The Boss : "It's running very slowly."

Here's me : "Give me a second, I'll come and take a look."

The Boss : "No just tell me how to fix it."

Here's me : "Well I don't know until I look at it, do I?"

The Boss : "But I don't want you to fix it for me. I want you to tell me how to do it."

Anyone who works in I.T. will probably share this immense feeling of pain that such statements engender. I sometimes wonder if the people who do this kind of thing ever take the same attitude, say, when they take their car to the mechanics. No I will not 'just tell you how' to do it, not unless you are prepared to first go on at least the most basic of PC-use courses. It is not an electronic typewriter. Kindly back the fuck off.

So anyway I danders over and has a look. I would imagine that the machine is indeed running quite slowly, as there are FIFTY-SIX incidences of Outlook running.

Here's me : "Aye, listen, you're running Outlook fifty-six times. When you want to go into it, just click on it along the bottom, as opposed to opening it from the menu again."

So I close them all with two quick clicks of the mouse, naturally.

The Boss : "You did it again! Don't just do it, tell me how you did it!"

Unbelievably, she is actually angry with me now.

Here's me : "Look, you were running Outlook fifty-six times. I just closed them."

The Boss: "But how did you do it?"

Here's me : "I right-clicked on it and hit 'close'?"

The Boss : "You're just trying to blind me with science."

Here's me, incredulously : "Wha?"

The Boss : "Don't be smart with me!"

Here's me, getting annoyed now too : "Look! You opened Outlook fifty-six times, so the machine was running slow! Just don't do it! I can't explain to you how to 'fix' it if you're not even prepared to learn how to work the bloody thing at all!"

The Boss : "Koala!"

The boss labours under the illusion that saying my name in a sharp tone somehow draws my plainly out-of-order behaviour to my attention and makes me fall into place like a good little soldier.

Deep breath.

Here's me : "Look, there's nothing wrong with it, you were just clicking in the wrong place, click here instead, that's all."

The Boss : "So does this mean someone's been in my computer?"