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By ReallyEvilCanine (Mon May 22, 2006 at 02:35:49 AM EST) A Day in the Life, cubicle, Back again so soon?, WTF, pie (all tags) (all tags)

Ricky Don't Lose That (Ticket) Number

So I was off by a week. It took three before Enrique, the lazy admin who didn't want to install $Balance -- despite it taking less time and effort than a beginner level round of Minesweeper -- submitted another ticket which boiled down to:

Help! Our production system is have many problems since we install new server last month! Downtime! Logs attached!

Dumbass.

x-posted to bogspot

I scanned the logs just to be sure and saw exactly the messages I'd expected -- DLL call failures.

Hi, Enrique.
Remember how I told you three weeks ago that you really ought to install $balance because without it being installed on only the one server, a number of DLLs would differ throughout Production? Remember how I also said that we've seen cases of odd and irreproducible problems in mixed systems? This is what I was referring to.
Your only recourse is to shut down this server, uninstall $OurBigApp completely, clean the Windows Registry according to FAQ #xxx, install $Balance, re-install $OurBigApp and reconfigure it manually. If you still have problems you'll have to do the same thing for all the other $OurBigApp servers.

There's no schadenfreude here, only consigned resignation. I tried to warn him. I wrote it again and again and again. And again and again. Five times I responded telling him he really ought to install $Balance but he didn't want to.

I wonder how much the downtime for 1300 users cost his company.

Root Cause: 17-Fuckwit.

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A Day in the Life | 8 comments (8 topical, 0 hidden)

HOLY FUCK, MY APP JUST COMPILED by Rogerborg (2.00 / 0) #1 Mon May 22, 2006 at 04:55:16 AM EST

Sorry, we were talking about your e-janitorial duties, weren't we? Very rude of me.

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Metus amatores matrum compescit, non clementia.

Janitor is OK by ReallyEvilCanine (4.00 / 1) #2 Mon May 22, 2006 at 04:59:32 AM EST

But I'm more or less Dr. Cox in real life, sans a dozen writers.

the internet: amplifier of stupidity -- discordia

[ Parent ]

But with the double plus hawt wife? by Rogerborg (2.00 / 0) #3 Mon May 22, 2006 at 06:46:35 AM EST

Say... what hours do you generally work?

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Metus amatores matrum compescit, non clementia.

[ Parent ]

If only. by ReallyEvilCanine (4.00 / 1) #5 Mon May 22, 2006 at 09:03:00 AM EST

Seriously hawt and "strong". The perfect woman for me, except she's married to the creator/producer and her season 2 pregnancy was real. If she spoke some very old Nordic language his days would be numbered in single digits.

the internet: amplifier of stupidity -- discordia

[ Parent ]

I couldn't really parse that by Rogerborg (2.00 / 0) #7 Mon May 22, 2006 at 09:48:21 AM EST

I kind of got distracted by thinking about pregnancy boobs.

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Metus amatores matrum compescit, non clementia.

[ Parent ]

: WARNING: SPOILERS by ReallyEvilCanine (4.00 / 1) #8 Mon May 22, 2006 at 12:26:50 PM EST

That linea negra from the belly button to the pubic bone. It's often hairy.
the internet: amplifier of stupidity -- discordia
[ Parent ]

Yes, however by ucblockhead (4.00 / 1) #4 Mon May 22, 2006 at 07:07:28 AM EST

Fully agree that the guy's an idiot, that he should have listened, that he probably deserves what he got, however...a well designed app shouldn't have that requirement. It's a sign that your developers cut corners, a classic instance of saving a little bit of time and money in the development phase causing a cost of much more time and money in support (and in your customer's organizations.)
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[ucblockhead is] useless and subhuman

: You're overlooking something: by ReallyEvilCanine (2.00 / 0) #6 Mon May 22, 2006 at 09:09:52 AM EST

We don't modify DLLs, $Balance does. We only use the DLLs the way we're supposed to; $Balance modifies the damned transport stack. We use(d) $Balance because it was the best overall solution out there... once you could get it working.
Five years later there are better hardware solutions and we wrote our own damned balancing software which -- surprisingly -- almost never has a problem. We get maybe one ticket every two months on it as opposed to a dozen a week with $Balance.
the internet: amplifier of stupidity -- discordia
[ Parent ]

A Day in the Life | 8 comments (8 topical, 0 hidden)