Subject: A sysadmin's view of the world

This kind of thing would never happen here, and I can't imagine it
happening anywhere, but this came to me in a dream and I just had to post
it.
                                           Jim McCarthy, lead sysadmin,
                                           arrives at work ready for anything.
                                           Maybe today won't be as bad as
                                           yesterday.  Any phone messages?
                                           Hope not...
                                           {BEEP BEEP...BEEP BEEP BEEP...BEEP}

YOU HAVE {CLICK} TWENTY SEVEN {CLICK}      ARGH!  Motherfffffff.....
MESSAGES.  PRESS ONE TO                    {BEEP}

FIRST MESSAGE.  "Hi... um.... this is
um.... George.  I...  um  can't get to     Last name, George, tell me your....
my server.  Um... can you help?  This is   Server's name, George, what's....
very important.  Um, please fix this as    Tell me your phone number, George.
soon as you can."  END OF FIRST MESSA      Phone num-  Son of a b*

SECOND MESSAGE.  "Jim, this is Cameron
G.  I just connected a few systems to      Oh no....  If he's touched -
the building backbone, could you assign    What?  Where did you get access to
me IP addresses 200 through 205 for
them?  I tried pinging those addresses     Cretin, those are reserved -
and nothing was there, so they're          Oh, wow, he must have found the hub
available, I've got my systems on those    in the 1st floor lab and tapped -
addresses now.  And one of the systems     NO!  Where are they?
will be a router to a couple of local
nets, could you assign me some subnet
numbers too?  I figure I'll need two       You SOB, what are you planning!?
subnet numbers, no, make that three.       I'm gonna have a chat with your
Thank you."  END OF SEC-                   boss.... {BEEP}

THIRD MESSAGE.  "Hi, this is Madeline
in Mister Smith's office.  We have
some very important customers coming in
for a demo in the old cafeteria, so I
guess we need network hookups for about    What!  There's no network hookup in
a dozen systems, I'm not sure exactly,     the old caf-  Damn.  I can run a
and I guess wires and stuff, whatever      fiber over the weekend....  I need 
a
they need to be on the network and talk    hub, two fiber transceivers, um,
to our servers on the third floor and      about fifty feet of....
to the customers' servers in Ohio, cause   What?  Ohio?  The security firewall
they want to see a demo with live data.    won't let....  I can write a proxy
The demo starts at 1:00, so please make    Eh?  What day, Madeline?
sure everything works by then.  It'll
be over by 5:00 PM because the customers   What day?
fly home tonight.  Please let me know      NO!  NOT TODAY!  I CAN'T GET -
when this is working so I can tell the     YOU PROMISED ME A WEEK'S WARNING!
president.  Thank you."  END OF THIR-      YOU SLUT!{BEEP}


FOURTH MESSAGE.  "Hiya Mac, this is        Don't call me Mac.
Paul.  My brother has been telling his     Uh oh, payroll.
third grade class, he teaches social
studies, about this Information Freeway    Heh heh heh.
thing and they're all gung-ho about it
but, Mac, you know how schools can't get   Don't call me Mac!
any money these days, so, Mac, I told my
brother that we could let them use the     Uh oh.
systems here, right?  No big deal.  If     Oh, no you don't.
you could set up a shared account for
his class, Mac, make the password          Don't hyperventilate, don't hyperv-
'password', I'll give them the 800
number to dial in.  Hey thanks a lot,      Later.  Can't call payroll person
Mac."  END OF F                            raving imbecile.  Call later.
                                           

FIFTH MESSAGE.  "Hello, this is...
*ahem* John....  Roberts?  I work for
one of your customers?  And I like just    Who the heck is this
found a big security hole in one of your
company's programs?  Could you send me a
list of the security holes that you        Heh heh
already know about so I can tell you if
it's already in there?  And if it's not    Haaaaaahahahahaha
then I'll, you know, give you more of a
description?  Mail the list to             HAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
bin@cs.umx.edu, that's an account I'm      HAHAHA Brian will freak....
borrowing because, like, the systems at
work aren't configured all the way yet?    Haaaaaahahahaha  stop! stop!
Thanks....  Good bye...."  END O           {BEEP BEEP BEEP ... BEEP}
MESSAGE SAVED.  PRESS ONE T                

SIXTH MESSAGE.  "Hello, uh, this is
Bert.  I tried sending a message to the
Internet and it came back with, uh, an     You're not going to tell me the
error.  Can you tell me how I can get      address, or the error message, are
this through?  Uh, thanks.  The error      you, Bert.
was 'something unknown'.  Or 'unknown
something', I forget.  I deleted the,      $ mail bert < /dev/clue
uh, message.  Anyway, please let me know
what I should do."  END OF S-              Yeah, I'll do that.  {BEEP}

SEVENTH MESSAGE.  "Howdy, Mr. McCarthy,
this is Dave in Southwest regional
support.  One of our customers, a big
military site, has been having trouble
sending e-mail to us.  They say they       Milnet.  Not milnet.
need a list of all our system names and
IP addresses for their hosts file.  I      What?  For their *what*?
couldn't find that list anywhere, but
the customer says we must have one
somewhere because our mail wouldn't work   What?  I deleted that file, years-
without it.  Can y'all send me a copy of
the list, or tell me who I should
contact to get it?  Thank you."            Oh lord.  {BEEP}

EIGHTH MESSAGE.  "Jim, this is Cameron
G. again.  We upgraded our Wellfleet       You bastard, if you've -
router and for some reason we started
having problems with some of our TCP/IP    You reversed the interfaces again,
clients.  I figured it was a nameserver    Cameron, you jerk.  You did the
thing at first, so I replaced the          same thing the last time -
resolver file on all the clients with a
hosts file, but that didn't help so I      NO!
figured it was a netmask problem so I
changed the netmask on all the clients
to the default 16 bits, but that didn't    NO!  DAMN YOU!  I'LL BREAK YOUR
help so I figured it was a wiring          FINGERS!
problem so I ran a piece of thinnet from
from our net into the lab net, but that    YOU ANENCEPHALIC SLIME!  I'LL KILL
didn't help either.  I'm going on          YOU!  I'LL KILL YOU!
vacation for two weeks and I'm about to
leave, so could you contact Darryl and
help him get it straightened out?  He's    ARGGGGGGGGHH!
out today but will be in tomorrow.
Thanks."  END O*F EIG*TH M*                {BE*  B*  Hold still!  BEEP}

NINTH MESSAGE.  "Hi, this is Terry.  Can
you tell me how I can have two mailboxes
on my account with different mail          Eh?  I'll give her a second accoun-
addresses?  I'm letting my boyfriend use
my account so he can read news and stuff   Oh, no.
on USENET.  But it's a problem because     No.  He can use a public access
he doesn't want me reading his mail so
when something comes in I have to call
him so he can tell me if it's mine so I    What in hell?
can read it.  He's not allowed to get an
account on a public site 'cause of some
kind of probation thing.  Thanks!"  END    *gasp*  AIIIEEEE!  {BEEP}

TENTH MESSAGE.  "Jim, this is Bernard in
finance.  I've got this purchase order
in front of me, for twelve thousand        What!?  I sent that in two months-
dollars for this connection to Inter Net
for a year.  This kind of money is a
problem right now, so could we look at
doing without this temporarily, or         Doing *WITHOUT*?  This is a 
software
getting another vendor for this, who       company, what kind of reputation -
doesn't cost so much?  My brother-in-law   Doesn't cost - ???
says he connects to Inter Net for just
twelve dollars a month, and gets all
kinds of shopping services besides, and    That's PRODIGY!
he says you can even get to Inter Net
over cable TV now.  Could you write up
an evaluation of all our options,
cost-wise, and get back to me with it?     What!  I haven't got time to write-
I'll hold off on the PO until I hear       No!  They'll cut us off again!
from you."  END OF TE*** ***               {BEEEEEEEEEE}CRASH  Damn phone!
PRESS ONE T                                {BEEP}
YOU HAVE {click} SEVENTEEN {click}
MESSAGES REMAINING.  PRESS                 {SLAM!}