My funny stories
A former coworker was a constant source of laughs for our work section because of his (un)god(ly)-like IT skills.
On one occasion while building clusters of servers he nearly fried my brain with his antics. After building the servers he said we had to go to the server farm to place them on the domain one-by-one. Seemed kind of silly to me but we were having a seriously slow day so I decided to play along. He logged into one of the servers with the local admin account that was used to perform the build. Performed some required actions that were needed before adding to the domain and then added it to the domain with the his domain account. Now we walk back to our office so he could finish the prescribed process. While he was pecking along on the keyboard I decided to remote into each server via IP using the local admin account/pwd. I made the necessary adjustments and then added each server to the domain followed by performing the prescribed steps after domain join. About 15 minutes later he looked at me and said, "Hey, don't just sit there! Go to the farm and do another server!". I laughed and replied with, "been there, done that!" Seeing that he was confused, I explained that I was able to remote into the servers and that my cluster were almost complete. He turns to his computer and tries to use his domain account and the server name for servers in his clusters that were not on the domain. Everybody in the room was hurting themselves trying to not laugh. After making entirely too many attempts he decided he should stop before he gets locked out. Luckily for him, a domain account will not get locked out after making NUMEROUS failed attempts to access a non-domain asset. And because the server was not on the domain the GPO was not dealing with the failed attempts. He waited a few minutes and then tried again. Frustrated, he proclaimed that is what not possible to remote into the servers and then asked what account did I use. So I told him with a sly grin, "admin account and password". 10 minutes later he was still trying so I told him: local admin account and password via the IP. With a serious look on his face he said, "local admin account is only for local use". I thought I was being punked. I had to log into one of the servers from his cluster just to prove it.
What is my point? There is always a more efficient way to work. Work smarter not harder!
A couple days later he could not figure out why a server could not be joined to the domain. After checking the interfaces I noticed that the wrong IP/mask were provided. This was a simple mistake that should have been noticed while the server was being built. One of the architects left placeholder information in the spreadsheet. Seeing as though this server was part of a redundant cluster and that would not be going into production for a while I said the simplest thing to do would be to contact the person who gave him the incorrect info. But if he wanted to complete the action on that day all we had to do was check the other servers in the clusters (2 clusters with 6 servers each). We also already knew the IP ranges that were being used and how the clusters are usually numbered (IP). The correct IP was easy to decipher but he argued that the oddball IP that was provided for the mask would be ok. I decided to bite my tongue and let him learn by fire after I tried to explain that the other servers were setup with /28 mask so we should use the same mask (I also crunched the numbers real quick and ascertained that a /27 would overlap with another subnet). The mask IP was really oddball so I warned him that the address would not be accepted. He got really pissed because the mask address would not hold after he slammed the "enter" key. After he made entire too many attempts he decided to let me try. 255.255.255.240 was accepted without issue but he decided he needed to get the network team to verify it. He got really pissed when they laughed at him after he explained the entire situation.
I tried to help him learn subnetting but he always used the excuse, "I need to write it down!"
There is always something to learn. ALWAYS!! So be open to accepting more information.
What are your silly stories?
On one occasion while building clusters of servers he nearly fried my brain with his antics. After building the servers he said we had to go to the server farm to place them on the domain one-by-one. Seemed kind of silly to me but we were having a seriously slow day so I decided to play along. He logged into one of the servers with the local admin account that was used to perform the build. Performed some required actions that were needed before adding to the domain and then added it to the domain with the his domain account. Now we walk back to our office so he could finish the prescribed process. While he was pecking along on the keyboard I decided to remote into each server via IP using the local admin account/pwd. I made the necessary adjustments and then added each server to the domain followed by performing the prescribed steps after domain join. About 15 minutes later he looked at me and said, "Hey, don't just sit there! Go to the farm and do another server!". I laughed and replied with, "been there, done that!" Seeing that he was confused, I explained that I was able to remote into the servers and that my cluster were almost complete. He turns to his computer and tries to use his domain account and the server name for servers in his clusters that were not on the domain. Everybody in the room was hurting themselves trying to not laugh. After making entirely too many attempts he decided he should stop before he gets locked out. Luckily for him, a domain account will not get locked out after making NUMEROUS failed attempts to access a non-domain asset. And because the server was not on the domain the GPO was not dealing with the failed attempts. He waited a few minutes and then tried again. Frustrated, he proclaimed that is what not possible to remote into the servers and then asked what account did I use. So I told him with a sly grin, "admin account and password". 10 minutes later he was still trying so I told him: local admin account and password via the IP. With a serious look on his face he said, "local admin account is only for local use". I thought I was being punked. I had to log into one of the servers from his cluster just to prove it.
What is my point? There is always a more efficient way to work. Work smarter not harder!
A couple days later he could not figure out why a server could not be joined to the domain. After checking the interfaces I noticed that the wrong IP/mask were provided. This was a simple mistake that should have been noticed while the server was being built. One of the architects left placeholder information in the spreadsheet. Seeing as though this server was part of a redundant cluster and that would not be going into production for a while I said the simplest thing to do would be to contact the person who gave him the incorrect info. But if he wanted to complete the action on that day all we had to do was check the other servers in the clusters (2 clusters with 6 servers each). We also already knew the IP ranges that were being used and how the clusters are usually numbered (IP). The correct IP was easy to decipher but he argued that the oddball IP that was provided for the mask would be ok. I decided to bite my tongue and let him learn by fire after I tried to explain that the other servers were setup with /28 mask so we should use the same mask (I also crunched the numbers real quick and ascertained that a /27 would overlap with another subnet). The mask IP was really oddball so I warned him that the address would not be accepted. He got really pissed because the mask address would not hold after he slammed the "enter" key. After he made entire too many attempts he decided to let me try. 255.255.255.240 was accepted without issue but he decided he needed to get the network team to verify it. He got really pissed when they laughed at him after he explained the entire situation.
I tried to help him learn subnetting but he always used the excuse, "I need to write it down!"
There is always something to learn. ALWAYS!! So be open to accepting more information.
What are your silly stories?
Work smarter NOT harder! Semper Gumby!
Comments
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paul78
Member Posts: 3,016 ■■■■■■■■■■
Maybe I don't have a sense of humor but everyone makes mistakes or has something new to learn. I feel it's better to learn from your own mistakes than to point out the mistakes or ineptitude of others. I've made plenty of embarrassing errors - we had shared some of them a few years ago here - http://www.techexams.net/forums/off-topic/76457-what-most-embarrassing-technical-mistake-you-ever-made.html -
kaiju
Member Posts: 453 ■■■■■■■□□□
This was a constant battle with this character. While the rest of us were receptive to broadening our knowledge base by learning something new he would always go to great lengths to prove that he was clueless. This is absolute silliness when you are surrounded by people who are willing to share knowledge and build a better team.Work smarter NOT harder! Semper Gumby! -
kaiju
Member Posts: 453 ■■■■■■■□□□
A different guy on the helpdesk:
A customer called about a network outage after a bout of really foul weather over the weekend. The tech told him he needed to wait until the cat 5 cables dry out because they were probably waterlogged. A different tech who overheard the call interrupted and asked the customer to check the building comm closet. Entire closet was down because of power outage that drained the weak battery in the UPS for the closet. Entire UPS actually had to be replaced because it might have been damaged during the power surge/outage. Customers were back online within 30 minutes of talking to the new help desk tech.Work smarter NOT harder! Semper Gumby!
