The dumb practical joke gone very wrong.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The other day I found an old APC remote power control. It has 8 outlets and an Ethernet port. You assign it an IP and can remote into its web page to control the power on each outlet.

As a joke, I thought I’d attach this to the monitor on the tech bench (which I can see from my office). When one of the guys was working on a system I’d flip the power on and off on the monitor to see their reaction. Of course, if they started ripping video cards from the servers I’d dash in and let them in on the joke.

So, it’s not much of a joke,…

I’m leaving this job because my direct boss (we’ll call him Bob) is a menace behind a keyboard. His actions, or inactions, result in more unneeded work for me. I didn’t realize how inept he was until this “joke”.

Bob is at the tech bench working on a server. As the server loads up the login prompt… FLIP. Off goes the monitor. I leave it off for about 30 seconds before powering up again. What does Bob do during this? He just sits there and stares at the blank monitor.

Remember that scene in Blade Runner when Holden asks Leon about the tortoise on its back? Remember the blank expression on Leon’s face as he attempts to process the problem? Now you know how Bob looked.

When I power the monitor up again he’s at the log in screen. Just as he starts to type I flip off the power again.

Now, this isn’t normal server/computer behaviour. When a monitor powers off like that it indicates a problem somewhere. Considering he was working on a complete motherboard replacement, this would indicate something is wrong.

What does Bob do?

Nothing.

He just sits there. He never checks any cable. He never reaches for the monitor power button. Nothing.

We go through this a bunch of more times over an hour. He never even questions what is happening. I kill the power at different times, different screens, when he loads software, attempts to log off,… I would have thought losing the display when he was on the BIOS screen would get a reaction. I thought wrong.

Then the joke goes bad. He puts the cover on the server, mounts it in the server rack AND PUTS IT IN PRODUCTION!

Wow. :eek:

I’m afraid to guess what else slipped through this guys fingers.

2

Oh my god! Oh, no he di-ent! Holy crap!
Uh, wha happened?

3

Ah, yeah, I can see where the “gone very wrong” part of your title can certainly apply here.

On the other hand, I can maybe see some good “revenge” material should he ever can your ass…

No wait, never mind. I forgot where I was. Just ignore the above.

But, still, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit—I mean, Dang!

4

He better hurry as I’ve already given notice. :smiley:

5

Possibilities:

-He was completely aware someone was playing a trick on him, and decided not to rise to the bait.

-The fault symptoms you induced are more consistent with VDU failure - And it’s a server, right? - even if it were a video adaptor failure (less likely for these symptoms), it’s a server - it quite possibly doesn’t need a video card ever again, once it’s set up.

6

I thought about the first one. He can be pretty funny and would take the joke well. He’d also know who was behind it. But no. He didn’t know what was happening. The APC device is well hidden and he would have no indication I uncovered this old goat of a device and fired it up.

As for the second. Even if it were a faulty video card, you don’t put anything into production that shows signs of fault. Period.

If the video card were to pop it can take the server down (This just happened to a video card on a server here at home. It stopped cold and I couldn’t turn the machine on with the card in. Of course that card had a fantastic meltdown with popped caps, black melty resisters and smelly brown parts)

We’ve got a bin of video cards not 20 feet from the tech bench. There was no excuse for this.

Of course, Bob doesn’t feel the need to place servers behind firewalls or enable any form of anti-virus. When I found a machine that had been hacked (it happened just before I started working there) he didn’t feel the need to replace it. He thought cleaning it was good enough. I rebuilt it anyway.

Oh yeah. He also likes testing out software on production boxes and then leaves it enabled when he’s done. 3 months later when someone asks why MySQL is running on the production MS SQL server, no one really knows for sure - but everyone knows who to ask about it. :smiley:

7

Fair enough.

8

I would have thought bad monitor or loose outlet connection, and switched the outlet. He didn’t think of a reason though, because he sat staring at a dead screen. I guess he was thinking if it failed you would get to look at it.

9

You just didn’t realize that you also programed it to turn HIM off. That’s why he had that blank look.

10

You DO realize that this guy is a master at passing the buck, right? That’s why you bring it up to him that there seems to be some problem on that server, and who was the last one to work on it. 5 gets you 10 that he’ll lie about it if it’s possible.

11

Just this weekend I dressed my 8 month old in a swim suit so we could go swimming. I think he suspected what was up, as he loves the pool and was going happy-crazy while I was putting his swimsuit on.

I had to take a very quick bathroom break, so I left him in the middle of our king size bed surrounded by heavy body pillows on all sides so he could not roll off (he doesn’t roll much anyway), cooing away. My wife was in and out of the room, so I figured he wouldn’t be unsupervised for more than 15 seconds anyway.

I come back a minute later and he’s on the floor, crying, one of the pillows along side him. My heart just stopped - I thought he had somehow fell off the bed.

My wife had just relocated him, as a joke. Apparently he was upset to have been picked up and not taken to the pool, so he started crying when she put him on the floor.
I still have not forgiven her. NOT FUNNY AT ALL.

12

Yes it was, and I hope you learnt your lesson.

13

That’s one of those incidents that add up over time to lose the trust of your partner over time. It’s best not to do that type of stuff. Never fake injuries to loved ones.

14

She felt really bad afterwards, and honestly has never done anything like that. She thought he would continue laughing and having fun when she moved him, so it would not be like I came in and he was screaming his head off. THAT was the part that backfired.

Thankfully she let me off the hook very quickly…just before I fainted.

15

Way to read between the lines Shecky. Yes. That is Bob.

If he does something wrong and doesn’t think it can be traced to him, if you ask him a direct question about it he’ll shrug and say he doesn’t know.