The Canonical List of Reasons
Why
You Can't Find Your System Administrator
Compiled by the readers of alt.sysadmin.recovery in response to hearing about the book
When You Can't Find Your UNIX System
Administrator, from O'Reilly Publishing
1.
They
are hiding under the stairs
2.
They
are on holiday for the first time in 5 years
3.
They
are in the cellars conducting the rituals to keep the machines running
4.
They
are in hospital suffering from an overdose of caffeine
5.
Taken
away by the police after killing the last user who asked a stupid question
6.
"You
*have* a system administrator ?"
7.
Walked
past the table they were gibbering under
8.
The
SysAdmin has built a maze with the door to their
office at the center
9.
You
*are* the system administrator
10.
Missed
seeing the system administrator asleep under their desk
11.
The
admin is chained to their desk in a dungeon only the CEO has the key for.
12.
Having
to explain to the management why they need an asistant.
13.
The
admin is suffering so bad from sleep deprivation that they may as well not be
there for all the sense you can make of the words they are saying.
14.
You
are afraid that the admin will use you as a punch bag so you are searching for
them, but desperately pray that you don't find them.
15.
The
admin came to work disguised as a tea boy to avoid talking to users
16.
The
admin electroculted themselves whilst installing some
cabling near the main power cable. Since the admin's
body is the only thing keeping the power flowing, the management boarded up the
body and pretended they still had a system administrator.
17.
Stuck
in a lift shaft pulling network cable to another floor
18.
Getting
Jolt out of their under-floor cache
19.
Hiding
on the roof -- Simon Burr simes@tcp.co.uk
20.
(S)he's looking up the BOFH excuse of the day.
21.
(S)he's out buying some caffeine.
22.
(S)he's busy installing xfishtank on
the main fileserver. -- Mark D. Roth roth@uiuc.edu
23.
(S)he's out buying refills for the Nerf(TM) crossbow.
24.
(S)he's locked in the computer room playing Deathmatch. -- Dennis J. Preston Jr
dpresto@lookout.ecte.uswc.uswest.com
25.
Booted
to DOS and is playing doom across the network.
26.
Went
to Stop&Go to get ANOTHER case of insert favorite caffinated beverage here
27.
Went
to the room with padded walls that nobody dares open when the door's closed.
28.
Managed
to find time to sleep for an hour or two.
29.
Just
found out he had a two month old child, and is getting re-aquainted
with his SO (and the new child)
30.
is playing netrek.
31.
Is
in the hospital after being severly injured by a
falling soda can mountain. -- William S. Duncanson
caesar@earth.ops.neosoft.com
32.
Is
closeted with boss trying to explain why (s)he uploaded a user to
seven.rings.of.hell.com
33.
(s)he's at the hopital having
his/her fingers splinted after typing 100 times NO you cannot use your old
address after our domain name changes. Please go read the announcements that we
have been posting for the last three months. -- Marge Robbins
mrobbins@netins.net
34.
(S)he's catching twenty winks under the floorboards, tread
gingerly.
35.
(S)he's
watching the building electrician trip a circuit breaker that will reduce the
company 'frame to rainbow colored slag,
36.
(S)he's out by the turnpike waiting for a case of Jolt to
bounce out of the truck after it hits the speed bump.
37.
Is
out back beating a luser into corn mash who asked
"When will the system be back up" one time too many.
38.
Finished
a double shift and is out back wondering what that big burning ball in the sky
is.
39.
Is
busy packing up to go to a site that has contemporary hardware
40.
Is
engaged in a staring contest with a pack of evil dogs
41.
Is
on the phone trying to talk his wife out of buying a house without ISDN -- The
Unknown SysAdmin The8thMan@aol.com
42.
(S)he's sitting under the desk, hysterical at what the (l)user
just asked.
43.
(S)he's at the pub, it's all *too* much. - Andrea Gibney a.gibney@mailbox.uq.oz.au
44.
(S)he's standing behind you, holding an axe.
45.
(S)he resigned in disgust five minutes ago.
46.
(S)he's in a meeting with the boss to discuss poor user
response times. -- Ade Rixon ajr@rheidol.elsevier.co.uk
47.
Just
look up at the ceiling (Think 'Aliens') -- Grant Denkinson Grant.Denkinson@nottingham.ac.uk
48.
(s)he can't be reached via phone or e-mail becuase
(s)he is too busy on usenet telling everybody how
busy (s)he is or thinking up 101 reasons why (s)he can't be found. -- D. Allen Bassham
abassham@svm.com
49.
(s)he
is hiding under a table so that (s)he will not be the one sitting for hours
watching Ultrix reinstall from a single-speed CDROM because the users who
inexplicably have root access have destroyed the filesystem
*again* during a misguided attempt to "improve" /etc/rc by repartitioning the disk at boot time "so that it
doesn't forget". -- Matt Bandy m-bandy@uiuc.edu
50.
(S)he's
in the bathroom... masterbating -- dbryant@netcom.com
51.
We
have a 'secure room' here - bloody great lock on it. I hide in there :) -- Rob
Wheeler rob@pypers.demon.co.uk
52.
The
Grey Wall(tm) has fallen on them and no one has noticed their absence. [clunk,clunk,help!,anyone?]
53.
They've
gone to find some more coffee. Sysadmin has left the
building! -- Matt Haswell ccdmlh@zippy.dct.ac.uk
54.
they've
snapped, started muttering about "this damned post office", and left
for the nearest gun store
55.
they're
out on an interview
56.
they're seeing a therapist who doesn't have any
computers in their office, a non-threatening place.
57.
they've gone to a computer museum to beg for parts for
the PDP-10s running the place (ala Compuserve).
58.
they're
out looking for an ad in any media where DEC mentions OpenVMS
59.
59. they're planning where to be on
60.
they're at a travel agent's, booking a vacation to
friendlier place, like
61.
they're out fomenting rumors
that the Windows 95 cd-roms have the
62.
They're
meeting with Guido, to put out a contract on the parties that started the open
systems myth.
63.
They've
gone to
64.
They're
seeing a commodities broker, to arrange direct deposit of their paychecks into buying coffee bean futures. -- Gerald
(Jerry) R. Leslie jleslie@dmccorp.com
65.
/pub/lunch
-- Gary "Wolf" Barnes gkb@aber.ac.uk
66.
look better. He/She is probably in the basement
somewhere behind the modem racks.
67.
_finally_
took a day off.
68.
It's
69.
Vendor
demonstration
70.
Convinience store across the street opened
71.
Pizza
delivery is at the front door
72.
Sleeping
under the floor tiles
73.
On
some floor, in some wiring closet, trying to fix things
74.
In
the dumpster behind the building trying to get rid of some frustration by using
a sledgehammer on the Macs. --
Koos van den Hout
koos@kzdoos.xs4all.nl
75.
Because
the trauma induced by repeated attempts to install Solaris 2.5 pre-beta on an
Intel system has forced him to seek psychotherapy.
76. Still trying to come down from inhaling too much tape head cleaner. -- Nick Cuccia cuccia@talamasca.com
77.
out
chasing the rodents off of the twisted pair/power lines
78.
gone
home to sleep (1st time in x days)
79.
been
convicted of computer crimes (vague reference to randal
schwartz)
80.
what was you're username? -- Tim Bandy
bandy@cs.umn.edu
81.
Emptying
the bit buckets. -- Michael Shields shields@tembel.org
82. They finally caught him/her for that -big site-masacre (s)he thought (s)he'd gotten away with. -- Carlo Cozzi cozzi@otb.tudelft.nl
83.
ObReason n+x: Your system
administrator is walking in circles outside saying "TUESDAY? They want it
by TUESDAY? TUESDAY?" -- Stephan Zielinski szielins@us.oracle.com
84.
84.
rcp $FAV_RESTAURANT:$FAV_FOOD /dev/stomach gurgle gurgle... -- Shannon Robert Madsen madsen@cs.umn.edu
85.
Hiding
in wiring closet.
86.
Outside
having a smoke because it's illegal in the building.
87.
On
the roof of the building, contemplating jumping.
88.
On
the roof of the building, contemplating which users to throw off.
89.
On
the roof of the building, contemplating traffic.
90.
On
the roof of the building, contemplating. -- Johan van Zanten johan@habanero.evtech.com
91.
In
his/her manager's office, trying to explain why the manager gets lots of calls
from lusers who can't find the sysAdmin.
92.
(for
us part-timers only) In his/her manager's office, trying to explain why the
"real" (programming) work doesn't get done. Manager doesn't
understand -- when he gave you this job, he said it would only take a couple of
hours a week....
93.
Is
in luser's office, trying to explain why "export
VAR=xxx" from one xterm window doesn't have any
effect on the other windows. "But they're all on the same Xstation -- what's the problem?" -- Michael Hartwig hartwig@lfs.loral.com
94. Sysadmin's down in the administrative offices fixing one of their DOS boxes. -- Al Castanoli afcasta@texas.net
95.
He's
out getting a caffine fix. -- John Wanger jwagner@mental.mitre.org
96.
There's
more caffeine than blood in his veins, and he was last seen hopping down the
hall pretending he was a pogo stick. -- J.D. Falk jdfalk@cybernothing.org
Well
the sysadmin is too busy
97.
playing
with the web
98.
reading
news
99.
sleeping
100.
reading other peoples email (not that I do this...)
101.
installing the latest Xgame on
the main fileserver... (this is real cool) -- Michael Miller mmiller@mars.cs.unp.ac.za
102.
S/He
is playing DOOM, to release pent-up tension created by lusers.
103.
S/He
is down to the 7-11 down the street, to buy extra strong coffee and caffeine
tabs.
104.
S/He
is currently full asleep over Her/his keyboard. -- Ingvar Mattsson ingvar@cat.rydnet.lysator.liu.se
105.
has slashed her/his wrists on the Answerbook(tm) or Univers CD.
106.
recovering
from the paper cuts after printing out large chunks of aforementioned CDs
107.
has
gone to visit a luser in a department with a snazzy
new SS20, but no clue [as what to do with it]
108.
has
gone to visit (the same luser) to explain in words of
one syllable why NetBEUI is a BAD THING to run over the campus network
109.
is pulling a blue snake out of a IBM 3850 (?)
DASD in the machine room to give to the CS museum.
110.
in
a meeting
111.
trying
to *avoid* being in a meeting
112.
is
talking to his manager
113.
has worked so much overtime he is now owed 6
months contiguous, paid leave. --Russell Street russells@ccu1.auckland.ac.nz
114.
Busy
threatening a user that was complaining about the machine being down for the
back-up.
115.
Hiding
in another office where he can work without getting interrupted.
116.
Wandering
around the halls looking for his/her lost sanity.
117.
Out
at Starbuck's for the X time today getting a grande cafe mocha with an espresso chaser.
118.
Showing
the boss, for the X time, how to turn the laptop upsidedown
and shake it to get it to reboot (ala Dilbert and the Etch-A-Sketch cartoon).
:-)
119. Busy sitting in the middle of a pentagram with black candles putting a curse on the air-head executive that started circulating the warnings about the "e-mail virus".
120.
Busy
installing a new clutch to better shift paradigms with. (ala Dilbert) --Michael
Faurot mfaurot@phzzzt.atww.org
121.
(S)he's off running round the building trying to find who has addopted the servers IP address.
122.
(S)he's off round the building trying to find who has tured off which router, or have they just unplugged our
link to the outside world. --Ian (God they both happened in one week) Dobbie ian@muscle.kcl.ac.uk
123.
they're
busy rerouting their support telephone to the luser
of the day
124.
they're
busy updating their BOFH excuse server
125.
they're busy testing new ideas for the BOFH Of The
Year Award. --Sean B Purdy sean@fastnet.co.uk
126.
Performing
minor surgery on an ailing DAT drive using only a cow orker's
dissection kit (this is a Pharmacy department) after the verdammt
cleaning tape decided to remove half the drive's mechanism when it ejected.
(This actually *worked*. Boy, was I surprised.) --Chris
Richardson foop@sg2.pcy.kcl.ac.uk
127.
has been replaced by a comupter.
--Lars Syrstad ljs@voldsboks.pvv.unit.no
128.
Busy
fending off the person who isn't your boss but yet (s)he
feels (s)he is and this person rants the loudest so he/she ends up getting what
he/she wants done. --Jeff Ballard ballard@cae.wisc.edu
129.
Changing
the batteries in the UPS --Rebekah Oberin oberin@latcs1.lat.oz.au
130.
Have
you checked under the desk/crawlspace? --Aaron Sommer
aaron_sommer@herringn.com
131.
they have found the exit. (it's like a maze, with
little lusers all alike)
132.
they have been fired; no longer needed with windoze 95. --Mike Wessling
mikew@xs4all.nl
133.
(S)he's
dead,
134.
(S)he's
dead tired,
135.
(S)he's
joined a cult practising Windoze 95,
136.
(S)he's
at the CA meeting (Caffeeine Anonymous),
137.
(S)he's on the top of the buildingggggggggggg.......thud!
--Stuart Owen rbebb@dbrw.win-uk.net
138.
(S)he has phobia toward your name. --Ivy Kuang-Ying
Shih~{J/9bS(~} ivy@ic.EECS.berkeley.edu
139.
Someone
just mentioned "Windows" and "95" in rapid succession... --John Vaughan john@tcp.co.uk
140.
He
was arrested cause the police thought he was a Drug dealer when they saw the
three pagers on his belt.. --Pete Shipley
shipley@dis.org
141.
They're
actully in their office, but buried under the mound
of paper, manuals and spare parts that just avalanced
off their desk..
142.
The
Cray's Chiller decided to go on vacation, and (S)he got stuck to one of the vents on the Y-MP after
switching to air-cooled mode. --Jeff Wolfe wolfe@ems.psu.edu