The Lighter Side of IT

 The Lighter Side of IT
This area is devoted to funny IT related jokes and stories to add some humor to your day


A Collection of Short Ones:
"If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution." -- Robert Sewell

"It is not UNIX's job to stop you from shooting your foot. If you so choose to do so, then it is UNIX's job to deliver Mr. Bullet to Mr Foot in the most efficient way it knows." -- Terry Lambert

User, n. The word computer professionals use when they mean "idiot." -- Dave Barry

"The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the computer hardware industry..." -- Henry Petroski

"I invented Ctrl-Alt-Delete, but Bill Gates made it famous." -- David Bradley, original IBM PC design team

HTTP is like being married: you have to be able to handle whatever you're given, while being very careful what you send back.

That's what I love about GUIs: They make simple tasks easier, and complex tasks impossible. -- John William Chambless

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

December 32, 1999: We're pleased to report no Y2K failures!

"unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep" - my daily unix command list

"Life would be so much easier if we only had the source code."

"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila"

"If brute force doesn't solve your problems, then you aren't using enough.

"The box said 'Required Windows 95 or better'. So, I installed LINUX."

"I had a fortune cookie the other day and it said: 'Outlook not so good'. I said: 'Sure, but Microsoft ships it anyway'."

"Hacking is like sex. You get in, you get out, and hope that you didn't leave something that can be traced back to you."


The Programmer and the Engineer
Programmer and an Engineer were sitting next to each other on an airplane. The Programmer leans over to the Engineer and asks if he wants to play a fun game. The Engineer just wants to sleep so he politely declines, turns away and tries to sleep. The Programmer persists and explains that it's a real easy game. He explains, "I ask a question and if you don't know the answer you pay me $5. Then you ask a question and if I don't know the answer I'll pay you $5." Again the Engineer politely declines and tries to sleep.

The Programmer, now somewhat agitated, says, "O.K., if you don't know the answer you pay me $5 and if I don't know the answer I pay you $50! " Now, that got the Engineer's attention, so he agrees to the game. The Programmer asks the first question, "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?" Then Engineer doesn't say a word and just hands the Programmer $5.

Now, its the Engineer's turn. He asks the Programmer, "What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down on four?" The Programmer looks at him with a puzzled look, takes out his laptop computer, looks through all his references and after about an hour wakes the Engineer and hands the Engineer $50. The Engineer politely takes the $50 turns away and tries to return to sleep.
The Programmer, a little miffed, asks, "Well what's the answer to the question?" Without a word, the Engineer reaches into his wallet, hands $5 to the Programmer, turns away and returns to sleep.


Tech Support
Take heart, anyone among you who believes you are technologically challenged, you "ain't seen nuthin' yet." This is an excerpt from a "Wall Street Journal" article.
1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.
2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.
3. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to hold on and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing the room to close the door.
4. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to fax anything. After 40 minutes of troubleshooting, the technician discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.
5. Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and washing them individually.
6. A confused caller to IBM was having trouble printing documents. He told the technician that the computer had said it "couldn't find printer" The user had also tried turning the computer screen to face the printer but that his computer still couldn't "see" the printer.
7. An exasperated caller to Dell Tech Support couldn't get her new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in, the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button. Her response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and nothing happens. " The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's mouse.
8. A woman called the Canon help desk with a problem with her printer. The tech asked her if she was running it under "Windows." The woman responded, "No, my desk is next to the door. But that is a good point. The man sitting in the cubicle next to me is under a window and his printer is working fine."
9. Tech Support: "O.K. Bob, let's press control and escape keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of the screen. Now type the letter "P" to bring up the Program Manager." Customer: "I don't have a "P". Tech: "On your keyboard, Bob." Customer: "What do you mean?" Tech: "P" on your keyboard, Bob." Customer: "I'm not going to do that!!!"


Right Click
Tech Support: "I need you to right-click on the Desktop."
Customer: "Ok."
Tech Support: "Did you get a pop-up menu?"
Customer: "No."
Tech Support: "Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?"
Customer: "No."
Tech Support: "Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?"Customer: "Sure, you told me to write 'click' and I wrote click'."


Redneck Computer Terms
BACKUP - What you do when you run across a skunk in the woods
BAR CODE - Them's the fight'n rules down at the local tavern
BUG - The reason you give for calling in sick
BYTE - What you pit bull dun to cusin Jethro
CACHE - Needed when you run out of food stamps
CHIP - Pasture muffins that you try not to step in
TERMINAL - Time to call the undertaker
CRASH - When you go to Junior's party uninvited
DIGITAL - The art of counting on your fingers
DISKETTE - Female Disco Dancer
FAX - What you lie about to the IRS
HACKER - Uncle Leroy after 32 years of smoking
HARD COPY - Picture looked at when selecting tattoos
INTERNET - Where cafeteria workers put their hair
KEYBOARD - Where you hang the keys to the John Deere
MAC - Big Bubba's favorite fast food
MEGAHERTZ - How your head feels after 17 beers
MODEM - What you did when the grass and weeds got too tall
MOUSE PAD - Where Mickey and Minnie live
NETWORK - Scoop'n up a big fish before it breaks the line
ONLINE - Where to stay when taking the sobriety test
ROM - Where the pope lives
SCREEN - Helps keep the skeeters off the porch
SERIAL PORT - A red wine you drink with breakfast
SUPERCONDUCTOR - Amtrak's Employee of the year
SCSI - What you call your week old underwear


More Redneck Computer Terms
LOG ON: Making a wood stove hotter.
LOG OFF: Don't add no more wood.
MONITOR: Keeping an eye on the woodstove.
DOWNLOAD: Gettin the farwood off the truk
MEGA HERTZ: When yer not keerful gettin the farwood
FLOPPY DISC: Whatcha git from tryin to carry too much farwood.
RAM: That thar thing whut splits the farwood
HARD DRIVE: Gettin home in the winter time
PROMPT: Whut the mail ain't in the winter time
WINDOWS: Whut to shut when it's cold outside
SCREEN: Whut to shut when it's black fly season
BYTE: Whut dem dang flys do
CHIP: Munchies fer the TV
MICRO CHIP: Whut's in the bottom of the munchie bag
MODEM: Whacha did to the hay fields
DOT MATRIX: Old Dan Matrix's wife
LAP TOP: Whar the kitty sleeps
KEYBOARD: Whar ya hang the dang truck keys
SOFTWARE: Them dang plastic forks and knifs
MOUSE: What eats the grain in the barn
MAIN FRAME: Holds up the barn ruf
PORT: Fancy Flatlander wine
ENTER: Northerner talk fer, C'Mon in y'all
RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY: When ya cain't 'member whut ya paid fer the rifle when yore wife asks
MOUSE PAD: That's hippie talk fer the rat hole.


Program Managers
A lead hardware engineer, a lead software engineer, and their program manager are taking a walk outdoors during their lunch break when they come upon an old brass lamp. They pick it up and dust it off. Poof -- out pops a genie.
"Thank you for releasing me from my lamp-prison. I can grant you 3 wishes. Since there are 3 of you I will grant one wish to each of you."
The hardware engineer thinks a moment and says, "I'd like to be sailing a yacht across the Pacific, racing before the wind, with an all-girl crew."
"It is done", said the Genie, and poof, the hardware engineer disappears.
The software engineer thinks a moment and says, "I'd like to be riding my Harley with a gang of beautiful women throughout the American Southwest."
"It is done", said the Genie, and poof, the software engineer disappears.
The program manager looks at where the other two had been standing and rubs his chin in thought. Then he tells the Genie, "I'd like those two back in the office after lunch."


My Status Report
   Monday
   8:05am
       User called to say they forgot password. Told them to use
       password retrieval utility called FDISK. Blissfully ignorant, they
       thank me and hang up. God, we let the people vote and drive, too?
 
   8:12am
       Accounting called to say they couldn't access expense reports
       database. Gave them Standard Sys Admin Answer #112, Well, it works
       for me. Let them rant and rave while I unplugged my coffeemaker
       from the UPS and plugged their server back in. Suggested they try
       it again. One more happy customer...
 
   8:14am
       User from 8:05 call said they received error message Error
       accessing Drive 0. Told them it was an OS problem. Transferred
       them to microsupport.
 
   11:00am
       Relatively quiet for last few hours. Decide to plug support phone
       back in so I can call my girlfriend. Says parents are coming into
       town this weekend. Put her on hold and transferred her to
       janitorial closet down in basement. What is she thinking? The Myst
       and Doom nationals are this weekend!
 
   11:34am
       Another user calls (do they ever learn?). Says they want ACL
       changed on HR performance review database so that nobody but HR
       can access database. Tell them no problem. Hang up. Change ACL.
       Add @MailSend so performance reviews are sent to */US.
 
   12:00pm
       Lunch
 
   3:30pm
       Return from lunch.
 
   3:55pm
       Wake up from nap. Bad dream makes me cranky. Bounce servers for no
       reason. Return to napping.
 
   4:23pm
       Yet another user calls. Wants to know how to change fonts on form.
       Ask them what chip set they're using. Tell them to call back when
       they find out.
 
   4:55pm
       Decide to run "Create Save/Replication Conflicts" macro so next
       shift has something to do.
 
   Tuesday
   8:30am
       Finish reading support log from last night. Sounded busy.
       Terrible time with Save/Replication conflicts.
 
   9:00am
       Support manager arrives. Wants to discuss my attitude. Click on
       PhoneNotes SmartIcon. Love to, but kinda busy. Put something in
       the calendar database! I yell as I grab for the support lines,
       which have (mysteriously) lit up. Walks away grumbling.
 
   9:35pm
       Team leader from R&D needs ID for new employee. Tell them they
       need form J-19R=9C9\\DARR\K1. Say they never heard of such a form.
       Tell them it's in the SPECIAL FORMS database. Say they never heard
       of such a database. Transfer them to janitorial closet in
       basement.
 
   10:00am
       Perky sounding intern from R&D calls and says she needs new ID.
       Tell her I need employee number, department name, manager name,
       and marital status. Run @DbLookup against state parole board
       database, Centers for Disease Control database, and my Oprah
       Winfrey database. No hits. Tell her ID will be ready tonight.
       Drawing from the lessons learned in last week's Reengineering for
       Customer Partnership I offer to personally deliver ID to her
       apartment.
 
   10:07am
       Janitor stops by to say he keeps getting strange calls in
       basement. Offer to train him on Notes. Begin now. Let him watch
       console while I grab a smoke.
 
   1:00pm
       Return from smoking break. Janitor says phones kept ringing, so he
       transferred them to cafeteria lady. I like this guy.
 
   1:05pm
       Big commotion! Support manager falls in hole left where I pulled
       floor tiles outside his office door. Stress to him importance of
       not running in computer room, even if I do yell Omigod -- Fire!
 
   1:15pm
       Development Standards Committee calls and complains about umlauts
       in form names. Apologizing for the inconvenience, I tell them I
       will fix it. Hang up and run global search/replace using gaks.
 
   1:20pm
       Mary Hairnet from cafeteria calls. Says she keeps getting calls
       for Notice Loads or NoLoad Goats, she's not sure, couldn't hear
       over industrial-grade blender. Tell her it was probably Lettuce
       Nodes. Maybe the food distributor with a new product? She thinks
       about it and hangs up.
 
   2:00pm
       Legal secretary calls and says she lost password. Ask her to check
       in her purse, floor of car, and on bathroom counter. Tell her it
       probably fell out of back of machine. Suggest she put duct tape
       over all the airvents she can find on the PC. Grudgingly offer to
       create new ID for her while she does that.
 
   2:49pm
       Janitor comes back. Wants more lessons. I take off rest of day.
 
   Wednesday
   8:30am
       Irate user calls to say chipset has nothing to do with fonts on
       form. Tell them of course, they should have been checking Bitset,
       not chipset.  Sheepish user apologizes and hangs up.
 
   9:10am
       Support manager, with foot in cast, returns to office. Schedules
       10:00am meeting with me. User calls and wants to talk to support
       manager about terrible help at support desk. Tell them manager
       about to go into meeting. Sometimes life hands you material...
 
   10:00am
       Call Louie in janitorial services to cover for me. Go to support
       manager's office. He says he can't dismiss me but can suggest
       several lateral career moves. Most involve farm implements in
       third-world countries with moderate to heavy political turmoil. By
       and by, I ask if he's aware of new bug which takes full-text
       indexed random e-mail databases and puts all references to furry
       handcuffs and Bambi Boomer in Marketing on the corporate Web page.
       Meeting is adjourned as he reaches for keyboard, Web browser, and
       Tums.
 
   10:30am
       Tell Louie he's doing great job. Offer to show him mainframe
       corporate PBX system sometime.
 
   11:00am
       Lunch.
 
   4:55pm
       Return from lunch.
 
   5:00pm
       Shift change; Going home.
 
   Thursday
   8:00am
       New guy (Marvin) started today. "Nice plaids" I offer. Show him
       Server room, wiring closet, and technical library. Set him up with
       IBM PC-XT. Tell him to quit whining, Notes runs the same in both
       monochrome and color.
 
   8:45am
       New guy's PC finishes booting up. Tell him I'll create new ID for
       him. Set minimum password length to 64. Go grab smoke.
 
   9:30am
       Introduce Louie the custodian to Marvin. Nice plaids Louie
       comments. Is this guy great or what?!
 
   11:00am
       Beat Louie in dominos game. Louie leaves. Fish spare dominos out
       of sleeves (Always have backups). User calls, says Accounting
       server is down. Untie Ethernet cable from radio antenna (better
       reception) and plug back into hub. Tell user to try again. Another
       happy customer!
 
   11:55am
       Brief Marvin on Corporate Policy 98.022.01:  Whereas all new
       employees beginning on days ending in 'Y' shall enjoy all proper
       aspects with said corporation, said employee is obligated to
       provide substance and relief to senior technical analyst on shift.
       Marvin doubts. I point to Corporate Policy database (a fine piece
       of work, if I say so myself!). Remember, that's DOUBLE pepperoni
       and NO peppers! I yell to Marvin as he steps over open floor tile
       to get to exit door.
 
   1:00pm
       Oooooh! Pizza makes me so sleepy...
 
   4:30pm
       Wake from refreshing nap. Catch Marvin scanning want ads.
 
   5:00pm
       Shift change. Flick HR's server off and on several times (just
       testing the On/Off button...). See ya tomorrow.
 
   Friday
   8:00am
       Night shift still trying to replace power supply in HR server.
       Told them it worked fine before I left.
 
   9:00am
       Marvin still not here. Decide I might start answering these calls
       myself. Unforward phones from Mailroom.
 
   9:02am
       Yep. A user call. Users in Des Moines can't replicate. Me and the
       Oiuji board determine it's sunspots. Tell them to call
       telecommunications.
 
   9:30am
       Good God, another user! They're like ants. Says he's in San Diego
       and can't replicate with Des Moines. Tell him it's sunspots, but
       with a two-hour difference. Suggest he reset the time on the
       server back two hours.
 
   10:17am
       Pensacola calls. Says they can't route mail to San Diego. Tell
       them to set server ahead three hours.
 
   11:00am
       E-mail from corporate says for everybody to quit resetting the
       time on their servers. I change the date stamp and forward it to
       Milwaukee.
 
   11:20am
       Finish @CoffeeMake macro. Put phone back on hook.
 
   11:23am
       Milwaukee calls, asks what day it is.
 
   11:25am
       Support manager stops by to say Marvin called in to quit. So hard
       to get good help... I respond. Support manager says he has
       appointment with orthopedic doctor this afternoon, and asks if I
       mind sitting in on the weekly department head meeting for him. No
       problem!
 
   11:30am
       Call Louie and tell him opportunity knocks and he's invited to a
       meeting this afternoon. Yeah, sure. You can bring your snuff I
       tell him.
 
   12:00am
       Lunch.
 
   1:00pm
       Start full backups on UNIX server. Route them to device NULL to
       make them fast.
 
   1:03pm
       Full weekly backups done. Man, I love modern technology!
 
   2:30pm
       Look in support manager's contact management database. Cancel
       2:45pm appointment for him. He really should be at home resting,
       you know.
 
   2:39pm
       New user calls. Says want to learn how to create a connection
       document. Tell them to run connection document utility CTRL-ALT-
       DEL. Says PC rebooted. Tell them to call microsupport.
 
   2:50pm
       Support manager calls to say mixup at doctor's office means
       appointment cancelled. Says he's just going to go on home. Ask him
       if he's seen corporate Web page lately.
 
   3:00pm
       Another (novice) user calls. Says periodic macro not working.
       Suggest they place @DeleteDocument at end of formula. Promise to
       send them document addendum which says so.
 
   4:00pm
       Finish changing foreground color in all documents to white. Also
       set point size to 2 in help databases.
 
   4:30pm
       User calls to say they can't see anything in documents. Tell them
       to go to view, do a Edit -- Select All, hit delete key, and then
       refresh. Promise to send them document addendum which says so.
 
   4:45pm
       Another user calls. Says they can't read help documents. Tell them
       I'll fix it. Hang up. Change font to Wingdings.
 
   4:58pm
       Plug coffee maker into Ethernet hub to see what happens. Not (too)
       much.
 
   5:00pm
       Night shift shows up. Tell that the hub is acting funny and to
       have a good weekend. Cheers


The Laws of Work
1    If you can't get your work done in the first 24 hours, work nights.
2    A pat on the back is only a few centimeters from a kick in the butt.
3    Don't be irreplaceable, if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
4    It doesn't matter what you do, it only matters what you say you've done and what you're going to do.
5    After any salary raise, you will have less money at the end of the month than you did before.
6    The more crap you put up with, the more crap you are going to get.
7    You can go anywhere you want if you look serious and carry a clipboard.
8    Eat one live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
9    When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are never talking about themselves.
10   If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.
11   There will always be beer cans rolling on the floor of your car when the boss asks for a ride home from the office.
12   Keep your boss's boss off your boss's back.
13   Everything can be filed under "miscellaneous."
14   Never delay the ending of a meeting or the beginning of a cocktail hour.
15   To err is human, to forgive is not our policy.
16   Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he/she is supposed to be doing.
17   Important letters that contain no errors will develop errors in the mail.
18   If you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are really good, you will get out of it.
19   You are always doing something marginal when the boss drops by your desk.
20   People who go to conferences are the ones who shouldn't.
21   If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done.
22   At work, the authority of a person is inversely proportional to the number of pens that person is carrying.
23   When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried.
24   Following the rules will not get the job done.
25   Getting the job done is no excuse for not following the rules.
26   When confronted by a difficult problem you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
27   No matter how much you do, you never do enough.
28   The last person that quit or was fired will be held responsible for everything that goes wrong.


Accident
There was an engineer, manager and programmer driving down a steep mountain road.The brakes failed and the car careened down the road out of control. Half way down the driver managed to stop the car by running it against the embankment narrowing avoiding going over a cliff. They all got out, shaken by their narrow escape from death, but otherwise unharmed.

The manager said "To fix this problem we need to organize a committee, have meetings, and through a process of continuous improvement, develop a solution."

The engineer said "No that would take too long, and besides that method never worked before. I have my trusty pen knife here and will take apart the brake system, isolate the problem and correct it."

The programmer said "I think you're both wrong! I think we should all push the car back up the hill and see if it happens again."