No one wants to hire system administrators anymore! A tale of a new shiny thing.
*A screaming managerial montage. Was this happening throughout the whole project?* ***Was*** *this even a project? Did it all happen just now? Is this a flashback? Wait, is he starting over?*
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>Our $NewShinyThing isn't working yet? Well, have the techs fix it. I don't care if they have never heard of $NewShinyThing, we bought it, and they have to fix it! Oh, the techs say they received only a marketing whitepaper, spam about $NewShinyThing upgrade offers and a 38 second video of Bob's son's little league game instead of the documentation and training they asked for? -And what do you mean, the $NewShinyThing we bought from that nice man's discount site was an old counterfeit copy from 2013? …Bull, that's an accounting error.
*<dry gulp>*
>Buy a new $NewShinyThing with the Hyper Enterprise Really Premium Extended Support contract straight from the vendor, then, and get it online ***ASAP***, we *need* the $NewShinyThing. What do you mean you're busy remediating a "ROFLocker infection" from our counterfeit? We're not counterfeiting anything! We need $NewShinyThing up *now!* $NewShinyThing has been down for months! Move it to the cloud. It doesn't work because the migration was performed by a herd of cats guided by a highly caffeinated eight year old across a great plain of keyboards and trampolines? Well, have the vendor do it. Oh, that was the vendor, and they say we need to upgrade the $NewShinyThing? But wasn't this the new $NewShinyThing??!! Fine. Do it. Still doesn't work? What? The new, new $NewShinyThing? *And* we have to upgrade *our* servers? But... I thought they said it was in the cloud..? > >CC the SME IT PM HR NOC SE and billing OUs ASAP!!!! > >It works? ***AMAZING!***
*^(…the following day...)*
>It doesn't work! ***WHY NOT***\*?!\*
^(-The security guy did) *^(what?!)*
Three choose your own adventure excerpts for three distinct organizations that can be read chronologically just as believably:
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The security guy blocked newly created, wide open, internet-facing access for SMB to the domain controller that the $NewShinyThing vendor somehow convinced the network vendor to enable in a battle of persistence and ignorance, because it was crucial for a $NewShinyThing to run according that other time they set one up. To the shock and darkly amused, twitching horror of jaded outsourced onlookers, this actually did break the $NewShinyThing. The endpoint device is relying on some manner of external upnp like an old xbox that no vpn transports in addition to data inexplicably synced from a domain controller file share called "Bob's iPhone\\Camera Roll\\Joey's Little League Championship Game (Copy 2).lnk.ROFLocked" *(Turn to pg. 132)*
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Security guy has been suspiciously quiet all day. He's activated a new default-deny policy somewhere without translating the appropriate access requirements for $NewShinyThing, even though he agreed to the specs when it was planned, and again when it was deployed. $NewShinyThing is down. The techs have all dashed upstairs to the server room just as fast as they could get the elevator to go. Also, no one can log in. Peggy in accounting says her screen is stuck. There is a police officer in reception saying a motorist claims debris that seemed to come from our window totaled his car, which he admits seemed silly until he saw the $NewShinyThing logo emblazoned prominently on the the otherwise difficult to discern debris that appeared to have been mobbed by a kindergarten art class, and then a car. He recognized it from those emails he can't get to go to spam, as well the banner outside that was printed up by the shrewd and savvy office assistant to make sure the internet got the news. Also, Bob says he can't print blue. *(Turn to pg. 187)*
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Pitr is grumbly that he’s been the only sysadmin type individual available to have kept the environment up to speed for the integration and maintenance challenges with this $NewShinyThing. Administrators and Technicians alike are a bit ragged, but the phones go quiet as everyone in the organization becomes mesmerized with the $NewShinyThing now available via an irresistible new icon, its strangely childish colors and shapes aside. Stern demands have been made for something other than that disgusting coffee in the office. Last week sucked with all those new requests about the $NewShinyThing, and even moreso what with that morbid cinnamon cranberry pickle dark-roast from the shoe and kitchen utensil store. Security guy had slipped into screaming manager's office on the fourteenth floor and ran him a fresh pot of *Cinnamon Cranberry Delight ...with notes of pickling brine* hoping to get rid of it faster, and scooped up his quarantined machine. Something about ROFLocker. *(apologies, you should not have read this section. Return to pg. 89. What do you mean, none of that is how a choose your own adventure works? Say, could you help me with my iCloud?)*