I don't have a coherent rant. I do have the ingredients:
- Tape jukeboxes. Who invented these clanking Heath-Robinson monstrosities? I watch ours in action and expect a little steam whistle to pop out the top and go "toot toot!"
- Notworker. Say no more.
- Tape jukeboxes that time their failure for several hours before I have an engagement party on a boat to go to. With a houseguest arriving from Holland that evening.
- Popping into work on the Saturday just to check all is well and of course being there four hours later because SNAFU.
- And then the fucking jokebox goes today. There again another too many hours over.
- Because the server can't be downed at any convenient time. Because it's not just the backup server, it's DNS, NIS and - ha! - FlexLM. Because separating backup functions off the bastard is "far too complicated." This from a company that has actually had its arse saved by the backups in the last few months. I hope the outsourcer fucking gouges the client for my time after hours.
The service engineer for the jokebox is a fine fellow and we're getting along very well. We certainly see enough of each other.