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back to article BOFH: Follow the paper trail

"We were wondering.. what you were doing with... the storeroom?" the Boss asks. I notice a salivating consultant in the background and immediately recognise this for what it is - a land grab. Every now and then someone thinks that because computers are getting smaller there must be a stack of room available for them in our …

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  1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Ah, the myth of the rational person

    If only we were more prepared to admit how good we are at manipulating ourselves for other people's benefits…

    Yes, I think you're right: a year's subscription to your shady scanning software is just what we need and what a fantastic blouse you're wearing!

    10 0 Reply
    1. MonkeyCee
      Reply Icon

      Re: Ah, the myth of the rational person

      Truly rational people are scary. Psychopaths are a good example, as they are often extremely rational, and only deal in "reality". So if a behavior is considered negative, but the punishment is minimal compared to the reward (eg tax evasion, white collar crime) then rational people would do the behavior. Normal humans will also do it, but need to justify it (everyone else is, duty to shareholders etc), sociopaths will just do it, and think everyone else is a fool for not.

      13 1 Reply
      1. raving angry loony
        Reply Icon

        Re: Ah, the myth of the rational person

        sociopaths will just do it, and think everyone else is a fool for not.

        Yeah, we often call those people "CEO", sometimes even "Prime Minister", often just "rich". Our society is designed to reward people like this. I wonder if this is an evolution thing, or if we're just on a one-way trip to oblivion.

        2 0 Reply
        1. DWRandolph
          Reply Icon
          Holmes

          Re: Ah, the myth of the rational person

          Here is a slant on why the "system" night not want rational people;

          http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=4150

          innumeracy as the major driver of economic growth

          2 0 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ah, the myth of the rational person

      If only we were more prepared to admit how good we are at manipulating ourselves for other people's benefits…

      It's the only reason Microsoft and Oracle still sell - rational it ain't.

      6 0 Reply
    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Childcatcher

      Re: Ah, the myth of the rational person

      It's funny how IT and the drugs industry are pretty much the only industrys that describe their market as "users".

      Windows anyone? Go on it's 10, it's the latest and much prettier than the last one. Ooooh look at the powershell thingie that is oh so objectively oriented and just plain odd and not because those Linux bods have stuff but we want the same stuff and we have to differentiate and improve and be similarly different, and stuff.

      So our start button thing that isn't a start button is really odd, well you wanted that, and that is what you shall sort of have because that is is what you want via our focus group, we think.

      Mmmm, I shot the sheriff, but I didn't smoke the deputy ... feck ... lsng it ... smeek ... yeah anny virus thing 's good thng.

      7 0 Reply
    4. wayne 8
      Reply Icon

      Re: Ah, the myth of the rational person

      Marketing Tool, Mark 1.

      0 0 Reply
  2. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Quote : "Fair enough. Though one of my recurring dreams is that I take an axe to people who annoy me with pseudo science and huggy-feely mumbo-jumbo in a course that I've been made to attend against my will. Does anyone else have those dreams?"

    Is it just me, or does every techie have that thought while on a work mandated course ?

    52 0 Reply
    1. Rich 11
      Reply Icon

      Is it just me, or does every techie have that thought while on a work mandated course?

      And on two-thirds of staff development sessions with a guest speaker.

      I've lost count of the number of times over the years I've had to rebut the validity of the Briggs-Myers test. And as for fucking graphology...

      17 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Ah, the joys of explaining to the presenter that the Myers-Briggs fails as it is only a sub-set of the Jungian design and that age/experience causes the simplistic questioning to become invalidated as a mature person has modulated their extremes into manageable behaviour patterns.

        I loved every single second plus the looks of loathing from my colleagues who had not prepared and so were required to plough through the pile of *()&^

        Still brings a smile to my face

        15 0 Reply
        1. small and stupid
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          Excellent. Do you have a good cite ? Just to hammer the nails home with maximum force.

          5 0 Reply
      2. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Childcatcher

        My wifes a cook; she has just been told by her boss that she has to go on a course about tackling FGM.....

        Can she pack a hatchet??

        A hint as to where she lies her trade.

        4 0 Reply
        1. psychonaut
          Reply Icon

          Fucking Gigantic Mushrooms?

          6 0 Reply
          1. Sir Runcible Spoon
            Reply Icon
            Joke

            "Fucking Gigantic Mushrooms?"

            They only look that way after you've eaten them*

            *Of COURSE I'm referring to the mushrooms, filthy child.

            9 0 Reply
      3. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        What do you mean?

        Shirley you're not telling me that you can't sort 7 billion+ people into 16 neat little groups that are at the same time both meaninglessly broad, but also usefully specific?

        0 0 Reply
    2. Inventor of the Marmite Laser Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Why wait for a work mandated course ?

      7 0 Reply
      1. Sir Runcible Spoon
        Reply Icon

        This sounds more list a meeting of Psychotics Anonymous :)

        5 0 Reply
        1. Mark 85
          Reply Icon

          This sounds more list a meeting of Psychotics Anonymous :)

          This is IT. Given the PHB's we have, I thought those meetings were mandatory to prevent bad things. Bad things, like having the plod show up, getting your name in the paper, missing the pub call due to meetings with a lawyer.

          2 0 Reply
        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          This sounds more list a meeting of Psychotics Anonymous

          There is a difference? :)

          3 0 Reply
    3. Primus Secundus Tertius
      Reply Icon

      @Boris

      I do wonder if the so-called speed awareness courses are like that.

      2 0 Reply
    4. TitterYeNot
      Reply Icon
      Joke

      "Is it just me, or does every techie have that thought while on a work mandated course ?"

      Well into the second day of a compulsory ITIL course in sodding Milton Keynes, in my daydreams I did start considering the feasability of using the petrol can in my car, a gas canister from a local camping shop and a grease gun and associated tubing from Halfords to make a nicely compact little flame thrower.

      I think it would have brightened up everyone's day...

      (Joke icon as I don't fancy the plod breaking down my door because they think I sound a bit terroristy.)

      10 0 Reply
      1. Andy The Hat Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Can you be a bit terroristy? Isn't that like a bit pregnant or a bit of a twat?

        There should be a scale - what about Brian (a very naughty boy) via Goldfinger (a misguided teenager) and Hans Gruber (a properly bad boy) to Nero (properly annoyed)?

        6 0 Reply
    5. Lee D Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Have never been sent on work training.

      Certainly not externally.

      I work in schools, so I've had to sit through - say - an hour of how to not beat up small children ("Child Protection"), or how not to kill myself when using a 20cm high step, but that's not the same and it's almost always in-house.

      Strangely, all the talk of training evaporates when you explain quite how much use an MCSE is going to be for someone who's run Microsoft networks for a living for the last 15 years, was originally hired because all the previous guys (who all had certifications) made an absolute hash of stuff, and then suggest alternative, more appropriate courses pitched at the correct skill level, which cost almost ten times as much. Amazing how much it jumps down the priority list after hovering somewhere near the top when they thought it was just a case of drop £500 in someone's lap.

      "Continuing Professional Development". A.K.A. "keep doing your job".

      3 0 Reply
      1. MonkeyCee
        Reply Icon

        Oh training budgets....

        The general rule I found for training (in UK and NZ) is that you can only get trained for something that is roughly 1.5 levels below your current skill level. So if you're a sysadmin, you can do basic level MCP stuff, or customer service and communication courses.

        The dutch do it the other way around, where it's a real pisser to become a "proper" employee, but once there you can train to your hearts content, as long as you stay committed to the company. Quite a few of my fellow students are now interning, and almost all of them are expected to do a masters as part od their professional development.

        I'm also amazed how quickly things go from "required for role" to "nice to have" when you point out that if it's a business requirement, then the business should be paying.

        9 0 Reply
        1. Number6
          Reply Icon

          Re: Oh training budgets....

          I'm also amazed how quickly things go from "required for role" to "nice to have" when you point out that if it's a business requirement, then the business should be paying.

          Yes, had a variation on that too. Many moons ago, the my employer was trying to tidy up the software environment, removing all the dodgy stuff and giving everyone a legal copy of WordPerfect (for DOS, so that long ago). We'd been using it for several months by that point, a whole group of engineers writing a lot of procurement specifications, so between us we'd pretty much figured out all the useful features. The catch with the legal upgrade was that we were all required to go on the WP training course, and reading the syllabus we realised that it wasn't going to tell us anything we didn't already know how to do. We finally escaped from this one when the engineering manager realised that all the course fees were going to come out of his budget and suddenly we didn't have to do the course before getting our legal WP. This is the same company at which I filled out that training feedback form I mentioned elsewhere.

          6 0 Reply
          1. Grunchy Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: Oh training budgets....

            I used that old Wordperfect software for DOS, it still runs perfectly today.

            Why upgrade when the old stuff still runs? It does still run.

            1 0 Reply
        2. Andy A
          Reply Icon
          Thumb Down

          Re: Oh training budgets....

          At my previous employer, it was suggested that I go on a one-day Windows 7 course. You know the thing - trail a hundred miles to somewhere even worse than your own office, sit on uncomfortable chairs and suffer Powerpoint Poisoning. You don't even get to play with a PC.

          As someone who had used every version of Windows from 0.94 (yes, before Windows 1.0) onwards, had programmed real applications (not just VB) and had been actually using W7 on dozens of machines for 18 months, I turned down the offer.

          No need for the company to waste my time and their money, was there?

          Well, come the inevitable rounds of redundancies in this outsourcer, my "score" was reduced because I had "refused training appropriate to my career path".

          2 0 Reply
        3. BurtDakarax
          Reply Icon

          Re: Oh training budgets....

          The general rule I found for training (in UK) is that you can only get trained for something that ... you will never use!

          2 0 Reply
    6. Number6
      Reply Icon

      I once filled in a post-course feedback form:

      Q. What did you expect to gain from this course?

      A. Nothing

      Q. What did you gain from this course?

      A. Nothing

      I had complained loudly before going about how the course was well below the level at which I was working at the time but because someone needed to tick a box somewhere, I had to waste company money attending. I don't think they sent me on any more after that one though. No axes or hatchets were involved though.

      11 0 Reply
    7. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      .Is it just me, or does every techie have that thought while on a work mandated course ?

      I *used* to, but my current PHB dare not send me on such a course..

      I think it's the mainly evil grin I sport that does it when my attendance at such a mandated gathering is mooted..(I'm known to be a somewhat 'awkward bastard' when it comes to time wasters).

      1 0 Reply
      1. Marshalltown
        Reply Icon

        +1 - Ah yes. I was once described as lacking a "diplomacy gene" after informing a Navy person that the "official US Navy spelling" of a certain word "looked illiterate." I had said that it looked illiterate before he informed me that HE PERSONALLY had been the advocate of the change and was proud of it. When I did not moderate my stance at all - simply adding the word "still" to my previous opinion, he apparently complained to my employer who then offered the genetic analysis.

        3 0 Reply
        1. Sir Runcible Spoon
          Reply Icon
          Coat

          Diplomacy - the art of pretending you aren't an arsehole by putting up with other arseholes.

          4 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Buying just because

    One of my former managers had this rather wasteful quirk that when I asked him to buy one or two of something because they might be useful he'd buy 10 or 20 instead on the basis that if they might be useful we'd better have plenty of them, even if it was an item that only might be useful occasionally.

    He would also feel compelled if ordering say 20 of something and the supplier showed as having say 27 in stock, to order to those 27 instead.

    4 0 Reply
  4. Efros

    Sounds like

    "O-levels in Psychology and Hugging, a did-not-complete in Reality and an A-level in talking bollocks."

    The current crop of educational theorists who are bollocking up the education systems of the USa and the UK.

    19 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sounds like

      As someone who actually did some psychology as part of a Natural Sciences degree in a university where psychology was part of the science faculty, and did things involving rats, electrodes and neurones you have no idea how much this type of 'psychology' annoys me.

      It's all "this bar is bigger than this one so must be better". Give me an experiment with demonstrable reliability and validity with regression testing or GTFO.

      14 0 Reply
      1. KA1AXY
        Reply Icon
        Alert

        Re: Sounds like

        As someone who actually did some psychology as part of a Natural Sciences degree in a university where psychology was part of the science faculty, and did things involving rats, electrodes and neurones you have no idea how much this type of 'psychology' annoys me.

        I hope you remembered to mount a scratch monkey...or rat, whichever was appropriate

        11 0 Reply
        1. Dave 32
          Reply Icon
          Pint

          Scratch Monkey

          I haven't thought about scratch monkeys in years. I actually snorted when I saw that. Well done, sir, well done.

          Dave

          4 0 Reply
        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Sounds like

          I had not thought about mounting monkeys, for years, thanks for that....

          4 0 Reply
      2. Number6
        Reply Icon

        Re: Sounds like

        We got exposed to psychology course at uni. Being engineering students, we mostly took the piss out of it, and it was clear that in most cases you could select a bunch of studies to support a viewpoint and then select a different bunch to support the opposite viewpoint. It wasn't all useless though, I think it taught us all how to recognise bullshit at an early stage and take appropriate countermeasures.

        14 0 Reply
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How did you manage

    To describe these idiots without reference to the word "leverage" use as a verb?

    3 0 Reply
  6. Roger Greenwood

    "black A4 photocopy paper"

    Sweet.

    10 0 Reply
    1. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Reply Icon

      Re: "black A4 photocopy paper"

      All we need now is some silver toner

      8 0 Reply
      1. Trygve Henriksen
        Reply Icon

        Re: "black A4 photocopy paper"

        There's a couple of 'print your own PCB' kits that uses silver in the ink.

        2 0 Reply
    2. Flocke Kroes Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: "black A4 photocopy paper"

      There was a proposal to save money (and the environment) by missing out the bleach stage of recycling paper, then fill ink jet printer cartridges with bleach. I think the results would have been boring black and white reports transformed with pretty colours and the price per gram of bleach competing with iridium.

      6 0 Reply
    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "black A4 photocopy paper"

      You just need one of this:

      https://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/Pro/SeriesStylusProWT7900/Overview.do

      Ask Gisele if you can buy one... even if your company just prints invoices.

      1 0 Reply
      1. TRT Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: "black A4 photocopy paper"

        We used to do this. You put a sheet of impression foil over the printed paper and re-melt the toner in a heated press before peeling the impression foil off.

        1 0 Reply
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I was lucky..

    I met my own 'Giselle' once. As a youngster, I wanted a Sharp PC1211, and discovered that it would be cheaper for me to travel halfway across the country by train to buy a shop-soiled one from a certain company (which shall remain nameless to spare everyones blushes) than it would be to nip into the local branch of Tandys and buy the badge-engineered version of the same thing.

    I was in my twenties, a geekete, enamoured by science and IT. My head was filled with all the cool things I could try to get my very own little computer to do, on the train journey there. Then I walked through the door of the shop, and BAM! The lady running/owning the shop was a vision of loveliness and my poor little and still excitable libido wasn't coping well. I barely managed to explain what I'd come to buy through my embarassed stammering, I'm sure I'd turned bright pink. What a lovely woman, she acted as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening (aside from a gentle smile in my direction - she clearly realised she was faced with an almost dumbstruck babydyke), and sold me the PC1211, and didn't try to sell me one of the PET computers that whilst I would have loved one, and my credit card could have handled, my bank manager probably would have been a bit cross with me about. I swear, she probably could have sold me anything, right then. But she didn't - what a star!

    40 1 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I was lucky..

      I still hate my bosses because a few years ago they halted a project that would have required me to interact a lot with a lovely sales manager of a supplier....

      5 0 Reply
    2. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Reply Icon

      Re: I was lucky..

      +1 for the new reference :) "dumbstruck babydyke"

      20 0 Reply
    3. Paul Crawford Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: I was lucky..

      Why did I read that as "a genital smile in my direction"?

      5 0 Reply

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