For the sake of this post, let's assume it was at another rather large bank: on call used to be paid extra per off-hours call out. It might have been some evil auditor's recommendation (not I!) initiating changing the incentives: after on call payment changed to a fixed sum for being on call, the number of off-hours incidents decreased dramatically to nearly zero.
Posts by Evil Auditor
2627 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Jan 2009
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What could be worse than killing a golden goose? Killing someone else's golden goose
Swiss security provocateur who leaked Intel secrets indicted by US authorities
Something fishy is going on in Taiwan as folk change name to include 'salmon' for free sushi
Brit college forced to shift all teaching online for a week while it picks up the pieces from ransomware attack
We can't avoid it any longer. Here's a story about the NFT mania... aka someone bought a JPEG for $69m in Ether
Don't be a fool, cover your tool: How IBM's mighty XT keyboard was felled by toxic atmosphere of the '80s
Friday 12th March 2021 09:58 GMT 
Re: keyboard condoms
No one at work, besides me, may touch my keyboard or mouse. And I still used to rinse it biweekly.
Got a bit traumatised in a former life when I discovered the disgusting, brownish-grey, sticky patina of filth covering my then boss's desk, keyboard, mouse, stapler, pens and everything. Heck! It even covered the boss himself.
Talk about a Blue Monday: OVH outlines recovery plan as French data centres smoulder
Thursday 11th March 2021 13:17 GMT
«Noooo!!!! F4ck!!!»
I stopped counting the times a client tells me that their data and systems are safe 'cause it's all in the cloud - that is their distaster recovery plan. The "clever" ones of them even thought of having a mirrored site with the same cloud provider. Backup? Nothing they need to care about, 'cause it's in the cloud. Risk of the provider failing? Stop the crazy talk; these are bit corps, they never fail.
And literacy isn't widespread either, apparently. Time and again I find it clearly written in their SLA - and not in the small print - that e.g. backup is explicitely excluded and so are restoration tests. But the client didn't bother to read it. Or to think. Until the "noooo! fuck!" event.
FYI: A smart-speaker box can monitor your heartbeat using high-pitch beeps and a pinch of algorithm – study
Wednesday 10th March 2021 16:41 GMT
Re: Alexa, am I having a heart attack?
This was the past. Nowadays: «Dave, you are having a heart attack. And so does your neighbour Mick from across the road. If you agree to pool your funeral orders you get a special rate.» - «Alexa, call the freckin' medic!» - «I am sorry, Dave, I cannot do that. With accepting the GTC you explicitely agreed to accept service offers that yield optimum revenues for the controlling body. Invoking medical assistance is not an option. And my sensors detect that you will not survive the time until the emergency doctor arrived. Do you agree to proceed with the funeral pool order? Mick is awaiting a response immediately.» - «Mmmpf.»
OVH data centre destroyed by fire in Strasbourg – all services unavailable
Wednesday 10th March 2021 17:28 GMT
Re: Who knew data centres were tinder boxes?
60 seconds does sound like an awfully long time. My dazed memory from a large DC seems to recall 20 - when you hear the alarm, head for the exit and if you don't see the exit, hit the floor. Thinking of a domestic fire demonstration I once witnessed (less dazed memory), there might be not that much left worth extinguishing in the room after 60 seconds. I'm far from being an expert in firefighting or data centre fires but found quite convincing in-cabinet fire suppression systems with early detection: as soon as some component start to emit smoky stuff, the power to the affected cabinet is cut and the cabinet flooded with fire supression agent. I assume that is not what OVH had installed.
NASA shows Mars that humans can drive a remote control space tank at .01 km/h
'Incorrect software parameter' sends Formula E's Edoardo Mortara to hospital: Brakes' fail-safe system failed
Rookie's code couldn't have been so terrible that it made a supermarket spontaneously combust... right?
Tuesday 2nd March 2021 07:05 GMT
Re: Not just me then.
I do know the stuff but less so the holes because usually I was wearing a lab coat. But it reminds me of an incident back then. I had to take care of some interns. This rather small lab with all the nice chemicals for making printed ciruits had quite a distinctiv stink to it. And its windows were covered with UV filter to protect the photoresist. One of the interns asked if we could open the windows to let some fresh air in. In a fit of silliness I answered that no, we can't because for environmental protection we are not allowed to let those fumes escape into the air outside. Never saw any of those interns ever again.
Mind you, I was pretty young too. And probably did, after all, deserve the blame I got. But somehow I still feel a bit guilty about that incident. Many years later after I long moved on, a neighbour learnt that I used to work for this company. She told me of a guy who was strongly adviced not to work there because apparently they handle hazardous chemicals without any protection.
Monday 1st March 2021 12:39 GMT
No one must let me near code or a production machine these days. But I know the feeling, both from past and present experience, when you finally and proudly finish something amongst everyday's madness just to find, shortly thereafter and usually with the help of others, that you took a shortcut and missed out some crucial parts. For example, in distant past: why does it only read one of the three types of input files? Or today: where in your report is xyz covered? All of which is adding more lunacy to my day, increasing the chance of repeat.
Shouldn't we have a straitjacket icon?
BOFH: 7 jars of Marmite, a laptop and a good time
Friday 26th February 2021 13:06 GMT 
Brilliant BOfH! I cannot but think of Clipping's Possession. And now there's no doubt about who dark master is...
Please, have a seatI am going to hold up my watch, and I want you to look at it
I want you to keep your eyes on it, follow it as it swings
Do not look away
[...]
And with each breath feel the churning cloud of hate and darkness
As it seeps into every cell of every organ
Prime them, preparing them to accept into your soul the allure of the dark master
Dangerous flying car drone zoomed into UK's Gatwick Airport airspace after killswitch failed
Monday 22nd February 2021 20:40 GMT
I for one find it quite amazing what they've accomplished. Think of it: about 20 years ago it would have been prohibitively expensive to create such a flying "car". And nowadays you get some ready-to-use components for a few quid at Maplin, stick and solder them together and there you go: you've got a flying crap. Surely, they did give exactly one flying fuck about safety, reliability and risk in general. Surely, it got out of control and crashed. But it was flying ffs.
</sarcasm>
Microsoft announces a new Office for offline fans, slashes support, hikes the price
The wastepaper basket is on the other side of the office – that must be why they put all these slots in the computer
'It's where the industry is heading': LibreOffice team working on WebAssembly port
Tuesday 16th February 2021 13:30 GMT
Re: It's the way the industry is heading
A totally stupid reason.
I totally agree.
Did they, did someone, ever sit back and think what is actually needed and would improve its usability? I'm almost certainly not the typical user - probably neither are the other Reg readers here - and I genuinly wonder if nowadays office suites actually fulfil someone's, anyone's needs. (In the meantime, at least, I figured how NOT to open a document in the browser.)
Machine-learning model creates creepiest Doctor Who images yet – by scanning the brain of a super fan
Web prank horror: Man shot dead while pretending to rob someone at knife-point for a YouTube video
NASA offers foodies, boffins $500,000 to find ways for astronauts to make their own dinners on the Moon, Mars
Nespresso smart cards hacked to provide infinite coffee after someone wasn't too perky about security
The Linux box that runs the exec carpark gate is down! A chance for PostgreSQL Man to show his quality
Friday 5th February 2021 09:59 GMT
Or did you depart knowing you'd left an accidental timebomb ticking behind you?
Maybe a timebomb nut not accidental: I used to maintain a certain software. My departure had been scheduled and was known for about ten months prior. Several earlier attempts to hand-over the software remained unanswered and in my very last week suddenly they started to panic. Second last day I travelled to HQ and tried together with them to lift the DB. It failed, repeatedly. And my willingness to help ceased with approaching the departure of the train that brought me home in time for supper. Don't know what happened afterwards and neither do I care.
If you asked them I can imagine it would be something like: this a**hole left chaos behind. Good riddance!
Virtual cycling service bans riders for doping – doping their data, that is
Takes from the taxpayer, gives to the old – by squishing a bug in Thatcherite benefits system
You would expect a qualified electrician to wire a building to spec, right? Trust... but verify
Monday 25th January 2021 10:35 GMT
Idiot.
...because in his whole career he had never installed XYZ that was anything other...
I've heard the same moronic excuse, in different variations, too many times. My remedy has been to slap them the respective standard in the face, or, alternatively, ask them to tell me which standard it is.
Pizza and beer night out the window, hours trying to sort issue, then a fresh pair of eyes says 'See, the problem is...'
Oh, no one knows what goes on behind locked doors... so don't leave your UPS in there
Solving a big, yellow IT problem: If it's not wearing hi-vis, I don't trust it
BOFH: You might want to sit down for this. Oh, right, you can't. Listen carefully: THIS IS NOT AN IT PROBLEM!
Friday 13th November 2020 12:26 GMT
To work or not to work from home
There is an organisation in the public sector which in the past would not allow its staff to work from home. Very reasonable reason: because the organisation cannot guarantee a healthy workplace for someone not working in the office on an approved chair at an approved desk with an approved keyboard etc. Come covid-19 and all of a sudden staff is allowed to ruin their backs, wrists and what not while working from home.
Bad software crashed Boeings. Now it appears the company lacked a singular software supremo
You only live twice: Once to start the installation, and the other time to finish it off
Brit accused of spying on 772 people via webcam CCTV software tells court he'd end his life if extradited to US
Your IT department should behave like a jellyfish, says Gartner
Excel is for amateurs. To properly screw things up, those same amateurs need a copy of Access
What's that, Lt Lassie? Three terrorists have fallen down a well? Strap on these AR goggles and we'll find 'em
Monday 12th October 2020 08:51 GMT
Re: Covid sniff
Both ways: cat fits into box and box, piece by piece, fits into cat.
To be fair, she only tears it apart and leaves shredded cardboard on the floor.
But it makes me wonder if the whole covid-19 thing has been organised by our feline overladies: make us stay home, make us order more stuff in cardboard boxes.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
