Trivial things that make you annoyed beyond expectations?

[ebikeerwidnes]

This is why we keep everything on a USB stick that we carry around with us.

Ah yes

the number of people that have appeared at my door begging me to resurrect important things off their USB stick
(have I mentioned teachers??)


and the sort of things I have dug out of the connector on the USB stick of teenage girls is nobody's business!!!

(yes a school- what those girls have in their bags is something I just don;t want to know!!!!)

 

[Profpointy]

Ha! I remember one day back in the mid 90s when I used "delete *.*" to save time on a company PC. Every day is a learning day. 😂
It went exactly as you think it did, with the slight exception of keeping my job.

A generally very capable boss did that. Strictly speaking, it was the unix equivalent rm -r * which works its way down the entire directory. He needed to be "root" to do this so had to type in su which changes you to super user ( it does require a password) Unfortunately he accidentally typed in su . The . means it runs the login script for root not merely giving you the power and changed the directory from the one he was in (and wanting to clear) to the top level directory of the whole machine. Deleted everything including UNIX itself.

He knew instantly what he had done, and as the machine was still running he asked everyone to not do anything dodgy that might crash the system, as it would not start up with the operating system missing (but would still run). He intended to try and recover from yesterday's back up. Unfortunately someone forgot that a particularly shonky debugger we were using tended to cause system crashes so that was that. It was all recovered but was a big pain in the arse, made worse by having to beg help from the operations team who hated us having root access. It was a development machine not a live customer machine so it wasn't unreasonable to have root access

 

[First Aspect]

So based on the last 300 pages or so, IT people get irritated by people who don't understand IT.

This is ironic because everyone else is irritated by IT people.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

A generally very capable boss did that. Strictly speaking, it was the unix equivalent rm -r * which works its way down the entire directory. He needed to be "root" to do this so had to type in su which changes you to super user ( it does require a password) Unfortunately he accidentally typed in su . The . means it runs the login script for root not merely giving you the power and changed the directory from the one he was in (and wanting to clear) to the top level directory of the whole machine. Deleted everything including UNIX itself.

He knew instantly what he had done, and as the machine was still running he asked everyone to not do anything dodgy that might crash the system, as it would not start up with the operating system missing (but would still run). He intended to try and recover from yesterday's back up. Unfortunately someone forgot that a particularly shonky debugger we were using tended to cause system crashes so that was that. It was all recovered but was a big pain in the arse, made worse by having to beg help from the operations team who hated us having root access. It was a development machine not a live customer machine so it wasn't unreasonable to have root access

AH yes - typing erros

I have a very experienced Analyst who was put in charge of doing the backup
It started with the command "CV !MSM01 -RN BACKUP"

and later on
"CV !MSM01 - FT BACKUP"

very similar - and he got them the wrong way round
and ended up formatting - the second version with FT - the current development disk - witha months work on it


which is exactly why the team that I used to be incharge of had an automated script that had about a million checks in it
but this teams thought was "not necessary"


only took me a few days to recover stuff by a mixture of knowledge, research talent and unrefined guesswork - mostly the latter!


even then - teachers were worse (and I was a teacher for half my career!!!)

 

[ColinJ]

So based on the last 300 pages or so, IT people get irritated by people who don't understand IT.

This is ironic because everyone else is irritated by IT people.

This lad was an irritating IT person. Mainly because he thought that he knew something about IT!

Aaargh - that sounds like the IT trainee we had who used to sit on PC keyboards to try to get malfunctioning PCs to work... ***






*** I asked his supervisor why he did this. Apparently he fell against a keyboard once and the reluctant PC came to life. Clearly, the answer to all PC problems was to whack the keyboard!

 

[mikeIow]

AH yes - typing erros

<dull post>
My very first experience of data recovery.
Late 1980s….I was the ‘unix guy’ in our local authority tech support team, at a time where there were no widely used backup applications - I wrote my own scripts, tested them, etc.

One department had ‘gone their own way’, refusing our help 🤷‍♂️
6 months later, they called for help - their system had crashed, drive failed & they needed to restore from their backups….they had managed to install a new drive, but couldn’t get their data back 🧐

I checked the DAT tapes (cpio/dd, etc) - couldn’t see any data on it 👀
Asked for a printed copy of their backup script.
They had been writing to “/dev/rmt/cOd0s0t3”.
Instead of “/dev/rmt/c0d0s0t3”.
Yes…a typo, with a letter O instead of a zero 🤦‍♂️

Every night they had their cleaner (!) swapping out the blank, empty, unwritten tape for a new one, whilst “backing up” to a file on their hard disk that had failed 😳

Bzzzzt 🤣
Start from new - everything lost. There was nothing I could do.
Their test of data loss (delete some files, restore from tape) had worked…but only because they had restored from the file which was still on the hard disk - the tape was never touched during any of their testing 🫣
<dull post off>

Hence I took an early interest in data protection.

Sorry, this feels like it has derailed the thread massively. No more from me!!

Trivial things?
As we are in the mountains skiing this month…snowboarders 🫣
Often a nightmare getting off a lift - I refuse to sit next to any, after being taken out when one got off, & they randomly stop in the middle of a ski run 🙄

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

So based on the last 300 pages or so, IT people get irritated by people who don't understand IT.

This is ironic because everyone else is irritated by IT people.

SAY IT ISN;T TRUE!!!!!


sorry - anyway - to avoid the wrath of the mods due to "Holy Thread Derailment Batman" situation

things that are annoying - train bookings

now in the old days I just turned up to a train station and bought a ticket and got on the next train like thing that turned up with the right station name on the front
new fangled techy stuff meant this sometimes involves a "magic box" on the platform
but - as you can tell from the above - it would be embarrassing if I couldn;t cope with one of those

now "they" seem to want me to book online for a specific train - and even a specific seat - before I "travel"

then print it out - because if your phone doesn;t work when they ask for proof then apparently they get all grumpy

and even then - I have to specific the exact train I want and then book a seat

only to find that the "ticket" I end up with it an "any time off peak" ticket that can be used on any train
and there are no bookable seats on the train anyway


and then I have to print the "ticket" myself or rely on my phone to be able to display the "ticket" if an inspector wants to see it - and in a way that their machine can scan it

I put "ticket" in quotes becsue to my mind a ticket is a little bit of paper/cardboard that it printed out by the company and given to me



and I have no idea how to pay on a bus nowadays if I just want a single ride in town and not a deal that covers the whole area fo a number of days
chucking some coins in teh general direction of the driver doesn;t seem to work anymore!

 

[Andy in Germany]

Ah yes

the number of people that have appeared at my door begging me to resurrect important things off their USB stick
(have I mentioned teachers??)


and the sort of things I have dug out of the connector on the USB stick of teenage girls is nobody's business!!!

(yes a school- what those girls have in their bags is something I just don;t want to know!!!!)

In my last workplace, the IT manager (who also formed the entire IT department) carried a set of jewellers screwdrivers for digging muck out of USB sticks and phone plugs because we had to carry our phones all the time and all manner of crud got in there.

As ti saving on USB sticks, we don't really like doing it, not least because the computers run at half speed when using them, but as my boss said at a recent meeting with the IT department: make our system work as it should and this won't be necessary.

 

[ColinJ]

In my last workplace, the IT manager (who also formed the entire IT department) carried a set of jewellers screwdrivers for digging muck out of USB sticks and phone plugs because we had to carry our phones all the time and all manner of crud got in there.

I spotted a phone at a bargain BIN price on Ebay and managed to wangle that down a bit more on the basis that "a great phone, except the microphone doesn't work" isn't really that great! I had a feeling about it and I was right... The hole leading to the mic was blocked with fluff! It only took me a few seconds work with a pin to clean it out.

 

[Pinno718]

In keeping with the thread title (every single clause): Richard Madeley.

I am on the verge of being more than annoyed by him since learning all about his antics in the Chris Rea thread.
Once I felt blind, now I can see.

 

[Jameshow]

However much you stear a thread away from IT issues it inevitably returns to IT issues! 🤣

 

[Andy in Germany]

However much you stear a thread away from IT issues it inevitably returns to IT issues! 🤣

I was thinking about this: I suspect that it's because when I have a problem in my workshop I get annoyed and if it's my fault, so do my colleagues, but in the next workshop it's not noticed.

However, if the IT department has a problem or in the case of my workplace, messes up, then everyone notices, because everyone is negatively affected and can't do their job properly, which a lot more pi§§ed off people...

 

[Chris S]

People in leprechaun hats thinking that I'm part of their Saint Patrick's day celebrations because I'm wearing a khaki coloured fleece.

 

[First Aspect]

My wife got a £60 parking ticket for putting the wrong 4 hour window and the wrong one out of our two number plates into the machine.

Not annoyed at the parking company.

 

[Way-Out-West]

Appearing to sneeze more frequently whilst having backache, causing shooting pain. Trying to hold back the sneeze is annoying too.