Protectors of Moonglow

Virtual Return (from Dmitriy)
A few years back, I worked as a software developer for a company that resold prepaid airtime cards to retail outlets. We didn't actually buy physical cards from the provider, only Card Numbers and PINs; it was our job to print the barcodes on the physical cards, and ship those to the retailers.

One time, our system rejected an order of "cards" from a airtime provider we'll call "Sherizon". The number of cards, airtime amount, etc. didn't match the order that we had placed. Obviously, Sherizon's sales rep sent us another reseller's order. When this happened with other providers, standard operating procedure was for the provider to deactive the PINs and send us a new list. Sherion's process, however, was slightly different. This is the email I received back from their sales rep.

Hello Dmitriy,

Thank you for catching this error! Please send me back
the batch ePIN file *right away*, and we'll get a new
one out to you right away.

Thank You,
Sarah M---Somewhat confused, Dmitriy replied back.

Sarah: I'm sorry, can you confirm... you sent us a CSV
file. Do you want me to email that back?Sarah responded:

Yes; please send back the CSV file that was attached to the original
email instead of running it through your system. Obviously, those were
intended for another reseller, and we wouldn't want you accidently
selling their cards.Though I was tempted to explain the fundamentals of email and file copying, I decided not to argue. When I replied back with the incorrect CSV file, she was very appreciative that I "returned" the file to her.

Gnihihi

Ich hau mich ab

Mark Mooney works in a fairly standard internal application development environment. His group writes code, packages it up, and sends it off the Infrastructure Group for deployment to the QA servers. Like many organizations, Mark's group has virtually no access to these servers. If they're lucky, they can use the application as an end-user would. If they're really lucky, they can directly access the server log files.

But all this is fairly standard practice: Sarbanes-Oxley, corporate espionage, today's world, terrorists, malicious employees, super villains, etc. But what sets Mark's story apart is the difficulty his group has with the Infrastructure folks. In Mark's organization, the Infrastructure Group is a part of the Network Operations Division, which in turn is part of the Technology Assets Unit, which in turn is part of the Internal Assets Department. Basically, what that means is that Mark has a much easier time exercising his "six degrees" to get in touch with Kevin Bacon than he does using the "official chain of communication" to work with the Infrastructure Group.

In addition to the communication gap with the Infrastructure Group, there's also a bit of a skill-set gap. Because that group is comprised only of network engineers, they'll often have a difficult time doing "developmenty" stuff, such as, "add CorporateAccounting to the COM+ Role Store on all MTS Servers." That will often lead to a failed deployment and require Mark's group to go through several days of begging for temporary access and "blind debugging." So, in an effort to avoid all this, Mark's group started putting together incredibly detailed, click-by-click instructions. Unfortunately, it didn't help.

After several more failed deployments, Mark's group came to the conclusion that the Infrastructure Group was simply not reading the instructions. A stern email to "follow the instructions in full" was sent up the chain, across the departments, and down the chain. A stern reply of "that's what we've been doing" was sent back up the chain, back across the departments, and back down again. Obviously, the "official chain of communication" wasn't going to get them anywhere.

Many failed deployment later, the Director of the Technology Assets Unit sent a very stern email to the Director of Application Development, demanding a meeting between their groups to discuss this problem. One of the Network Operations managers was furious and this latest failed deployment was "the final straw"

In their meeting, in front of the Directors and Vice President, the Network Operations manager blasted the Development group, saying how completely unprofessional it was to send a document with nothing but "Wingdings gibberish" instead of installation instructions. He professed that, despite what Development says, the Infrastructure Group always reads and follows every single word of the installation guide, and that the failed deployments were a result of Development's utter incompetence in making useful instructions.

Timidly, one of the Development managers admitted to making the change. The Network Operations manager fired back, demanding to know how he could possibly think that insulting his team like this, amidst all the deployment problems, would be a funny practical joke. "Well," the Development manager replied, "it's funny because we've been releasing our guides like that for the past twelve deployments."

Das letzte erinnert mich grad irgendwie an gewisse Chinesen und eine VoIP-Anlage die nicht funktionieren wollte

Eine EX-Kollegin von mir arbeitet früher in der IT von WLZ Raiffeisen AG in Stuttgart. Die betreuen in Baden-Württemberg die ganzen Raiffeisen-Märkte, zu ihrer Verantwortung zählten die Kassen-Computer und die darauf installierte Software. Nun ist die "Kundschaft" nicht immer ganz einfach, die haben es ja eher mit Bauern zu tun als mit Computern. Ganz schlimm war ein Markt auf der Alb. Von der Alb rah (kommt von der Schwäbischen Alb) ist bei uns ein Beriff für jemanden der eher geistig in der Kreisliga spielt und nicht bessonders helle ist. Ein oft falsches Vorurteil, in dem besonderen Falle der Marktleiterin jedoch mehr als zutreffend. Da gabs öfters Antworten auf Fragen wie, "Was steht den auf ihrem Bildschirm?" "Ein Blumentopf, soll ich ihn runternehmen?"
Jedenfalls hat dort ein Softwareupdate nicht richtig funktioniert, das mit einer 3,5" Diskette an alle Märkte versandt worden ist. Nach stundenlangem telefonieren und ohne Besserung, jedenfalls kam meine Kollegin zu folgendem Schluß: "Seien sie so gut und kopieren sie mir die Diskette und senden sie sie mir zu, bitte."
Eine Viertelstunde später fragte der Abteilungslehrling wer den ein Fax erwarte er habe eines ohne Empfängervermerk. Nachdem meine Kollegin keines erwartete brauchte es eine Weile bis auch sie sich das Fax anschaute und verblüfft feststellte das dies eine "Kopie der Updatediskette" war, das offensichtlich an sie gesandt wurde. Zur Verwunderung aller half dies sogar das Problem zu lösen, da dorthin das falsche Update gesandt worden war und deshalb der Prozeß nicht laufen konnte, was man anhand des Ettikettes sehen konnte.
Von WLZ stammt auch ein anderer Spruch: "Gib mir mal Blablübluppp" "Sag das Zauberwort!" "Arschloch"