Re: OT - Getting fired for database oops

  • From: Howard Latham <howard.latham@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: stephenbooth.uk@xxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 18 May 2009 16:04:22 +0100

On my first day on contract with new client.
Manager says Can you reboot the first machine on the right please?
Sure
So I go in the server room and reboot the first machine on the right.
Turns out he didn't mean the first bank of servers but the second!
somehow it was my fault _ It was a bank! anyway - didn't get the sack!

2009/5/18 Stephen Booth <stephenbooth.uk@xxxxxxxxx>

> On 05/18/2009, Goulet, Richard <Richard.Goulet@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >  At the end of this long day he went to delete the saved
> > config files and very absent mindly typed
> > "rm -fr /".
>
> I have a similar story about a new starter at one company I worked
> for.  First day in his first real job after graduation.  Apparently he
> was a UNIX genius, graduated first in his class in Computer Science.
>
> The first task he's given is to log into the payroll server and clear
> out /temp.  So he logs in and types:
>
> $ cd/temp
>
> $ rm -rf *
>
> He's then very surprised to have two colleagues (me and one other)
> practically leap over him to hit CTRL-C many times.  I got there first
> by a fraction of a second, but then I was nearer.  What had caused
> this flurry of activity was the message that appeared between those
> two lines that indicated that cd/temp was not recognised as a command,
> he had missed out the space in cd /temp, not been looking at the
> screen (due to his confidence), not seen the error message and then
> run rm -rf * in the root of the payroll server the day before the pay
> run which happened to be when weekly, bi weekly, 4 weekly and monthly
> paid staff were all getting paid.
>
> He wasn't sacked, but he was a lot more careful after that.
>
> I don't actually think the command would have run, HP UX first would
> first expand the wildcard to build a list then run the command against
> each member.  I suspect that the list would have been so large it
> would have blown the buffer.  I think and suspect.  I'm not keen to
> test it.
>
> Stephen
>
> --
> It's better to ask a silly question than to make a silly assumption.
>
> http://stephensorablog.blogspot.com/ |
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenboothuk | Skype: stephenbooth_uk
>
> Apparently I'm a "Eierlegende Woll-Milch-Sau", I think it was meant as
> a compliment.
> --
> //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>
>
>


-- 
Howard A. Latham

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