Planning a trip away from the office, for any length of time, takes a bit of finagling.

One must….

1. Put out all the fires which have magically invaded all aspects of your week prior to departure.
2. The more fires you put out, the more fires arrive which make you contemplate taking up drinking.
3. You try to never leave during the first week of the month – it is an unwritten rule in IT. If you are absent the first week of the month you wish everyone luck and then turn your phone off (<– this is wishful thinking. I have been hunted down because I didn’t answer my phone. IT people don’t mess around!)
4. Drag your work laptop with you. You will inevitably need it.
5. Never forget to set your “Out of Office”. People don’t pay attention to it but, you can at least say you set it to CYA.
6. Try to finish up all the projects you can – you will fail due to all the fires but, you still try.
7. Never look back on the day you leave. If you do look back, someone is going to stop you with a question, or need help, or want you to look at something, or….you will never make it out alive!
8. Run! Run and never go back! At least until you miss the madness and the crazy pull of the IT world sucks you back in. Or, you remember how many emails will be waiting for you when you get back and you surrender to the overwhelming thought of, “Why didn’t I take up drinking?”

Yours Faithfully,
R3b3l G33k

Am I the only one who questions people’s intelligence? Please tell me I’m not

Case in point…

I’m sitting at a red light. It begins raining cats and dogs. I notice a beautiful Mercedes convertible, with its top down, sitting in front of our high end jewelry store.

Suddenly, a women runs out of the store. Jumps in the convertible, rolls the windows up and locks the door. Does not put the top up! She then runs back into the store.

Thankfully the light turns green at this point. The logic of her actions escapes me….

Yours Faithfully,
R3b3l G33k

In the world of IT…Passwords Matter.

They keep our computers, data, and random trivialities secure. Each employee is provided their own username…they set the password…security at its most basic, right?

Well…in theory it works in that manner. Unless….

You have a group of people (whole department) who share their username/password with each other. They have it written down so each person can access their computer/email. The reasons?

“Well, we can’t do their work if they’re out sick or on vacation without. Now can we?”

“They need to be able to work my email. I hate reading them.” – This is the Manager of the departments statement

Part of me is dumbfounded. The other part of me remembers two of these users are in our hall of Infamous Clickers for failing in our Phishing Campaigns.

I am at a complete loss….

Yours Faithfully,
R3b3l G33k

Cybersecurity can be….entertaining.

Case in point…

Ran a phishing campaign on the whole company.

Every single employee opened the email.

Only 3 clicked on the link within the email. Here’s where it gets entertaining…

First Link Clicker submitted a ticket (WooHooo!). The ticket states:

“I received an email from ‘Internal Person’ but the link is broke. It takes me to some Phishing site. Can you take a look so I can get to the right site?”

Problem with this is:

1. She clicked on the link!
2. She didn’t read the landing page – If she would have read the ‘broken link’ page she would have discovered it was a page all about how she’d been Phished by IT – how to spot Phishing emails, and what to do if you click on the link, or enter credentials.

She did show us, definitively, who our weakest link is – pun intended.

 

Second Link Clicker did not submit a ticket (Boo!) but, they did come back to the office to report:

1. They received the email and thought it was suspicious.
2. Left it overnight because they thought it was suspicious.
3. Didn’t hear anything about the email being suspicious so…
4. Clicked on the link in the email to see what it was about but…
5. Wasn’t sure what to do since it didn’t take them to a log in page…

Oh, and did I mention this was all AFTER we (IT) had sent out an email about the ‘suspicious’ email. Telling everyone not to click on the link, and to delete it.

And there we have weak link number 2.

The third link clicker has not come forward. We will find them. We will catch them next time. We will smack their hands for clicking the link. For now though…the two above will go down in the hall of Infamous Clickers.

I can’t wait to send out the next campaign!

Yours Faithfully,
R3b3l G33k

Conversations outside the office door….

“I was wondering where you wanted me to stick that….”

“Not stick it, but stick it”

Because defining where it is to be stuck without sticking it is key!

Yours Faithfully,
R3b3l G33k

In the land of IT error messages are both a blessing and a curse.

Actual error messages:

• Unacceptable SQL statement.
• The statement is too long or too complex.
• Illegal use of the specified keyword.
• FETCH cannot make an INSENSITIVE cursor SENSITIVE. <– Is this an HR issue? 
• You tried to create an object that already exists
• Operation operation is not allowed on system databases
• The clauses are mutually exclusive                             <–Monogamy in the tech world?
• The DELETE rule must be DELETE-rule                      <– Persistent isn’t it?
• Table table-name cannot be created in specified table space table-space-name because it already contains a table
• The statement is rejected by data definition control support. reason reason-code
• Unavailable resource. Someone else is locking your data.

Error messages are sooooo helpful!

Yours Faithfully,
R3b3l G33k

When experiencing technical difficulties one must enter the server room quietly….

…for a server always works while being observed!

Yours Faithfully,
R3b3l G33k

Location: Genius-Developer-Guys Office
Participants: GDG, Project Manager Extraordinaire, Queen-of-the-CallCenter, Random Person, and Me

Random person leans in office door: 

“Have you seen the Queen-of-the-CallCenter?”

Group Responds:

“Nope, nope we haven’t…”

The QotCC can hide in plain site when you have a bit of an evil streak. The evil streak quickly softens when you wonder if Random Persons issue was critical?

We might have a slight evil streak, but hey, we prove scientific theory’s when our evil sides kick in. 🙂

*Schotoma Example: 

“Imagine the following situation.  Someone says to you, ‘Please get the the salt,’ and as you walk into the next room, you say, ‘But I don’t know where it is.’  After looking for a few minutes, you call out, ‘I can’t find the salt.’  Then that someone walks up, takes the salt right off the shelf in front of you, and says, ‘Look, dummy, it’s right her in front of you.  If it was a snake, it would have bitten you.’  When you said, ‘I can’t,’ you gave your brain a command not to see the salt.  In psychology, we call it schotoma.”

Yours Faithfully,
R3b3l G33k

The great thing about work? People

The not-so-great thing about work? People

Thankfully, they provide endless entertainment which compensates for the rest. Case in point….hair cuts.

Ventured in to Cost Cutters last week. Decided my hair was annoying the crap out of me, and it needed to go.

Monday, at work, the common question was, “Did you get your hair cut?” My unspoken responses went something like this:

“No, I went in to get this one unruly hair cut, and the rest became insanely jealous. They threatened bodily harm if not allowed to join in the fun. So, we had to cut them all. Have you ever seen hair wielding a knife? It’s scary!”

“No, I went to dry my hair this morning and the ends jumped off. They’re now on strike for better treatment. I’ll miss them but, I don’t negotiate with hair-rorists!”

“No, I participated in a horror movie marathon and my hair just couldn’t take it.”

“No, I didn’t get a hair cut. Why? What are you saying? Oh My God! Where’s my hair?!?!?!”

“Why yes, yes I did. I figured while I was at it, I’d get them all cut though.”

“No, I went wig shopping and this one just wouldn’t come off.”

“Wait! Who told you? Are they still watching me?”

“Wait…..you can see me?!?!”

I may, or may not, have watched Bill Engvall and Jeff Foxworthy a few too many times. Also, I may, or may not, find questions suspect unless you are a teacher, or parent. Just saying…

Yours Faithfully,
R3b3l G33k