Not funny, and not interesting
but I need to vent a bit. Apologies in advance, this is going to be very long and probably incoherent but I've just come off working a 20-hour split shift and am a bit drunk so bear with me.

Anyway, before seeing the light and going to school again (culinary school this time), I used to be the backend guy for a very small ISP. Not a real one, mind you, a virtual ISP, geared towards easy access for older people and students. We piggybacked off a certain quasi-governmental phone monopoly (no names) renowned for charging an arm, a leg and a pancreas for substandard ADSL. Support was non-existent, calling a call centre meant being on hold for anywhere up to (this was timed) FIVE CUNTING HOURS as there was'nt (and still isn't) a business call centre, we had to wait in the queue with Bertha from Brakpan whose Rottweiler had eaten the phone or something. That's not the point, though. This is more about my ex-boss.

De Wet, my boss (name not changed to protect those who will burn) was a study. 6.30AM I'd clock in and he'd be sitting at his desk, soupbowl-sized coffe mug in one hand and Blackberry in the other, playing with stationery and shouting down the phone. You'll hae to imagine a thick, slurred Afrikaans accent: "Ja madam, we offerrr a fool survice, twennyfor eeour sepport and assustid setupps. Douwn't worry, Ah'll jist traansfur you to a techie, end you'll be jist faaahhn" (TRANSLATION: Please hold, madam, while I transfer you to one of our technicians").

A bit of background: De Wet used to be a director of some motor finance company before coming to run our team of IT monkeys. His computer knowledge extended to thumbprint logon and logoff, and iTunes. Literally nothing else... I remember showing him how to turn his machine on about 4 times. He used to sit there, talking on the phone, pretending to work until about 11AM. Then he'd come whizzing round our desks, glancing at our monitors, asking pointless questions to the call centre people and constantly trying to figure out what I was doing. Sample: "Er, Tiktock, why is there no windows on your screen" "Because I don't need them, I'm using text mode" "Whats text mode".

At this point, I would generally need a cigarette or five. The man was a fucknugget of epic proportions. He got his, though. Read on for details.

In this country, internet is charged per gigabyte at ripoff prices - consumers pay R70/GB (about 5 pounds), which meant out internal internet policy could have come out of a gulag. In November last year, our lovely manager called us all in. He slurred his way through a tirade about how our "fucking about on banned sites and circumvention of (company name's internal policies" had cost him and his (mate) business partner R50K+ in excess internet usage. He also mentioned something to the effect of "when I walk out of this room, one of you is going to be leaving, and good riddance". Fat Dinesh piped up "actually, I think you should look at this".

Din turned his laptop screen around, to reveal IpCop logs from the past 6 months. It showed his Mac's IP, going to server23.blizzard.com or whatever it was, plus a couple of ultra-dodgy porn sites (fuckfarm.com anyone?) racking up about 330GB of extra traffic a month. We paid R39/GB wholesale, when most of our geriatric user base was only using about 2GB a month, so this was like having an extra 200 users on the system, all unaccounted for. Apparently, being the IT director had its privileges.

What Din said next was classic though.

"Bru, this was sent to the S (the MD) 5 minutes ago. Maybe you should make a phone call"

Boss turns white. Boss walks out. Vids go up on internal wiki, and were cc'ed to director.

Boss is not seen for 3 days. That friday, the director (class guy, but rather clueless) comes in and says there is going to be some internal reshuffling.

De Wet, wherever you are, you're a cunt.

Still glad I got out of there, though. Food's much more rewarding than computery bollocks.

Laters

TT

EDIT: For those interested, the company's named after a long black seedpod that is used for flavouring various sweet items.
(Tiktock Beating off flamers with a shitty stick, Mon 28 Sep 2009, 16:02, Reply)