July 18 and about 1300. The air conditioning in the office takes two days in Madrid crashed and the heat is infernal. Terrible omen of a day of horns.
Riiing, riiiing, riiiiiiiiiiiiing. The phone rings and I pick up reluctantly.
- "Who are you?", I hear the other side of the line. Father Christmas do not you fuck? I hate these calls, without identification, without saying hello and over, asking for authoritarian who has picked up the phone (he'll know Where has called!). However, one must be cautious: these calls refer to many of the job and the personality that is the other side and are usually bastards and sons of bitches but loaded with gallons within the company. I try to tune the voice and answered.
- "The System Administrator, do you?". It is perfectly who he is. That voice of disgust as if smelling shit times is unmistakable. But it also bothers him as he does not recognize, one unmistakable symptom of the paranoid personality.
- "Manuel, the director of Research and Consulting", spits obviously upset (bingo!). "There is a problem with email.."
Consider again the specimen. This kind of demigods have problems because they believe never perfect. Never say "I have a problem with the email" but "there is a problem with e-mail." We are familiar with it?
- "Could you give more details of the problem?" Replied trying to soften the tone a bit.
- "I'm expecting a momentous report sent to me over two hours and that never comes."
From here a good BOFH you know what happens. How important reports are completed in those two or three hours in which the mail server has a curious and highly selective problem! However mega-directors not conceive that someone might want to cheat and less if, as was the case, it was a report of Alfonso, head of one of the areas of management, and ball of the first order of our "beloved" director so get to work and continue with the usual protocol in these cases: sending an email from the company account is received immediately and another 5 from accounts created specifically for these cases free from external suppliers. Also arrive instantly. But IT is still not satisfied. We moved on to plan B.
- "Let me make some checks on the server and then call him." I hang up and, without further ado, I call on Alfonso.
- "Alfonso? Hello, good. I am the system administrator. It seems that the director is expecting a very important report and yours has not arrived. I found not to have any problem with your account and everything looks OK but, me most strange is that I have looked on the server and there is no sign that you've written all day. "Have you actually sent? Do not you have a problem on your machine?".
- "emmm, ummm, ohhh." Gurgles across
- "How do you say Alfonso? Do you think of anything Do not worry I will do further checks and, as you get the message to Manuel I myself will tell you where you can see the time that you really sent the mail to leave no doubt "
-" ugggg, ghaaaaa, gehhhh. "More babbling the other side. hang. I think that's enough to unclog the server queue mail. Indeed a few minutes I see in the log that the expected message is processed and sent to your destination.
I do not bother even to call the director. may even have forgotten who has spoken to me. These guys are well. But I
a while turning the matter. A good BOFH is proactive and anticipates the future aconecimientos. Perhaps if Mr. director received more messages a day after a test would feaciente of no problems with the email service and would be more peaceful ... Something easy solution having a service as completito as this .
I think I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon filling out forms ...
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