Uncertainty

HAAALLLLLPP!! SYSTEM DOWN!!!! 14,000 CLIENTS NO ONE WORKING!!!!

I don't have to look at the account field. I know this one's Mookman. I'm also pretty sure it's going to be all sorts of stupid, it being a Prio-1. I'm guessing they pulled the engine and prop off a Cessna and don't understand why it won't fly anymore.

And... I'm right.

We are hit by critical Issue, $YourBigApp is down. We are unable to startup application even after recycle services.

The Login page itself does not appear. We use Siteminder for systems Authentication.

Mmm-hmm... and what did you change between it all working last night and it not working this morning, Mookman? I know I shouldn't ask this because I know that the answer I'm going to get is exactly what I should expect from MildlyNaughtyPuppy in a few years hence when I notice my computer has been "fixed" while I was in the kitchen pouring out bowls of chow for the pack. I can handle getting this response from a toddler, not so much so from an "administrator". But I have to ask. It's part of The Method.

Exactly which "nothing" was changed overnight?

We just did a release and infer this issue is occuring after this, but need to confirm. THe components for the release are only PrimeComponent and CentralCommunicationsSystem

You need to confirm that the system which was working perfectly last night only stopped working after you changed out the exact things that would stop it working now and that the problem hasn't perhaps been caused by fairies or my bad attitude? Put the system back the way it was and fer chrissakes start debugging your fucking changes before rolling out to production!

We dont want to return to older version and must confirm this is not a new defect on $YourBigApp

Confirmed.
Customer Error.
Resolution: Patch back to prior version.
Close: Root Cause: 17-Fuckwit.

Go Bother Ballmer

You have a car. The engine is knocking. It gets shitty mileage. It takes 40 seconds to get up to speed after stopping at a red light. All of a sudden you hear a bang and see a hole punched through the hood, the piston having been thrown. Do you then call Michelin to bitch about your problems? You do if you work for $PrivateFinanceAdvisors, with the logic that the tire company ought to be able to fix the problem that's causing the tires to turn too slowly.

SQL Server: Insufficient Memory Error

Insufficient Memory Error BPool: no remappable address found
Problem usaully resolves itself. When this error happens $YourBigApp users experience slow perf problem Sometimes SQL server fails over (this didn't happen today) This issue has been occuring for a while and it's random behavior.

One thing that it definitely isn't is "random", Sparky. The problem will completely disappear the instant you add the minimum spec'ed memory to the machine and move $OurBigApp off the fucking underpowered database server and onto a dual-proc box with more than 500MB of memory just the way we told you to eight fucking months ago.

I don't believe that memory is our problem we face. We need a solution to this error! $YourBigApp is too slow and databse failing over!

File a ticket with Microsoft and tell them they need to make SQL Server run your 380GB production database in under 100MB of memory. With what appears to be a 486 DX/66 processor.

I just dumped a fucking laptop last week which has more power than their rack-mount which is groaning under the strain of a SQL Server and a dozen enterprise apps. That DB server memory problem is clearly being caused by our software.

You know how this one's being closed: Seh. Venn. TEEN.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

"Yo, Dawg!"

It's Freddo. This can't be good. It never is.

"You gotta help me, mate!"

I gotta?? I never saw any clause in my contract which read "Der Arbeitnehmer ist verpflichtet, Freddo zu helfen wenn er dringend bittet oder den Begriff 'mate' verwendet".

"You're not doing anything this weekend, are you?"

I dunno... relaxing, cleaning, catching up on My Name is Earl, downloading kitty pr0n... I have 18Mb broadband; the possibilities are almost endless.

And when I write "endless" I mean it. The entire Speedy Gonzalez collection, Dexter, even every episode of 1970s George Peppard in Banacek! And while file-sharing may not be completely legal over here, at 16 Traci Lords was. But I digress.

There are a lot of things I can do on a weekend. I live near three museums and there's a huge farmer's market nearby. But my second-most favouritest thing to do on a weekend is Not Work, running a close competition with doggie-stylin' with Lassie, my SuperSnarkyBitch, if only because I can do the latter on most normal weekdays as well.

There was a problem with this past weekend's availability plans, that problem being that no one was actually available. Three out sick, two normal weekend stand-bys on vacation, Freddo was desperate. I mulled it over. The deal was shit from the get-go. No munniez for working Saturday: work it like a normal day in exchange for a future weekday off. No prob, my ticket list is quiet. Sunday sucks though. A whole fifty for staying home all day in case something comes in, plus some hourly compensation for actual emergency work done.

Lassie was out of town until 8pm or so, I'd only work as secondary from 9-2 and then primary from 2-5, then hand over whatever shit sandwich I was chewing to the poor Weekend Alliance fuckers in the US, giving me time to shower and shave before picking Lassie up from the train station.

And Sunday? Fuck. No one does shit on Sunday unless there's an unresolved problem from Saturday which should be able to be ping-ponged. At the very least there's all sorts of busy-work to hand 'em until Monday rolls around. I'd planned to spend the day at home with Lassie anyway.

And lo, it came to pass that this mutt accepted the piss-poor deal.

And there was great rejoicing as Saturday remained as dull as a corporate quarterly meeting while requiring even less attention. And the Canine who is Really Evil was gladdened by the knowledge that Sunday would consist of no suckage and much glad-you're-back-home doggie-stylings with Lassie.

And upon awakening and well and truly knowing his bitch the Canine did log in and lo!, $ScoreCo did find themselves truly hated in the eyes of the Really Evil. For $ScoreCo had done Something Wrong and were demanding assistance. There was much gnashing of teeth and dumping of cores and no one working the weekend shift who knew diddly-squat about Solaris.

Then did the Canine remember the Golden Rule of Solaris: Truss Don't Lie. Thus he spake the magic words: "Send me a truss." And $ScoreCo did dutifully send a truss of a truly gargantuan size and proportion such as has never been seen before by any $MegaCorp monkey. And he did setteth his head in the ReallyEvilCanine's-head-shaped-dent in front of his keyboard as he realised $ScoreCo had trussed the entire system and not just the crashing process.

And it came to pass that the Canine did begin to relax as he realised it would be only another quarter of an hour before his relief in the US would be on-line, and lo, he did tell $ScoreCo to truss only the crashing processes.

And as his IM window opened, the Canine did see who in the US was taking over, and he allow a truly wicked grin to come over his face, for his replacement that day was none other than the monkey well-known throughout $MegaCorp for his regular Registry and Event Viewer log requests of customers running UNIX.

Thus did our hero log out and get back to his bitch, and the world became a slightly more tolerable place, if only for the 13 hours he would have before having to return to the Cube Desk of Hate at the Panopticon high above Munich.

Geography

When your company is one of many that divides the world up into three regions -- Americas, EMEA and APAC -- which region should be responsible for the nimrods in an outsourced Bangalore sweatshop of a server room? Go on, guess.

The Scandinavia-based $CompanyCo really, really needs to add Chinese and Japanese support to $OurBigApp. It's an emergency now, SO OMG IT NEEDS TO BE DONE YESTARDAY LOLOL despite the fact it would've been working when they first installed $OurBigApp had they done what I told them to a couple of years ago. They didn't like the two extra clicks and one line SQL*Plus session it would've taken.

So here we are now at an impasse. Instead of two clicks and an ALTER DATABASE command they're going to be paying thousands which is fine by me; anything that brings cash into $MegaCorp ensures my continued ability to support the SuperSnarkyBitch and MildlyNaughtyWhelp.

Since India straddles EMEA and APAC I sent a note to the $$$Custom$$$Programming$$$ department of each region and closed the ticket. That was a month ago. There was a re-open request yesterday. It seems that no one had contacted $CompanyCo so I sent off another contact mail and escalated it to management which got the mail flying all over the place, most of it reading "FW: FW: FW: FW: $CompanyCo ticket 123-ADF29 -- It's not my region. How about you $SomeOtherName?".

And then finally someone had an epiphany which required chiding me in an answer. I am Teh STOOPITD. How the hell could I have not thought to ask $$$Custom$$$Programming$$$--Americas to handle this? Truly I am a fuckwit.