I'm at my desk as usual, and a user calls.
"Hello Computer Room, Simon here, How can I help" I answer
"I can't get into my account!" A user mumbles at me.
"What was your username please?" I say
They give me their username. No worries. I look in their account.
"No worries, it was just a badly made login file. I've fixed it, you should be able to login."
"Thanks!"
"No worries. Have a nice day!"
WHAT IS THIS? you're asking yourself. Has the BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL turned over a new leaf? Sold out?! GONE INSANE?!!! Nope. The BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL is being logfiled. And if that's happening, I'm being bugged as well. So I'm being nice till I can find the bugs. It shouldn't be long - bear with me.
Ah. One in the phone handpeice. Basic. But then the boss is a sneaky sort, so there's probably a couple more. Ah! And another in the base of the phone and one inside my keyboard. Time for a mad coffee-spilling frenzy. This is a big job, so I bring the whole jug over and wait for a witness. The System Manager comes in.
"Where's that report of mine?" he asks in a surly manner - he's obviously pissed that I haven't implicated myself yet. Antagonist Identified. As the Principal of "BASTARD OPERATOR SCHOOL" (me) will tell you, "There's no problem so large it can't be solved by killing the user off, deleting their files, closing their account and reporting their REAL earnings to the IRS"
I pull his printout from under the coffee jug where I put it, and the coffee splashes all over the phone and keyboard, which for some reason were stacked on top of each other.
"Woopsy!" I say, mock horror on my face. The System Manager's face tells me I was right in my guess.
"Don't think you'll get away with this!" he snarls and stomps off.
I click on the ethernet monitor and watch the traffic coming out of his PC.
Ah! A memo, authorising the termination of my contract, going to the laser in the director's office. I make a few alterations to the file in the spool directory and let it go to it's destination. I run my dinky little program that deposits -522 to the PC and our mainframe shits itself.
Later, while booting, I'll remove that nasty logfile business.
Next, I wander into the comms room and plug my earphone into the spare RS232 port in the Directors office. It's amazing how simple it is to bug an office once it's got data lines going to it!
Director: "Are you sure about this?" SysMgr: "OF COURSE!" Director: "You don't want to reconsider?" SysMgr "NEVER!" Director: "Very well, I'll fax it to staffing now.." SysMgr "EXCELLENT!"
Two seconds later the System Manager strolls in smiling. "Well, I'll really miss you Simon.." he says, full of himself.
"Oh?" I say, all sweetness and charm "Where are you going?"
"No Simon" he says, with glee "You're going"
"A PROMOTION!" I say "You've finally written that letter to the head of staffing telling him he's a bum-sucking arse bandit and that you quit?"
"No..."
"Are you sure? It's much better than the one about me being fired.."
"Y.." His eyes widen slightly
It's like clubbing a seal to death with a foam cushion. He runs to stop the fax. Only, having just resigned, >clicky cklikcy< his card key no longer works...
Ametuers...
The Phone rings. It's the same guy as before
"I can get into my account now, but I've run out of disk"
"Hang on, I'll see what I can do"
>clicccky<... rm -r *
spt@waikato.ac.nz (Simon Travaglia)