Thursday, February 23, 2006

A Small Bit of Payback

One thing about being a SysAdmin is that there is a fine line between “just doing my job” and “being nosy and indiscreet.” Being “root” implies a certain amount of maturity as well, which I occasionally lack, but that’s beside the point right now.

All I’m saying is that when you have the power to read everyone’s email and see every single thing that happens on the network, that’s a helluva a lot of responsibility. I think most SysAdmins would agree that though it’s nice to have that power sometimes you regret it. For example, everyone and their brother asks you questions ALL THE TIME. That can get old real fast.

But sometimes there is sweet, sweet payback. Like now.

A certain person who’s identity I’ll protect, asked me to help her fix a flakey hard drive. She had accidentally pulled out a cable while it was in the middle of a write and now the poor thing’s internal directory structure was totally hammered. It didn’t know which way was up and neither Disk Utility nor “fsck” could repair it. (Which makes sense, since I think Disk Utility is just “fsck” with a pretty face, but I could be wrong about that).

Anyway, I managed to salvage all 75 GBs of the data. Yay for me, but as I’m going through the files to make sure that data isn’t corrupted (as I was asked to do, I wasn’t snooping!), I came across an “iTunes Music” folder.

Tucked in between all the “cool person music” (Pete Yorn, Radiohead, Pedro the Lion, The Shins, that sort of thing, stuff that you might expect to find in a designer’s semi-snooty music collection) was this:

(click for really embarrassing large version that you can read).

Love my job!

Favorite Entries

If you are new around here, the following entries have been reasonably well received. You might want to peruse these.

• Partners
• Correspondence
• Help Wanted
• From the Office of Mis-directed Email
• A Word from the Small Person in the House
• RNT Product Review: Chocolate Mix Skittles Left Me Sterile!
• Jon’s Report Card circa… A Long Time Ago
• Dear Gratuitously Naked Conversationalist at the Gym:
• A Peek Inside the Writer’s Guild and Producers’ Negotiations
• We Regret the Error
• Letters from a Homeowner to His General Contractor
• What I Did There
• Hermaphrodite Administrative Assistants and Receptionists Need Not Apply
• Giving Me an IM Account Was Obviously a Huge Mistake
• Official Ransom Note Typography Vista vs. Mac OS X Shootout
• I Need a Real Hobby
• Beat Down
• Big Fat Lies
• True Love
• Now MY Ovaries Hurt
• Don’t Get Her Started
• Disturbing Trend
• Had to do it
• Mooshy stuff
• Ransom Note Typography End User License Agreement “EULA”
• Diva-licious!
• Just so we’re clear
• PETA may have a point

Holy Crap! Look at all this STUFF down here. It's awesome!

Really, I'm glad you made it down here. Almost no one ever comes down here. I'm like in a freaking dungeon down here. I get lonely. But not you. YOU made it all the way to the end of the page. For this I think I've a little crush on you. I don't know, is "love" to strong a word to use in this situation? Well, if it's not "love," then it's very strong "like." I'm totally in like with you for coming down here. You are awesome. Please love me back! I know, I know, I shouldn't be all needy, it's not attractive at all, but you don't know how it is to be stuck down here. Who scrolls all the way to the end of a page anymore these days? Anyway, thanks for shedding some light down here in the depths. I appreciate it. Shoot me an email and I'll send you a dollar, OK?

©2005-2010 Jon B. Deal All Rights Reserved. I'm not kidding around here, I know people who know other people who would be willing to beat you up or similarly infringe on your rights, should you happen to infringe on my rights.