[UbuntuWomen] OT... sort of. Your scariest moment as an IT professional?

[Cathy]

Esther,

Will this fit your article?

*~*~*~

I am working to supply schools with hardware to replace their eight to nine
year old desktops. Just seeing these old systems Frankensteined beyond
recognition is a horror story in itself, but my most scary moments have
been:

* Working with a school district the size of a college campus: I work my way
up the ladder until I finally get to talk to the head honcho in charge of IT
for the school. He explains that they just updated "all the school's
computers". I ask what they updated since I know that most classrooms have
old non-functional systems. His reply: "We got that new thing, you know with
the wires?" His hands are making big gestures so I ask, "You mean a
network?" His reply: "Yeah, that." This guy is in charge of all IT
decisions. I scream silently.

* Working with a small, poor inner-city school: The head honcho tells me
they have three new computers that are "great, but they don't work." I know
she won't know the specs off the top of her head so I ask if I can see them.
She leads me to a room with three Dell monitors sitting on the floor. "Here
they are." I scream silently and try to figure out a way to explain that
they won't "work' without a little more hardware.

* And one we have all experienced -- my kid is a better programmer than the
CS instructor at his school. *He* screams silently.

*~*~*~

--Cathy Malmrose, CEO ZaReason, Inc.
www.zareason.com



On 10/18/07, Esther Schindler <esther at bitranch.com> wrote:
>
> Hey, this could be fun.
>
> CIO.com is putting together a Halloween article that'll basically be
> a collection of IT professional (and manager) experiences. We're
> planning
> to compile a list of "most terrifying IT moments" to post just before
> Halloween.
>
> It'll be modeled something like the "future of IT" story we did for
> CIO's 20th anniversary:
>
> 2007-2027: The Shapes of Things to Come
> Twenty gurus, experts and IT leaders, from Google VP Dave Girouard to
> sci-fi author Larry (Ringworld) Niven, weigh in on what the IT (and the
> human) future may look like.
> http://www.cio.com/article/140651
>
> So... What was the most terrifying IT-related moment you've ever
> experienced? It could be something that happened in a job. ("I hit
> 'Enter' only to realize that I'd just deleted the master password
> database") It could be something that happened to you as an end user.
> ("The brand-new Denver Airport luggage handling system shipped all my
> bags to Russia when I was traveling to Taiwan.") Whatever. Anything
> IT related.
>
> I've asked this on a couple of other lists, but so far I've received
> answers (some awesome ones!) only from guys. I'd like to include a
> few women's names on the list too, so I'm deliberately asking here.
> Obviously, the stories don't need to be Linux related.
>
> All my own candidates for "scariest moment" end in "...and I didn't
> have a backup." But here's one from a friend:
>
> > I remember when a friend of mine in California was spewing vitriol
> > about his boss to me, in Massachusetts, via email. Yet he mistakenly
> > addressed the message to said mongrel boss -- which, of course, he
> > realized only upon hitting the Enter key. It was after hours on the
> > East
> > coast and my friend, now panicky and more than a bit sweaty, paged our
> > IT manager at home for help. Can you say, "Desperate to keep my job?
> > Please, please, please?" In those days, the IT manager couldn't do a
> > thing from his house, so he bundled up, got in his car and motored
> > into
> > the office to obliterate that email from the system before mongrel
> > boss
> > opened it. That act of human kindness got the IT manager a bottle of
> > fine, fine California wine Fedexed to him the very next morning. <<
>
> We're talking 50 to 150 words each--longer only if the story is
> *really* good. We'll give precedence to IT Managers (so you can feel
> free to
> forward this to a boss if you think it'll get a response) but hey, if
> it's a good story, it's worth sharing.
>
> To use the story, though, I *MUST* have your name, current title and
> affiliation. That probably shouldn't be a problem for your current
> company, particularly if the Scary Moment was earlier in your career.
> Send the contact info (and scary moment) to me privately, if you like,
> to eschindler at cio dot com.
>
> Of course, it'd be fun to talk about it here too -- but unless you
> include the "here's how to refer to me" stuff (including a contact ID
> for followup) we can't use it in the article.
>
> Esther Schindler
> senior online editor, CIO.com
>
>
> --
> ubuntu-women mailing list
> ubuntu-women at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-women
>
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