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. <a href="http://www.zareason.com">www.zareason.com</a> <div>On 10/18/07, Esther Schindler <<a href="mailto:esther@bitranch.com"> esther@bitranch.com</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">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. <a href="http://www.cio.com/article/140651">http://www.cio.com/article/140651</a> 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 <a href="mailto:ubuntu-women@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-women@lists.ubuntu.com</a> <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-women"> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-women</a> </blockquote></div>