Recliner of Rage

« At the churn. »

My enthusiasm for baking lately has, perhaps, lent the impression that I lead a very dull life instead of enjoying a rage-infused fun-filled career in system administration that keeps me off the streets during working hours. Baking is a rewarding hobby whereas system administration is a thankless job that, after nearly 18 years, wears down even the most crusty BOFH. It's much more fun to come home and bake pastries than to get anywhere near a computer. Both are flaky, only one is edible. My frustration and ire is so all-consuming, too, that I'm mostly too tired to do much else other than bake or stare at CNN in the evenings. I wore heels and a skirt to the company holiday party last week to try and get into a christmas mood only to damn near cripple my feet with the shoes and get bombed on three beers and a glass of wine. Why I needed vicious pain to remind me that my enormous feet and pointy shoes don't go together is not entirely certain. I'm still feeling like a grinch, too. So, come, huddle around my recliner of rage and nibble on some freshly baked christmas pastries while I rant. People wondering why CPAN hasn't updated in a few days might want to lean in closely and take an extra pastry.

For people who live outside of Finland, there is one system that is generally considered an important system, one that people often share fond memories of having used before the days of the the web. The system is running on ancient hardware and, for some reason, it was given only half the budget of what it had six years ago to replace the hardware this year. For the math challenged, that means half the money which would buy a low-end workgroup sort of server and disk in spite of having many more demands placed on it in the past six years. It's a bit confusing that a system so important in a country so concerned with how the rest of the world sees itself would cripple the one system people on the internet identify as being Finnish.

Instead of getting the right solution, the solution that fit the budget was purchased; an Xraid and two Xserves. These, however, never made it into production not only because I have no respect for a server class operating system that installs "iTunes Help" at boot time for root by default, but also because the hardware has been horribly defective. What about service?, you ask. Yes, what about the three-year, paid up-front, enterprise support contract that we have been waiting 3-4 weeks to deliver a replacement Xraid? The boys in Ireland are making special price, just for us, my friend. I wonder how they say 'me love you long time' in Gaelic. If this is enterprise support, I can't even imagine what regular support is like. All I can do is tell everyone from here to the other side of Siberia that, unless you like broken hardware and lots of downtime, do not buy Apple products in Finland if you expect service in a reasonable timeframe. Hospitals, air traffic control and the like need not even apply.

So, let's see, where was I? Right, so we have one old server that was pulling it's files via NFS through an apple G4 desktop connected to a faulty Xraid (LOL for real!), but we ran out of old G4s so now we're using one of the Xserves and hoping it doesn't fail (much) while I try to cobble together a working system with reliable storage and hope that, given Apple has proven itself completely unreliable in the service department, we'll be ordering a real system soon to replace this entire clusterfuck of a fuckup before I start lifing tiles down in the machine room and shoving folks in. In the middle of all this, there's a guy who reminds me of the nutty professor I used to work for back at WU who could break anything in record time. I'd be working on the console of a system that would suddenly lock up. I'd call Bob and ask what he had done and, of course, he'd say the word that will live in infamy for all sysadmins everywhere, "Nothing." Someone with root who knows just enough to break things and a systematic diligence of a raging bull in a china shop. I was a lot younger then and, instead of getting all hyper and angry, now I just get tired and wonder what it was that I liked about this profession so many years ago.

Perhaps if I start talking to myself and cackling down the hallways I could swing some mental health leave. It's a short drive to crazytown.