taking fire

This is a follow-up to my oh so hilarious post (in my mind anyway) from a couple of years back. Same rules as before apply; no full names will be used so I can avoid a kicking.

Major Malfunction:

There is a chap in one of the Business Support teams who has a nice 80s style flat-top and ‘tache and walks around the office with an air of superiority, almost like he owns the place. It will come as no surprise to learn that he is in the Territorial Army.

He seems to favour the Atkins Diet when it comes to nutrition and brings in a big empty Stork Margarine carton every day filled with pre-cooked sausages, bacon, steak, etc. which he slams in the microwave and consumes at his desk. Not too pleasant if you sit close by him, which thankfully I don’t.

You can imagine that he has the odd bowel movement at work due to his diet, and he has been known to let rip with some horrendous farts from time to time regardless of where he is in the office. Anyway, one day he was sitting happily at his desk having no doubt gorged himself on meat when he lets rip with a nice, satisfying fart. Something doesn’t go according to plan and the silly fucker follows through and actually shits his pants while sitting at his desk, in the office, surrounded by colleagues. He actually has to take the rest of the day off so he can go home and clean his soiled undies – how do we know this? Because he had to tell his manager and instead of saying something like, “I feel sick”, he says, “I shat my pants.” And his manager is obviously a top bloke because he told his team, who then told us.

Due to his involvement in the military and the unfortunate (but hilarious) accident he henceforth became known as Major Malfunction. The nickname has transcended its humble origins and has gone on to become an actual turn of phrase, an example being:

“Sorry Steve, I’d love to continue this conversation about locally managed tablespaces but if I don’t get to the toilet soon I’m going to have a Major Malfunction in my pants.”

WHERE’s Johnny:

This one is really a techie in-joke so skip it if you like.

We have daily data fixes which run automatically at 3pm on the dot. They’re written by developers, checked by Production Support and finally QA’d by me or a colleague before hitting Production. So you’ve got THREE areas of expertise to identify a problem, should there be one.

This chap submits a script to do a simple UPDATE to one row in a table but completely forgets to include the crucial WHERE clause meaning his noddy piece of SQL updates every fucking row in a table containing 0.5 million rows. And the column he was updating was MORTGAGE_COMPLETION_DATE meaning everyone’s mortgages were set to a completion date of the exact same day. It’s hilarious now, but at the time was an absolute crisis.

I hasten to add that it was my colleague, not myself, who QA’d this script; and he almost got the boot for it, being a disposable contractor and all. All I did was simply come up for a nickname for the Johnny in question, to be said in the style of Jack Nicholson in The Shining – “Wheeeeere’s Johnny!”

It’s because he forgot his WHERE clause, see?

Geek humour: funny if you understand it. Extremely unfunny if you don’t.

Three Baws:

An affectionate nickname for one of the older managers created by his very own team. The three baws in question are his testicles (assuming he still has both of them) and his hernia.

Arsezilla:

A terribly harsh nickname for the largest woman in the office. Arsezilla has recently had to start using a walking cane to get around the office and has a specially reinforced chair so she can sit at her computer all day and stuff cakes into her mouth. We are still unsure whether or not she has begun terrorizing coastal Japanese cities.

Budget Arthur:

There’s Arthur and there’s Tom. Marisa likes Arthur. Tom likes Marisa. Arthur is married. Marisa is out of Tom’s league. Tom tries hard and eventually gets Marisa’s attention. Tom and Marisa go out for a bit. Tom prays to God every night that his luck will not run out. Tom’s luck runs out.

Marisa had settled for second best => Tom = Budget Arthur.

Toploader Cunt:

Back in the day we didn’t all hang out in a big happy tea / lunching posse like we do now. In fact, some of us didn’t even speak to one another as we never had any reason to. We were simply a bunch of blokes who worked in different teams who knew each others faces; the Docs Boys hung out in their gang as did we. So it’s inevitable that nicknames would be birthed although my friend Jonny (not WHERE’s Johnny) and I only found out on Tuesday what ours were, and not for a second did we think his would be so offensive (to him) and side-splittingly hilarious (to me).

Jonny has a curly head of hair; Toploader were a shit band who were famous for doing a really crap cover, having a wanker singer with curly hair, and a guitarist who shagged Gail Porter. Jonny and I are good friends with Claire who was one of the hottest girls in the IT Department at the time, although she has since left. The Docs Boys all had a big crush on her and were jealous that Jonny and I would spend a fair amount of time each day shooting the breeze with her. And it was from this glorious time that Toploader Cunt was born, the nickname being doubly offensive due to the absolute shiteness of the band in question.

Toploader Cunt’s Mate:

Me, the PLM or simply Pastry as I’ve been called of late – “Oh look, Toploader Cunt’s mate is talking to Claire again, lucky bastard!”

Again, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.