For any new or otherwise “green” Engineer some of the best pop culture references are not from movies, tv, or comic books. Many of the best pop culture references are from various, potentially geeky, sources. These references occurred, were discussed over coffee and at water coolers, and may not be present in Engineer culture. However, I feel it is my duty to try and bring some of this culture and historical education back and present many of these topics for your edification and enjoyment.
So I am introducing a new category for the blog, #theclassics and this is the first one to bring up and talk about. These will not be general movie, tv, or comic references. You are on your own for those. However, I hope you enjoy the ones that do get covered here and get some mileage in your own conversations and chats. If nothing else, I will at least have brought these gems to your attentions so that you won’t be totally clueless if someone else brings them up at some point in conversation. Enjoy!
The first topic that I want to cover is one of the absolute classics of IT. The Website Is Down is an absolutely hilarious take on malicious compliance. Here are some of the great moments to keep an eye out for in the video.
Before I post the links and the video itself, a quick word of warning. There is some language in the video. It has also been many years since I have watched any of the other videos besides the first one, so I have no clue what is in them. There is also a few images of amazing, I mean potentially not work safe, things like icons on a desktop arrayed in the shape of a … erm …”rocketship”. I also suggest hitting the bathroom first as the hilarity that you are about to see is amazing. You have been warned!
- Halo: Combat Evolved – This still is a great video game. A number of months ago my son had friends over for a sleepover and we ended up basically doing the classic lan party and playing this locally on my home network. It was a blast. Along with Unreal Tournament 2004, this is one that is still playable on modern systems, has decent enough graphics to get by with even today, and has stellar gameplay and mechanics. Watching the IT guy try and keep his game going while being interrupted by calls is very funny
- Monster.com – Keep an eye out when watching. When he starts alt-tabbing out of Halo, the job search site, Monster, is the open site on the ancient version of Firefox
- The Mac – I don’t know what alt-tabbing is called on a mac. I am not a mac user. But just seeing the older icons and that everything is being run on this box just brings a smile to my face. If you have only ever run on Windows then I strongly suggest going out and getting some PC culture and learning how to dual boot to something, anything, else just to learn. Watching the IT guy effortlessly jump around in these systems shows that this is a skill to learn like any other
- Malicious Compliance – It is my guess that everything is being recorded for the very reason that being asked to reboot something, even if you have the power to, may not be the best thing to do to solve the problem. While listening to the first 2 minutes of the video it is clear that there is nothing wrong with the website. Apache is running, the port is open, the IT guy can get to the site. Not to pass any judgement about right and wrong here, but I am very thankful that the IT guy decided to partake in malicious compliance instead of trying to actually pinpoint the source which is the salesperson (or their equipment)
- The Random Crotch Shooting – Look, the teenage boy in me comes out early and often. When the frustration builds and the IT guy sites there shooting his comrade in the crotch while they are idle while in the meantime people are calling because they can’t get to the pumpkin picture page on their cities website… Even now I am almost brought to tears of laughter at the absurdity of it all. Unfortunately, sometimes Engineering is like this. Really makes you have faith in humanity, right?
- The all caps, red highlighted, email message – There are always people that you don’t want to mess with. That list is fairly short. First and foremost is people that make your food. Second on that last is IT operations people. The amazingly fast deletion of the sent email message just goes to prove this.
- Cascading Failures – talk about the law of unintended consequences. The exchange server going down due to the guy not being able to hear in the server room? Oh yeah, it is getting better and better…
- Password Security – I mean, come on. The flying windows logo for a screensaver? The letter “A” for a password? Well… the IT guy is talking to a salesperson. Speaking of….
- Salespeople – After re-watching this video today I am not 100% sure what the guy’s actual problem was. He obviously was able to get online. This person had multiple games of solitaire or similar windows card games going, they were looking at questionable content, and the cherry on top is attempting to log into AOL from work due to the free 4000 hours. One of the best lines in the clip: “Can you carry over my hours?” Young people will never know the feeling of having enough extra AOL cd’s lying around that you could wallpaper an office with them. Want your mind blown? As of 2017 AOL was still selling dial-up services with over 2.1 million subscribers….
- The PC background – No direct comments here on the spacing and layout, which is phenomenal. You have to see it for yourself. But this is a great lesson to all of us. Don’t get too complacent. Using the same setup for 8+ years so that you know that you have to go to the specific part of the “rocketship” to get to something? Come on! Liven it up a little. Mix it up, change your background.
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