'The IT Crowd' UK Sit-com
Nigsy writes "The Register reports that
"A new sitcom - set among IT workers in the dingy basement of a glamorous company - is due to arrive on the UK's Channel 4 next month. The IT Crowd, written by Graham Linehan (the scribe behind Father Ted, Black Books), will debut on the internet on 27 January, a week before its terrestrial broadcast on Friday, 3 February at 9.30pm."" Here's hoping that they have a consultant on the show to make it technically accurate.
The high-rise towers of Renham Industries are full of go-getters, success stories, and winners... apart from in the basement. While their beautiful colleagues work upstairs in fantastic surroundings, the I.T. department - Jen, Roy and Moss - lurk below ground, scorned by their co-workers as geeky losers.
"Geeky losers"? Oh dear...
<clickety clickety>
Let's just see how geeky you think the IT department is after I format your drive, toss the backup, and submit your 'candid holiday snaps' to a few dozen gay singles websites, along with your name, address, work number, and personal cell number, shall we?
Oh, hold on...
<clickety clickety>
Now the Boss' home page has been set to one of the raunchier gay singles websites, proudly displaying your picture as 'twink of the week', and stating that your interests include latex, flash photography, and small mammals. That ought to spice up the water-cooler gossip.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
As in one of the characters' mom's basement?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Black Books and Father Ted are the funniest sitcoms in recent memory...dunno if BB has had any airings in the US yet but if not, go to your favourite torrent site^H^H online DVD store and watch some. I promise it will be the funniest thing you'll ever watch. Father Ted is equally funny.
Hopefully this will be just as good.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
"There was a name we had for users... what was it again?"
"A shower of bastards!"
If past performance is any indication, it should be spot on. Father Ted was the most accurate depiction to date of the priest's life.
Are you...Are you some kind of genius?
No, ma'am, I'm just a regular Slashdot reader.
Drink! Feck! Arse! Girls... sorry, no girls allowed.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Here's hoping that they have a consultant on the show to make it technically accurate.
Why does it have to be techically accurate? If that's their only goal, it probably won't be very funny. I'd rather that it have accurate insights into the way the two distinct mindsets (tech and non-tech) perceive and interact with one another in the workplace. Now that's a potential comedy goldmine.
This sounds a lot like Beauty and the Geek just without women.
My page.
It's a recipe for wackyness when a linux vs. bsd flamewar breaks out and the flamboyantly gay sidekick has a date with two men on the same night at the same time! Bronson Pinchot guest stars.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
Just out of interest, did you complain that Father Ted didn't accurately reflect the teachings of the Catholic Church?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I was gonna say something about The Office but they already did. Chris Morris, the well-known satirist, makes a rare acting appearance as the trio's dour Scottish boss, a character more akin to 70s corporate fantasist Reggie Perrin than The Office's David Brent, according to Linehan. The series is produced by Ash Atalla, whose previous credits include The Office. ® For the USA folks, bit torrent will be the only way to see this. So I will try it.
We all know it will be the typical "let's laugth at the nerds" jokes.
All the kool people will be out having fun while the nerds are stuck in a bacement..
I think you got "geeky" confused with "fired".
Now you're fired.
Enjoy the unemployment line, geek
How you think that post reverses the 'geek' stereoype in any form whatsoever is beyond my scope.
Ahhh...the modern-day BoFH. I've seen a few places that need one of them in their IT department.
... because putting "geeks" on TV will surely capture the sought-after young male demographic that simply doesn't watch the tube.
Why let technical accuracy get in the way of a good poke fun at the nerd joke?
...with IT teams in dingy basements (statistically speaking) have 10-15% greater incidences of PC failure due to the volatile combination of environmental hazards and embittered technical support.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Show nothing but the tops of the character's heads as they sit in their cubicles. That would be technically accurate.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Too bad we'll never see such a show in the US. As soon as the IT basement geeks start surfing pr0n *BAM* FCC fine: $1,000,000... *BAM* FCC fine: 2,000,000...
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
The Boss sez: "You're fired!."
The Constable sez: "What's all this then."
The Geek sez: Stay Tuned!
crazy dynamite monkey
...all of which are out on DVD. (You may know this an mean that it never got past season 1 on TV in America, it wasn't clear.)
...the whole REALITY TV-SHOW thing! It's a sitcom.
It's not realated to the OP but if you like UK comedy that's related to technology, check out LUGRadio, they have a really amusing linux-focused show at lugradio. Let me know if you have any others like that.
Why UNIX?
Is there any blue screen on the espisodes?
http://www.michel.eti.br
With the natural quirkiness of geeks, the vast world of technology, and a good mix of pop culture a good writer could put together a very entertaining show. I hope we'll get to see it here in the States.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I think it will be more geard towards "normal" jokes.
Like
Q: How many normal people does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: 1. They simply call Handy Man express and pay $70 for a lightbulb.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Father Ted is a classic. Black Books is a classic.
Neither really conform to stereotypes of what priests or bookshop workers are like; in fact, the character's job is often a little bit at odds with what they're like. If this is carried over to this show, maybe we'll get a comedy that features some highly eccentric geeks whose actual paid work is secondary to their real love. This is kinda true for many geeks I know; their off-duty coding is far more important to them than their on-duty coding.
Just like the movie "Hackers". Oh, wait . . .
If it's accurate, it probably won't be funny to the vast majority of people, and it will tank. We'll see. Perhaps it'll be great, and accurate.
On a side note, at my old company, the IT-ish guys were treated pretty well, and were the "social elite." Of course, we are comparing IT guys vs programmers here.
50 bucks says their servers run Linux
I remember a CBS sitcom with a bunch of geeks in an office. They wren't IT people, but they were geeks by far. I think a few has-beens were on it. Anyone know what show I was thinking of? They had transitions between scenes consisting of a computer's desktop.
The less-popular half of Bosom Buddies was on it, and I think maybe Patrick Dempsey.
I don't know. Do drunken help desk techs routinely tell senior executives who can't find the Any Key to "Feck Off!"? Because Father Ted feckin' rocks, but I don't suppose it's representative of how a real church... on a desert island... operates.
One might ask the same about birds. What ARE birds? We just don't know.
Sign on a nuclear containment building:
WARNING: Radiation area. Prefaded genes only.
Said the sweet young lady, "Oh, I see how astronomers figure out the distance of the stars and their sizes and temperatures and all that. What really gets me is how they find out what their names are."
Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you will find that programmers cannot write in English.
The First Rule of System Programing:
Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle.
--- Courtesy of http://www.randomjoke.com/topic/nerd.php?13492 ---
Who could forget this one?
Nerd Season
A truck driver, hauling a tractor-trailer load of computers, stops for a beer. As he approaches the bar, he sees a big sign on the door that says, "COMPUTER NERDS NOT ALLOWED - ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK!" He enters and sits down.
The bartender comes over to him, sniffs, and says that he smells kind of nerdy. He then asks him what he does for a living. The truck driver explains to him that he drives a truck, and the smell is just from the computers he is hauling. The bartender serves him a beer and says, "OK, truck drivers aren't nerds."
As he is sipping his beer, a skinny guy walks in wearing a pair of glasses with tape around the middle, a pocket protector with twelve kinds of pens and pencils, and a belt that is at least a foot too long. The bartender, without saying a word, pulls out a shotgun and blows the guy away. The truck driver asks him why he did that.
The bartender replied, "Don't worry. The computer nerds are in season because they are overpopulating Silicon Valley. You don't even need a license."
So the truck driver finishes his beer, gets back in his truck, and heads for the freeway. Suddenly, he veers to avoid an accident, and the load shifts. The back door breaks open and computers spill out all over the road. He jumps out and sees a crowd already forming, snatching up all of the computers. The scavengers are comprised of engineers, accountants and programmers - computer geeks. Each of them wearing the nerdiest clothes he has ever seen.
He can't let them steal his whole load. So remembering what happened in the bar, he pulls out his gun and starts blasting away, killing several of them instantly. A highway patrol officer comes zooming up and jumps out of the car screaming at him to stop.
The truck driver said, "What's wrong? I thought computer nerds were in season."
"Well, sure," says the patrolman, "But you can't bait 'em!"
I was in the VIP lounge last week en route to Seattle. Whilst in the lounge, I noticed Bill Gates sitting on the chesterfield enjoying a cognac.I was meeting with a very important client who was also flying to Seattle with me but she was running a bit late. Being a forward type of guy, I approached Mr Gates and introduced myself. I explained to him that I was conducting some very important business and how I would appreciate it if he could throw a quick "Hello Phil" at me when I was with my client. He agreed. Ten minutes later while I was conversing with my client, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Bill Gates. I turned around and looked up at him. He said, "Hi Phil, what's happening?" To which I replied "Bug off Gates, I'm in a meeting"
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I remember how WKRP in Cincinnati was a favorite tv sit-com in the late 70s and early 80s among those of us working in radio because it had good characters and funny situations. We could overlook that none of the djs ever used headphones, their casual approach to cueing up the next record, the unrealistic l'aissez faire style of the program director, the occasional lack of music director, an AM station looking to rock music as a viable format change (pop music's move to FM was well established at that point), the station's too much wattage for its position on the dial, there never being any powering down and up at sunset and sunrise, that the news announcer and dj shared the same microphone and studio, that full-time operation of the station was possible with an air staff of two, that Les Nessman wasn't jettisoned along with the elevator music recordings, and other compromises of authenticity or verisimilitude.
Possible spoilers in this thread... http://chilled.cream.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=94 35
Seen a few ads on Channel 4 - should be good.
that whacky comedy about waste water treatment workers? After all, being a sysape is just a half step above janitor...
... on WB station at 9:00 PM after Smallville I believe. I saw the casting episode last night. It looks funny. Season 1 was hilarious especially with Richard. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
If technically accurate, the characters will be males reading Slashdot, downloading pr0n, virus-scanning Windows boxes, eating pizza, and quarrelling intensely about Perl and Python.
I predict low ratings.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
I found theese here:
http://ma.tthew-cox.us/jokes/top_geek_breakup.php
Top 11 Geek Breakup Lines
11.
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? R
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? F
Relationship failed.
10. Now that Half Life 2 is out, I need to refocus my priorities.
09. You have been unsubscribed from my dating list. Please click this link to confirm.
08. I need a lover who understands that 20 hours a day on the Internet is normal.
07. I don't think we should date any more, but we can still be on each other's buddy lists.
06. I'd like a true beauty so I don't have to spend so much time photoshopping your ugly face out of our photos.
05. It's like in X-Men number 135, where Cyclops and Jean Grey (as The Phoenix)...
04. Let's face it. You love Intel, and I'm an AMD man. It's not going to work out.
03. What do you mean your EULA says that once I've removed the shrink wrap I can't return it?
02. After you e-mailed me your full-body shot, I realized I was looking for someone more feminine.
01. So long and thanks for all the fish.
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Yes, because technical accuracy is what makes comedy funny. I find the technical accuracy of Dilbert hilarious. Oh wait, there is nothing technical in Dilbert at all, and yet it's still funny. I wonder how he manages that?
Canonical Anonymous Coward
Can a sig be more clever than it's creator?
Sweet. You got it, you can toss us "geeks" to the basement - but we mostly make more $ than those upstairs, are infinitely more intelligent, find spelling a boore, and have more power than most mortals can even conceive of. BWA HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!!!
Horns are really just a broken halo.
If I was Simon T! Sounds like a "lifting of Story" to me, isn't BOFH copyrighted?
Sig Hansen?
aired last night: Hyperspace.
Trying to be a new 'Red Dwarf'.
Painfully funny, and very geeky.
After accidentlly re-booting the ship and setting it back to defaults, they cut to a guy trying to get into the toilet
"Please enter the 3rd, 5th, and 87th letters of your password" says the door. Nice.
Rather english though, probably wont travel well.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
why are there so many fucking shows about work?! If I actually watched TV it should be paying me overtime as a lawyer,CSI agent and now an IT worker - plus TV should be paying for my flights between Las Vegas and Miami for my CSI gig
If I see one more 9 track tape in a movie involving computers, I'm gonna puke.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
There isn't at least one W98 desktop and/or Quake 2 deathmatch in the background...
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Just don't get too deep. A lot of people think that technical accuracy means explaining every detail as so it could have actually happened. What the show needs to do is remember that assumptions make the joke simple enough to be funny to regular people too. Mix company politics in it, and then everyone's laughing.
... I mean, seriously. Who's gonna get that besides us.
Just don't try to emulate Nick Burns (Your company's computer guy). That was just horrible. I mean, *I* thought it was funny, but I'm pretty sure most people would just be irritated by a joke like "AOL is fine, besides the fact that IT DOESN'T UNDERSTAND JAVASCRIPT!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I think it'd be funnier to see non-technical writers writing what they think is technical. It'd be interresting to see how stereotypical we actually are or not. If I want technical accuracy, I can just go to lunch with a co-worker.... boring.
Channel 4 ? - Check !
Broadcast after 9pm ? - Check !
Full Frontal Nudidy probability = 97.34132%
"Larry is troubled by shocking discovery that his favourite anti-spyware app has been running a rootkit on his PC since he downloaded it. Feeling betrayed, he formats his Windows partition, swearing himself forever to OpenDarwin. But he's in for another surprise when Darwine turns up a few bugs of it's own."
Per ardua ad astra.
grep! as! link! perl!
"Let's just see how geeky you think the IT department is after I ... submit your 'candid holiday snaps' to a few dozen gay singles websites, along with your name, address, work number, and personal cell number, shall we?"
I think you got "geeky" confused with "fired".
I think you've got "fired" confused with "promoted".
However, the grandparent is very confused about a wink his supervisor gave him at an office meeting.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Not quite true, or the episode wouldn't be titled "Kicking Bishop Brennan up the Arse".
_end of message_
Please tell me you missed the reference to Father Ted in the summary, rather than that you find Mrs Doyle sexy.
You dont need to make it as technically accurate as emotionally accurate. The movie Office Space was about some software developers with problems about their jobs and love lives. Though they did banter around tech and biz jargon, it wasnt precisely accurate. However, their emotional travials were.
If its a hit, only 15 months until we get a crappy, watered-down version of our own! And the peasants rejoice.
Lighten up. Its only a post.
No, you're the one who's fired! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha! Hee hee! Giggle!
ratings ?
;-)
Just curious
I think he was playing into the stereotype.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
I think you got "geeky" confused with "fired".
I think you need to acquaint yourself with The Bastard Operator from Hell.
In the form of "Salmon Days" an online comedy show set in an IT department. Though I didn't think it really took off.
Black Books was written by Dylan Moran (ie, the book shop owner from the series).
the layman's guide to computer science
FFNP: 1 the probability of Full Frontal Nudity. 2. The same probability that your husband will want to watch the show. 3. Same number also the probability that the show will NOT get aired. 5.Foxy Fingers Nail Polish 6.Fire Fighter Name Plaque. 7. Free Formed Nano Particles. 8. fluoro furanyl norprogesterone 9. FOUR FREAKY NUDE PEOPLE. 10. Five Freakin Nude People. 11. First Four No Protection. 12. For Funny New Post.
This document too long for slashdot...
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I think you need to acquaint yourself with The Bastard Operator from Hell
I think you need to acquaint yourself with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny because UMMMM OH WAIT YOU CAN'T LOL
In the teaser trailer that's currently on TV one of the characters is wearing the great 256th Level of Pac Man T-Shirt from errorwear, which I think bodes well for the show.
"That's the great thing about Catholicism. It's so vague and nobody really knows what it's all about."
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
It takes one to know one!
I think we can trust that the nerds will get their revenge at the workers higher up in the building once in a while.
This will be an easy show to wright. Just read /. for a few days and you could wright shows titled "Green Pigs", "Google AI", "AAs (Another Apple story)"
I see the Humor bypass you just had is healing up nicely
The BB episode "The Grapes of Wrath" has probably the perfect ending of any comedyshow I've ever seen.
Bernard Black, the proprietor of BB is having his breakfast, he doesnt like his toast, so he throws it to the ceiling. The last night he was housesitting with Manny, his hired help, at someones who was to present a bottle of special wine to the pope. It just so happens that Bernard and Manny drink that very bottle, and forged it with... talent.
Finishing his breakfast, Bernard turns to reading the newspaper, and shortly says:"Oh my god!". He turns the paper to Manny and on the first page it reads:"Pope killed because of inferior wine - man Held." Then Bernard points to the date on the newspaper and says with a smile:"It's my birthday!". Manny's jaw drops and so does the toast from the ceiling, right on Manny's head.
Absolutely brilliant.
So, it's clever, original, political, thought-provoking, and side-splittingly hilarious, in the same way as those great British comedy classics Birds of a Feather, the Jimmy Cricket Show and the Vicar of Dibley.
I can't wait.
Stick Men
But what if the boss was flaming? Being "Twink of the Week" might be a dream of his.
I first got a mail from Graham Linehan back in August of last year (he'd been given my details by Cory Doctorow - okay, not much more namedropping, I promise) and I jumped at the chance to help out - Father Ted and Big Train are two of my favourite-ever TV comedies.
He sent the scripts and I eventually sent a couple of notes back with a couple of minor corrections, but I really didn't need to do much at all; the humour in the show comes from really good character comedy, and the IT aspect is (quite rightly, IMHO) just a sideline thing. Roy and Moss bear slightly more resemblance to real-world sysadmins than Ted and Dougal do to real-world priests, but only slightly. As with Ted, the joy is in exggerating the silliness of the situations.
It was in building the set that the fun really started, and I need to get Sean to participate in the thread here as I recommended him for the job of gathering as much fun techie crap as possible as well as looking after the on-set PCs. Having visited the set once, I can tell you he did a fantastic job. There are so many wonderful little references and rare bits of kit lurking in the messes (British geeks in particular are in for a treat). Plus, thanks to Danny, there are EFF stickers everywhere.
Make sure to tape/TiVo/torrent it - it's a great show, fun and silly, with lots of easter-egg treats for geeks.
I think you got "geeky" confused with "fired".
I dare you to find an evidence trail leading to him. Who do you think built the systems that log everything?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
As I explain down here.
(Karma whore? Me? But of course.)
> and stating that your interests include latex...
My first thought was "What's wrong with LaTeX?". That's bad, isn't it...
Whatever you're smoking, quit. Crack = Bad. It's obviously altering your sense of importance and might be making you think that you're actually funny. You shouldn't be operating heavy machinery.
For sale: Signature. One owner. Low miles. Always garaged. New punctuation, just installed!
Sorry - Jen is not a Swedish name. It would have to be Jens or Jan.
and smart - its saying that all the other idiots in a company that havent got a clue in hell as to what makes their computer work, or that, for the f'ing love of God, dont disable the damn anti-spyware and anti-virus, dont download anonymous e-mail attachments, ect (I'm sure theres WORLDS more). This show seems to be saying that for all the work IT does for a company, nobody gives a damn about em - to the rest of the company, they are just the geeks in the basement with no lives that occaisonally come up to help them with making something bold in M$ Word.
Fawlty Towers, The Office (UK version) and Blackadder >>> Father Ted and Black Books... :)
personally I think an IT version of The Office would be far better...
And don't forget the guitar playing singing nun, no IT department should be missing one ... I can't wait to see this episode, a homage to Airplane (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080339/); cool.
"Mummy! I wanna LART for Christmas!" "OK, here y'go!" *WHACK!*
must download new shows!
Few years ago. I'm desperately trying to remember (and google) the series name. It was set in a web developers firm, small office really, looking for big investors. One of the managers (the other was a woman, they got it on of course) may have been Jack Davenport, I'm not sure. One actor I do remember: Jason Lance, but it's not on his imdb sheet, is it? I'm sure he was in it because I later recognized him in Absolute Power as sort of the same character: always ready to fcuk over a friend (if woman friend then literally, too).
Trouble is, Debbie Aldridge doesn't look like that, at least not on my radio.
I can think of a few good storylines based on my own experiences in development over the years. For example, once I spent a week working on an RFP for a potentially big IT contract. It was a huge document, lots of people were working on it, filling out different sections and no-one had time to proof read each others work. A few days after we submited it I was typing a document and I noticed that every time I typed "project" it came out as "Prostitute". As I typed, I noticed more and more words were comming out stupidly, e.g Document was coming out as Dogbiscuit etc. I new who must be responsible and when I asked him about it, he was giggling and said he did it "weeks ago". Well, we never did get the contract and I really just dont have the courage to go back and read the RFP now. Or how about this. My Boss spends most of the day looking up Porn. He is so blatant that one day he was using the communal internet machine and he forgot to properly shut down the browser. When we looked at the machine he was still logged into his profile page on a pervy dating site. There was a big picture of him posing in some swimming trunks. Needless to say everyone has seen the picture. Then there was the time we were supporting a customer using PC Anywhere. The customer's desktop was on the screen, and it was quite a fast connection, so it was quite responsive. The customers were present at the other end watching what we were doing. Suddenly the technical people (me included) were called to deal with another crisis and we left the machine for a few minutes. When we came back my boss was sitting at the machine, just finishing off a Hotmail email (probably to some other pervy site or friend). We just stood there in fear as he nonchalantly got up and went back to his office. Sure enough he had using the customer's machine to send his personal email while they were all gathered aound watching at the other end.
I take it they are going to go the whole hog and have only one consultant then. And get the rest of their info by such researchers.
There are no end of researchers in the bowels of the BBC. They only promote losers so it looks like another classic on the way.
Any decent company would get several consultants for such a project. 1 to get the wrong end of the stick; 1 to know how to do it with Microsoft and ten to disagree with both and schism into Linux/M$ factions.
The web/internet side of it all was usually painfully inaccurate or pantomimed (and timeless romantic dialogue like "Thanks for showing me how to rocket jump - I really owned that level" didn't help), but there were some genuinely good moments in there too. There was a memorable scene where they all arrive in dribs and drabs the morning after the office party, only to find that they've all got an email with a video attachment from the office cctv camera that shows two of the characters having sex the previous night. The sequence of shots around the office as people logged in, reacted to what they saw, then carefully looked around at the others to see if they'd seen it yet was a wonderful piece of acting and directing, and had me cringing and giggling at the same time (rather like The Office).
And I don't think James Lance was in it - possibly you're confusing him with David Walliams, who was, and did play a similar slimy character to the one in Absolute Power (although probably much less of a moral sewer).
Isn't American Fine and Metric pretty much the same thing for an half inch wrench?
1 .html
http://www.reliantownersclub.co.uk/body_tgoct2002
I think BBC's "Attachments" is the show you're looking for. The Attachments web site is still up...
...stating that your interests include latex, flash photography, and small mammals. Chances are slim these beautiful colleagues working upstairs in fantastic surroundings engage in kinky private escapades involving LaTeX. Keep dreaming.
Not quite SF, but `Life on Mars' was very good (although it spent a lot of time feeling like that Comic Strip Presents thing `The Seventies Detectives').
ian
Actually, grandparent made me laugh quite a bit. But never mind.
On a more serious note, I do actually know of one sysadmin who managed to get himself fired because he wasn't able to distinguish fact from fiction when it came to the BOFH and decided to pull a (much milder) version of one of those user-abuse stunts. Deleted some data belonging to a particularly whiny user, then found out that his employer cared more about the whiny employee in question than it did about him. I shared a house with him at the time. He came home grinning and bragging on the day he pulled his stunt - 48 hours later he was suspended. He's now flipping burgers (well... pouring coffees), with no realistic hope of getting back into his old line of work with that on his employment history. Simon's stories are funny, but they're just stories. Fiction. Anybody planning to emulate them in real life needs to think twice.
or that, for the f'ing love of God, dont disable the damn anti-spyware and anti-virus
Being an IT guru isn't about knowing not to disable the security, but knowing when to disable the security.
**TODO** Steal someone elses sig.
Here's hoping that they have a consultant on the show to make it technically accurate.
... and have crisp timing.
Yeah, that's pretty much my pet peeve too. Still, I'd prefer it to be sociologically accurate
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers - Pablo Picasso
Or make sure they cover their tracks properly :-)
Granted, his IT workers are slightly atypical...
that the people of the office disable it, making the jobs of IT harder.
"Let's just see how geeky you think the IT department is after I format your drive..." etc etc
Yep, that's about as geeky as you can get.