Linux nearly got me fired!

[enyocnosaj]

I have a funny Linux story for you guys...

So I work overnight at a level II group home for teenage girls with severe behavioral health problems, which is part of a larger non-profit organization that offers additional behavioral health services to Southern Arizona. We have two Windows XP computers in our office that are used for a number of nightly licensing requirements, and although she is painfully computer illiterate our supervisor is also very anal about us using the computers for personal activities.

Then last Friday, an automatic Windows update came down the pipeline and somebody clicked okay to apply it. As luck would have it, I ended up restarting the computer during my shift and the damn thing would not turn back on! It got as far as the bios screen and then automatically restarted. I had a live Knoppix DVD on me so I booted into that and backed up all our work documents onto my portable harddrive and then restarted with my own Windows XP CD. With the Windows CD, I initiated a fresh install (after no results messing in the recovery console) and figured I'd just put everything back how it was with my portable harddrive.

Unfortunately, Windows didn't detect ANY hardware and when I finally saw the desktop everything was huge and displayed in only eight colors. The network card didn't work... nothing. Since I didn't have time to search for drivers, because a girl I have to watch extra closely throughout the night was presenting junk behaviors, I just installed Ubuntu to the harddrive, joined the Windows network, and put all our work related files back onto the computer. Mind you everything worked the same as it used to; the network, the billing server, the program we use to file our daily progress notes, the printer / scanner installed successfully, and then the spreadsheets we use as our timesheets opened just as well in Open Office as they did in Microsoft Office 2003. To me, it even seemed like the computer ran faster than it had before. But I still left that morning scared for my job.

However, when I came back Sunday night Linux was still in use and all my coworkers seemed fine with it. This cool hispanic guy I work with was clicking between desktops and watching the 3D cube roll over and over and said, "Jay, I don't know what you did to this computer but it's tripping me out!" Then I caught him playing Galga and Space Invaders. I thought it was cool that he came across something unfamiliar but was adventurous enough to explore it a little.

Except my supervisor hadn't come in during the weekend. Monday morning arrived, she sat at the computer, freaked out, called our IT department which consists of one guy, then he came and threw the machine away!!! We got a mass email that said somebody ruined a company computer by installing "malicous software" on it - and now we all have to sign appropriate computer usage agreements and turn them in by the end of the week.

*sigh*

[D-cat]

Sounds like this boss could use some re-education, but I doubt she'd listen. You might have better luck with the IT guy. Might. I think you're dealing with people who have drunk the Microsoft kool-aid, and might even be under the impression that Linux is illegal (I'm not kidding, these kind of idiots exist, and seem to be especially concentrated in the SouthWest US). I hope everything works out for you.

"You can't fix stupid." -Ron White

[nujinini]

Drat!

And I always thought that this kind of ignorance can only be found in third world countries like mine. They should be thanking you, I should say!

Hoping for the best for you!

[Farmer Mike]

The IT guy doesn't know much if he threw the computer out instead of formatting and reinstalling. More like an I(dio)T guy.

[MikeTbob]

The IT guy doesn't know much if he threw the computer out instead of formatting and reinstalling. More like an I(dio)T guy.

Amen brother, I was just thinking the same thing. If he actually threw it away instead of trying to figure it out, then he has no business in IT dept. If it were me, I would have at the very least.....wanted to know what it was. If he finds a Trojan horse on an XP/Vista work machine, will he throw that away too?LOL

[enyocnosaj]

Thanks for the replies!

I think, as an IT department, all he's qualified to do is accept a computer after it's been donated to us, drive it to one of the group homes, plug it in, and then add some bookmarks to the services we interface with.

Another thing that sucks, is that working at night I get bored so I stealthily replaced a non-functioning CD drive with my own DVDRW drive last year for watching movies while the girls are asleep. Now that's gone too!

[nujinini]

I think, as an IT department, all he's qualified to do is accept a computer after it's been donated to us, drive it to one of the group homes, plug it in, and then add some bookmarks to the services we interface with.

Boy!

If this is only what it takes to work in an IT department? Man! Then I can at last consider myself to be a guru.

[highfructose327]

He didn't throw it out, he probably took it home now that you got running so well

[D-cat]

If he actually threw it away instead of trying to figure it out, then he has no business in IT dept.

My guess is he actually tried to re-install Windows, ran into the same problems enyocnosaj did, couldn't figure out how to get back what he just lost, and wrote the computer off as a loss, blaming it on whoever installed "malware." (I think the correct answer to that would be Microsoft, but that's just my opinion).

They should be thanking you, but they're obviously too thick headed for that. I have a lot more I could comment about these people but I recognize it as conjecture since I do not know them and it's not constructive, so I'll stop here.

[Galraedia]

I just got a great idea for a commercial. We hire this idiot of an IT guy to do a commercial where he goes into offices, homes,..etc with a hammer and he just walks up to a computer containing Microsoft's Windows and destroys it. Someone will be be like, "What the hell are you doing?" and he will then reply, "Sorry but your computer contained malicious software".