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The Bastard Operator from Hell (1999)
- jasongill 5y agoI love these so much and plan to re-read them all (for the N'th time in the past 30 years) again today, thanks for posting this nostalgia trip.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y agoA wonderful classic:) It's funny to me how much culture these convey even through a warped lens.
- chrisseaton 5y agoI never understood - what does 'operator' mean in this context. I've never encountered anyone with the job title 'operator'. Does it mean 'user'? But that doesn't fit with the content because the Bastard Operator doesn't like users. Does it mean 'admin'? But then why a different word?
- jasongill 5y agoThe term would be akin to system administrator now; the sysop was the one who was in charge of the computer (you know, the one computer on a business or school campus that everyone shared via terminals). They would be in charge of monitoring the computer, making sure that users weren't doing anything they weren't supposed to and impacting other users, managing backup tapes, and handling the equivalent of "support tickets" (mostly via phone or paper in those days)
- datavirtue 5y agoNow that person controls access to THE cloud.
- admash 5y agoOperator in this context is similar to administrator. A cognate being "sysop" from the 80s and 90s bulletin-board scene, meaning "system operator".
- Joker_vD 5y agoIt means "computer operator": "a role in IT which oversees the running of computer systems, ensuring that the machines, and computers are running properly" [0] ― a rather interesting article to read even on its own. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_operator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_operator
- jaggederest 5y ago"A computer operator is the person responsible for monitoring and controlling computer systems especially mainframe computer systems in a company or organization." It's kind of archaic, now, but back in the day you used to have a computer that filled a whole room and there would be an operator in charge of compiling and running jobs, returning (printed) output, managing user accounts, resources, backups. Sort of analogous to a system administrator on multiple smaller computers used as servers, or the IT guy on personal computers used for work, but much more direct, in that they would actually be the one who operated the computer. Users submitted typed programs that would be input into punchcards and run as a batch, or run on a scheduled basis.
- throwawayHN378 5y agoWhen I was an undergrad student in 2010 I worked part time as a contractor for the state of NY and my official title was “computer operator”. For the most my job was IT support
- whoopdedo 5y agoIt's not entirely archaic as the title lives on in DevOps.
- DnDGrognard 5y agoNormally an "operator" would look after the lower level functions changing tapes.
- datavirtue 5y agoComputer operators were not very technical--just trained on the various tasks listed. It was often a low wage job. Not like a more familiar sysadmin of more recent years.
- lmilcin 5y agoLong time ago people could not use computers. You would write down the program you want to get executed or punch it on punch cards. The only people who could actually operate the computer were... the operators. These people (mainly women) would transfer the program to the computer, execute it and then transfer the answer back to the requestor. This survived into later because an admin on the server is was the only person who could actually operate the server. The rest can only within whatever rights the admin gave them, but for any important operation (like adding a user) you still needed the admin (operator) to take action.
- bitwize 5y ago
- dijit 5y agoI remember reading in a book once: Systems Operator: Maintains and runs systems, often works from runbooks, or automated UI's; does not write code, works within the constraints set by Administrators. Level 2 Helpdesk. Systems Administrators: Responsible for writing documentation, addressing the needs of monitoring. Usually the person writing runbooks and scripts, works closely with a Helpdesk and their needs, automates recurrent problems. Level 3 Helpdesk. Systems Engineer: Responsible for architecture, understanding complex systems, working on new projects, making Systems Administrators lives easier. Working with Architects on upcoming projects, likely designed and built the logging solution, database migration systems, job control systems. Systems Architect: Same as a systems engineer except focused on business needs instead of technical ones. Usually works on a higher level of abstraction, often works across many teams to gather needs. This was a book that was "old" when I read it in 2007, so, obviously this no longer reflects reality (if it ever did).
- bombcar 5y agoOperator as in System Operator or sysop- an archaic term for IT administrator from when the computer was a single “system”. Equivalent to root when used.
- kgwgk 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sysop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sysop
- xbar 5y agoWhen I first encountered BOFH, I recalled TV commercials on KTLA Channel for Control Data Institute in order to give me context on the "Operator" term. You could train to be a computer programmer, operator, or technician. Seems like a standard term of art for the 1970s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09y4zT18KXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09y4zT18KXM
- lambic 5y agoMy first job was as an operator for a UK bank. The work was: * Putting paper on printers * Taking paper off printers * Decollating the paper that came off printers * Putting tapes into tape drives * Taking tapes out of tape drives The slacking was * Going to the pub before it closed on night shift * Having sword fights with the plastic swords we used to cut paper * Finding an unlocked office and using the phone to call party lines The work highlights were: * Going to a vault and back flanked by security guards to get the Queen's tape * Printing bank statements of the rich and famous (I've seen Mick Jagger's bank account)
- mech422 5y agoBesides 'computer' operator, there used to be 'I/O operator's (tapes) and 'print pool operator' (run printers). Also, in my experience 'computer operators' weren't really 'sysadmins' they were more like automated job scheduling services. Follow the run book, run batch jobs, check for errors sort of thing Source: I've held all 3 positions at one time or another.
- h2odragon 5y agoI've had "BOFH" on my license plate for 25 years now. I think I've had one person recognize it; and that was out of state at a Hamvention.
- peakaboo 5y agoI would recognize it and LOVE it. But I'm 46 so there is that. :)
- rwmj 5y agoI think I'd be too scared to approach you :-)
- _joel 5y agoThe one person was the PFY?
- reaperducer 5y agoI tried to register GOSUB once, but it was taken.
- gostsamo 5y agoThe story is still alive on The Register: https://search.theregister.com/?q=bofh https://search.theregister.com/?q=bofh
- usrbinbash 5y agoBOFH is probably the best comical criticism of corporate "culture", with "Dilbert" as a close second.
- mpol 5y agoAny love for Hackles? I have read them twice now from start to end: http://hackles.org/index.html http://hackles.org/index.html
- usrbinbash 5y agoMeh...it lacks the cruelty of BOFH and is nowhere near the sarcasm of Dilbert.
- rsynnott 5y agoThe title's a little misleading; this is all the old stuff, but anything after '03 is available on The Register: https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/bofh/ https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/bofh/
- iso1631 5y agoThe original and the best. After moving to The Reg it stretched from grmpy sysadmin deciding to delete peoples files to a machivellian character who murders people on a regular basis
- lostcolony 5y agoI dunno; at least that way it's more obviously hyperbolic, and thus less likely to be emulated
- rsynnott 5y agoIt's oscillated a few times; some of the early ones are quite murder-y, and the Reg version has sometimes been a bit more normal (though I think he's in a murder-y phase at the moment).
- elsjaako 5y agoBOFH#4 already implies someone is killed by a SWAT team
- CraneWorm 5y ago> machivellian character who murders people on a regular basis I read the first one he murders someone so it seems it has always been like that.
- nirav72 5y agoI found the older BOFH stuff from early 90s Usenet days a lot more funny.
- tempodox 5y ago“The Rag” has even more episodes, starting May 2000 [1]. The most recent episodes are at https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/bofh/ https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/bofh/. [1] https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/bofh/earlier/7/ https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/bofh/earlier/7/
- sumtechguy 5y agoThe bound editions are nice as well. https://www.amazon.com/Simon-Travaglia/e/B00JCJDZCU https://www.amazon.com/Simon-Travaglia/e/B00JCJDZCU
- norpisss 5y agoI have a couple of coworkers that use this term with pride, e.g. part of their nickname, email signatures, etc... Why would they do that? To me it reads as unwelcoming or passive aggressive, doesn't it?
- dsr_ 5y agoIt's neither. BOFH represents an angry, cathartic, antiheroic response to the social problems of the IT world. Anyone acting that way in the real world deserves the prison sentence that would immediately follow... just as anyone who behaved like an action movie star in the real world would go to prison for assault and murder. The primary desired response is quiet sympathy and camaraderie, if appropriate.
- bartvk 5y agoI guess it differs for each person. I think it's funny, it's a way of saying that you don't take yourself too seriously. Of course you could ask the coworkers in question, but do you want to bring your account to the attention of a BOFH?...
- op00to 5y agoUnwelcoming for sure.
- ndlary 5y agoWhy does everyone feel entitled to be welcomed in all situations since around 2015? The people demanding to be welcomed have more power now than the people who actually created something. This is deeply wrong. Also, the question of welcoming/unwelcoming is entirely orthogonal to what the BOFH is about.
- vbezhenar 5y agoWhy would I want to be welcoming or positive? While I'm not exactly aggressive person, I'm more like neutral person and I would never want to fake welcomeness or something like that. If someone will approach me with question from documentation, I'll never hesitate to answer RTFM and move on. May be that's US thing that everyone must smile and be kind. I was not taught like that, I don't expect that from others and I'll not fake good mood being in a bad mood myself.
- mattowen_uk 5y agoWARNING: Site starts playing loud music immediately on load.
- hulitu 5y agoOh , so just like any news site nowadays. Some (browser developer) people never learn. Or to put it another way: "Lusers, bless their little hearts, have simple minds. " [1] [1] a.s.r. FAQ
- vbezhenar 5y agoIt does not for me and actually modern browsers do not allow automatic sound playback without explicit user interaction.
- bombcar 5y agoApparently “moving the mouse anywhere near the tab” is explicit user interaction unless I disable sound by default.
- bencollier49 5y ago"It's backup day today so I'm pissed off. Being the BOFH, however, does have it's advantages. I reassign null to be the tape device - it's so much more economical on my time as I don't have to keep getting up to change tapes every 5 minutes. And it speeds up backups too, so it can't be all bad can it? Of course not." So not quite everything he gets up to is fantasy.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoI do sometimes wonder how much of the attitude and behavior of many IT people I've met might ultimately be sourced from the BOfH, taken to heart by people who didn't really get the joke. Much like how modern game 'critic' culture seems to have been derived from the AVGN.
- user-the-name 5y agoYeah, I really do suspect that a lot of the rotten parts of programmer culture stems from things like this.
- datavirtue 5y agoReal life BOsFH hate developers more than lusers.
- shagie 5y ago> Want of become enemy of ops? Install developer friendly product. -- DevOps Borat ( https://twitter.com/DEVOPS_BORAT/status/305113251388203008 https://twitter.com/DEVOPS_BORAT/status/305113251388203008 )
- dijit 5y agoI think in this case that art imitates life. Most people working in IT when these things came about were burned very hard by being a "cost centre", they were user facing and also had to be deeply technical. It's difficult to be under appreciated, held to high standards for output but also be user facing (because support requires, more than anything else, patience) and maintain a positive demeanour, most people specialised into roles like "Helpdesk" but those always felt very entry level and were probably very unfulfilling. Even if you had a Helpdesk: it probably felt that the implementor was "very far removed" from the user, which makes things even more annoying when something breaks down and you want things to move quickly. BOFH is almost certainly a fantasy that follows the perception of an operations person. Certainly I believe that more than I believe it's a work of fiction that came from nowhere that people identified with and imitated.
- aurizon 5y agoBack in the day, BOFH was not on the Register. I thought it was very topical and I suggested to Mike Magee that they talk to each other - the rest is history. LOL, a downvote for the literal absolute truth, Check with Mike and Simon if you have any doubts...
- saul_goodman 5y agoLol, welcome to the show, where half the contestants don't understand humor and the other half have to explain what it Actually means.
- aurizon 5y agoYes, I found it funny, and the number of fatalities was extraordinary (all for valid reasons...). He should re-invigorate it with hacker stuff and ransomware demands for 2P or I trash your server - see the coin slot on your server - insert 2P - the ideas are endless to expose fools who use admin as pw etc..
- neotek 5y agoOh man, what a blast from the past. Another great site in the same vein was Acts of Gord[-1], which followed the exploits of a used game store manager. Similarly semi-apocryphal and perhaps a little overstated, but highly enjoyable. [-1] http://www.actsofgord.com/ http://www.actsofgord.com/
- DnDGrognard 5y agoI remember seeing the early BOFH when I was working for Telecom GOLD (Dialcom) in the mid 80's. I think the BOFH files may have come from the NZ Dialcom licensee originally.
- MerelyMortal 5y ago-1?
- neotek 5y agoSome people on HN start their link indexes at 1, some start them at 0. I, an intellectual, start them at -1.
- MerelyMortal 5y agoWhat's the logic behind it, other than "one upping" those people or parodying the people that use '0'?
- jerf 5y agoI don't really have a hard time believing that running a used game store in what is clearly not the best part of town over the course of a couple decades would produce Gord's stories. As the phrase goes, shit happens. Nothing interesting may happen on a normal day but there's a lot of days and eventually you roll up all manner of interesting occurrences.
- lambic 5y agoI have a shell script that sends my daily scrum update to slack and it includes a fortune at the end, including the occasional bofh excuse.
- teddyh 5y agoI’ve never liked the BOFH stories, even when I first encountered them in the early 90s I never thought they were particularly funny, and as I’ve since become a more experienced sysadmin I’ve actually come to despise them and the attitude they symbolize. Sure, the stories are parodies and written in an exaggerated manner, but the underlying humor seems to be saying “Isn’t this what we all really think? Isn’t this how we would all wish we could behave?”, which is an attitude I find deplorable. I’ve elaborated about this here in the past, first here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10320829#10322378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10320829#10322378 and later here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16724962#16725937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16724962#16725937 (Note: this entire comment is a repost from four years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164086)
- hootbootscoot 5y agoThink of it as some sort of elaborate Dilbert, rather. The essence of it is the dysfunction of corporate office life.
- teddyh 5y agoEven Dilbert wasn’t usually mean, and certainly never to people who didn’t really deserve it.
- hpoe 5y agoYou sure you've been reading the same strip because the PHB and Dogbert have both been deliberately mean on multiple occasions. EDIT: Also catbert whose whole character is about being cruel.
- teddyh 5y agoThe PHB isn’t a viewpoint character. And Dogbert is usually only mean to people who can said to be (in some sense) deserving.
- 5y ago
- mik09 5y agoreminds me of a ctf (overthewire - vortex level 16) that uses bofh to crack 100 out of 128 letters of a hash...come to think of it now i have more clues for this one.
- beardyw 5y agoReal life story: In the late 70s I was new to using the teletype we shared in the office, and one day I had a job waiting for a tape to be mounted. An old hand asked what the problem was, "here, move over" he said "this should help". He typed a message: - why don't you .......s do some ....ing work for a ....ing change - and walked away. I was left traumatised. I later got a call from the ops manager saying that he and the operators were shocked by the language. I doubt it. If that was you, I still haven't forgotten!*
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoAlways thank your sysadmin. Always treat them with respect.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y agoI've been following BOFH for decades (It long predates 1999), since he was a student in New Zealand. It is not PC (but also not deliberately offensive -it's a revenge fantasy; not a manifesto). As time has gone on, Simon (the BOFH), has gotten deadlier. He started off, nuking students' term papers, and has since graduated to routine first-degree, premeditated murder. It's entertainment. Not my favorite go-to, but I enjoy it. I'm easily amused, I guess.
- saul_goodman 5y agoBOFH is meant to blow off steam for the lowly enlisted people of tech. I think the negative comments in this thread really shines a spotlight on the chasm dividing IT people on HN. A lot of the ivory tower of IT hangs out here unaware its hell for the majority of folks working IT. Spend a few minutes on /r/sysadmin if you need a refresher on what it's really like to start out in this business working at an ordinary company. And this is nothing against the ivory tower or the valley. All I'm saying is it's a problem when you can't tell that you're there because of the echo chamber you're in. To most orgs IT is an expense that must be minimized at all costs and that translates to treating IT people as dirt. Shops that export technology as their business are the inverse of this.
- W0lf 5y agoFor our german audience here at HN, there's also a (german) version called Bastard Assistant from Hell (BAfH) [1] which I can highly recommend if you liked the original stories as well [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastard_Assistant_from_Hell https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastard_Assistant_from_Hell
- de6u99er 5y agoDanke!