DATELINE: Undisclosed location on the Atlantic seaboard, 1998: Before MOVEit, there was a product at Standard Networks named OpenIT, a mainframe connectivity product. I wrote its FTP server using asynchronous Microsoft networking APIs that were fashionable at the time.
The FTP server tested out on our Madison mini-mainframe, so I flew out to install it at a customer site - a large financial services company. We tested successfully on their dev system, so I installed the package on their production mainframe. Within 20 minutes, the FTP server locked up and had to be restarted. I scratched my head and looked through the code. The server locked up again. This was a huge site that processed a lot of traffic, and having to bounce the FTP server wasn't good. For reasons I don't recall, it didn't seem practical to revert to the software they had been using before. The head guy, "Bob," ran around, his face beet red with anger, shouting "JE*** CH****, I FEEL LIKE KILLING MYSELF!". I didn't think he was really going to kill himself, but I was concerned that he was going to have a heart attack. Another fellow actually brought a loaded gun into the office, though this was a coincidence, as he had little to do with this project. (This guy was just showing off his new gun, and his colleagues convinced him to put it back in his car.)
For some reason, around this time I started to get a headache. I walked around the office looking for a medical supplies kit. Finding none, I eventually asked a few people, including "Mike," whether they knew where I could find some aspirin. No one could help me. As I wandered around looking for more people to buttonhole, I passed Mike again. He said "Say, would Advil be good enough?" I said yes, Advil would be an adequate substitute for aspirin to treat my headache. I also made a note to speak more precisely in the future.
Eventually I figured out that I had misunderstood one of the arguments to a Microsoft function. After a one-line fix, the FTP server ran smoothly in production.
During my stay at the customer site, I mostly hung out with my main technical contact and his sidekick. During the day, I tried not to eavesdrop when he called his soon-to-be ex-wife and young children, explaining how daddy still loved them even though he wasn't going to be seeing them anymore. At dinner, the sidekick regaled us with unsavory and, to any right-thinking individual, unflattering details of his personal life. Even though he was technically astute, I don't think he realized what an extremely negative impression he was making on me.
In order to update the dev system, I had to be logged in to a company PC with an employee account. Of course, I didn't have an employee account, so my contact let me use his account. He warned me that after he left for the day, I would have to move the mouse every 10 minutes, or the screensaver would kick in, requiring his password. And of course he wasn't allowed to tell me the password. I got pretty good at walking over to his system to move the mouse, but one night I had to quit work "early" when I got engrossed on my laptop for too long and got locked out of his system.
On the last day, I gave a presentation on the new software I had installed. As I wrapped up, my laptop died. I found that even though I had plugged it in, it had been running on the battery, which had fully discharged. Unbeknownst to me, in that recently-remodelled conference room, the only power outlet that worked was the one powering the digital projector. My audience thought it was hilarious that I hadn't realized that I was running on the battery throughout the presentation. I left amidst great merriment. Always leave them laughing.
My boss had once remarked that financial services people were more interesting than one might expect. I never doubted him after that trip.
The FTP server tested out on our Madison mini-mainframe, so I flew out to install it at a customer site - a large financial services company. We tested successfully on their dev system, so I installed the package on their production mainframe. Within 20 minutes, the FTP server locked up and had to be restarted. I scratched my head and looked through the code. The server locked up again. This was a huge site that processed a lot of traffic, and having to bounce the FTP server wasn't good. For reasons I don't recall, it didn't seem practical to revert to the software they had been using before. The head guy, "Bob," ran around, his face beet red with anger, shouting "JE*** CH****, I FEEL LIKE KILLING MYSELF!". I didn't think he was really going to kill himself, but I was concerned that he was going to have a heart attack. Another fellow actually brought a loaded gun into the office, though this was a coincidence, as he had little to do with this project. (This guy was just showing off his new gun, and his colleagues convinced him to put it back in his car.)
For some reason, around this time I started to get a headache. I walked around the office looking for a medical supplies kit. Finding none, I eventually asked a few people, including "Mike," whether they knew where I could find some aspirin. No one could help me. As I wandered around looking for more people to buttonhole, I passed Mike again. He said "Say, would Advil be good enough?" I said yes, Advil would be an adequate substitute for aspirin to treat my headache. I also made a note to speak more precisely in the future.
Eventually I figured out that I had misunderstood one of the arguments to a Microsoft function. After a one-line fix, the FTP server ran smoothly in production.
During my stay at the customer site, I mostly hung out with my main technical contact and his sidekick. During the day, I tried not to eavesdrop when he called his soon-to-be ex-wife and young children, explaining how daddy still loved them even though he wasn't going to be seeing them anymore. At dinner, the sidekick regaled us with unsavory and, to any right-thinking individual, unflattering details of his personal life. Even though he was technically astute, I don't think he realized what an extremely negative impression he was making on me.
In order to update the dev system, I had to be logged in to a company PC with an employee account. Of course, I didn't have an employee account, so my contact let me use his account. He warned me that after he left for the day, I would have to move the mouse every 10 minutes, or the screensaver would kick in, requiring his password. And of course he wasn't allowed to tell me the password. I got pretty good at walking over to his system to move the mouse, but one night I had to quit work "early" when I got engrossed on my laptop for too long and got locked out of his system.
On the last day, I gave a presentation on the new software I had installed. As I wrapped up, my laptop died. I found that even though I had plugged it in, it had been running on the battery, which had fully discharged. Unbeknownst to me, in that recently-remodelled conference room, the only power outlet that worked was the one powering the digital projector. My audience thought it was hilarious that I hadn't realized that I was running on the battery throughout the presentation. I left amidst great merriment. Always leave them laughing.
My boss had once remarked that financial services people were more interesting than one might expect. I never doubted him after that trip.
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