Article 77478 of alt.sysadmin.recovery:
From: Carl Jacobs <cjacobs@fallschurch.esys.quux>
Newsgroups: alt.sysadmin.recovery
Subject: Log out!  Out of the fscking machine!  Out!  OUT!
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 12:31:34 -0400
Organization: Raytheon Systems Company
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So I'm waiting around after hours here at BFC[0], because we've got a
bad 4mm DAT drive attached to the file server in our lab, and the daily
and weekly backups are therefore suspect.  Also the disk drives are
making that sound[1] which says, "I'm a happy drive.  I'm a cheerful
drive.  I'm smiling at you because I'm grinding my spindles into
microscopic dust and there's not a single thing you can do about it. 
I'm going to fail.  I'm going to do it soon.  Or later.  I'm not
telling.  Probably soon, because I've been chatting with the DAT drive
two hops up the SCSI chain, and he tells me that he's been ill, so if I
fail *now*, you'll have no recent backups.  That's why I'm happy.  I'm
in control.  I want a goat.  And candles.  Black ones.  Pray, human. 
Pray that I'm in a good mood.  PRAY, DAMMIT, ON YOUR KNEES, YOU
LIMACEOUS BIT OF MEATWARE!"[2]

I digress.

So I inform the rest of the engineering herd that <hostname> will be
going down at 8PM, and taking its filesystems with it, and that if
they've not taken appropriate steps, I'll not be held responsible for
the consequences.  I even *told* them, both in person and via e-mail,
that they might wish to log out of all sessions which accessed
<hostname>[3], after saving all their work.  There's only one luser left
in the lab (Joe Thompson knows who I'm talking about) and he says he'll
call me when he's done in there, since we're not allowed to leave the
lab open and unoccupied.  Fine.  

So at 7:40, he calls me, tells me he's done, and is going to leave as
soon as I come and take the lab off his hands.  I wander in and (out of
habit) check the NT machine he typically uses (he *likes* NT) to make
sure he's logged out.  He is.[4]

So he's walking out of the lab, and I'm heading toward the server to
take it down, when I notice that the IRIX box has someone logged in. 
With files open.  On *two* of the NFS disks from the server.  I check,
thinking that (since Rebecca knows better, and she's the one who uses
that box) something is up.  I stop the guy leaving the lab, and ask him
why he's not logged out.

Luser: "I logged out."
Me:    "You're logged in to the Indy.  Here."
L: "Oh.  But I logged out from my machine," pointing at 'his' NT lump.
M: "Yes, but then you walked over here, and logged in to this one."
L: "Oh, but like, you said to log out of our machines."
M: (At this point, I think I see where he's going): "Nnn..."
L: "So like, I figured it would be OK if I logged in here."
M: "No.  I said to log out of *all* machines."
L: "Oh.  So like, do I need to log out of the Indy?"
M: "Yes.  I'm taking down the machine which holds your home directory."
L: "Oh.  So like, I should log out?"
M: "Yes."
L: "Do I like, have to save my stuff and log out?"
M: "Only if you want it to be there tomorrow."
L: "Umm...so like--"
M: "Yes.  Save.  Your. Stuff.  And.  Log.  Out.  Of.  The.  Machine."
L: "Oh.  Ok."

I should have just taken the server down, and told the management (to
whom I had prudently cc'ed the downtime warning) that I assumed that
*all* of the engineers were capable of reading and following directions,
as long as they were phrased in simple, declarative sentences.  An
incorrect assumption, perhaps, but not one for which I could be
hammered.

As an aside, I really have to wonder how some people manage to breed.

[0] Big Company
[1] Not unlike the locusts participating in a plague o'er the land.
[2] I find that anthropomorphism really doesn't help me deal with 
    hardware all that much, because it lends a certain attitude of 
    disdain to what would otherwise be a mere malfunction.
[3] which is, in effect, *all* logins, because all the home directories
    are mounted from that one machine.
[4] This should have made me more suspicious than it did.
-- 
Carl Jacobs - Software Engineer by title, SysAdmin by fait accompli
Opinions expressed are not those of Raytheon Systems Corporation.
cjacobs at fallschurch.esys.com, darian at widomaker.com  (munged)

"I don't even know his name, and I'm wearing his clothes..." -K