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Sharky

Shark Tank

Just lucky, I guess

Consultant pilot fish is dispatched to perform a disaster recovery test at a client site -- and this time, the operative word really is "disaster."

"I arrived the night before, and the hotel was double booked," says fish. "I eventually found another one. Then overnight my car was broken into.

"Arriving on site, I learned the tech assigned to work with me had been involved in a car crash and was out sick.

"The machine I was due to work on was out on another disaster recovery test, and the standby machine would not start up.

"We cobbled together another machine to use, and the disk shelf fell off it. We ended up sticking it back up with black tape.

"The technician I was working with then walked through a glass door and ended up having to go to the hospital.

"The user due to come down to do the testing missed his train, so he was unable to get to the site on time.

"The first two sets of backups failed to read. The final set only worked after cleaning the tape drives five times.

"The building had a fire, but it was quickly put out by the fire department, which had a station just around the corner.

"Despite all this, we managed to perform the required testing. But I'm waiting to see what happens the next time I go down there."

Feed the Shark! Send me your true tale of IT life at sharky@computerworld.com. You'll snag a snazzy Shark shirt if I use it. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.

The Best of Shark Tank includes more than 70 tales of IT woe submitted by you, our readers, since 1999. Which all goes to prove, conclusively, that hapless users and idiotic bosses are indeed worldwide phenomena. Free registration is all that's needed to download The Best of Shark Tank (PDF).

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