Once in a while it’s time to play a practical joke. One that is harmless and provides amusement for all. That is not always the case as one can discover.
The tale revolves around two idiots who, for the purposes of this narrative, shall be called ‘Thud and Blunder’. The target they picked we will call ‘Bliss’ as will become apparent.
Take your minds back to the days when software was developed on VAX terminals, which were shared by software engineers. Engineers would often arrive early to access a terminal. It so happened that Bliss was observed to arrive early. Blunder noticed this and being aware that Thud had administrator privileges, approached Thud with an impish trick to play on Bliss.
The idea was that Thud would write a login script for Bliss’s account that did the following:
- Print the message – ‘Deleting all files…’,
- Pause briefly,
- Delete the spurious file, restore the users login file,
- Log out the user.
When the user logged in again everything was normal. What a great laugh when Bliss would see the message and turn the air blue with rage and frustration.
No such luck. No eruptions of rage and frustration. It didn’t work.
After a few more failed attempts by Thud and Blunder. The mystery was solved.
Bliss would log in and then go to the coffee machine for morning refreshment. On returning to the terminal, the login prompt was waiting. Bliss would admonish the system and carry on as normal.
The morals to this tale are:
Software doesn’t always go wrong, sometime it’s the user.
Ignorance is Bliss.
How do I know this happened? I am Blunder.
Note: No engineers were injured during this idiotic venture. This same cannot be said about Thud and Blunder and their pride.