The Three Envelopes - deanwebb Version

[deanwebb]

A network administrator arrives on his first day of work and looks through his cubicle for office supplies. In one drawer, he sees three envelopes. On top is a sticky note that reads, "If you get into a situation where you think you might lose your job, open one of these envelopes, in order. These will help you out through your crisis."

He keeps the envelopes in the drawer and thinks nothing more of them as he plugs in his gear and gets to work.

Not two weeks later, his world is crashing down around him. Router interfaces are flapping. Switching loops are bringing down the LAN. The CEO can't watch cat videos on YouTube. Total disaster. The operations manager is constantly yelling at the network administrator, demanding that everything get fixed all at once. The network admin fears for his job. Then, he remembers the envelopes. He opens the first envelope.

"Blame everything on me, the former admin. Everything."

Just then, the ops manager bursts into the scene and demands to know an ETA. The net admin says, "Well, if the last admin wasn't such an idiot, we wouldn't be in this mess! He had no idea what he was doing! Maybe he left because he knew something like this was inevitable! It's like a pack of monkeys escaped from a research facility and set up this network!"

The ops manager pauses and nods. "Yeah, there were times I wondered if he wasn't doing such a good job. OK, do what you can with what you have." He walks away, quieter and calmer. The net admin realizes his job is safe again. He eventually fixes everything and life is good.

Six months later, things slowly start to get bad again. The routers are running out of memory and have to be rebooted daily. The backplane on the switches is oversubscribed. The CEO complains that the cat videos keep buffering. Total disaster.  Once again, the ops manager is growling, looking for a kill and, once again, the net admin reaches for an envelope.

"Say that the design is terrible and recommend a complete rebuild."

Just then, the ops manager is standing over the net admin, expecting answers. The net admin says, "Look, we've barely gotten along with the gear we have. It's old, it's broken, it's worn out. We need to replace everything and get some real equipment in here that can do the job right. Total redesign."

The ops manager scratches his head. "Well, if that's what you think we need, OK. Submit your proposals and we'll see if we can get the budget." The net admin puts together his design and, wonder of wonders!, he gets his budget and is able to build out the most beautiful network he ever saw. It is a work of art, this network. Everyone is happy, life is good.

The net admin enjoys a year or two of smooth performance, but, suddenly, everything is on fire again. The routers are all looping. The switches are all in an err-disable state. The CEO fell victim to a spear phishing attack when he clicked on a link that promised "special" cat videos. Total disaster.

The net admin knows that the ops manager will come raging into his face at any moment, but does not worry. He opens the third envelope, expecting yet another solution. He reads,

"Prepare three envelopes..."

[icecream-guy]

shared that one with the team.   

[deanwebb]

In over 20 years of IT, it's my favorite joke. There's also the epic story of the PDP-10 programmer that timed the program read/writes with when the right hard drive sectors would be under the magnetic head, but that's not a joke. It's a legend.

[SofaKing]

Never heard this before - sharing with team as well.  Thanks!

[NetworkGroover]

Awesome 

[Nerm]

 

[deanwebb]

Bump

Because I'm getting mine ready...