Grab a Mop and Bucket

Afternoon everyone, As promised, we've "swept up" all the entries from this issue's last mile that just couldn't fit on the back page. Top 11 signs your server room needs a spring cleaning. The latest copy of Win 3.11 is...

May 30, 2003

7 Min Read
NetworkComputing logo in a gray background | NetworkComputing

Afternoon everyone,

As promised, we've "swept up" all the entries from this issue's last mile that just couldn't fit on the back page.

Top 11 signs your server room needs a spring cleaning.

  • The latest copy of Win 3.11 is on a cd marked "Server Update Kit" -- Steve Lempke

  • Your HR department requires that you carry your avalanche locator beacon anytime you are near ?the mountain? of paperwork on your desk. -- John Tibor

  • The US Army wants to use your patch panel as a pinup for effective wire barrier construction. -- John Tibor

  • OSHA requires that you comply with all the safety standards for an Archaeological Dig before you start your cleanup. -- John Tibor

  • Your dust bunnies have grown into dust buffalo and they look like they might stampede at any moment. -- John Tibor

  • Your boss makes you carry a gps, cell phone and flare gun into the room so the search party can locate you sooner. -- John Tibor

  • You strongly consider using a snow blower to make entry, because shoveling your way in will take too long. -- John Tibor

  • You failed Grace Hopper's last inspection. -- Dan Kwitchen

  • Orkin cancelled your pest control policy. -- Dan Kwitchen

  • It's been a month since the decon tablets were all eaten behind the servers yet no mice have been found. -- Armando

  • documents pertaining to OS/2 -- Peter L McCauley

  • there are corpses that you don't recognize -- Peter L McCauley

  • Miss January 1995 still on wall -- Peter L McCauley

  • 386 sx server still running,I think -- Peter L McCauley

  • 4 cases of Jazz tapes -- Peter L McCauley

  • coax cables littering floor -- Peter L McCauley

  • picture of Bill holding his first billion -- Peter L McCauley

  • new dos 3 diskette package still wrapped -- Peter L McCauley

  • I did not know it was a server room, I thought it was the closet to store dust in. -- RoseAnn Sibilio

  • The mold on the leftover pizza from the last upgrade is the same colour as the servers you upgraded. -- Tom Obright

  • The smell from whatever got dropped down the floor grid has finally gone away -- Tom Obright

  • The duct tape is no longer sticking -- Tom Obright

  • Staff from other departments have put curtains on the server room window... from the outside. -- Tom Obright

  • All those boxes labelled IBM PC AT -- Tom Obright

  • Everyone compliments you on your suspended floor system, but you didn't install one. -- Tom Obright

  • That tech you sent in there two days ago? He hasn't been seen since, although somebody did find one of his shoes under a rack -- Duke Walls

  • You are having a rewiring party and you have come across some 300 baud modems - and they are still hooked up and in use. -- Fred Ensminger

  • One of your servers which has been running for three years just crashed but no one can find it. -- Charles Pagelsen

  • You need a satellite photo to find your way out of this maze! Let me out, plea........ thud. -- Adi Cernea

  • Someone's unclaimed leftovers have evolved to the point where they've discovered fire. -- Cindy Byers

  • The servers sent me an e-mail and said not to pay the ransom, they already escaped...to the hallway! -- Steve Harvey

  • The top item on my to-do list is to find my other to-do lists. -- Frederick Lee

  • The server's beards reach the floor. -- Eric Allen

  • The servers are demanding their pensions. -- Eric Allen

  • The network wiring is all dust bunny grey instead of blue. -- Eric Allen

  • When the A/C comes on there's a dust bunny blizzard. -- Eric Allen

  • There are still shrinkwraped copies of Windows for Workgroups Skip Barry

  • You notice that those flowers came FROM the server, and not a secret admirer from cubicle 32B. -- Marvin Duran

  • You put and ad in the paper for server admin that reads: "CSI experience a must-have." -- Marvin Duran

  • A sign on the racks reads: "WMD inside" instead of the usual "Intel inside". -- Marvin Duran

  • "Clean the server room? Yes, Sir! As soon as I remember where it is." -- Marvin Duran

  • Oh, I thought that was a storage room. -- Trent A. Bontly

  • Your Windows has streaks and splotches. -- Mark Jass

  • The donut and bagel wrappers are swirling around behind the server exhausts like those fall leaves you didn't rake. -- Mark Jass

  • Dead mice are found in the tangles of patch cables. -- James Smallwood

  • Your server with the JavaBeans source has sprouted. -- Mark Jass

  • Someone plugged the lights on the company christmas tree in to your router. -- Robert W. Foster

  • When working with Stratus one of our customers was debating whether they should move their existing Stratus systems or buy new ones. Stratus system are fully fault tolerant mainframe style systems and are depended on to keep the most critical environments online. So while looking at one of the systems the customer pulled a CPU board for inspection, and everything looked fine. However, when he pushed the board back in the system abruptly crashed. It was determined that a dust bunny had fallen in between the board socket contacts and shorted out the system?.they decided to buy all new gear?.as we called it, ?the million dollar dust bunny?. At the new data center you could eat off the floor ?lesson learned! -- John Morelock

  • The switch rack looks like a spaghetti bomb went off all over it with multi grain colored strands! Ain't it pretty! -- Ken Cottrill

  • The server changes it's own screen saver to "Dust Me"! -- Tim Peters

  • You can't see the floor through the pile of patch cords, printouts, and parts. -- Roger Bigney

  • Your college intern mistakenly thinks he is in his dorm room.-- Greg Haverdink

  • Your Google box starts playing a new song - the Barney "Clean-up" song. -- Joe Jackson

  • You realize that Bob, the guy who took last month's tapes to off-site storage and then quit, didn't actually quit when he finallydigs himself out of the pile of tapes that caved in on him. Luckily, he survived by scraping the cheese off of 6 month's worth ofold pizza boxes! -- Joe Jackson

  • Most of the "bugs" go away as soon as the case is removed. -- Daniel E. Stafne

  • The new kid wants to know which one of the coax cables he can use to get HBO. -- Terry Bainter

  • That's a server room? I thought it was a storage closet. -- Eric Williams

  • You found the IBM AS/400 repair tech that you THOUGHT never showed up - and the 400 hasn't been turned on in over 4 years. -- Carol Hammond

  • The server room housekeeper gets hazardous duty pay. -- Nick Nielsen

  • Your UPS is powered by the pull chain light bulb switch - in the storage room next door. -- Rick Nichols

  • There is a coffee cup sitting on the router rack with a bio hazard placard on it. -- Rick Nichols

  • Your boss is still sending you email from his AOL 6 account. -- Rick Nichols

  • You discover the system works better when you dump coffee into the Exchange server. -- Rick Nichols

  • Your daily reminder tells you to check for Y2K computability. -- Rick Nichols

  • That spare twenty foot of CAT 5 cable keeps winding it's self around you - and SQUEEZING! -- Rick Nichols

  • The only users manuals you can find start with Welcome to Apple. -- Rick Nichols

  • Looking for Backup Tapes reveals your 1975 collection of 8-tracks. -- Rick Nichols

  • You mark out the path to your desk with dayglo paint - just in case. -- Rick Nichols

  • Local Distribution mail is left in the hall, cause no-one wants to step into "The Jungle". -- Rick Nichols

  • You receive a certified letter from the dust bunnies, demanding a discount since they've been stuck at CY1999/2000 IT real estate rates. -- Diane Stapley

  • Net Server just arrived in the mail, and the server room has not changed since you finished upgrading to Windows 2000 Server. -- Steve Clark

  • The arc between the server cabinets looks like a Jacob's Ladder from old Frankenstein movies. -- Alan Hollaway

  • The mice carry away you twinkies while you monitor a server reboot. -- Greg Martin

  • You don't need Post-Its anymore... a plain piece of paper sticks to the racks just fine thanks to all that spilled coffee, cola, etc. -- Dave Baldwin

  • The temperature in your server box is the same as your boss's forehead: 212F -- Wilbur McGillicuddy

  • You find that one of the servers was designed by Charles Babbage. -- Bradley Ross

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