101 Reasons Why You Can't Find Your System Administrator

Compiled by the readers of alt.sysadmin.recovery

  1. They are hiding under the stairs
  2. They are on holiday for the first time in 5 years
  3. They are in the cellars conducting the rituals to keep the machines running
  4. They are in hospital suffering from an overdose of caffeine
  5. Taken away by the police after killing the last user who asked a stupid question
  6. "You have a system administrator ?"
  7. Walked past the table they were gibbering under
  8. The SysAdmin has built a maze with the door to their office at the center
  9. You are the system administrator
  10. Missed seeing the system administrator asleep under their desk
  11. The admin is chained to their desk in a dungeon only the CEO has the key for.
  12. Having to explain to the management why they need an asistant.
  13. The admin is suffering so bad from sleep deprivation that they may as well not be there for all the sense you can make of the words they are saying.
  14. You are afraid that the admin will use you as a punch bag so you are searching for them, but desperately pray that you don't find them.
  15. The admin came to work disguised as a tea boy to avoid talking to users
  16. The admin electroculted themselves whilst installing some cabling near the main power cable. Since the admin's body is the only thing keeping the power flowing, the management boarded up the body and pretended they still had a system administrator.
  17. Stuck in a lift shaft pulling network cable to another floor
  18. Getting Jolt out of their under-floor cache
  19. Hiding on the roof
    -- Simon Burr simes@tcp.co.uk

  20. (S)he's looking up the BOFH excuse of the day.
  21. (S)he's out buying some caffeine.
  22. (S)he's busy installing xfishtank on the main fileserver.
    -- Mark D. Roth roth@uiuc.edu

  23. (S)he's out buying refills for the Nerf(TM) crossbow.
  24. (S)he's locked in the computer room playing Deathmatch.
    -- Dennis J. Preston Jr dpresto@lookout.ecte.uswc.uswest.com

  25. Booted to DOS and is playing doom across the network.
  26. Went to Stop&Go to get ANOTHER case of insert favorite caffinated beverage here
  27. Went to the room with padded walls that nobody dares open when the door's closed.
  28. Managed to find time to sleep for an hour or two.
  29. Just found out he had a two month old child, and is getting re-aquainted with his SO (and the new child)
  30. is playing netrek.
  31. Is in the hospital after being severly injured by a falling soda can mountain.
    -- William S. Duncanson caesar@earth.ops.neosoft.com

  32. Is closeted with boss trying to explain why (s)he uploaded a user to seven.rings.of.hell.com
  33. (s)he's at the hopital having his/her fingers splinted after typing 100 times NO you cannot use your old address after our domain name changes. Please go read the announcements that we have been posting for the last three months.
    -- Marge Robbins mrobbins@netins.net

  34. (S)he's catching twenty winks under the floorboards, tread gingerly.
  35. (S)he's watching the building electrician trip a circuit breaker that will reduce the company 'frame to rainbow colored slag,
  36. (S)he's out by the turnpike waiting for a case of Jolt to bounce out of the truck after it hits the speed bump.
  37. Is out back beating a luser into corn mash who asked "When will the system be back up" one time too many.
  38. Finished a double shift and is out back wondering what that big burning ball in the sky is.
  39. Is busy packing up to go to a site that has contemporary hardware
  40. Is engaged in a staring contest with a pack of evil dogs
  41. Is on the phone trying to talk his wife out of buying a house without ISDN
    -- The Unknown SysAdmin The8thMan@aol.com

  42. (S)he's sitting under the desk, hysterical at what the (l)user just asked.
  43. (S)he's at the pub, it's all too much.
    - Andrea Gibney a.gibney@mailbox.uq.oz.au

  44. (S)he's standing behind you, holding an axe.
  45. (S)he resigned in disgust five minutes ago.
  46. (S)he's in a meeting with the boss to discuss poor user response times.
    -- Ade Rixon ajr@rheidol.elsevier.co.uk

  47. Just look up at the ceiling (Think 'Aliens')
    -- Grant Denkinson Grant.Denkinson@nottingham.ac.uk

  48. (s)he can't be reached via phone or e-mail becuase (s)he is too busy on usenet telling everybody how busy (s)he is or thinking up 101 reasons why (s)he can't be found.
    -- D. Allen Bassham abassham@svm.com

  49. (s)he is hiding under a table so that (s)he will not be the one sitting for hours watching Ultrix reinstall from a single-speed CDROM because the users who inexplicably have root access have destroyed the filesystem again during a misguided attempt to "improve" /etc/rc by repartitioning the disk at boot time "so that it doesn't forget".
    -- Matt Bandy m-bandy@uiuc.edu

  50. (S)he's in the bathroom... masterbating
    -- dbryant@netcom.com

  51. We have a 'secure room' here - bloody great lock on it. I hide in there :)
    -- Rob Wheeler rob@pypers.demon.co.uk

  52. The Grey Wall(tm) has fallen on them and no one has noticed their absence. [clunk,clunk,help!,anyone?]
  53. They've gone to find some more coffee. Sysadmin has left the building!
    -- Matt Haswell ccdmlh@zippy.dct.ac.uk

  54. they've snapped, started muttering about "this damned post office", and left for the nearest gun store
  55. they're out on an interview
  56. they're seeing a therapist who doesn't have any computers in their office, a non-threatening place.
  57. they've gone to a computer museum to beg for parts for the PDP-10s running the place (ala Compuserve).
  58. they're out looking for an ad in any media where DEC mentions OpenVMS
  59. they're planning where to be on 01/01/2000, when all of the MVS systems, and some older minis in mission-critical applications like process control turn to crap. They may be shopping for a bomb shelter if SAC's launch control systems only have a two-digit year.
  60. they're at a travel agent's, booking a vacation to friendlier place, like Iraq.
  61. they're out fomenting rumors that the Windows 95 cd-roms have the Church of Scientology's copyrighted teachings hidden on the disk.
  62. They're meeting with Guido, to put out a contract on the parties that started the open systems myth.
  63. They've gone to Oklahoma City, to enroll in the FAA's Air Traffic Controller training program, to start a less-stressful career.
  64. They're seeing a commodities broker, to arrange direct deposit of their paychecks into buying coffee bean futures.
    -- Gerald (Jerry) R. Leslie jleslie@dmccorp.com

  65. /pub/lunch
    -- Gary "Wolf" Barnes gkb@aber.ac.uk

  66. look better. He/She is probably in the basement somewhere behind the modem racks.
  67. _finally_ took a day off.
  68. It's 9 AM. He/she is not working that late.
  69. Vendor demonstration
  70. Convinience store across the street opened
  71. Pizza delivery is at the front door
  72. Sleeping under the floor tiles
  73. On some floor, in some wiring closet, trying to fix things
  74. In the dumpster behind the building trying to get rid of some frustration by using a sledgehammer on the Macs.
    -- Koos van den Hout koos@kzdoos.xs4all.nl

  75. Because the trauma induced by repeated attempts to install Solaris 2.5 pre-beta on an Intel system has forced him to seek psychotherapy.
  76. Still trying to come down from inhaling too much tape head cleaner.
    -- Nick Cuccia cuccia@talamasca.com

  77. out chasing the rodents off of the twisted pair/power lines
  78. gone home to sleep (1st time in x days)
  79. been convicted of computer crimes (vague reference to randal schwartz)
  80. what was you're username?
    -- Tim Bandy bandy@cs.umn.edu

  81. Emptying the bit buckets.
    -- Michael Shields shields@tembel.org

  82. They finally caught him/her for that -big site-masacre (s)he thought (s)he'd gotten away with.
    -- Carlo Cozzi cozzi@otb.tudelft.nl

  83. ObReason n+x: Your system administrator is walking in circles outside saying "TUESDAY? They want it by TUESDAY? TUESDAY?"
    -- Stephan Zielinski szielins@us.oracle.com

  84. rcp $FAV_RESTAURANT:$FAV_FOOD /dev/stomach
    gurgle gurgle...
    -- Shannon Robert Madsen madsen@cs.umn.edu

  85. Hiding in wiring closet.
  86. Outside having a smoke because it's illegal in the building.
  87. On the roof of the building, contemplating jumping.
  88. On the roof of the building, contemplating which users to throw off.
  89. On the roof of the building, contemplating traffic.
  90. On the roof of the building, contemplating.
    -- Johan van Zanten johan@habanero.evtech.com

  91. In his/her manager's office, trying to explain why the manager gets lots of calls from lusers who can't find the sysAdmin.
  92. (for us part-timers only) In his/her manager's office, trying to explain why the "real" (programming) work doesn't get done. Manager doesn't understand -- when he gave you this job, he said it would only take a couple of hours a week....
  93. Is in luser's office, trying to explain why "export VAR=xxx" from one xterm window doesn't have any effect on the other windows. "But they're all on the same Xstation -- what's the problem?"
    -- Michael Hartwig hartwig@lfs.loral.com

  94. Sysadmin's down in the administrative offices fixing one of their DOS boxes.
    -- Al Castanoli afcasta@texas.net

  95. He's out getting a caffine fix.
    -- John Wanger jwagner@mental.mitre.org

  96. There's more caffeine than blood in his veins, and he was last seen hopping down the hall pretending he was a pogo stick.
    -- J.D. Falk jdfalk@cybernothing.org

  97. The sysadmin is too busy playing with the web
  98. The sysadmin is too busy reading news
  99. The sysadmin is too busy sleeping
  100. The sysadmin is too busy reading other peoples email (not that I do this...)
  101. The sysadmin is too busy installing the latest Xgame on the main fileserver... (this is real cool)
    -- Michael Miller mmiller@mars.cs.unp.ac.za

  102. Performing minor surgery on an ailing DAT drive using only a cow worker's dissection kit (this is a Pharmacy department) after the verdammt cleaning tape decided to remove half the drive's mechanism when it ejected[1].
    -- Chris Richardson foop@sg2.pcy.kcl.ac.uk

  103. Replaced by computer
    -- Lars Syrstad ljs@voldsboks.pvv.unit.no

  104. Busy rerouting their support telephone to the luser of the day
  105. Busy updating their BOFH excuse server
  106. Busy testing new ideas for the BOFH Of The Year Award
    -- Sean B Purdy sean@fastnet.co.uk

  107. Have you checked under the desk/crawlspace?
    -- Aaron Sommer aaron_sommer@herringn.com

  108. Changing the batteries in the UPS
    -- Rebekah Oberin oberin@latcs1.lat.oz.au

  109. They have found the exit.
    (it's like a maze, with little lusers all alike)
  110. They have been fired; no longer needed with windoze 95.
    -- Mike Wessling mikew@xs1.xs4all.nl

  111. (S)he's off running round the building trying to find who has addopted the servers IP address.
  112. (S)he's off round the building trying to find who has turned off which router, or have they just unplugged our link to the outside world
    -- I.Dobbie ian@muscle.kcl.ac.uk

  113. (S)he's dead
  114. (S)he's dead tired
  115. (S)he's joined a cult practising Windoze 95
  116. (S)he's at the CA meeting (Caffeine Anonymous)
  117. (S)he's on the top of the buildingggggggggggg.....................thud!
    -- Stuart Owen rbebb@dbrw.win-uk.net

  118. Someone just mentioned "Windows" and "95" in rapid succession...
    -- John Vaughan john@tcp.co.uk

  119. (S)he has phobia toward your name
    -- Ivy Kuang-Ying Shih

This page was originially created by J.D. Falk