It was a veritable rogues gallery. A smorgasbord of the magnificently inept. It was a Live Incident Analysis Meeting known hilariously (at least to me) as a LIAM.
There were many faces clustered around the meeting table. Tension was writ large on a lot of them. Others looked pensively at tablets or laptops. I sat there with my pen in my mouth imagining that I was Arnold Schwarzenegger smoking a big fat cigar.
El Jefe stood. He looked hugely constipated. A big fat shit would do you the world of good. I thought to myself.
We instituted a code change at the weekend to CASPR. Ever since, customers have been reporting timeouts and random errors. This is making us look bad. We need to get to the bottom of this and fast. Any questions?
Erm, I have one actually?
Said Globby from Finance, He was a short individual with a lot of yellow teeth.
El Jefe harrumphed in annoyance and nodded for him to go on.
What is CASPR exactly? I always hear people talking about it and I nod and stuff but I never know what it is!
Globby laughed and looked around at us all as if expecting us to join in.
Poor Globby, he didn't realise that in IT you never admit to not knowing anything, that way lies madness and death.
Backup Ben from infrastructure piped up.
*It's our Customer Access Support PoRtal.*
Globby nodded, like someone had just complimented him on his exceedingly large testicles.
El Jefe cleared his throat.
Now that we all know what CASPR is, can we move on please?
This time no-one interrupted.
He introduced Marvena from Design Assurance.
She stood up nervously and began to speak in a wobbly voice.
So, we instituted a major code change to CASPR on Sunday, ever since then there have been access issues. We need to identify those and define our Problem Statement.
Everyone nodded like horses approving a particularly fine batch of feed.
Except me.
Can't we just back out the changes and roll back to the previous config?
My pen was still in my mouth and waggled furiously as I spoke. Which I quite liked, despite it making my speech a bit spitty.
Marvena looked at me as if I had just wiped my arse with her paper aeroplane.
No. This forum is not about that, we are trying to address the problem statement.
She tucked a depressed looking strand of hair behind her ear.
Oh, I thought that this was a major issue affecting our customer facing operations and needed fixed right away?
Said I somewhat smugly, awaiting one of the other meeting people to back me up.
Instead, everyone gazed at me with outright hostility.
Backup Ben began to speak slowly as if to an utter buffoon.
Before we can address the problem, we have to know what that problem is, don't we?
Everyone nodded like a small audience in a jazz club listening to a bass line that doesn't make sense.
Except me.
Give me a half decent developer and I will have it sorted in no time.
Said I, deciding to ignore the painful looks I was getting
Globbers gasped in horror. Someone tutted loudly.
El Jefe raised his hands in a calming gesture and turned to me with a smirk.
Boomdawg. We are not here to solutionize. We are here to identify the problem. Can you respect the LIAM please?
It was my turn to nod, like a dog having its balls licked whilst drinking a vanilla milkshake. I smiled too, as if everyone around me wasn't absolutely fucking mental.
Of course, silly me. Do go on?