Congratulations Clay!

[harry d brown jr]

Go back to the first thread I posted at the top, but if you have already read it, then read this:













Hi everybody,

A few minutes ago my boss called me into his office and said that he had some bad news. It seems that our engineering consultant had just called and said because his credibility had been comprised by some 'chatroom', it would be best if we retain a new consultant to assist with our data center project.

My boss and I couldn't be happier.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Warm regards, Doug



live free or die
harry


lessons to be learned: Don't mess with unix people unless you plan on a different career.

[Jeffrey S. Sims]

That was hilarious. Thanks for the entertainment Clay, and congrats on your new crown. I hope you have high cealings at home so you can walk upright with 6 crowns stacked on your head.

[Jim Turner]

Greetings, O Fuzzy One,

It was an honor to get to know you in Chicago (and JRF, Pat, and Rita, too!), and it is a privilege to count you as my friend now.

Congratulations on yet another crown. You have without a doubt earned it. I learn something from every one of your posts. Keep 'em coming.

With Sensitivity (yeah, right),
Jim

[Wodisch]

Re-hi, Harry!

...everybody seems to get me wrong, these days :-(
Make that "single crown" read "additional crown", please - am I better to understand that way? (That would make 7 then :-)

Wodisch (who is not a native speaker/writer)

[Kenny Chau]

Congrats Clay, well done.
Keep it up.

Regards,
Kenny.

[Mary Rice]

Hello everyone,

Let me tell you what Mr. Warm Fuzzy did to me on my very first posting. I was having a problem with awk. Clay came back very quickly and said that I needed to install the Gnu version of awk.
A little later, I received a reply from someone else with a crown that directed me to a link that said increase a kernel value. We have a policy that states 'avoid the use of non-standard software.' I then responded that I couldn't find this kernel value.
I was instructed to install a patch so that I could increase this kernel value. James R. Ferguson then responded and gently stated that Clay was correct. I was still avoiding the non-HP software and after some time Clay again responded. I felt like I had been hit with a brick but it was just what I needed to hear. I then installed gawk and have been a happy camper.

I also read the consultants thread. When I showed it to my co-workers, we had to stop working for a few minutes because we were laughing so hard. I think we all dislike having to deal with consultants.

Clay, thank you for all your help.

Mary

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

Hi fellow chatroom guys and gals:

I want to thank each of you for your kind words. I can truly say that the 'consultant' thread was my all-time favorite.

1) Rita - you ain't fooling nobody. You're as smart as they come.
2) JRF, JimT, Patrick, and Rita - I certainly enjoyed meeting you in person and look forward to seeing you all again this year.
3) Wodisch - we have no problem understanding your English and your UNIX is excellent.
4) Harry, thanks (I think) for sharing the now infamous thread with the world.
5) Mary - if I hit you with a brick it was to keep from installing a patch that would have in no way helped on what I presume was a production box.
6) Alexander - please tell your son when he does his first undergraduate seminar presentation and he is ripped to pieces by his fellow students and faculty that it is not personal. That's just part of the learning experience. In seminars, everyone tries to find weaknesses in your presentation so that truth emerges. In that environment, very high praise is 'you didn't mess that up too badly'. A sense of humor helps. In that environment it is expected that your son respond in kind even to very senior faculty. Some will leave holes in their arguments just to be corrected.
7) Finally, to my co-worker, Mark. If you're going to tell a story, at least tell it correctly. Mark really can't help it; his idea of system administration is to insert a CD and run setup.exe. His UNIX is coming along these days, however. Mark started the tale off correctly. My present employer was basically a PC/AS400 environment before the company started a large-scale ERP project. My old employer was a very heterogeneous environment with many HP, Sun, DEC, SGI, and IBM servers and workstations. The new company was to be one flavor of UNIX; in this case HP but one flavor and more importantly one set of Service Agreements. Don't we all love to deal with those? Well, the two guys (who were then generally considered experts) showed up during my first week and started talking about Citrix. That was fine and it was all PC stuff to me so what did I care? Then the conversation drifted into firewalls. At the time, our firewall was running on an NT server and was crashing with this colorful blue screen on a regular basis. I knew that this same vendor's software would run on UNIX and I suggested that as an alternative. I suppose that because these two guys just happen to sell Sun boxes that they suggested that we purchase a Sun box or two to serve as firewall servers. I then said "I think we will stick with HP." The 'tech' wizard of the pair then proceeded to tell me that he could teach me all I needed to know about Sun and Solaris in two or three days. It was then that I turned to him with an absolutely straight face and said "I've forgotten more UNIX than you will ever know". There was stunned silence for several seconds and then they agreed that yes the software would run on an HP box as well.
I think that I am almost as good at dealing with vendors as I am with consultants.

Again, thanks to everyone.

Warm-fuzzy chatroom regards, Clay

[Doug Dell]

Hi Mr. Warm Fuzzy,

I didn't know I was going to start such a famous thread but I want to add my thanks to this list.

Best 'chatroom' wishes, Doug