The CEO was a sub-lessor of an office that he decided was too expensive, so he got a new office and sent us all over to the old office at night to break the lease and move everything. The lessor was known to be mean and heavily armed, so this was dicey and a bit rushed. Our coordinator for the evening was said to be a former Mossad agent. All that said, no harm, especially to the CEO, who remained out of harm's way at the new office.
IN ADDITION:
I also recall that office having our authoritative DNS server and was requested to keep DNS going, so I set some outrageous time to expire on the records and moved the server.
We were also requested to remove the split air conditioner, but thought that was really too much, and dastardly, Well, MORE dastardly than other things that went on.
I hope I'm not mixing up offices. During my stay, I recall four offices, each one mysteriously close to the CEO's latest home. The last one, that I finally left, was basically at the end of Runway 22 at (REDACTED) Airport, and had what I estimate to be 6 inch thick glass windows. Cargo planes used that runway a Damn Lot. You just didn't go outside to make a cell-phone call.
Probably the worst day was when I and my crew (I think it was just myself) got to reboot all the servers in a customer's high school at night after their network gear was reset. The overall job was insanely overpromised and as my staff was laid off, most competent ones first, we/I cut all kinds of corners to get things passably working. It was daily panic attack territory. In retrospect, I didn't think of some very obvious solutions (rsync to the rescue) with all the stress.
Anyway, the night job was on Sept 11, 2001. Everyone was sent home but us/myself. And I got to watch grim scenes on monitors along with the janitorial staff.
I left when my illegal "contractor" status (I was truthfully FTE for many years) was unilaterally changed to official contractor status. He thought that I was stealing "supercomputer" Celeron HP computers. (I wasn't, by the way).
He gave away laptops in lieu of back pay, without recording the transaction, making IT inventory a real guessing game. He would bring his kids to the office weekends and they loaded up tons of viruses on the company systems, and BY THE WAY ...
An employee whose company he bought objected to the way things were going, and planted spyware on the CEO's laptop, under the guise of installing demo software. Said employee also left a printed receipt for the spyware in his desk.
The CEO sued and I got to play witness. The trial was held in the building across from the one where Scott Peterson was tried for murder. The plaza was covered with video cables and Attorney Mark Geragos gave regular press conferences.
An administrator or two testified on the defendant's behalf. When asked, I said that they had previously asked me to look out for them because the guy was nuts and violent. He was, by the way. And not too bright, regarding that receipt.
The verdict in the spyware trial was "Well, you two work it out".
I'd have to say that the damn job was the hardest thing I've ever done, but the job market was so horrid that I had to stick with it. And I didn't even get one of those HP Celeron Supercomputers.
Accept myself with all its consequences
The CEO was a sub-lessor of an office that he decided was too expensive, so he got a new office and sent us all over to the old office at night to break the lease and move everything. The lessor was known to be mean and heavily armed, so this was dicey and a bit rushed. Our coordinator for the evening was said to be a former Mossad agent. All that said, no harm, especially to the CEO, who remained out of harm's way at the new office.
IN ADDITION:
I also recall that office having our authoritative DNS server and was requested to keep DNS going, so I set some outrageous time to expire on the records and moved the server.
We were also requested to remove the split air conditioner, but thought that was really too much, and dastardly, Well, MORE dastardly than other things that went on.
I hope I'm not mixing up offices. During my stay, I recall four offices, each one mysteriously close to the CEO's latest home. The last one, that I finally left, was basically at the end of Runway 22 at (REDACTED) Airport, and had what I estimate to be 6 inch thick glass windows. Cargo planes used that runway a Damn Lot. You just didn't go outside to make a cell-phone call.
Probably the worst day was when I and my crew (I think it was just myself) got to reboot all the servers in a customer's high school at night after their network gear was reset. The overall job was insanely overpromised and as my staff was laid off, most competent ones first, we/I cut all kinds of corners to get things passably working. It was daily panic attack territory. In retrospect, I didn't think of some very obvious solutions (rsync to the rescue) with all the stress.
Anyway, the night job was on Sept 11, 2001. Everyone was sent home but us/myself. And I got to watch grim scenes on monitors along with the janitorial staff.
I left when my illegal "contractor" status (I was truthfully FTE for many years) was unilaterally changed to official contractor status. He thought that I was stealing "supercomputer" Celeron HP computers. (I wasn't, by the way).
He gave away laptops in lieu of back pay, without recording the transaction, making IT inventory a real guessing game. He would bring his kids to the office weekends and they loaded up tons of viruses on the company systems, and BY THE WAY ...
An employee whose company he bought objected to the way things were going, and planted spyware on the CEO's laptop, under the guise of installing demo software. Said employee also left a printed receipt for the spyware in his desk.
The CEO sued and I got to play witness. The trial was held in the building across from the one where Scott Peterson was tried for murder. The plaza was covered with video cables and Attorney Mark Geragos gave regular press conferences.
An administrator or two testified on the defendant's behalf. When asked, I said that they had previously asked me to look out for them because the guy was nuts and violent. He was, by the way. And not too bright, regarding that receipt.
The verdict in the spyware trial was "Well, you two work it out".
I'd have to say that the damn job was the hardest thing I've ever done, but the job market was so horrid that I had to stick with it. And I didn't even get one of those HP Celeron Supercomputers.
And have a wonderful job!!
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