Par For The Course

I would like to just illustrate for you what it’s like to work with government agencies. I’m sure most of you have had the misfortune of having to deal with them before, so you know how fun it can be.

Here’s how it went down:

I receive an email with warm greetings and salutations, informing me that the latest patch of their computer program is ready for me to install on my server. Being a depraved nerd, I enjoy patch day. I look forward to it. It means I get to “fix” something before it’s broken. I say “fix” because that’s the intent. The outcome, 90% of the time, means actually breaking what was working just fine. It’s like getting a flu shot that makes you sick when you were perfectly healthy to begin with. But I digress. We’re talking about patch day.

Not to backtrack, but please notice I said the email informed me the latest patch of their computer program is ready for me to install on my server.

It’s patch day, and I’m going to By-God install the patch. I don’t even want to wait to notify the people who are using this program because I get a sick sense of satisfaction breaking something in the middle of a production day and having my phone ring off the hook with desperate, hysterical secretaries just trying to do their job. They don’t realize what day it is. It’s patch day, and I have no forethought. I’m too involved in a haze of holy patchiness to have any forethought. Besides, when you have the kind of confidence that I have, you don’t worry about taking precautions. How much confidence do I have? So much, that I start the patch install at 11:55. 5 minutes before lunch. Oh yeah, it’s patch day, baby.

At about 12:05 I’m gently roused from my haze by an ominous error message. Paraphrasing the error, it said “The patch failed, regardless of what day it is”. This is where a lesser experienced IT guy would freak out in anticipation of the impending barrage of phone calls he would have to endure any second. Not this guy. I waited with the same anticipation as say…Christmas morning. I like telling people “I got this”.

So after some troubleshooting, uninstalling, reinstalling, etc., I contact the aforementioned government agency to find out what is going on with this thing. Here’s a reenactment of the phone call placed to that agency.

{me} Hi there, I got your email telling me the patch was ready to install, so I did, and now we can’t get into the program.

{guy} Oh, well…it’s probably because we have to install it on our end first.

...silence...

{guy} Let me go ahead and install it on our end, and we’ll see if that takes care of the problem.

{me} ok, sounds good. Keep me updated. Thanks.

So I guess it’s standard operating procedure to send out a patch that isn’t ready, instruct users to install it, and then set it up on their end. I never thought I would run across someone who had an even sicker depraved love for patch day than I do. I have met my match, Mr. Government Agency Patch Guy. Touché good sir.