42 Things That I Am No Longer Allowed To Do in I.T.

For the past 15 years I’ve been in the IT field doing, mainly, desktop support and application development. In that time I have seen my fair share of amusing events and have even been party to some. That said, what follows is an homage to Skippy’s List with an IT/Office spin. I reckon it could be titled “42 Things That I Am No Longer Allowed To Do in I.T.”

Why 42?

1) My ADD (self-diagnosed) has prevented me from OMG a quarter!

2) It’s 42, c’mon…

Similar to Skippy’s List, mine is a compilation of things that I have personally done or have personally witnessed happen. And, of course, I blatantly took a couple of his and modified them for my use. My bad.

42 Things That I Am No Longer Allowed To Do in I.T.

1. Not allowed to randomly rickroll users upon login to the application.
2. Not allowed to comment that Visual Studio 2005 is a “bloated piece of shite” within earshot of the Microsoft consultant.
3. Rooms at adult-oriented hotels cannot be charged to my corporate card.
4. Not allowed to discharge a fire extinguisher in the Halon-protected server room.
5. Lolspeak is not appropriate for error messages.
6. Lolcode is not a corporate standard.
7. Not allowed to use Star Wars references when naming new applications/modules; it makes Legal nervous.
8. That goes double for South Park.
9. If something makes me giggle for longer than 15 seconds, I am to assume that doing it will get me an invite to the HR Director’s office.
10. Not allowed to continue to explain to users what an ID10T error is.
11. Or PEBKAC, for that matter.
12. “Mental Health Day” is not a valid reason when requesting time off.
13. Not allowed to say “Domino’s Pizza” when answering the phone.
14. My cubicle is not holy ground.
15. Not allowed to charge the down payment on my SUV to my corporate card.
16. Not allowed to tell the new developers that it is a department standard to capitalize all vOwEls In sOUrcE cOdE.
17. Not allowed to put up “Happy Birthday” flyers for non-existent employees.
18. Not allowed to change my manager’s startup sound to “Balls! Balls! Balls! Balls! Balls of steel!”.
19. Must not play battleship with a fellow developer on the text pager during the departmental meeting.
20. “Yak Shaving Day” is not a recognized company holiday.
21. “If it was in your ass you’d know,” is never an acceptable answer.
22. Not allowed to execute a DoS attack on the network admin’s PC.
23. My department VP does not appreciate it when his administrative assistant receives flowers on national Boss’ Day.
24. My dog did not eat the source code.
25. Not allowed to place a 2 Meg animated GIF on the start page of the application.
26. “Did you see the rack on her?” is never appropriate.
27. Especially during Bring-Your-Your-Daughter-To-Work-Day.
28. Maxing out my corporate card’s $10,000 limit every month is not mandatory.
29. A bloodhound is not a packet sniffer.
30. Not allowed to hide all but the decaff coffee.
31. Not allowed to name applications/modules/procedures in such a way that their acronyms would be sexually suggestive (Data In, Logical Data Out).
32. Not allowed to create Help Desk tickets for office supplies.
33. “That’s how I roll,” is not an acceptable answer as to why I was two hours late.
34. I am not the king of all I see.
35. Under no circumstances am I to ever touch the UNIX machine on the 7th floor.
36. Not allowed to use the DR (disaster recovery) machine as a public Starcraft server.
37. I do not have mafia ties.
38. No one is interested in hearing the details of my prostrate exam.
39. Friday is Hawaiian Shirt Day, not Hawaiian Dress Day.
40. Calling someone an “fucking idiot” is acceptable after I hang up the phone, not when I think my phone is on mute. Which it wasn’t.
41. Not allowed to have a three-martini lunch. Especially since when I say “three-martini lunch” I really mean “five margarita pitchers binge”.
42. Must not come into the office at 3 am and pass-out under my desk after a Tuesday night bender.