Stinkbug

"Eine Stinkwanze" in German.

I think this little blighter followed me today because something was intent on stinking up my day.

I had one of my wonderful "this worked yesterday, it doesn't today" phone calls.  I know that we haven't changed things, so that isn't possible.  And so I spent a good three hours analysing the problem, and discovered that they were trying to do something that just isn't allowed by our software. 

I explained that what they were trying to do just isn't possible .  And I gave them the way to fix their problem. 

Ok this needs an analogy - they were trying to send a message home, and they tied the message to the nearest animal that they could find.  Which happened to be a goat.  There is no such thing as a homing goat.  So I told them they needed to use a homing pigeon, because homing goats don't work.  Tie the message to the homing pigeon and let it go, I said.

They tied the message to another goat. 

And then complained to their department manager that my system doesn't work.

Surely it makes sense that if I give you advice on how to fix a problem, then you should at least follow that advice?

I mean, what do you expect to happen if you just repeat the thing that didn't work? 

You think I might have freed the code fairy?

To explain, EVERYONE in IT has a stock of code fairies.  They will deny that they have, but when things go wrong that they can't be bothered to fix, they just release a code fairy to magic it better. 

And we're not allowed - under pain of forgetting every Monty Python quote ever - to tell anyone about them.

And now look at me - "Canned Luncheon Meat, Canned Luncheon Meat, Canned Luncheon Meat, Canned Luncheon Meat", "We are the the knights who say 'Never' in German", "He isn't the composer of the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy", "It's only a 1:25 scale model of Camelot that I made from matchsticks".

I may need a lie down.  And a new job.  And you - "Ixnay on the Odekay Airyfay".