Monday night, while I was relaxing at home with a snifter of Hennessy XO and an Ashton aged Maduro No. 30, my dear brother Rob Roy called and asked a favor. Would I, he inquired, give his old buddy Myron a free telephone consultation? Well, blood, as they say, is thicker than water, so I agreed. And today, Myron called. I was with a paying client, so I transferred him to Gretchen, who set him up to call back during my lunch hour.
Myron: Hi! Tom Collins?
Tom: In person, at your service.
Myron: Gee, thanks. Look, my friend Rob, he said you’re his brother and I could talk to you about my problem, see…
Tom: Of course. Where do you know Rob from, anyway?
Myron: Oh, we met back in 1999. We both worked at the same place.
Tom: I see; and where was that?
Myron: We were PHP developers for a dot-com Web site.
Tom: Oh, really? Which one?
Myron: Uh, ah, it was.. um, getfreemoney.com.
Tom: Get free money, dot-com?
Myron: Yeah.
Tom: Well, I must say, that’s certainly an intriguing name for a Web site. What was their business model?
Myron: Business model?
Tom: Right. The business model.
Myron: Oh, that, yeah. They got people to back them, you know, invest in the Web site. And with a name like getfreemoney.com, all they had to do was, like, say the name and make sure they said that “dot-com” part nice and loud. All kinds of people shelled out huge bucks for the startup.
Tom: Yes, I understand the appeal something like that would have for… certain individuals. But what was the business model? How was the Web site going to make a profit?
Myron: Make a profit?
Tom: Correct. That’s what I said.
Myron: Um… I don’t think they got that far, actually.
Tom: So what did you and Rob do?
Myron: We coded the scripts for the Web site, you know, working with a Web designer and their marketing team.
Tom: What did the content on the Web pages say, then?
Myron: Oh, all kinds of stuff. Rob and I were too busy coding the PHP scripts to read any of it, though. It was about, uh, getting together an on-line Web community. “Be a Buckster” was the thing. You’d join up and become a Buckster, a member of the on-line Buckmaker Community. Working there was really cool – they had a Foosball table for us to play with, free sodas, free pizza, Aeron chairs, hot chicks who came in twice a week to give us back rubs, and like, absolutely no dress code, plus the pay was outrageous – more than I’m making at Danger right now, ten years after, even.
Tom: So, now you work at Danger?
Myron: Uh, yeah.
Tom: And you’re calling me because you’re afraid you’re going to get in some… shall we say, hot water… concerning what happened last week with the T-Mobile Sidekick?
Myron: So you heard about that?
Tom: Everybody in the civilized world has heard about it. Microsoft had a deal with T-Mobile for Danger to be the cloud data repository for the Sidekick. Then, suddenly, over one million Sidekick users lost all their information. So it’s been eight or nine days now, depending on how you count them, and it’s pretty obvious that Danger is never going to get that data back.
Myron: But T-Mobile’s giving all of them a hundred dollars.
Tom: A hundred million dollars? Feh. That’s Bill Gates’ pocket change. Tell me, if you had stored all your information in “the cloud” like they did, and then lost it all…
Myron: But cloud computing is way hip and trendy! Doesn’t that count for something? I mean, I don’t get it. All anybody had to do back in 1999 was say “dot-com,” and it was like, I donno, a double hit points charm in Dungeons and Dragons or something. How come saying “cloud computing” doesn’t do that, too?
Tom: I think you should be asking yourself why saying “dot-com” did that in the first place.
Myron: Why?
Tom: Because the same kind of nitwits who went ga-ga over “dot-com” and invested in getfreemoney.com back in 1999 went ga-ga over “cloud computing” and pulled out their credit cards to buy a Sidekick.
Myron: I don’t understand. Are you saying that “dot-com” and “the cloud” are, like, evil or something?
Tom: Not evil, Myron. Just stupid.
Myron: “Dot-com” is stupid? “Cloud computing” is stupid?
Tom: Not the phrases, Myron, not the concepts, just the fools who run around spouting them like the mongers and guzzlers of old fashioned road-show snake oil. That’s what’s stupid.
Myron: What’s snake oil?
Tom: Never mind. What’s your problem?
Myron: Well, it’s like, uh, you know, it was like, we have all these massive density, multi-petabyte capacity tape backup units at Danger, and…
Tom: Given that Danger is a cloud computing data repository business, I should hope to Holy Hannah you do, sir. What of them?
Myron: Uh, it’s like, um, Microsoft sent Hitachi in to upgrade the SAN, and something happened.
Tom: Something like what?
Myron: Kinda like, I donno, sabotage, I guess. There was this really weird, sort of ugly foreign guy working on an H -1B visa, with nasty hair, yellow teeth and no social skills, who could barely speak English and mumbled when he talked, that smelled really bad and women sort of gagged when they looked at him, and…
Tom: You’re describing about thirty percent of the American IT workforce, Myron. Could you be a bit more specific?
Myron: Ah, actually, there are a bunch of guys like that at Danger, and since last week, I’ve heard five different rumors about seven or eight of them…
Tom: Do you think it was sabotage?
Myron: Well, it could have been, I mean, that part about the SAN blowing up when the guys from Hitachi tried to install the upgrade. Maybe somebody did do that on purpose. But it doesn’t have to be one of those icky foreign dudes with bad breath who spends all night playing single-handed Halo in his Jockey shorts. It could have been anybody here, really.
Tom: But wouldn’t some pathetic loser from Wankistan have more of a motive? Hating their life and all?
Myron: Everybody who works for a company Microsoft bought out hates their life, Mr. Collins.
Tom: Point taken. Okay, so the SAN crash was probably sabotage, you think, and, what’s more, they’re never going to catch who did it?
Myron: Probably not.
Tom: But the SAN sabotage isn’t what you called about, is it?
Myron: No, not exactly. You see, there have been a lot of comments on the Internet since last week about how Danger didn’t have a backup process, but they aren’t… well, Danger did have a backup process, and… that is…
Tom: You were part of the backup team?
Myron: Yeah.
Tom: And what did you do?
Myron: I took the backup tapes to the off-site storage facility.
Tom: Really? Okay, where was that?
Myron: Oh. Ah, it was like, er, um…
Tom: Like what?
Myron: It was my girlfriend’s apartment.
Tom: The off-site storage facility was your girlfriend’s apartment?
Myron: Yeah, ah, like, we had this backup plan that was all industry-standard and stuff, but then this guy from Microsoft came in and said that Danger wasn’t making the numbers, so we needed to cut costs. So instead of taking the tapes to a secure, certified data storage company, they canceled that and told me to improvise.
Tom: I see. How did your girlfriend feel about you storing all those backup tapes at her place?
Myron: She said I could store some of them, but only enough to fit in the hall closet.
Tom: The hall closet?
Myron: Yeah. I figured out I could put one full set of backup tapes in there, so that’s what I did. Every day, I’d take them in, and before I went home, I’d run the backup and then take them home again and put them back in the hall closet.
Tom: Did you ever think of putting a second set of tapes in the backup units?
Myron: Yeah, I did, and Microsoft said okay, do that, but you’ll have to buy the extra tapes yourself, install them in the backup units, fill out an expense report, send it in with the receipts for the tapes and wait eleven weeks. I was saving up to buy the tapes, too, but then…
Tom: Why didn’t you just put the tapes on your credit card?
Myron: I, uh, six months ago, my credit card company reduced my credit line from thirty-six thousand dollars to fifteen hundred dollars.
Tom: Did they say why?
Myron: Um, the lady I talked to when I called said “because we can.” And I still have to pay off nineteen thousand dollars on it anyhow, at twenty six percent interest, too.
Tom: Visa?
Myron: How did you guess?
Tom: If you’re a consultant, you have to know these things. So then what?
Myron: Then my girlfriend’s upstairs neighbor, in the apartment up there, you know, above hers, his bathroom plumbing started to leak and it ruined her ceiling and walls and the whole place got like, this horrible black mold all over, and she asked to borrow the money I was saving up to buy the tapes so she could get the damage fixed. She’s going to sue the guy, of course, but her lawyer says that could take until next year to get any money, and he could always move to another state or declare bankruptcy or something.
Tom: Bottom line, you didn’t buy that extra set of backup tapes.
Myron: No, Mr. Collins, I didn’t.
Tom: But the set you had, they did have everybody’s Sidekick data on them, didn’t they?
Myron: Oh, yeah, for sure. I checked them out every couple of days, and they always had data on them.
Tom: Current data, right?
Myron: How should I know?
Tom: I guess you shouldn’t. So, tell me, when the SAN crashed, how come you didn’t come riding to the rescue?
Myron: Well, it’s because my girlfriend has this Great Dane.
Tom: A Great Dane?
Myron: Yeah, like, a Marmaduke kinda dog, you know?
Tom: I know what a Great Dane is, Myron. I’ve never had a girlfriend who owned one, though, and I’m not so sure I’d want to, given their reputation.
Myron: What kind of reputation?
Tom: Never mind. What about this Great Dane?
Myron: Ah, for some reason, a couple of days before the SAN crash, he…
Tom: He? Your girlfriend’s Great Dane is a male?
Myron: Uh-huh.
Tom: Oh, boy. What did he do?
Myron: I don’t know, Mr. Collins, maybe it was the mold, maybe it was all the workmen going in and out, the noise, the smell of the plaster, something in the paint…
Tom: Never try to second guess a dog’s motives, Myron. What did he do?
Myron: He, ah, um… he got the hall closet door open…
Tom: Dogs can be pretty clever when they want too, yes, and?
Myron: Then he… well, he chewed up all the tapes.
Tom: Wait a minute – you’re telling me that the excuse for the Sidekick debacle is that your girlfriend’s dog ate the cloud backup tapes?
Myron: Well, Microsoft sent in a team to collect the tape – it was all over the apartment, and they made me collect all the dog poop, because that had tape in it too, so I guess they might get some of the data back, I don’t know. After the dog stopped pooping tape, Steve Ballmer sent this guy out to shoot it, but my girlfriend chased him away with a tire iron. Maybe I better call back later.
Tom: No, that’s okay. Go ahead.
Myron: So, anyway, I was hoping you would, like, suggest something I could do.
Tom: Sure, no problem. I suggest you have Rob find you a job where he works.
Myron: Really? What do they do?
Tom: They’re federal government IT contractors.
Myron: And you think Rob can find a job for me with them?
Tom: I’m certain of it. After speaking with you for an extended period, I can readily tell you have all the necessary qualifications.
Myron: And you think Rob would do that?
Tom: Tell him his big brother says he better!
Myron: Oh, gee, thanks, Mr. Collins.
Tom: You’re welcome, Myron. Got to go now, I’m on my lunch hour.
Myron: Why sure, Mr. Collins. ‘Bye!