14 August, 2012

Don't push that button.

There is panic. A project manager (about whom who I'd like to write more fully once I work  out how to make their project less identifiable) comes rushing in. I'm not entirely surprised to learn they've managed to associate themselves with the Samophlange.

"Quickly!" they demand of my manager, "how secure is the Samophlange? Who has the codes to activate it? And who can get access to the codes?"

"It should just be [me]*," and he gestures in my direction. "Is that right?"

I check. "Well, I have access... and so do you. And so do at least a dozen other people, too."

"Oh my god!" panics the project manager. "Can you cancel their access? You need to cancel their access! Now! Right away! No-one can ever access those codes!"

My manager looks puzzled. "What?"

"It's the Samophlange. We mustn't activate it. Ever.  Our systems can't support it. If we turn it on, it will overload everything!"

It turns out the Samophlange, like any true luxury item, is something that it's important to own, but is far too valuable to actually use.


* It occurs to me belatedly that I should come up with an alias for myself in all this. "Argh" was just something I picked out of general frustration at having to come up with a username when I created the blog.