BOFH: Restoring Power with a Dry Wooden Broom
In this satirical episode of the Bastard Operator From Hell (BOFH) series, the narrator and his Boss face a critical power outage at 3:30 AM. With external electrical contractors unavailable until days later, they must resolve the issue internally. The pair descends into the building's basement, navigating through neglected and potentially hazardous areas typical of older ex-government facilities. They discover an archaic electrical panel featuring uninsulated metal service breakers from the 1970s. Identifying a massive 5,000-amp breaker that had tripped, the narrator devises a dangerously improvised solution. Due to the lack of safety insulation and the high risk of electrical arcing, he uses a dry wooden broom as an insulating tool to manually flip the heavy switches. Despite the Boss's nervousness regarding the safety of this method, the narrator successfully restores power by leveraging the non-conductive properties of the wood. The story humorously highlights the absurdity of legacy infrastructure maintenance and the extreme, often unsafe, measures required for immediate business continuity in poorly maintained IT environments.
Wire timeline
BOFH: Restoring Power with a Dry Wooden Broom
In this satirical episode of the Bastard Operator From Hell (BOFH) series, the narrator and his Boss face a critical power outage at 3:30 AM. With external electrical contractors unavailable until days later, they must resolve the issue internally. The pair descends into the building's basement, navigating through neglected and potentially hazardous areas typical of older ex-government facilities. They discover an archaic electrical panel featuring uninsulated metal service breakers from the 1970s. Identifying a massive 5,000-amp breaker that had tripped, the narrator devises a dangerously improvised solution. Due to the lack of safety insulation and the high risk of electrical arcing, he uses a dry wooden broom as an insulating tool to manually flip the heavy switches. Despite the Boss's nervousness regarding the safety of this method, the narrator successfully restores power by leveraging the non-conductive properties of the wood. The story humorously highlights the absurdity of legacy infrastructure maintenance and the extreme, often unsafe, measures required for immediate business continuity in poorly maintained IT environments.
www.theregister.com - Articles