There's a person at my place of employment who orders all the hardware and software for classroom use in the district. This person shall remain nameless for many reasons, but will be referred to as the "Technologically inept With Access To money"™ or TWAT™ person.
The TWAT™ knows about as much about computers, software, and the purchasing of said items as I know about being an Aborigine in Australia. Which, to sum it up means, she doesn't know S-H-I-T about the subject.
For example, about three or four months ago, she bought one hundred Apple eMac computers without a solid plan of where they were to be distributed. Not only that, she didn't bother making any building principals aware of this purchase and a couple of them outright refused to allow them to be set up and disrupt whatever student testing information may have been on the older machines already in place. Of these one hundred computers, approximately thirty are still sitting in boxes in a middle school lab waiting to be set up. At the end of the school year. Another thirty or so are hidden away at The Seventh Level Of Hell in Big L's office (We are eagerly awaiting the warranty to expire on those so we can cause a ruckus!).
If by now you haven't gotten a picture of the TWAT's™ ineptitude, read on. It gets better and has caused me to suffer one or two sleepless nights worrying about the situation.
The TWAT™ is big on buying stuff. Especially when she can buy lots of stuff. So she want to buy six hundred more eMacs over the summer. She can't figure out what to do with thirty of the fuckers and she wants to buy six hundred more. I love it! We're busy trying to convince her to buy flat panel iMacs, which are actually somewhat decent. Especially when compared to eMacs. eMacs have an ass-load of repair bulletins where the iMacs have none. Even the Apple Sales Rep told the TWAT™ not to buy eMacs, but she did anyway. The TWAT™ was using an eMac in her office and hated it, but still decided to buy more.
Why?
Because she can get six hundred of them, whereas by getting the flat panel iMacs she could probably only get about three hundred. That's why. She doesn't give a flaming formation flying fuck about quality. She only cares about quantity and how by replacing a lot of computers it looks like she's doing her job and people will be happy with her.
Here comes the part I lost sleep over. The TWAT™ bought this reading software that assesses a student's reading level and can then tell the teacher what level to have them start at in another part of the software.
(Geek-Speak Warning!)
The software runs in a server/client environment with the students using the client workstations and the teacher using the server for administration purposes and to generate reports. The latest version server requirements are very specific and are laid out in an easy to find location in the documentation. If running the server on Mac OS 9, it requires AppleShare IP 6.3 (It provides file sharing, web, and mail services). If running the server on Mac OS X, it requires that the install of OS X be a server version and not the regular run of the mill OS X version.
(/Geek-Speak Warning)
GEE GUYS GUESS WHAT?!?!? We don't have any open licenses for AppleShare IP 6.3!!!! GUESS WHAT ELSE?!?!? We don't have any open licenses for OS X Server!!!!
And guess who was told to go make it work?
That's right, me!!!! Me who doesn't know shit about the software!! The fucking Aborigine from Australia had a better chance of fixing it than me!!
And I couldn't make it work. And I talked to a tech support lady who sounded like she thought I had a cock growing outta my forehead. She decided that her best course of action to get the now-insane babbling fucker off the phone was to tell me she was going to send me a software update.
A software update that requires AppleShare IP 6.3 or OS X Server.
So Friday, Brad hands me the documentation he found on the software that points out all the above information (in the Geek-Speak section) and I dwelt on it over the weekend to the point of laying awake last night trying to figure out how to make it work, because the last thing I need is the TWAT™ breathing down my fucking neck about it.
By the time I got to work this morning, I didn't give two shits about it. Brad went over to the school, installed an older version and made everyone happy. And I still didn't give two shits, because I realized that this wasn't the first time the TWAT™ had indirectly fucked me in the ass. This wasn't even the twentieth time the TWAT™ had indirectly fucked me in the ass. The number is very high and it's only going to get higher, as long as she has access to money.
Especially with those six hundred eMacs on the horizon.
