Post #4012524
2026-07-22 12:55 UTC
The feud is finally over. And it's honestly hilarious.
Recap: Last week, a client forwarded me a request from the CRM company's support to verify the presence and content of a file in a specific directory.
I SSH'd in, ran ls, pwd, and cat on the file, then copied and pasted the output.
That kicked off a back-and-forth demands for "screenshots." The more I explained (through the client) that all the raw text was right there, the more this guy kept demanding a screenshot - becoming increasingly rude, arrogant, and condescending.
Finally, I told the client: "Put me in direct contact with him, I'll handle it."
He did, but the guy, completely unfazed, kept demanding screen grabs from the client, ignoring me entirely.
I refused to give in. In my field, I love working with people who know more than me so I can learn, and with people who know less so I can teach - or at least share my experience. But arrogance combined with stupidity is something I just can't stomach, especially when they come hand in hand.
Finally, this morning, he comes back at it again. My client, completely fed up, takes a screenshot of the text I had emailed him earlier and sends it over.
Only then did the guy notice a typo and suggest how to fix it.
#IT #SysAdmin
Replies (2)
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@patpro@social.patpro.net 2026-07-22 12:59
@stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe if I had this kind of person in my team, I would fire them ASAP. That’s a quite impressive level or incompetence.
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@peteorrall@mastodon.bsd.cafe 2026-07-22 13:05
@stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe Just curious was the initial request for an audit? I ask because I've dealt with the same request from auditors in the past. Providing command line output of tens of directories and files across *multiple* servers was not enough, nor were screenshots of the terminals with the output. They wanted screenshots of the terminal window with the Windows system tray to include the time and date. That was a lot of tedious work.