Joined: 18 Jul 2007 Posts: 2146 Location: At my coffee table
CA/Ideal/Datacomm clean up of old user ids.
A small house-keeping exercise - they had downsized the Datacomm support to close to zero so I inherited it - The task was to eliminate the un-used and obsolete (occasionally the DOD goes on a 'path' that does not always make sense) IDs in the system.
I gathered all the UIDs and emailed the list to the RACF security people. I don't remember her name, but she diligently eliminated from that list all the mandatory IDs that were required for batch and online processing.
Upon receiving the reply I proceeded to create a batch job to delete the obsolete IDs on her returned list.
If I had only taken a couple of minutes to compare the sent list and the received list, this would not be posted here now...
It didn't take long to identify the problem, and the deletes were quickly reinstated, but the potential 'red' faces were showing up in two cubicles.
When the knowledge that you had to be careful while replying to an email with an updated attached list finally occurred to me, I have become more vigilant and even go to the extent to send myself the email first to insure that the returned attachment is the one I intended.
Truth be told, She in security got jumped on, but I immediately talked to her 'superior' and shifted the blame on myself, she (a civilian DOD employee), stayed employed and I (a contractor) did too.
Sometimes, confessing up to a potential error will get canned, but hiding behind the blame that might fall to someone less blameless is not a path I would choose.
Joined: 14 Mar 2007 Posts: 8796 Location: Welsh Wales
Having managed to get the COBOL program written and tested for the new report distribution system that I had been give nas a project, and happy with the results I finally managed to get it implemented just on time to allow me to go away for a weeks vacation.
Unfortunately I had moved the test JCL into production without removing the RETPD=0 from the DD for the archive tape.
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooops
Another good one - don't try to COMPAKT the volume with the JES checkpoint residing on it.
And of course, moving a PROCLIB isn't the best idea in hindsight.
Joined: 22 Apr 2006 Posts: 6248 Location: Mumbai, India
I had to go on leave, one commitment to keep on personal front, so asked Manager to allow me to go on leave and put another boy of same claiber on the project. This project was nearing its installation dates soon. when I left, however, client asked for little early installation and I was not back till then.
They, with a positive node from my replacement, used a name for a component to be installed, same as one of the existing component in PROD. And funnily enough, when the version controller flagged warning for the existing component, they override it!
... drum rolls were waiting for me in the mid-night. Got a call from my on-site office at around 1:00 in the night, I was in office in next half an hour, excerpts from the dialogue happened then:
Manager: What's the **** is this!? How could a person like you do this!? &*^% &^%$ (*&^% ^^%%$$#...
Me: Mr Manager, unfortunately, your timing stinks. You don't know how to solve it, You didn't even know how this happened, at first place. I'm working on gun-point and the tirgger is in your hand - shoot me if I fail else let me get the system stable!
There was a big silence, for long and I was working. In next half an hour system was up and running...I took the blame on my shoulders, later, not my replacement.
Joined: 09 Mar 2011 Posts: 7309 Location: Inside the Matrix
Already posted elsewhere, but...
DOS/VS (actullay something called DOM/VS, souped-up DOS). I set an UPSI switch, intended for the following step, which told the linkedit that it had a 3330 disk to write to. I overwrote the VTOC entry on a 3350. Which had all the libraries on. Everytime the system tried to load any program (online, batch, operating system) up would come "Unable to load program" and 2/3 of my program name on the OPS console. They tried a restore followed by a warm start (no luck), a cold start (no luck) and in the end they had to go to the weekly image back-up (fortunately, taken early that Saturday morning, so bye-bye all my work, and that of the 200 data-entry girls doing Christmas-backlog overtime).
