Re: Horror Stories

This isn't as horrific as the ones I've been seeing, but it might happen to
someone else:

I worked at an office that had all kinds of systems for demos and training; our
backups were few and far between because most of the stuff on these systems was
throwaway. However, we also had a home-grown application on our System/38 that
we used internally and that we grew to depend on. This application was backed up
on a somewhat regular schedule by whatever intern we had at the time. The
instructions given to the intern were fairly simple: use these two tapes one
week and these other two tapes the next week and keep alternating. Load the
tape, choose this menu option to start the backup, change the tape when
prompted, and store the tapes here.

We finally had a crash that required restoring the application -- but none of
our backup tapes could be read.

It turned out that the backup had grown to the point where it needed three
tapes. When the intern was prompted for a third tape, she did not ask for help
or instructions -- she just put tape 1 back in the drive to "finish up" the
procedure.  She never told anyone what was going until the restore was
attempted; that's when we discovered she had been doing this for ages. We
finally found a months-old tape that had enough saved that we were able to
reconstruct what we needed, but it was a tedious and time-consuming process.

We learned that it might be wise to make sure someone following a "simple"
procedure was given at least a little extra explanation so that they would know,
perhaps, the intent of the procedure and not just the steps to complete it.

Janet








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