(This is a snapshot of my old weblog. New posts and selected republished essays can be found at raganwald.com.)
Monday, October 22, 2007
Mea Culpa
At one time I was just scraping by selling my own classified advertising software for desktop publishers. One user was XTRA, Canada’s largest newspaper for the Gay community.
Naturally, their database of customers and ads was sensitive. But I needed to take it home from time to time to debug things. So I wrote a “scramble” routine that shuffled names around, changed all the phone numbers to 555-xxxx, changed the credit card numbers randomly, and so forth. When I needed to take the database off-site, I would log out, duplicate the database, log back in, and run the scramble routine on the dup.
The menu item for this routine was called “Fruit Salad,” and it only appeared when I logged in. One day I was at their office debugging something, and their manager saw the menu item.
“What’s that?” He asked. I was embarrassed, it suddenly occurred to me that my little joke was inappropriate and insensitive. “Uh, nothing…” I stalled, and while I tried to make up a good explanation, he grabbed the mouse and selected it.
On the live database.
At one time I was just scraping by selling my own classified advertising software for desktop publishers. One user was XTRA, Canada’s largest newspaper for the Gay community.
Naturally, their database of customers and ads was sensitive. But I needed to take it home from time to time to debug things. So I wrote a “scramble” routine that shuffled names around, changed all the phone numbers to 555-xxxx, changed the credit card numbers randomly, and so forth. When I needed to take the database off-site, I would log out, duplicate the database, log back in, and run the scramble routine on the dup.
The menu item for this routine was called “Fruit Salad,” and it only appeared when I logged in. One day I was at their office debugging something, and their manager saw the menu item.
“What’s that?” He asked. I was embarrassed, it suddenly occurred to me that my little joke was inappropriate and insensitive. “Uh, nothing…” I stalled, and while I tried to make up a good explanation, he grabbed the mouse and selected it.
On the live database.
Comments on “Mea Culpa”:
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OMFG!
That is too funny! I don't know whether I should laugh at you for sticking your foot in your mouth or feel sorry because you lost all your data on the live database! Either way you must have had lots of "'xplainin' to do"
That is too funny! I don't know whether I should laugh at you for sticking your foot in your mouth or feel sorry because you lost all your data on the live database! Either way you must have had lots of "'xplainin' to do"
Holy crap! When I read that my body immediately reacted, like it had just happened to me: I got the pit in my stomach, the adrenaline rush/tingling sensation all over, etc. *shudder*
> On the live database.
No, no, NOOOOOO!!!
Pfew, it was a nightmare, I was just reading a blog,...
Thanks for the thrill!
No, no, NOOOOOO!!!
Pfew, it was a nightmare, I was just reading a blog,...
Thanks for the thrill!
At least you were able to demonstrate why you'd called it Fruit Salad. Wait, you were calling it Fruit Salad because it's purpose was to mix things up, weren't you?
I almost wish I had done something that stupid just so I could have the pleasure of retelling the story.
Almost.
Sorry, did I call you stupid? My mistake.
Almost.
Sorry, did I call you stupid? My mistake.
Why didn't the link also do the backup procedure?
That way you could guarentee that you never worked on the live db.
Oh, and no matter how private some functionality is, it should have a proper name.
That way you could guarentee that you never worked on the live db.
Oh, and no matter how private some functionality is, it should have a proper name.
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