September 6th, 2011

What happened to that suspicious-looking guy hanging around the entrance?

One of the fun parts of attending a conference is swapping stories with other professionals. Today’s story is in honor of Global Security Week. (And retroactively in honor of the upcoming //build conference.) One of the attendees (let’s call him Bob) shared with me a story of the time they had to make a change in one of their data centers. This particular change required physical presence at the facility, and to minimize impact on customers, the change was made at night (presumably because that’s when demand was lowest). When Bob arrived at the data center, he walked past a suspicious-looking guy on his way to the door. Bob said hello to the security guard and swiped his access card through the card reader. Access denied. He tried again. Still no luck. He asked the security guard, “Hi, I’m supposed to be here to do a system upgrade, but my access card isn’t working. Maybe they just put my name on a list instead of reprogramming the access system?” The security guard said, “Let’s go down to the main office and find out.” The two of them walked down to the main security office, and after some checking, everything got straightened out, and Bob and the security guard headed back to the entrance. As they left, the security guard asked the person at the main security desk, “Oh, there’s a suspicious-looking guy hanging around the entrance. Did you see him?” The person at the main security desk said, “Yeah, he’s hiding in the bushes.”

Bob (and I) found it interesting, amusing, and reassuring that the security guards were all fully aware of the suspicious guy and had been keeping tabs on him the whole time.

Author

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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