Ok, so I realize that my blog isn’t a fair forum for criticizing people. I’m writing concerning, one specific person (we’ll call her Beulah) who tried to shame me and here I am denigrating that person, without the chance to rebut or refute. The details are unimportant but sufficed to say, I think Beulah wanted to flex her might.

Beulah: I couldn’t get your RFC (request for change) completed quickly because of [common unix issue]
PB: Well, did you try [simple unix answer]
Beulah: Well, [simple unix solution] isn’t possible on this platform of unix
PB: Ok, so you could have, [really simple solution using a very obscure unix command]

A long silence followed, probably referencing the unix command that I gave out.

Beullah then shifted into bureaucratic mode figuring out that I have shamed her with my trivial command line skills. The last thing I wanted to do is upstage her and point out her faults as a senior “subject matter expert”. So, I ended the long silence and offered up a solution that neither pointed out her failings as an admin as well as show that I’m still just a project planner.

She walked away unscathed, but I highly doubt that she’ll be chatting me up from out of the blue to teach me unix lesson.