Pilot fish accepts an invitation to an all-day free workshop given by a big IT vendor -- even though he knows it's a thinly disguised sales pitch.
"They want to tout their machine learning and big data capabilities, and show everyone how easy it is to learn to use these powerful tools," says fish.
"Prominent in their summary is their great idea of letting users build private Clouds, with some common connections, to store and process data. Users can set permissions for different degrees of access by different collaborators.
"I expressed some concern about the challenge of managing such a complex set of permissions without just creating a bunch of virtual silos. But I was warmly assured that this company knows what it's doing. Trust us!
"Then all the people in the class started having trouble accessing the data for the exercises. For a little while, the instructors condescendingly referred the students back to the online instructions. It's elementary, folks. Really.
"Eventually they realized that somehow all their access permissions for the students to use the instructional data had gotten reset incorrectly. And they couldn't figure out a work-around..."
Sharky just wants permission to tell your true tale of IT life. Send me your story at sharky@computerworld.com. You'll get a stylish Shark shirt if I use it. Comment on today's tale at Sharky's Google+ community, and read thousands of great old tales in the Sharkives.
Get Sharky's outtakes from the IT Theater of the Absurd delivered directly to your Inbox. Subscribe now to the Daily Shark Newsletter.