It has been said that being a Windows System Administrator can drive you to drink.* Well, I’ve decided to make that official. Charge your glasses with your favorite beverage and prepare…
If you prefer beverages of a more stimulating nature (Jolt, Monster, Coffee, or Yerba Matte laced with amphetamines) then prepare to bounce off the walls for several hours and sleep for three days.
Or, if you prefer beverages of a more fermented, sedating nature (Beer, Scotch, Rum, Rum and Coke, or Rum and Coke-substitute**) then prepare to sleep for three days and feel like you bounced off the walls for several hours.
I present to you: The Windows System Administrator Drinking Game***
For those of you not familiar with a drinking game, think of it like Bingo except that you’re not trying to complete a row, you’re trying kill all of your brain cells. During your day when any of the following occurs, drink the amount specified. And please, if you must drink around technology, do so responsibly. Such as disabling the texting feature of your phone (advice provided by EGADS****.)Consider this list just a starting point, please feel free to add more in the comments!
You reboot.
Take a sip
You close a UAC dialog without reading it.
Take a sip
You ever need to edit the registry
Take a drink
You move a window just to see what something looks like behind the translucent title bar. Windows 7 only (it could apply to Windows Vista users as well but I don’t think either of them drink.)
Take a drink
You consider disabling the firewall to fix a problem.
Take a sip
You actually disable the firewall to fix a problem.
Take a drink
You expect to see a computer in the computer browser but it isn’t there.
Take a sip
While working on a problem you mumble something about “Linux” or “OS X.”
Take a drink
While working on a problem you mumble something about “BeOS.”
Finish your drink (to drown your sorrows)
You’re asked to find a file that was deleted 6 months ago.
Take a drink
You’re asked to install something into “Office” or “Word” or “Excel.”
Take a sip
A user saves something to a floppy disk
Take a drink
You save something to a floppy disk.
Finish your drink
You retire a parallel printer.
Take a drink
You replace a dot-matrix printer ribbon.
Finish your drink (and take an extra sip as a bonus for working in government)
You bang your head for hours on a strange problem before accidentally figuring out, days later, that it was DNS.
Take a drink
You wait for more than 30 seconds to move a single file to the recycle bin.
Take a sip
You use the network connection diagnostic tool and it actually fixes something.
Take a drink
While typing furiously in one application a dialog box pops up from another application and is suddenly dismissed by one of your keystrokes before you can read it.
Finish your drink (to drown your fear about what you may have just done)
* If it hasn’t been said before, it has now.
** Dr. Pepper
*** This game is geared to Windows system administrators, but it could be brow beaten into other contexts.
**** Ex-Girlfriends Against Drunk SMS
