Tails.

Imagine, if you will, an office.

Within this office is an un-racked client-server. Just sitting there, hanging out on top of a filing cabinet. Cables snake down to the back of the free-flying rackmount from the ceiling, and power is fed into it from an over-utilised electrical outlet that may, or may not, be surge protected. This is the network system for this little collection of four offices with six workstations and a printer.

It was your IT department that installed this, by the way.

Over the years anybody in the office containing the server is subject to a persistent and rather penetrating noise. It turns out that servers can be really quite rowdy.

During the summer, in an un-airconditioned office, the sound of a network jet-engine permeates the air even into nearby offices, to the point where doors need to be closed. At any given time, the noise obscures the sound of the hand-cranked fire-alarm bell installed outside in order to meet minimum health and safety standards.

During the winter you either turn on the heater and listen to the soothing sounds of an over-worked server fan or, you leave the heater off and risk hypothermia. At least it’ll be quiet as you slip into unconsciousness.

Even if developing tinnitus or hyperacusis aren’t immediate concerns, the noise can’t be doing much for employee mental health and wellbeing. Time to make a few calls.

How does IT respond?

A.) Do they say, “Gosh! How did this happen? Goodness, gracious! This is a pickle and no mistake. We need to fix that chop-chop. We apologise. This was done by that one guy. You know the guy. No longer with us. We’ll get right on that. We can move the whole kit and kaboodle into the former office next door that’s now used as storage”?

B.) Or do they say, “You’ll just have to get used to it.”?

If you guessed B, you’d be right.

More time passes until…

There’s a new Health & Safety Officer in town. They take one look at the dangling cables and unleashed network hardware, draw their six-shooter and say, “That needs sorting out pardners. Now.”

Whoop! Another round of calls and emails.

So, what does IT do this time round?

A.) Do they leap into action, making the most of their superhero cosplay hobby, and fix something that should never have been?

B.) Or do they charge £4500.00 for a couple of hours work shunting the cabling through the suspended ceiling into the unused office next door and plugging back in and restarting the system? This doesn’t include a server cabin of course.

That’s right. It’s B. Health and Safety, held to ransom by your friendly neighbourhood IT department.

Four and half grand, is four and a half grand and, perhaps, better served elsewhere.

This is when a local manager, who has done this sort of thing before, steps in. They carefully label the cabling then, pass it into the room next door, plug everything back in, and then power-up the system. Presto! Problem solved, Health & Safety Officer happy, money saved.

But there are dark clouds on the horizon. An enemy has just been made. IT, are not happy.