Flashback a few decades to this pilot fish's first job in IT: the day-shift operator for a minicomputer with several dozen dumb terminals."My first task for this particular day was to set up a terminal for a new hire," says fish."All the terminals were connected to an I/O board with rows of serial ports via the usual rat's nest of cables, which made it hard to route a new cable."But the very last port was unused and easy to reach.
No brainer! I plugged in the new terminal's cable to that last port, configured it and walked away, satisfied."Less than half an hour later, my boss called me in and asked, "What have you done" Everyone on the system was complaining about snail-like response times, and they were not happy.