Crashed Pips - Computers, politics, emetic trash

The Sysadmin is my attempt at continuous creative writing. Put simply, it’s EastEnders for nerds, except that it isn’t cringeworthy to read, and there’s no hanky-panky going on between the protagonist’s wife and the antagonist. Oh, and there’s no video either.

Who’s in it?

Our hero is thirty-six year old Jason Richter, a network sysadmin working for F&U Corp. in Amberton, Surrey. In his former job at F&U, he was overworked, underpaid, single, and in a very unsatisfying job. He was the only true IT expert in the thirty-floor skyscraper the company occupied, so it was down to him to handle the five hundred-odd users, all of whom shared his sentiment about the company. Since Part 4, Jason now works at Bourne Again Systems in Surrey, who have employed him as a sysadmin and for a job in operating system design. His boss is Michael Bourne.

Former characters

Jason’s former boss was S. Upson, the U in F&U Corp. He is about as intelligent as one of the little plastic toys you sometimes find in McDonalds Happy Meals, and uses so much management speak that he’s practically speaking a different language. He left somewhere between parts 3 and 4, having killed himself with a rifle which he intended to shoot at Jason.

Other (minor) characters included Steve Grobmanoff, the Microsoft salesman, and the Board member who had such a long name Jason couldn’t be bothered to remember it.

Published editions

(here the editions are listed using decimal numbers, but due to a strange quirk of geekiness, in the text files themselves they are listed in hexadecimal. Best viewed in external text editor, for example, Notepad, TextEdit, kate, Mousepad, gedit, etc.)

1. The Salesman Calls. In which Grobmanoff visits F&U’s HQ and tries to flog Windows Vista to Upson. 22 June, 2008.
2. Three Weeks Later. In which a face-off ensues betwen the Microsoft salesman and our free-thinking hero, and the latter discovers a skeleton in Upson’s cupboard. 1 July, 2008.
3. I Hope You Know A Good Lawyer. In which Jason leaks confidential documents to the Independent and to Wikileaks, resulting in a boardroom war and a tragic death… 9 July, 2008.
4. Hotswap. A former member of a top London-based multinational fights for his life in hospital, whilst another heads off to start a new life in a different part of the country… 8 August, 2008.

Future stories

• As Thick As Pig Poo. Jason first encounters Sharleen, the receptionist. Coming soon.
  

FAQs

Is this thing REALLY written entirely in vi?

Yes. It is. It’s spellchecked using Google Docs, but the corrections are made back in vi.

This sucks.

Then go and look at something else.

When’s this getting made into Sysadmin: The Movie, starring (George Clooney/Brad Pitt/Matt Damon/Eric Bana/James McAvoy/Jamie Bell) and directed by (Ang Lee/Stephen Spielberg/Doug Liman/Paul Greengrass/George Lucas)?

There are no plans to turn The Sysadmin into a production of any form, be it on radio, on stage or on the screen.

However, if you are George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Eric Bana, James McAvoy, Jamie Bell, Ang Lee, Stephen Spielberg, Doug Liman, Paul Greengrass or George Lucas, you’re welcome to contact me with your credentials. My e-mail address is on the contact page. (Be aware, though. I may demand that cc-by-nc applies to any film or TV production of The Sysadmin. So if you’re a copyright Nazi, think again. And the end result’d better come out as an E in the irritatingly implausible computers classification system.)

The Rules

You can download, view, share, distribute, mirror, modify, create fan fiction, perform as an amateur play, and do almost anything you want to The Sysadmin. In fact, if you’ve written a good story for the series, e-mail me and I will consider it for inclusion on this Web site.

The one thing you can not do is use The Sysadmin for commercial purposes. That is, you can’t sell it, create a multi-million dollar blockbuster movie out of it, or use it to endorse any products. You also MUST credit Jonathan Rothwell in any derivative works, and the by-line and the copyright line MUST remain in place on any copies of these stories that you distribute. You CAN NOT pass this work off as your own. In short, you’re free to modify, quote, copy and distribute the work, but plagiarism and commercial use are not allowed.

Either of these conditions can be waived if you obtain WRITTEN permission from me beforehand. Please contact me by e-mail with your credentials. My e-mail address is on the “contact” page.

These conditions shall be governed by the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-3.0 Unported license, by international law, and the laws of England and Wales.