The Locked Cabinet

With the big move complete, we are settled in the new office and the company's servers are now in one place, under our complete control. Well almost, We aren't allowed to touch the phone system and there is nobody in the team willing to get too close to the Mac Servers for fear of coming out in a disfiguring skin disease.

For these delicate operations we have a Mac Technician who doesn't mind using overpriced, Fisher-Price hardware that is about as useful as a condom machine in the Vatican.

It is now situated between the main patch panels and a proper server rack (namely, populated with Windows and ESX Servers). It is now known as the Mac Rack . One morning our Mac guy comes in and asks us for the key to the back of the rack.

We explain that we don't have a key.

"Oh, we thought you had it. We were here until ten o'clock last night looking for it, trying to get in. We have a problem with one of the servers and need to get around the back." He tells us.

"We?" We enquire.

Turns out another Mac Specialist who used to run the Mac servers for us had come in to help him with some maintenance.

"If anyone has the key, it would be him." We tell him.

"He said, you guys have it" the guy insists frowning in disbelief.

"He has always had the key, as the server rack was always administered by him. We have not got a key, we have never had a key and we don't have any reason whatsoever to have a key in the near future, as we don't go in to that rack. We don't touch the Mac servers." We explained to the guy, the frown becoming more prominent  as he attempted to digest this information.

We took pity on him and went in to the server room with him. There were a few keys laying about, but he said that they had already tried them all. As he went around the back I open the front door to the Mac Rack; Using a handle with a key sticking out of the lock.

"Have you tried the key out of the front door?" I ask over the din of whirling fans and chugging hard drives.

"No" he says.

A little taken aback, as this would normally be the first thing to try, I pulled the key out and made my way around to the back doors.

"They are usually universal" I tell him. "One key fits all locks on the cabinet."

He looked a little confused and disbelievingly took the key from me. Stabbing gently at the lock the guy shakes his head.

"Doesn't fit" he said defeated.

"Try it the other way up" I tell him.

He turns the key around, and lo and behold it slots neatly into the lock, turns with a satisfying click, and the doors swing open.

We groan and smugly turn to exit the server room, leaving the guy utterly dumbfounded. Another victory for PC over Apple.

Looks like all that was needed was a reboot of the logic chip.