The history of the admin club player, part two
This topic is a continuation of yesterday's memories of club life . To be honest, I wrote it with the expectation that habrayusers will start sharing comments on their first IT-related jobs in comments (such posts are quite popular on non-existent) - but instead got a wave of nostalgia from those who, like me, He began his career as an admin in a gaming club.
But what if nostalgia is seductive and loving to you - so be it.
Literally right after I left Stealth, I got a job at another computer club called Cybergrad.
After the barn, which was "Stealth", the new place of work seemed to me almost a paradise. Normalized six-hour shift, a clear remit, a salary without delays every two weeks, and, most importantly, a free schedule. In addition to me there is a lot of people admins, we agreed among themselves about the schedule of duty, as a result, it was convenient for everyone. By that time I had already recovered at the institute, so I was very happy with this option.
There was usually a lot of work, so time flew by. My duties included servicing the computer park, servicing users, and, of course, control of “computer time”.
In those rare cases when there was nothing to do, it was possible to crawl freely on the Internet (it was not officially approved, but all admins knew perfectly how to bypass the proxy).
Actually, in "Cybergrad" everything was clear and correct. Normal computers, a great remote administration system, fast internet, and even a backup and data recovery system. Even UPS on the distributing Internet server was available, which then was pretty cool. Among other things, the club was almost the only place where you could buy or cash out WebMoney, use IP-telephony, or get any other computer help.
There was also a small shop selling bargains, beer and even pirated game disks. At the checkout, there was usually some kind of pensioner sitting - they worked according to the same principle of inter-party agreement. Most of the pensioners were typical post-Soviet grannies who were strictly engaged in their duties, but one of them was a former schoolteacher who, over many years of dealing with human larvae, developed a ferroconcrete character, enchanting arrogance, and a look that overwhelms will and heartbeat.
On the one hand, these qualities were very useful. The school, which made up the majority of the club’s regular clientele, was a little afraid of this granny, and didn’t particularly misbehave in her presence. On the other hand, the exorbitant ChSV granny told her to interfere in my work, or even try to solve problems in which she did not understand anything. After long months of communicating with the gopota in Stealth, it was easy for me to cope with the unstoppable pressure of granny activity (I can ignore almost any mental stimuli), and other administrators with a less trained psyche naturally howled from her.
She was able to “get me” literally a couple of times. Once, having left the workplace, I noticed that Grandma was sitting and brazenly reading my personal mail on an unlocked computer (it was impossible to block, there was monitoring). I'm from such arrogance, prihu ... um, I did not like it, and I firmly pulled the grandmother - then it stinked all day, about disrespect for elders, and so on.
And one day, due to absent-mindedness, she incorrectly counted the cost of services to some client. I politely recalled that she missed several points when calculating, a chic tantrum broke out - her grandmother ran, swore, and even ran to complain to the owners of the club, who, however, stopped her.
But, in general, the coexistence was quite peaceful.
')
The owners themselves almost did not interfere in our daily work, unless they sometimes suggested some improvements, which, again, were compiled at the request of the clientele. I went about my business - eliminating technical problems, helping users, and, for some money, “was sold for rent”, which meant any computer help, from help with registering an account in ICQ, to tasks that are much more non-trivial.
Say, once a client asked to make him a website. After the inquiries, it turned out that he just wants to show his vacation photos to friends by posting them online. Now, any housewife, registered in any social sphere, can easily cope with this, but at that time it was almost a quest. Solution of the quest: saytik is registered on narod.ru, an HTML-page with thumbnails is generated in ACDSee, and together with the photos it is poured onto the people. The client writes the link and leaves happy.
And the club’s clientele was the most diverse: school (where it was without), preschool children, students, aunts, uncles, gopot (well, without it, too, in any way), pro-gamers, and even Vietnamese. The Vietnamese community flourished in the city, and non-Russian-speaking Vietnamese, similar to starving teenagers, often came to call home on Skype. I explained myself with them with gestures, and very successfully - although from the outside it looked, presumably, most amusingly.
There were never any particular problems with the number of visitors - many regulars came to the very opening and were forced out just before the closing of the club. During the day, there was always a lot of people, and in the pre-session period, there were lines of students stretching towards me, who needed essays and coursework. Already then I began to realize that education in this country was coming to Khan - many visitors didn’t even really imagine what should be contained in the required works. And it would be okay if the information found was used for studying and “creative rethinking” - most often the necessary data fit the title and the work of others was sent to the press. Considering that many of the students were regular customers, it was quite rolling.
But it was at least interesting to look for essays, I liked working with cell phones much less (what’s there - I just hated it!). Then pontovanie mobiles had the nature of an epidemic, besides there was a huge zoo of all sorts of devices of any form factors, colors and possibilities, while dealing with the guts of the device to a mere mortal was unreal.
I remembered this because one of the services of the club was downloading content to mobile phones. Clients were guaranteed the support of absolutely any device (this was the principle of the position of the club owners). There was even an account of which phones we do not support, and everything they needed got to them, so that we had dozens of different wires and thousands of programs for synchronization. All this only threw firewood into the sacred firebox of my hatred - quite often one manufacturer had different phone models with different types of connectors, and were synchronized with different software. Bluetooth and, even more, WiFi, were not on all mobile phones, but the infrared receiver was almost everywhere. Well, I had to synchronize with IrDA, which was slow, inconvenient and buggy. And there were such phones, which had one through the infrared, and another through the wire. And the number of formats that phones understand? Some ate mmf, the second - mid, the third - mp3, the fourth - wav, but not pcm, but its format ... And for all this there were converters, thousands of them! Remember, what combination of software and wires to which cell phone is suitable, was simply unrealistic. Many customers who paid for the installation of the Vladimir Central or Boomer to the ringtone were nervous, seeing that I couldn’t find the right combination for the second half hour (and time was paid!) ... How could I hate that!
Sometimes, however, it was rolled to tell the user that, well, excuse me, your mobile phone is so cool that we don’t have wires for it yet - this is when the shop assistant’s grandmother wasn’t there. The client then left very satisfied, and I sighed a little freer. However, over time, I began to navigate in the models and names as well as the Gopnik, who earns money from the selected mobiles - now, in the days of iPhones and androids, this was very useful to me.
Well, let's not talk about sad things, I remember something fun.
And what can be more fun than good, perky brawl? How much does the younger body need to go into battle mode? “What are you, kazel, me with a knife?” - “And what are you shooting, cyka-rat?” - and it started!
I, as a peaceful and strong man, took the fighters by the collar and threw them out into the street. Yes, just like that, simply - excommunication from the beloved contra was enough for the opponents to immediately put up and go back to ask. I didn’t allow frank bruises to the club, so there were no cases when someone was pushed out money from some student when I wasn’t.
There were, of course, other minor troubles. Broken in the heat of battle, the mouse, broken wires of headphones - this is nonsense and everyday. But theft upset, and, as a rule, the same regulars stole. Could whistle at the gaping visitor phone left unattended, or any other nonsense. Then the owners of the club who had the unquestioned authority came into the business, asking to return the "found" phone in an amicable way - and they returned! Once, only someone for ever whistled the socket on the radio, and the administrator on duty on that day was penalized for oversight. But it was almost a single case.
But with swearing was very bad. Human larvae, plunged into dissent, do not control their speech apparatus, and communicate exclusively with foul language. On the one hand, what can we do about it; on the other hand, it is very unpleasant, especially if the parents left some preschool child next to play GTA, and he instead learns modern dialectic techniques.
We struggled with this as much as we could. A rule was introduced - for each abusive word they were fined with ten minutes of the game (it was not difficult to determine by voice who the regulars were). It helped, but not for long - the student stuck in the counter was again disconnected from the outside world and showered with expressions that were scanty in meaning, but rich in emotion. In such cases, we had to remotely cut down the game for good, after which the student instantly returned to this reality, resorted to apologize and beg for the selected time back.
Sometimes children begged to play "in debt." It was tough - many depended on toys almost physically, especially the players in the unimaginably popular “line” then. I especially remember one young couple, brother and sister, twins about ten years old in appearance.
They were some kind of dizzy kids, dirty and thin. Nobody saw their parents, they almost never had any money, and they played “doigryshi” - when someone left ahead of time, leaving five to ten paid minutes. If there were no other clients, I allowed these youngsters to play.
But this did not happen often, and then they would arrange hysteria. It looked like the most natural addict breaking - they howled and rolled on the floor, until they were thrown out onto the street. There they calmed down and began to "revenge": throw stones at the glass, yell at the door. Wild children, urban Mowgli ... It could only end when they were bored - that is, never, they still didn’t have any other classes.
Sometimes the club hosted a counter tournament and night games. Both were paid to the admin in double size, so I often volunteered to work at such events.
The tournament was usually appointed in advance. At the club's forum, teams that wanted to compete were unsubscribed, time was negotiated, and, sometimes, the prize pool. On the appointed day and time, the teams arrived at the scene and the club closed for the rest of the visitors. After that, the flea market began - money was collected to pay for time, almost always "pro-gamers" asked to attach their mice or throw their configs on computers. We agreed on who would play in which room (there were two halls in the club, regular and “VIP”, with computers a bit more powerful and separate booths), partitions were set up so that “no one burned”.
Then it began.
Such games, I must say, were held with a much smaller amount of verbal aggression, although not without the absence of a mat in general. Everyone could watch the game - the game server was accessible from the provider subgrid, and often there were a lot of “spectra” hanging there commenting on the match in the local irc channel. If the match ended earlier than the paid time left, free games were arranged in which observers from the “guest” could already participate - in principle, they played on the fast modem connection even almost without lags. I myself sometimes joined the game from my computer, although I respected the quake more, which for some reason was played less often.
We also played warcraft (DotA), NFS, GTA, and the incredibly miserable, in my opinion, “Get a neighbor” game. Other games almost did not enjoy popularity, well, except for the already mentioned "line". There was a boy who came to play Diablo II; each time, completing the game, he asked me to throw the saves to him on a floppy disk.
Night games represented pure orgy. First, the management allowed the club to be shot at night, only when all the seats were reserved. And this is a half dozen digging not counting the admin. Secondly, the management of the store was also transferred to the admin. He could sell everything that was possible, and usually not all survived until the morning - well, an unsuccessful idea, to use beer as energy.
But it was interesting to work at night anyway, there have never been any incidents in my memory, and even the players who were full of beer listened to me without question.
I worked in “Cybergrad” for about a year, and I often remember that time - it was great after all. Iklublub, as far as I know, existed for quite a long time, having survived even total checks on unlicensed software - and closed only after the mass distribution of cheap Internet.
PS Remembering the "Cybergrad" I went to google - and found the LIVE MIRROR of the club site (albeit very pokotsano). And although the “news” on it is somehow marked as much as 2010 - this is not true, I wrote some of them myself either in 2004 or in 2005.
PPS Do you like these mummy stories? Well into my tg channel , it is 37% of them.
But what if nostalgia is seductive and loving to you - so be it.
Literally right after I left Stealth, I got a job at another computer club called Cybergrad.
After the barn, which was "Stealth", the new place of work seemed to me almost a paradise. Normalized six-hour shift, a clear remit, a salary without delays every two weeks, and, most importantly, a free schedule. In addition to me there is a lot of people admins, we agreed among themselves about the schedule of duty, as a result, it was convenient for everyone. By that time I had already recovered at the institute, so I was very happy with this option.
There was usually a lot of work, so time flew by. My duties included servicing the computer park, servicing users, and, of course, control of “computer time”.
In those rare cases when there was nothing to do, it was possible to crawl freely on the Internet (it was not officially approved, but all admins knew perfectly how to bypass the proxy).
Actually, in "Cybergrad" everything was clear and correct. Normal computers, a great remote administration system, fast internet, and even a backup and data recovery system. Even UPS on the distributing Internet server was available, which then was pretty cool. Among other things, the club was almost the only place where you could buy or cash out WebMoney, use IP-telephony, or get any other computer help.
There was also a small shop selling bargains, beer and even pirated game disks. At the checkout, there was usually some kind of pensioner sitting - they worked according to the same principle of inter-party agreement. Most of the pensioners were typical post-Soviet grannies who were strictly engaged in their duties, but one of them was a former schoolteacher who, over many years of dealing with human larvae, developed a ferroconcrete character, enchanting arrogance, and a look that overwhelms will and heartbeat.
On the one hand, these qualities were very useful. The school, which made up the majority of the club’s regular clientele, was a little afraid of this granny, and didn’t particularly misbehave in her presence. On the other hand, the exorbitant ChSV granny told her to interfere in my work, or even try to solve problems in which she did not understand anything. After long months of communicating with the gopota in Stealth, it was easy for me to cope with the unstoppable pressure of granny activity (I can ignore almost any mental stimuli), and other administrators with a less trained psyche naturally howled from her.
She was able to “get me” literally a couple of times. Once, having left the workplace, I noticed that Grandma was sitting and brazenly reading my personal mail on an unlocked computer (it was impossible to block, there was monitoring). I'm from such arrogance, prihu ... um, I did not like it, and I firmly pulled the grandmother - then it stinked all day, about disrespect for elders, and so on.
And one day, due to absent-mindedness, she incorrectly counted the cost of services to some client. I politely recalled that she missed several points when calculating, a chic tantrum broke out - her grandmother ran, swore, and even ran to complain to the owners of the club, who, however, stopped her.
But, in general, the coexistence was quite peaceful.
')
The owners themselves almost did not interfere in our daily work, unless they sometimes suggested some improvements, which, again, were compiled at the request of the clientele. I went about my business - eliminating technical problems, helping users, and, for some money, “was sold for rent”, which meant any computer help, from help with registering an account in ICQ, to tasks that are much more non-trivial.
Say, once a client asked to make him a website. After the inquiries, it turned out that he just wants to show his vacation photos to friends by posting them online. Now, any housewife, registered in any social sphere, can easily cope with this, but at that time it was almost a quest. Solution of the quest: saytik is registered on narod.ru, an HTML-page with thumbnails is generated in ACDSee, and together with the photos it is poured onto the people. The client writes the link and leaves happy.
And the club’s clientele was the most diverse: school (where it was without), preschool children, students, aunts, uncles, gopot (well, without it, too, in any way), pro-gamers, and even Vietnamese. The Vietnamese community flourished in the city, and non-Russian-speaking Vietnamese, similar to starving teenagers, often came to call home on Skype. I explained myself with them with gestures, and very successfully - although from the outside it looked, presumably, most amusingly.
There were never any particular problems with the number of visitors - many regulars came to the very opening and were forced out just before the closing of the club. During the day, there was always a lot of people, and in the pre-session period, there were lines of students stretching towards me, who needed essays and coursework. Already then I began to realize that education in this country was coming to Khan - many visitors didn’t even really imagine what should be contained in the required works. And it would be okay if the information found was used for studying and “creative rethinking” - most often the necessary data fit the title and the work of others was sent to the press. Considering that many of the students were regular customers, it was quite rolling.
But it was at least interesting to look for essays, I liked working with cell phones much less (what’s there - I just hated it!). Then pontovanie mobiles had the nature of an epidemic, besides there was a huge zoo of all sorts of devices of any form factors, colors and possibilities, while dealing with the guts of the device to a mere mortal was unreal.
I remembered this because one of the services of the club was downloading content to mobile phones. Clients were guaranteed the support of absolutely any device (this was the principle of the position of the club owners). There was even an account of which phones we do not support, and everything they needed got to them, so that we had dozens of different wires and thousands of programs for synchronization. All this only threw firewood into the sacred firebox of my hatred - quite often one manufacturer had different phone models with different types of connectors, and were synchronized with different software. Bluetooth and, even more, WiFi, were not on all mobile phones, but the infrared receiver was almost everywhere. Well, I had to synchronize with IrDA, which was slow, inconvenient and buggy. And there were such phones, which had one through the infrared, and another through the wire. And the number of formats that phones understand? Some ate mmf, the second - mid, the third - mp3, the fourth - wav, but not pcm, but its format ... And for all this there were converters, thousands of them! Remember, what combination of software and wires to which cell phone is suitable, was simply unrealistic. Many customers who paid for the installation of the Vladimir Central or Boomer to the ringtone were nervous, seeing that I couldn’t find the right combination for the second half hour (and time was paid!) ... How could I hate that!
Sometimes, however, it was rolled to tell the user that, well, excuse me, your mobile phone is so cool that we don’t have wires for it yet - this is when the shop assistant’s grandmother wasn’t there. The client then left very satisfied, and I sighed a little freer. However, over time, I began to navigate in the models and names as well as the Gopnik, who earns money from the selected mobiles - now, in the days of iPhones and androids, this was very useful to me.
Well, let's not talk about sad things, I remember something fun.
And what can be more fun than good, perky brawl? How much does the younger body need to go into battle mode? “What are you, kazel, me with a knife?” - “And what are you shooting, cyka-rat?” - and it started!
I, as a peaceful and strong man, took the fighters by the collar and threw them out into the street. Yes, just like that, simply - excommunication from the beloved contra was enough for the opponents to immediately put up and go back to ask. I didn’t allow frank bruises to the club, so there were no cases when someone was pushed out money from some student when I wasn’t.
There were, of course, other minor troubles. Broken in the heat of battle, the mouse, broken wires of headphones - this is nonsense and everyday. But theft upset, and, as a rule, the same regulars stole. Could whistle at the gaping visitor phone left unattended, or any other nonsense. Then the owners of the club who had the unquestioned authority came into the business, asking to return the "found" phone in an amicable way - and they returned! Once, only someone for ever whistled the socket on the radio, and the administrator on duty on that day was penalized for oversight. But it was almost a single case.
But with swearing was very bad. Human larvae, plunged into dissent, do not control their speech apparatus, and communicate exclusively with foul language. On the one hand, what can we do about it; on the other hand, it is very unpleasant, especially if the parents left some preschool child next to play GTA, and he instead learns modern dialectic techniques.
We struggled with this as much as we could. A rule was introduced - for each abusive word they were fined with ten minutes of the game (it was not difficult to determine by voice who the regulars were). It helped, but not for long - the student stuck in the counter was again disconnected from the outside world and showered with expressions that were scanty in meaning, but rich in emotion. In such cases, we had to remotely cut down the game for good, after which the student instantly returned to this reality, resorted to apologize and beg for the selected time back.
Sometimes children begged to play "in debt." It was tough - many depended on toys almost physically, especially the players in the unimaginably popular “line” then. I especially remember one young couple, brother and sister, twins about ten years old in appearance.
They were some kind of dizzy kids, dirty and thin. Nobody saw their parents, they almost never had any money, and they played “doigryshi” - when someone left ahead of time, leaving five to ten paid minutes. If there were no other clients, I allowed these youngsters to play.
But this did not happen often, and then they would arrange hysteria. It looked like the most natural addict breaking - they howled and rolled on the floor, until they were thrown out onto the street. There they calmed down and began to "revenge": throw stones at the glass, yell at the door. Wild children, urban Mowgli ... It could only end when they were bored - that is, never, they still didn’t have any other classes.
Sometimes the club hosted a counter tournament and night games. Both were paid to the admin in double size, so I often volunteered to work at such events.
The tournament was usually appointed in advance. At the club's forum, teams that wanted to compete were unsubscribed, time was negotiated, and, sometimes, the prize pool. On the appointed day and time, the teams arrived at the scene and the club closed for the rest of the visitors. After that, the flea market began - money was collected to pay for time, almost always "pro-gamers" asked to attach their mice or throw their configs on computers. We agreed on who would play in which room (there were two halls in the club, regular and “VIP”, with computers a bit more powerful and separate booths), partitions were set up so that “no one burned”.
Then it began.
Such games, I must say, were held with a much smaller amount of verbal aggression, although not without the absence of a mat in general. Everyone could watch the game - the game server was accessible from the provider subgrid, and often there were a lot of “spectra” hanging there commenting on the match in the local irc channel. If the match ended earlier than the paid time left, free games were arranged in which observers from the “guest” could already participate - in principle, they played on the fast modem connection even almost without lags. I myself sometimes joined the game from my computer, although I respected the quake more, which for some reason was played less often.
We also played warcraft (DotA), NFS, GTA, and the incredibly miserable, in my opinion, “Get a neighbor” game. Other games almost did not enjoy popularity, well, except for the already mentioned "line". There was a boy who came to play Diablo II; each time, completing the game, he asked me to throw the saves to him on a floppy disk.
Night games represented pure orgy. First, the management allowed the club to be shot at night, only when all the seats were reserved. And this is a half dozen digging not counting the admin. Secondly, the management of the store was also transferred to the admin. He could sell everything that was possible, and usually not all survived until the morning - well, an unsuccessful idea, to use beer as energy.
But it was interesting to work at night anyway, there have never been any incidents in my memory, and even the players who were full of beer listened to me without question.
I worked in “Cybergrad” for about a year, and I often remember that time - it was great after all. Iklublub, as far as I know, existed for quite a long time, having survived even total checks on unlicensed software - and closed only after the mass distribution of cheap Internet.
PS Remembering the "Cybergrad" I went to google - and found the LIVE MIRROR of the club site (albeit very pokotsano). And although the “news” on it is somehow marked as much as 2010 - this is not true, I wrote some of them myself either in 2004 or in 2005.
The club has a new game set (shooter / walker) FARCRY. It weighs 4 gig. Very demanding on resources, but our computers are pulling! The audience is delighted!
PPS Do you like these mummy stories? Well into my tg channel , it is 37% of them.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/187634/
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