I am going insane.

We develop web stuff. Amongst other things, we develop sites for clients.

I work in a joint with my main man who I have a lot of respect for. He's a highly technical chap with hardware, with networks, with some obscure technologies. His main thing is not coding though. That's my side of things lately.

We have a 'special deal' with one of his buddies to host on this this server. His buddy is great and all. But I am about to put a **#( in something right about now.

Check this out.

One of my minor tasks today is setting up a client with a gallery, one that lets them change images, automatically makes thumbs.. etc. Should take me 15 minutes.

I do everything via the shell and vim.
My script had some troubles. So I figured one of the things I would do is spit out the ENV variables just to see what's up. Oops... no access to the error_logs via shell. No problem. Spit directly to screen.

What's this?,I ask..
This is what the server ENV is set to:

$VAR1 = {
          'ZEN_WANT_DOS' => 'NO',
          'SSH2_SFTP_LOG_FACILITY' => '-1',
          '_' => '/usr/bin/perl',
          'LS_COLORS' => 'no=00:fi=01;30:di=01;36:ln=00;35:pi=40;33:so
+=01;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=40;31;01:ex=00;36:*.tar=00;37:*.tgz
+=00;37:*.arj=00;37:*.taz=00;37:*.lzh=00;37:*.zip=00;37:*.z=00;37:*.Z=
+00;37:*.gz=00;37:*.jpg=01;32:*.gif=01;32:*.bmp=01;32:*.ppm=01;32:*.tg
+a=01;32:*.xbm=01;32:*.xpm=01;32:*.tif=01;32:*.mpg=01;32:*.avi=01;32:*
+.gl=01;32:*.dl=01;32:',
          'ZEN_VERSION' => '0.1',
          'SHLVL' => '1',
          'HISTSIZE' => '1000',
          'PWD' => '/home/xxxxx/public_html/cgi-bin',
          'SSH2_CLIENT' => 'xxxx.xxxx.xxx.xxx xxxx xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx xx'
+,
          'INPUTRC' => '/etc/inputrc',
          'HOSTNAME' => 'xxx.xxx.xxx',
          'LESSOPEN' => '|/usr/bin/lesspipe.sh %s',
          'PS1' => '\\[\\][\\[\\]\\u\\[\\]@\\[\\]\\h \\[\\]\\W\\[\\]]\
+\[\\]\\$\\[\\] ',
          'ZEN_WANT_COLOR' => 'yes',
          'USER' => 'xxx',
          'HOME' => '/home/xxx',
          'OLDPWD' => '/home/xxx/public_html',
          'ZEN_WHAT_SCHEME' => 'ice',
          'TERM' => 'xterm',
          'C1' => '',
          'LOGNAME' => 'xxx',
          'C2' => '',
          'PATH' => '/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin',
          'ZEN_WHAT_PROMPT' => 'linux',
          'C3' => '',
          'SHELL' => '/bin/bash',
          'C4' => '',
          'C5' => '',
          'MAIL' => '/var/spool/mail/xxx',
          'LANG' => 'en_US.iso885915'
        };
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This is no major problem in itself. I can ask the sysadmin to give me something more normal. Thing is.. I am fuming - This is not normal. This is bs. Why do I have to waste my #21^#-!! time with this - I am tearing my hair out. I have never seen such a bogus ENV. This is no normal server.

I am about to go apes**t. Should I - or am I over reacting?

This dude has this server all messed up, and I'm getting tired of finding weird out of the norm stuff here. I am being almost forced to use it because the person I work for wants to give the business to his friend. A little nepotism is all good, but this is interfering with my work.

I've found sh#@$T^ like this before, the first thing I noticed was that use strict; was missing. It makes my insides burn. I would normally switch to another server/provider in two secs. But .. I am being told over and over again.. "it's nothing, we'll just ask my friend to set it up the way you want it.. "

And I keep getting these little surprises... Oh god please someone tell me I am not being insane and you would too lose it..

I am feeling really awkward about insisting on switching servers/providers for fear of violating nepotism, also, I really have a ton of respect for the people I work with. On the other hand I am thinking this is more harm then good - working with this kind of setup. Who knows what else there is wrong with these machines? Should I suck it up?