It finally happened today - I always thought you guys were joking about how dumb people can be Tech Support |
- It finally happened today - I always thought you guys were joking about how dumb people can be
- A story of how my greatest accomplishment has flown completely under the radar
- Saying you “messed up” isn’t hard to admit.
- POS support issues
- Mystery High Pitch Tone
- We need more phone lines!
- Calling in for support vs emailing in
- And yet another take on bosses
- Trouble to remote in to user's desktop
- Users Always Lie!
- The Tale of the Project De Caca
- User seen something on YouTube
- As a matter of fact, YES, temperature affects electronics. Who knew?
- Head of department. WheRe iS tHe MoNiTor?
- If you want shift workers, get shift workers
- The Agency: Part 8 - Epilogue
- another take on bosses
- Everyone's Outlook is Crashing
| It finally happened today - I always thought you guys were joking about how dumb people can be Posted: 10 Feb 2022 07:17 AM PST Just had my first ever, 100% true ID10T error call at work- "Oh, nothing is wrong with it. Someone used it while I was gone, and with Covid going around I was afraid it would be contaminated". I let her know that we are currently in short supply of mice, and to sanitize it with copious amounts of Lysol and Lysol wipes as a solution. [link] [comments] |
| A story of how my greatest accomplishment has flown completely under the radar Posted: 09 Feb 2022 07:57 PM PST Buckle up. This is a long one. Background. I served in the military for 13 years as a legal specialist and court reporter. All of my IT experience is just me figuring it out using Google and guessing. Got out and immediately was hired for an IT job that they rewrote a little so I could also do cool court reporter stuff with some AI and fancy audio equipment. I've been doing that for 3 years as of last month. This story isn't about the court stuff. That's going swimmingly. FYA, there is some nifty speech to text stuff out there. But I digress… We'll start a few years before I got out. I was working in a place with a civilian IT guy. He was supposed to have a supervisor, but that position had been vacant for years. It was a four-person department and he was flying solo. He quit and I ended up taking over what was explained to me as his daily job. Basic helpdesk stuff. Mapping profiles, network permissions, group email account management, phone transfers, etc. very small potatoes. Again, no new hires and I did this by myself for an office of about 60 for two years. I got out and was asked if I wanted to come back as the new civilian IT guy. The pay was good and I didn't have to move and already knew the staff and assets so I accepted. They also finally hired the supervisors position, a guy with a lot of management experience. About six months after we started, we got a call from the Enterprise-level guys. They were informing us that they were shutting down a system we were supposed to be managing because it hadn't been authorized or recertified IN 7 YEARS!!!! It was an aging Lotus Domino Server, around 23 databases, each with tens of thousands of records that oh, by the way, are mandated by congress to keep for 10 years. It was a home brew setup, no support or maintenance except for what the every-three-year rotating people had googled enough to fix some issue. So many busted agents and looping actions An email Notification system rigged to a commercial Email re-router that no one had the login credentials for. The admin in the ACL were long since retired and here I was with zero clue except someone once said "he is good at computer stuff." Luckily, my supervisor knew exactly what was wrong and how to submit the paperwork to fix it. And he thought it would be a good idea to have me do it so I could learn. Great idea. So I slowly got a package together, submitted it, and it failed. Immediately. Expired this. Outdated that. Tons of security flaws in the web interface. Ended up teaching myself what a salted hash was, deleting all 3000 users passwords and creating a temp login reset so anytime someone logged in with a black password field, they had to set a new password. First bullet dodged. Then disaster struck several times. First, some new laws required that we save more data than before and make it more Accessible. The leadership at the time through together a little group to figure out what to do. We had a broken system, constant server crashes, no support, and new requirements. Oh. And no money. So they decided, over my hesitant objection, that "this looks like it could be done in SharePoint" and some consult company totally sold them on it. SharePoint was free for us using an Enterprise license and "Pr0nAltAcc is good at Computer stuff. He can figure it out". So the decision was made. Second, the first "SharePoint developer" we hired rage quit because the PM was "too critical". The next dev had some really unique ways to do stuff that we later learned no one else could figure out and had to be scrapped once we finally got more devs. Then the PM quit. Then the second dev quit. Then the second PM quit. Then my supervisor quit. Got a better offer somewhere else and dipped about halfway through the build of the site collections. So after teaching a half dozen non-legal people the entire legal process multiple times, several requirements gathering sessions and story boarding and all that, we finally get the basic site collection built. Now it's time to migrate. Migrating lotus notes data into SharePoint lists is a nightmare. Not only did we bust the threshold limits immediately, list column limitations forced us to make 30 separate lists to house the nearly 1200 data fields + attachments. The SharePoint host nearly declined our site when we reached out with what we weee trying to do. Ended up purchasing some software to make it a little easier and migrating everything mostly successfully. There was one small piece of the Lotus Notes stuff still active on the server. It finally was migrated recently and now I am free of this burden. But now my problems really started. You see, when the original Domino server was set up, and the Notes databases registered in our lifecycle management tool, they were listed under a special type of system so we could get better funding for it. This came back to bite me in the cheeks because those special system are built to be permanent and have secretariat level oversight on budgeting and management. So in order to stop having people constantly badgering me because the system was so out of date it was set to be removed from the network, I had to convince several levels of bureaucracy that the system didn't exist anymore, even though the program name still existed because the old Supervisor of mine thought it would be a good idea to name to sharepoint the exact same program name, hence forcing it inherit all of its red tape and security requirements. During this time, Lotus Domino, now IBM Domino, was sold to a company overseas and the network security folks were adamant that it be shut down immediately. So stuck between the NOSC and a Congressional data capture mandate, I did the only thing I could think of: cracked open some old policy documents and started learning how one could decommission one of these special systems. After several weeks of emails and investigation, and a boat load of people wanting to each see for themselves the new SharePoint site and how it was used and was there any API or cloud storage or anything extra that kept it in the enterprise definition of a system (two or more hardware/software components used in conjunction) and thus keeping the old rules and red tape in place, today I FINALLY got the final all Clear to shut down the old domino server and recategorize this special project. It's been an exhausting journey, but I learned a lot. I don't think anyone in my office has any idea how close we came to losing the last ten years of data and what it took to move everything and change the categorization, but I know and now I can rest easy and get back to what my job description actually is. If you stuck around this long, thanks for reading. TLDR: I migrated a Lotus system into SharePoint barely in the Nick of time before it got deleted by the network folks. Then was able to convert the new site out of the governance that systems are required to have. [link] [comments] |
| Saying you “messed up” isn’t hard to admit. Posted: 10 Feb 2022 03:41 AM PST I work as a SD analyst in a hospital but we're located 5 min further at an admin building. So I get this doctor on the phone who has issues logging into Citrix secure hub on the phone, I sent him the guide that we provide our users that includes trouble free step by step pictures. Step one was entering the organization's URL, the Dr tells me it doesn't work. I decided to tell him by letters on how to enter it, he proceeds to get frustrated and tell me that the issue is with the app. I proceed to troubleshoot by asking to re-install, update, etc etc casual analysis, he insisted that he did all that already and won't do it again. I tell him okay then since I can't find the issue please come visit us at our office down the road when you're free, he shockingly agrees! Half an hour passes he visits me at the office and hands me his phone all angry and pissed. So I grab it and the first thing I did was enter the link and guess what?? Wow it worked! I tried to be all cool about it and continued to sign him in, one I finished he wanted to launch one of the applications and sign in first because he insisted this one "won't work" for sure. He signs in with his domain credentials and it didn't work, he shoved his phone in my face and gave me sorta of an "I told you", I asked him kindly re-enter again as the phone might of had an issue entering it, he proceeds and wow what you know, it worked! He's all embarrassed and starts being all nice and kept on thanking me for being patient, I just wish the same could of been said since this was an issue that could of been solved over the phone and within 5 minutes. It can be hell sometimes but sometimes I gotta admit it does make you feel just a tad better when you show them how simple they're issues are when the choose to be impatient. End of rant. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 10 Feb 2022 08:24 AM PST Over the past 50 years, I have spent the last 30 doing tech support/testing/planning for various point of sale systems (yes, POS cover's it nicely). Anyway about 15 years ago, the primary vender changed from one large IT company to another. Since I was the one in control of the baseline (software and hardware), everything that was a proposed change came through me before going to the field. Went on leave (one week, away from the office but still available online and working). When I got back, thought that everything was going well - no problems reported while I was out, which should have been a good thing. Had a meeting with the prime contractor the next week and one of the bullet points in their presentation was they had installed software at all of the POS locations while I was out. I didn't authorize it and no one (supposedly) knew anything about it. The software had to do with how to handle credit card transactions when the store would lose their internet connection. They would store the transaction, with an encrypted card number and encrypted security code. Then process the transaction when the connection came back up. Interesting, that concept had been around for a while and was not supposed to be implemented without a lot of testing. As you may imagine, a lot of impacts depending on how long the network outage lasted. Anyway, started testing this in the lab and found that it didn't work. When the card number was decrypted to be processed, it was all zeros (0) in the middle eight numbers of the card. Same for the security code - all zeros. So the transaction would fail. This had been installed at all of the remote sites then a major internet outage occurred - lasted about 2 days. All of the credit card transactions were processed in this mode. The retailer lost millions in transactions (for this retailer, the average transaction was better than $600). Now the fun begins. The contractor has no fall back position, and no way to recover the data. It fell to me to figure out a method of recovering the transactions - yes - there is a way to recover them. It took about 5 days of working with the data to get to that point. No, I will not disclose how it was done, so don't ask. It took over two (02) months to get approval from senior management to recover a sample set of these transactions. By this time, many of the patrons had already spent the "excess" funds elsewhere. So, they screamed. Upper management reacted and shutdown the entire recovery process (even though from a technical standpoint it worked!). In the mean time, the contractor fixed their code. It was tested and found to work correctly. Then implemented in the field. No one could believe that I had methodology to reconstruct the card numbers and security codes. The contractor was praised for their good work at making the fix, but not chastised for bypassing the testing on the initial install. The senior management person that authorized the initial install was praised. I was ... left out in the cold. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 09 Feb 2022 10:56 AM PST I work for a school district so we have an all call system that is constantly on the fritz. We got called to a classroom because of a "annoying high pitched tone". When I rounded the corner and could immediately hear it. It was very loud and ear piercing. I walk into the room and it sounds like it's coming from the ceiling but honestly its so high pitched it's hard to tell. Confirmed it is definitely not the fire alarm. My coworker goes to grab a ladder so we can get in the ceiling and check the speakers. As he leaves to go get the ladder, the teacher says "alright class lets get out of here while they work, bring your things". As the students all pack up and head out the door, the sound begins to move closer to me. I lean in to this kid's backpack and sure enough there it is! I said "dude that's coming from your bag!" and he immediately got red faced... it was an engineering project he was on for school... lol Love an easy fix. Update: teacher came in EOD to apologize for wasting my time. I made sure he knew this was the funniest part of my week thus far. Not a waste of time at all. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 09 Feb 2022 07:45 PM PST What a roller coaster today has been. The place I work has about 400 employees, everyone has their own phone number, on top of this about 60 folks are in a call center capacity taking calls that come in on a toll-free number. Because of all this our system is configured for a capacity 46 local calls at a time (23 dedicated to callers into our toll-free line, and another 23 lines for the rest of the business to share, excess calls to the toll T1, will roll over to the second set of local lines), with room for another 23 long distance calls, and 23 international calls (we mostly support only local folks, but sometimes they move and we need service to allow them toll free access to our services). For those familiar with telephony, this is 4 T1's. Business has been picking up over the last year since the VID, and for the last 4 months pretty much we've been maxing out our capacity for locals calls the number of people dialing into the call center is taking up the 23 lines the rest of our business uses. People would get busy signals calling us, we would get busy signals making outbound calls, unless it was long distance, the we could make calls. Tickets started rolling in, "My phone is broken". No, we only have so many phone lines and they are all in use. Non call center people share phones lines with call center people for local calls, customers waiting takes up a phone line. You need to make calls early in day or late when usage is low. Rinse and repeat for 3 months. Tickets stopped coming in, but managers are finally complaining that their employees can't reach their customers, customers are upset. They come to me. Yes, I work in IT, but I'm Desktop Support, I deal with end points. There are specializations in IT, shit gets complicated. Problem is, we aren't big enough for a dedicated telephony guy. The guy I took over for was also desktop support, but in his previous life he was a phone guy. He was a key player setting up our current system. He trained us on basic configuration and end point troubleshooting. We do what we can, then outsource the hard stuff to our support vendor. This is the first place where I've had access to THE system. Since starting here I've received some additional training, and I spend off time learning up. After 2 years on the system, I can do day to day tasks, basic end point troubleshooting, configure new phones. Trunks? Routes? Gateways... Fuck Me. That being said, I'm really good with technology, and know enough about telephony to ask the right people the right questions to, and I'm always happy to engage our vendor for support when I can't find an answer. I get to work "Hey network engineer, can we add more T1's without upgrading hardware" Sure go buddy, we have 2 open ports. Call Software company, "Any additional software cost to increase capacity?" Nope, go for its buddy. Call Telcom company, "We are at capacity, how much to add another T1?" $500 a month, let us know when to go. I submit ticket to our Software vendor to order the additional T1, and do the needed software config changes, cause I'm not touching it. Software vendor comes back and tell us they don't have contract with our telecom vendor, and we need to order directly through them, once line is ran, they'll come configure switches and software. Call Telcom to place our order, queue waiting. While waiting, we have managers asking us, are you sure it's a capacity issue, we remember having higher queues before and not getting busy signals. I show them real time data that shows 100% usage. I tell my boss that based on everything, they are remembering wrong, mis understood, or configuration has changed, fact is capacity right now is 46 for them based on current configuration. 2 weeks later, no word from telecom, we escalate, ask to be prioritized because we don't like our customer being upset with us. They get us a PM assigned to finalize some details. PM comes back and says we have 4 T1's, here's how they are currently configured, how would you like the new 1 configured, and oh, btw, one of your T1's is throwing an error is not currently in service... I look at the email confused, their description of our service setup, doesn't match the description from the guy I took over for. At this point I call my network engineer; we review our hardware setup. We're supposed to have 5 T1s, a total capacity of 121 lines. 23 lines for the toll line, then 43 for local calls. We notice that no calls are coming in on the line that's supposed to dedicated to our toll line. We realize that when we switched toll providers, the lines weren't moved, they forwarded calls to one of the other line groups instead. Since the change, we lost 24 lines. I guess the call center folks were on to something when they said we used to have more capacity. He also says he confirmed the line reported as down, isn't down according to the switch, so it's likely just not configured on the software. I'm able to confirm the line is indeed not included in either the local or long-distance route groups. When did this happen? Before my time is all I now. We've been without these lines for at least 3 years now. Now I call my telecom sales rep and we review what the PM send over, his notes don't match hers. He does research, and finds we have a second account with 2 T1's on it, that connected on our side, he also reviews my bill for my toll-free number with me, (he thinks he can beat their prices) and confirms that we are indeed no longer paying for a dedicated T1 for toll-free calls. I asked him how long that account has existed with the T1's, and he tells me over 20 years, naturally I'm curious why we have this account if we aren't using the lines. He thinks that we stopped using them when we upgraded our infrastructure 10 years ago to VoIP, and someone didn't cancel these old lines. Silver lining though, instead of ordering a new line, he can migrate these lines to our current configuration, we'll just need to re-add them to our switches and configure them in software, no waiting to roll a truck for a new run. I found a current bill for the T1's we didn't know about. The current rate for these is 2700 a month, and we have used these lines in nearly 10 years!! I also found out, we don't have any lines just for international calls, all international calls are just ran through our long-distance provider, so any of the lines can be used for that since they all are configured to support long distance. So, where's all this leave us? I have 24 lines already configured on the switch that just needs to be enabled in the software. We have another 46 lines already connected to the building, just needs to be connected to switch, configured on switch, and enabled in software. We don't need to set aside 24 lines to support international calling, any line can handle it. 10 years ago, someone forgot to cancel our account, we've been paying on out of service lines since. We don't need more phone lines; we need to use what we already have. Instead of spending an additional 6k a year, we're going to re-bundle the account we forgot about, have more lines for our call center and other employees, and probably end up saving 12k a year compared to our current bill. Boss very happy. TLDR: Ordered additional phones lines from provider, instead found out we've been paying for lines we haven't been using for the last 10 years. Re-connecting these lines to our switches will double our capacity, solving issues we've been having for the last year. [link] [comments] |
| Calling in for support vs emailing in Posted: 09 Feb 2022 05:47 AM PST So the place that I work for, we try to train people to submit a ticket through email. But people still insist on calling in, and we take the call, make a ticket, and say that someone will get with them to take care of the issue. This relieves the 20-40 + minute interruption of people calling to get faster service. Got a call Monday, about 5 mins before a scheduled appointment, took the call, opened a ticket for the user and said that someone would be with them shortly to take care of it. She lost her cookies. Screaming at me, that the reason she calls is because she gets faster service. I responded with, well im sorry, we create tickets for people who call in, so that you dont jump ahead of the people who have already submitted a ticket via website,email, etc. She just cant wrap her mind around this I guess. She tells me that her problem is easy, and that she just needs someone to do it now. I think to myself, well if its that easy, how come you are not doing it yourself? I assure her that someone will reach out to her regarding the ticket in a bit. I take my next appointment, finished it in about 5 mins, rather than the 30 mins I had planned. I decide to go and look at this ticket that the lady called in screaming at me for. Found the ticket, no one was assigned to it yet, Assigned it to myself, and took a look at the PC from our RMM. I found the issue to be that her HDD was full, as to why the PC was so slow. Ran a script through the RMM to clean up %temp%, temp, and run disk cleanup. Cleaned up about 25Gbs, told her she was all set in the ticket, and told her what I did. She replied back with "K". UGH I wanted to un-do what I did, and let her suffer longer, but im too nice and want people to have a good experience with us. This is why I try to never do stuff over the phone when people call in, they expect too much, drop everything your doing and help me. Sorry, there is a process that you are not adhering to. "One of the other techs would drop what he was doing to help me" Come on Friday 5pm.. im ready... [link] [comments] |
| And yet another take on bosses Posted: 09 Feb 2022 11:58 AM PST Here's another story about "Fred", the boss from my "Another take on bosses" post. A little background: The structure of our organization was roughly this: The national boss of our Field Service/Tech Support force was "Harry", who's office was in a different building from us. Harry worked in our HQ office and had one support person, essentially a secretary. Under Harry was Fred and another manager based on the other side of U.S. Under Harry was me, a tech support specialist, a parts manager, and a bunch of techs spread out from Houston to Anchorage. I was very involved in day to day operations, following up with customers, making sure everyone was getting their paperwork handled (time sheets, expense reports, service reports, stuff like that). I had no responsibility for billing, if a new device got installed I flagged it up to Harry's secretary, who made sure it got added to the correct customers contract. Things were pretty swell, Fred and I had things pretty much on rails. Then came "surprise Monday". I showed up to the office as usual, Fred was always there early since he like to beat the rush hour traffic. Fred calls me into his office right away and asks me to close the door. I was pretty sure I wasn't in trouble, but something was up. Fred: Harry was fired over the weekend. Sergi (international boss) flew in Saturday and let him go. Me: (Totally astounded), What happened? Fred: This (shows me an "invoice aging" report he has on his desk). We spent some time going over it. We has a ton of customers who were way past 90 days on paying their monthly bills. A bunch more are at the 60 day mark. And its not just our customers, the same thing is true for the customers on the East Coast. Turns out Harry was not passing any of this information on to Fred or the other manager, he didn't want them "bothered" with receivables, he would deal it. Only clearly he hadn't been handling it and the axe finally fell. Fred had orders from Sergi, "get this cleaned up RIGHT NOW". The aging report was the old green bar fan fold type, Fred opens it to where there are two halves, and tears it, hands me one half, and says, "Get on the phone with these folks. You know them all, it should be easy to get this cleared up. I'll handle the other half". The next couple of hours were some of the strangest in my career. I had customers say things like, "I've been wondering when you guys were gonna call about this", to others saying "I've told you folks a dozen times that you need to put PO number xyz on your invoices or we can't legally pay them!" It was pretty embarrassing, apparently Harry and his secretary had totally dropped the ball, it was kind of a miracle that we were collecting ANY billing. It was clear that a ton of invoices were going to have to be credited and re-issued. A few had minor problems that a customer could initial changes on and submit to their accounting folks. Some charges had been incurred in a customers previous fiscal year and we had to write them off. It was pretty much a nightmare. Fred and I sat down at the end of the day and compared notes, we had to email our accounting folks a ton of revisions, credits, re-bills, we looked like total idiots, (well Harry did, but he was gone). Anyway, over the next couple of billing cycles we collected on a HUGE number of outstanding invoices, and after this we totally lived and died by the aging report. What was cool about this, really the only cool thing, was that Fred totally trusted me to jump into this crisis and help him out. Neither one of us had to deal with anything like this. It was a mess that I hadn't created, but I got to help clean it up, and it felt pretty good to be part of the solution. Fred and I worked more as peers to fix this, it was cool. After we had caught our breath we started auditing what was being invoiced against what we knew was actually on the maintenance contract. No one will be surprised that we found a huge number of devices that had been installed but never added to the billing. So we had a whole other round of calling customers and warning them that their billing was going to increase in a big jump, due to "someone's incompetence". Embarrassing, but it sure made our numbers look better by year's end. [link] [comments] |
| Trouble to remote in to user's desktop Posted: 09 Feb 2022 10:56 AM PST Okay this gonna be a very short story. A little background that I was working in a BPO IT service desk voice account and pretty much support most app and sites in their company computer. For this story we had a special tool (not sure if unique) to easily remote in to company computer with admin access/rights. Okay now for the short story. A user called in having issues with her outlook on her computer, after some probing seems I need to remote in to see to really understand her issue. So I gave her the address to for me to remote in but seems having trouble accessing the site, at first I gave her the shortcut link, getting can't reach this page then I gave the full URL of the remote in site still same issue then she said she'll try something. So I wait then after few min the invite to remote me in came through to me but something seems different. I was connected and I ask for me to take control but the mouse keeps moving, so I asked again to please to not use the mouse for now, she answered that she was not touching her mouse at all. Then I finally asked if this is her pc I am connected to, she said no it's my colleague's. I muted and took a deep breath, and then asked why was I in her colleague's pc. She said she asked him if he could access the site to remote me in, and since he could she continued with the steps to get me in. So I gently explained to her that for me to remote in to her computer she need to access the site in her computer not someone else's, then she let out a loud and long "ooohhhh". Then after a few tries I was able to remote in and fix the issue. Note: at that time I was not familiar with RDP, MSRA, or quick assist. Also with the special app to remote in we are able to jump in to her computer from our end but as by our policy that should be our last resort. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 08 Feb 2022 03:06 PM PST I am not a Tech Person but I love this sub. I have learned so many simple lessons like 'make sure everything is actually turned on' and 'check all the cords'. So when I attempted to walk my 80 year old father through 'fixing' his TV over the phone in a snowstorm, I started with all the simple things first. I told him to get the cable remote and the original remote that came with the TV when he bought it. He said he had them. So after 20 minutes, we finally got the cable box on and the TV turned on at the same time. We just needed to change the input on the TV to cable. The whole 20 minutes it took just to get this far, I had been saying to pick up the TV remote and do X, put it down and use the cable remote to do Y, and he was following my directions pretty well. Finally I told him to find the input button on the TV remote. DAD: There isn't one. Me: Do you have the right remote? The one that came with the TV when you originally bought it? DAD: Yes it's the TV remote. ME: OK starting at the top, read all the names of the buttons. He reads all the buttons starting with on/off all the way to the bottom of the remote. He never reads off 'input'. Hmmm. OK, I try to google the TV remote for his TV, because the input button has to be somewhere. But nothing I find for his TV matches the remote he says he has. I even think 'Users Always Lie' and make him read the label on the back of the TV to check that the brand he told me was right. Finally, I start grasping at straws. Me: Is there a word written at the very bottom of the TV remote? Dad: Yes I says "Spectrum". Me: No, not the cable remote, the TV remote. Dad: This is the TV remote. Me: No, Spectrum is the cable company. Get the other remote for the actual TV. Dad: What do you mean? There isn't one. There is only 1 remote. Me: What? Dad: Yeah, TV and the cable work with the same remote. You know that. Me:..... Me: I can't help you any more. How about I come over when the roads are clear in a day or 2. Maybe I can fix it in person. Keep your radio on. So yeah. The whole time I was saying 'Pick up the cable remote and do X, put it down, now pick up the TV remote and do Y', he was picking up and putting down the same, single remote control over and over again. 2 days later I drove 45 minutes to his house to push the 2 buttons it took to change the input on the TV. Users Always Lie! [link] [comments] |
| The Tale of the Project De Caca Posted: 08 Feb 2022 07:19 PM PST Inspired by the tales of the Agency from Mr_Cartographer and a very nice pretty please from LeahInShade, I decided to write out the saga of the Project de Caca. Hopefully this telling will forestall future blood pressure spikes when I retell it by leaching some of the poison of it from my brain. I swear I get wound up at the thought of it every time I tell it, even it years later. I am VERY long winded. This may end up being a very a long read, so be warned. I am also having a glass or 2 of wine while writing so make what you will of that. Now to start, I like this job, I am in fact still employed at the same company. (albeit after a merger and few acquisitions and a name change and a location change...LOL) Every workplace has its Achilles heel and this project was the one I had the misfortune of being immersed in. Most of the major players have since moved on to other jobs as well. My current leadership has been encouraging me to come to them if anything like this happens in the future though my warnings were for naught. That encouragement has kept me at my job. Now on to the tale... I am not strictly an IT person, I ended up falling into the role of database developer and discovered that I really liked relational databases and that I loved the process of turning a pile of trivia into actual useful information that people could use to make decisions. At this job, I was slowly becoming less of a code monkey and more of what is now called data science. (though I do have love / hate relationship with statistics, so I am not officially there) We were given the project of creating an application for a division that did some custom reporting for our firm. We had lots of canned reports doing similar things, but this might be doing things like testing the waters for 2 clients to merge or grouping product contracts in novel ways, so it needed some high touch analysis. This analysis was being done on Excel spreadsheets as these things often are...especially at the time. The problem as we were presented it we had a few issues to be solved.
So, to start out with the analysts had to be "protected" from us as they were far too busy to tell us about the process or how we could translate this into a standardized process. We had to glean this from meetings with the manager and no one else. Now I do not dislike this manager, but managers are not very effective if they are so far in the trenches that they can give a good account of the day to day processes. Not great, but not the worst, we did get some good info to get started. I was not thrilled but not truly exposed to the horrors that would come. So to start, a subset of data was pulled from a database. Cool....a little investigation told us that database pulled from a database we owned....double cool. Let's go to the source that we know when it was last updated. Fresher data is better...right? Hold up there Satan, apparently there was some special juju about this outdated copy of the database. Why was this special? We never got a straight answer, but nevertheless, we had to jump through the 7 flaming hoops of fire to get access of an outdated copy of our own damn data to get to the next step. Ironically we were asked to run a special update to this outdated copy several times once they discovered we held the keys to get it back up to date. So we proceed to designing in the processes and formulas that were in the excel spreadsheets. Remember, one of the explicitly stated objectives was to standardize this process so different analysts would at least start with similar reports for the same data. We spend months hashing and re-hashing this so we understand all of the rules and exceptions to the rules and times when the rules are ignored and start the process of getting the process in place. Now an analyst would select a dataset and start working. The smart way to do this would be to set a default data set, allow the analyst to make changes if they were needed, then run it through the standard process unless there was a need to do something so custom the excel made more sense. That would be too easy. We presented this and the brakes were quickly applied. "We need more flexibility." So....standardizing the process is not ok now??! Apparently it was not. How DARE we try to put these calculations in the database, out of the reach of the analysts. They need more CONTROL. The calculations MUST be done in Excel. Sigh. So apparently we have thrown out reason number 1 for doing this project now...months into it no less. Unspoken reason 3 is also gone since, if the calculations are handled in Excel, we are back to square 1 in time and burden on analysts. So now we are left with reason 2 as the sole reason we are spending over $500K on this project over and above the salaries of FTEs like me who could be doing something useful. Was this money really effective for the only stated purpose that was left....keeping track of versions of the report? This is where stressful project went to absolute crap in an instant. So at this point I really started questioning what we were doing. Keeping track of versioning was something that could be better handled by Sharepoint. Why were we building a whole application instead? I start floating this question up. Our biggest raison d'etre has now been invalidated and version control is no longer enough to keep us going on this road...or so I think. Why on earth would someone state they needed consistency then kill it immediately in a desire for each analyst to have "control". This is making no sense and the data structures that are starting to come down the pipe are making less sense. At this point I start putting out the "What are we really doing?" emails. I outline what we were told were the stated objectives. Point out how objective 1 has been savaged. How objective 3 could be achieved if the current project was completely revamped and how objective 2 was easily achievable with Sharepoint. We have no real objectives anymore. We are floundering in a horribly complex process where we are told we are doing it wrong, but taking way too long to be told why. We would try something ....get told it was wrong , then wail a week or two to get a meeting with the manager to find out the problem was semantic or minor. All this hoping that the actual analysts would not have some completely different take. I think the worst part of the response to the what are we doing emails was not that I was wrong...no they agreed with every point...then declared it irrelevant without explaining why. yes, it was true that we were not standardizing the process, but that was irrelevant. No we were not simplifying the process, but the salespeople would have this nifty versioning control and the analysts could be ordered to use the process so it "was not a burden". Then I was asked if I thought I would be blamed for the failure. I was incredibly insulted. I was doing my best to be a team player, a good steward of company resources and I was being accused of totally self serving CYA?? Dot get me wrong, CYA has saved me many times, but there was more than enough documentation of just who orchestrated this steaming pile already, I was just trying to stop it from piling higher. There was line of projects waving fists full of money at our division trying to get us to do their projects....more useful projects too. That is when I heard the fateful words..."well there is a lot of political pressure to do this the way they want it." I do not know the name of the progenitor of this project. I do not know what blackmail he had on the other people who had projects they wanted completed by my group. Whatever he had, it was explosive. I can only dream of this blackmail material. He managed to jump a lot people who brought millions into the company and actually had GOOD ideas that would grow the business and benefit customers for something that was now best handled by Sharepoint ...and it WOULD NOT STOP. Now that the flex has happened, we were helpless. We could not push back against any requirement no matter how stupid . The process now evolved to new heights of idiocy. We were required to have a process than would pull records manually selected from the database into Excel. Any attempt tp automate this pull was violently rejected. No matter how many manual overrides were offered, it was never enough control. So the record selection process was unchanged. Sadly, this was a high water mark. next we exported this into Excel where each analyst would apply their own version of the massaging of this data. No standardization was allowed! The all powerful CONTROL needed to be honored. So far so no change. Now we had to load the data from Excel back into the database. This is where things go from bad to abjectly stupid. Remember that our last, really awful, reason for doing this project is so we could keep track of multiple versions? In order to do all our calculations in Excel and re-load these back into the database, The only way to do this is to overwrite the previous version of the analysis in the database. The last fig leaf has been striped from this project. All versioning still must be kept in various Excel documents and we still are not keeping them version controlled in Sharepoint. Nope, we are willy nilly just writing over a database version so we can see the see the software unfold the damn graphs in a pretty manner in front of a customer. Heck, lets be honest, we cant even manage that much. The pretty flowering pie chart is locked behind our firewall, unless the customer comes onsite for a presentation, they are seeing a PDF of that cool pie chart, not it unrolling in front of them. Around this point I really start drinking too much. I HATED this project. It was incredibly stupid. It took loads of analyst time. The analysts were the bottleneck in this process. Remember how their time was WAAYYYY too valuable to talk to us at the beginning...or ever. (our time was not valuable AT ALL /s) So we have a process that:
My conclusion was that a few people would use it to see the new shiny sparkly, then would quickly become disenchanted as they discovered the digital equivalent that glitter is actually craft herpes and they have to deal with this huge steaming pile in front of customers. The salespeople (who always get the management love notes) would demand the old process and this would, at best fade into obscurity.... taking $500K + and untold amounts of productivity with it. Surprising me not in the slightest, that is exactly what happened. There were update processes that had to managed. I managed them al of 3 times. Very quickly I was the last person with institutional knowledge to kick this off. Every 6 months or so, there was an attempt to revive this. I would kick it off...they would discover why no one else was using this product and go back to Excel without the crazy useless DB process...until someone else was told this was what they were supposed to do before they learned better. Midway through the abortive stop start of actually using this process my old manager revisited it. Apparently because it was not being used enough, the thought was to add more features. OMG nobody learned it was a awful gumming up of a difficult process that could have been simplified, but any attempts at making the process BETTER were REJECTED resoundingly. Instead we need a brighter shade of lipstick on this pig and it would be the best thing EVER! I express this view strongly! Once again I am insulted. Well this does not come out of our department's budget, we do not need to worry. Thankfully this died exactly as quickly and unused as I expected. It would have done far more damage if it had been forced to be used as intended. I am still angry at the utter uselessness of this in a an otherwise useful and contributing company. There were real problems that needed solved in other parts of the company. There were real contributions we could have made to this division. Instead, we were blocked at every turn and all my "leadership" could do is bleat about political pressure. [link] [comments] |
| User seen something on YouTube Posted: 08 Feb 2022 04:42 PM PST So I do IT in healthcare recently we had someone come in and push a digital transformation where instead of deploying actual workstations we give people laptops. People have gone from being used to having workstations with two monitors to having a laptop and a few lucky people have been supplied with small portable tablet style monitors. Now here I am get a phone call from my team lead telling me to go help a user who was given a laptop, but prefers having two monitors like she was used to. She informs me that she's having trouble setting up dual monitors on her laptop, I think simple enough, right ? Wrong she then pulls out two laptops, one a 7 year old personal laptop and her new company supplied one, she then plugs one hdmi into her old laptop and the other into her new laptop. I watch in amazement cause it is the silliest thing I have ever seen someone do at work. I inform her that even tho she has them plugged into each other and the laptops recognize that somethings plugged into the hdmi port it's not going to work. She replies to me "that's not true I seen someone do it on YouTube with a tv" I said well that makes sense it's a tv and a tv is essentially a monitor. She say so is this laptop, I say can you show me the video you found and the guy was indeed connected to a TV. I was at a loss for words after that because she kept insisting it was possible. I then told her let me try something and launched cmd entered ipconfig a few times and then told her again it wasn't possible. Morale of the story is when a user tells you they seen something on YouTube just know your in for a ride! [link] [comments] |
| As a matter of fact, YES, temperature affects electronics. Who knew? Posted: 07 Feb 2022 08:04 PM PST Long time reader, first time posting. I do tech support for a midsized company with offices in 4 states. I'm the only IT in the southern region, the rest are up north. IT: me of course. U$er: you know how it goes. Some background, this user is an intern who just started a couple weeks ago. We tend to provide interns with the oldest laptops we have (not my idea, just tradition I guess). U$er: Hey IT, I just tried turning my laptop on and it made this horrible sound, then just turned off. Can you fix it? I hope I didn't totally break it. IT: Well let's take a look at it, will you set it on the bench and turn it on so I can here the sound? I have a dozen other problems to deal with this morning, hoping it was a fluke and the laptop will just boot up normally. But as she said, it powers on, makes a horrible screeching sound for about half a second, then shuts off. I pick up the laptop, thinking I will need to pop it open to see if anything is out of place. The laptop feels like it's been in the fridge! Instantly, I know what the problem is. IT: Did you leave the laptop in your car last night? U$er: Yeah, so? IT: It's too cold. Wait a little while then it will be fine. U$er: That doesn't explain why it won't turn on or that noise, what do you really think is wrong with it? IT: (already knowing what the problem is) I really don't know. I tell you what, I'll pop it open and take a look, then I'll bring it back to your desk when I've got it fixed. She agrees then leaves my office. I continue what I was working on for about 10 minutes, then turn the laptop back on. It boots into the bios but does not detect the HDD. Turn it off, and come back in another 10 minutes. It boots straight into Windows like normal. This laptop is from an age when spinning HDDs we're still common, before NVMe really took off. This isn't the first time one of our users has caused issues by leaving the machine in outside in the winter. Anyways, thanks for reading, and remember that user error is 80% of our problems in IT. UPDATE: Thank you all so much for the support on this! And to those concerned with condensation, nothing to worry about in this case! [link] [comments] |
| Head of department. WheRe iS tHe MoNiTor? Posted: 08 Feb 2022 12:32 AM PST Happened yesterday. I work for higher education college. My duties are to help staff members who need equipment for classes for visually impaired students and also students. If a staff member needs anything they need to put in a ticket request or we won't know...anyway..I'm in a middle of a call with someone, the head of the department comes starts to talk to me and I tell her I'm on the phone call via teams... She says it's urgent, I tell the other person I'm sorry this person incompetency is strong. HOD: Hi, I requested a monitor for room XX Me: strange I didn't any requests from your department, btw I'm on the phone HOD: Oh... sorry, she tries to speak to my boss who's also on the phone. She comes to me again, please we need the screen.. Me: okay I'll get the monitor and please put in a ticket. HOD: thanks. While I'm taking the screen down to the room, another member of department comes and asks about the screen... And I tell the situation. She's done this multiple times, she's booked an incorrect room for the screen... She's a nightmare. [link] [comments] |
| If you want shift workers, get shift workers Posted: 07 Feb 2022 01:19 PM PST I was 19 and interviewing for an IT job at <company name removed> in Guildford, Sydney, at the turn of the century. They got bought out by BP, the petrol company. If you're a local you can guess that their name starts with Cas and ends with trol. IV: interviewer. ME: yours truly. Italics are non-vocal The interview was going very well, and there was... IV: ... just one final question. ME: outwardly sporting a polite smile, inwardly cheering myself on how well the interview was going IV: If there is a server outage at 7pm at night, and you got a call, would you be willing to come back into the office to resolve it? ME: Sure! You seem like such a nice employer, These things happen, I'd be happy to support you in good times and bad, it would be second nature for me to come in. IV: Excelle...! ME: actually, sorry, I'm not finished! I can only come in if I don't have Uni that evening. I go part-time two nights a week, and I can't miss that. IV: Looks down, shuffles some papers with an evil smile. I'll give you another chance to answer that question. If there is a server outage at 7pm at night, and you got a call, would you be willing to come back into the office to resolve it? ME: why is he asking again...? ME: looking to the side and understanding. Oh. Uncomfortable pause. My future boss it's still sporting that evil smirk ME: out of sheer 19-year old naivety than any other reason, umm...I...guess...I would...come back into work? IV: that's the correct answer. I missed Uni the first time I got a call. The second time I got a call whilst in Uni, I didn't pick the phone. Got the evil eye the next day from all my co-workers. Started calling all the IT job agencies that same day, received 2 offers within two weeks literally offering me double pay. If you want shift workers, pay for them. Or at least, respect my boundaries. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 07 Feb 2022 07:42 PM PST Hello everyone! This is the last story in the saga of my time at $Agency, where I'll let you know what happened after I left. All of this is from the best of my memory along with some personal records, but ultimately it is how I remember things. There certainly can be some inaccuracies. Also, I don't give permission for anyone else to use this. TL/DR: Yeah, I don't do that. Enjoy the story :) Again, for context, I am not in IT; rather, I'm a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) professional. This particular world is quite small, so I will do what I can to properly anonymize my tale. For reference, during the course of these stories I had been employed at a research agency affiliated with a major university. Here is my Dramatis Personae:
So I wanted to let you all know the fallout as to what happened after I left during my time at $Agency.Here you go! This is all based on gossip, hearsay, a little bit of internet investigating, and communication with my old friends, so there could be something wrong here. Oh well. All this was way too much for any of the previous stories, so I made this a new tale all its own. I hope you have enjoyed everything! Thanks, folks :) Story the First: $Agency Just after I left, a position was posted to replace me. Much to $DragonLady's chagrin, it turns out that skilled, experienced GIS personnel are not willing to work for peanuts. Folks with undergrad degrees and tons of experience didn't even want to interview, and folks with higher degrees demanded more than she was willing to pay. The job description was posted and reposted, in various forms, over two years. They never found someone. Eventually, they just removed the position altogether. I think this was simply due to changes in the way they operated and ultimately the inability to get a suitable candidate. As an aside, $DragonLady had told me (in the last story) that the pay bands for these sorts of jobs were very restricted. Turns out, that's not true. There actually is a lot of leeway in how these bands are structured, even in the public sphere. In most cases, the agency itself defines the pay bands for each position. I speculate that the only reason the analyst position was getting paid so little was because some of the other employees with higher degrees were not making very much, and $DragonLady could not bring herself to ensure that a "lay person" was getting the same pay as a "real academic." Hey, if you're going to shoot yourself in the foot, you can, I guess. To each their own. In the meantime, they tried other approaches to get staff. The first thing I heard about was that they reached out to the new graduate students in the Geography department. This was similar to the way that I had been brought on board - I had started working at $Agency as an assistanceship to pay for tuition; they offered me a job at the end of it and I accepted. In this case, they did the same with some of the new students, but under the stipulation that they wanted the grad students to stay on board for a few years once their assistanceships ended. They did not get a single candidate. Literally none of the students wanted to stay. I think it was the combination of low pay, $DragonLady's terrible management, and the fact that these grad students now had a world of opportunities available to them. After a few years, $Agency ended this program. In my case, I'd had some personal issues, I was local, and the job offer had come at a time when I really needed it. But I had wound up being the exception, not the rule, and most other students were not in the same boat. If you'll remember, $FTW had originally told the leadership of the agency to "do everything in their power to keep me." With me gone, those words proved to be prophetic. $Agency then started reaching out into other schools and disciplines to try and hire someone. Eventually, they found a graduating student I'll call $DoucheBaggins. $DoucheBaggins just so happened to have worked on some major project with an affiliated discipline and had gotten published because of it. Apparently, his head grew two times bigger because of this. He was, by all accounts, the penultimate diva. He was also stupid as f\ck. He would be given GIS assignments - simple stuff since everyone has to pay their dues and learn the basics - and would screw every bit of it up. He'd then sulk and complain that he should be doing "real research," not this petty, pedantic stuff. After all, he was "too talented" to be doing work of this kind. Apparently, the management at *$Agency** caught on a little quicker this time than they did with $BadMike. After about a year or so, $DoucheBaggins was fired. Not "allowed to work until the end of his contract" (as $BadMike had been able to). Rather, he was literally walked out - as in, security guards coming to the office, telling him to gather his sh*t, and then escorting him to the door. He is the first and only employee of $Agency that I know of that has ever been directly fired. Lol. I sort of wish I could have seen that. So apparently, this additional approach to trying to gain more GIS personnel didn't work either. $Agency eventually resorted to hiring contract professionals - people that are considered experts and command a very high rate of pay. If they wound up working out, they'd be offered a full-time contract. That's seemed to work for $Agency. I think $AwesomeBoss has had a huge impact here, as well, since it seems she is now in charge of most of her team's hiring and operations and has mostly removed $DragonLady from that process. And speaking of $AwesomeBoss, she's done a great job. She's managed to consolidate all the GIS responsibilities under her position. She now has a very large team with excellent capabilities working for her. Their GIS capacity is top-notch. She also works as a "shield" for her team against $DragonLady's outbursts, and does what she can to give her crew reasonable directives. That's been very stressful on her, but has allowed her team to flourish. Honestly, if not for $DragonLady's mismanagement, I think that the GIS team at $Agency would rival the best in the industry (or even the world, for that matter) :) Story the Second: $MrScott This is somewhat sad, but honestly quite well-deserved. In the months after my departure, $MrScott's position at the agency was given a good, hard look. About six months later, he was stripped of his management title, ostensibly so that he could "focus on his research." I expect there were a bunch of things that went on behind the scenes in this - here are my speculations:
So $MrScott was removed from his position of leadership. This had more implications than you first might believe. You see, for years, it had been the assumption that he would likely inherit the directorship of $Agency once $DragonLady retired. He had worked there for over twenty years and was one of the employees closest to her. He was involved in all meetings, discussions, and decisions. Unfortunately, his removal from management was tacit admittance that he didn't know how to run a team. And THAT meant there was no way he would be put into a position of leadership again - such as, say, inheriting the director position at $Agency. I think that this realization must have crushed him. About six months later, he found a new job. It was a position somewhere out west. He publicly stated to everyone that the new job was an opportunity he'd always wanted to do, that he was excited to leave. Yet the twenty years he left behind, and the fact that only one year after he took this new job he found another one, seems to put that to the lie. I think he had banked on taking over $Agency; once that was denied him, he simply wanted/needed to get away. Honestly, I don't hold that much of a grudge against him. He was a terrible boss, this is true, and he said some pretty terrible things to me when he was acting in that capacity. If he ever tries to argue that point with me I'll show him these posts >:D But as a person, he was nice and very smart. I think that had he been in a position where he was working with peers all day - people that work with him, not for him - he would have thrived. And I hope that wherever he eventually does find himself, he will be happy there :) Story the Third: $BadMike I could not have hated this man more when he was given the boot. However, in the intervening years, I've managed to speak with a ton of colleagues that knew him or went to school with him. Most have told me that he was incredibly stressed while working at $Agency. I can believe that. He apparently couldn't say no to $DragonLady, and originally this meant lots of working through the night, taking on massive projects, and doing more than he could feasibly do. Eventually, it all caught up to him and he fell apart. I don't think this accounts for everything. While I can understand falling apart due to stress, his response to it - the laziness, the incompetence, the shirking of responsibility, the shifting of blame to others - was still unacceptable. I think he still deserved to get fired. However, I now also know how difficult it was to actually work for $DragonLady and $MrScott. And while I still don't accept that what he did was ok, I can at least understand why it he did it. And the many years that have passed since then have done much to cool my rage. I know that he eventually wound up at a firm somewhere in the northeast, one with proper management. Incredibly (to me most of all), I'm not all that angry at him anymore. He's just $Mike now. I hope he's been able to fix himself. I hope that he's doing work he likes doing. And, amazingly, I wish him well :) Story the Fourth: $AwesomeBoss This one is not so great. First off, $AwesomeBoss has done an excellent job in her position. She's managed to build and lead a GIS team that is fantastic within the discipline. She is able to shield her employees from the outbursts of $DragonLady, and has done her best to support them in their professional careers. She may not even see it this way, but she has done so much for $Agency and her people. Honestly, I would work for her in a heartbeat if she needed me. Unfortunately, all this dealing with $Agency has taken its toll on her. She's admitted to coming home in tears over the frustrations that she's endured. And the worst was something I heard from her recently, that putting up with everything has been "emotionally traumatizing." It was hard to hear that from her. I'm not sure where things will go or what she will decide to do. But I've told her that if she ever needs anything from me, all she has to do is ask. Ultimately, though, I have faith that things will work out well for her in the end :) Story the Fifth: $AwesomeRed $AwesomeRed continues to rock it at the agency. She's been promoted, has her own office, and is part of the amazing team that $AwesomeBoss has put together. She continues to great work and is advancing herself in her career. Thankfully, she doesn't have to deal with $DragonLady much, either. And as you can imagine, she continues to be my main source of gossip from the office :D Anyways, whatever she decides to do with her career, I am certain she will excel at it! Story the Sixth: $DragonLady Not much has changed with her, to everyone's detriment. She continues to mangle $Agency with her particular style of mismanagement. That academic ego and misplaced desire for control seem to be at the heart of all her problems. As time has gone by, any dipsh*t could point this out to her based solely on the turnover at $Agency. $DragonLady will go on a hiring spree, increase staffing by 50% or more, then the agency would gradually wither away as people would get fed up with her and leave. Then, invariably, she'd go on another hiring spree and the cycle would continue. As if each lesson needed to applied to her skull with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. I was informed of one of the best examples by $AwesomeRed. About three years ago, $Agency hired a very high-profile doctoral researcher. This woman had a particular research project that she had pioneered. Once hired, she was given carte blanche to do whatever she wanted to get this research completed. We're talking all the financial resources she'd need, whatever staff she needed, and full the academic support to work on a project she had developed herself. This is an academic wet dream. As such, $Agency started putting together the necessary team, adjusting staffing and procedures along the way. About a year ago, just before the project was to go live, the researcher in charge of the project quit. She left what must have been her dream job. Why? Because of $DragonLady. With her leaving, the entire infrastructure of the team was thrown into disarray. This was not some sort of isolated incident, as we have seen. Virtually everyone leaving $Agency on their own capacity has done so because of $DragonLady - $FTW, $GoodMike, $GoldPhD, and even myself, really. That she cannot see this is an absolute travesty. Unfortunately, until something happens regarding her management style, I don't believe that $Agency can become the world-class organization that I am certain it has the capacity to be. It may be possible that $DragonLady could open her eyes and try to improve herself. Yet plagued with the pride that suffuses everything she does, I think it is more likely that the moon will come out of orbit. The more likely possibilities are that either she will be walled away from active operations as much as possible, that she will finally retire and the rest of $Agency can begin doing better work, or that everyone will get fed up and leave. We will see. Thankfully, though, I don't have to put up with this anymore. Story the Seventh: $Me As for me, I moved on to the municipality. In the words of $AwesomeBoss, my career in the time since has been "meteoric." I have learned so much and done so much. I am amazingly happy with what I've been able to accomplish. My coworkers are awesome and the atmosphere at the municipality is honestly fantastic. It would really dox me to state my achievements here, but I feel like I merely have to set a heading and I can see myself through its end, no matter what it may be. I didn't go into this career thinking that GIS was what I wanted to do, but these many years have taught me that I love this line of work, that I think I am good at it, and that it has been one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done. If you told me ten years ago this is where I'd be today, I wouldn't have thought it possible. Pretty amazing what can actually happen in life, isn't it? :D And that, my friends, is that. Thus ends the saga of the $Agency. Thank you all for reading my stories. I hope you have enjoyed them! And until next time, don't forget to turn it off and on again :) Here are the other parts to the Agency series: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Here are some of my other stories on TFTS if you're interested: A Symphony of Fail Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 07 Feb 2022 10:05 AM PST I've been inspired by Mr_Cartographers series of posts about bosses to add one of mine. Long, long ago I was working as a Field Engineer for a computer company. As the company grew, a new guy was hired as the supervisor for my group as we were adding new technicians in multiple locations on a regular basis. We'll call him Fred. Fred was a interesting mix of good and bad traits. On the good side he had a strong desire to develop and coach members of his team. On the bad side, he was a workaholic and expected folks to work as many hours as he was willing to. What kept this from getting out of hand was the fact that all of us on his team were paid overtime, which got him in trouble with his boss if things went too far. Also, his wife forced him to take vacations regularly, even though he constantly told us all stories of his father, who had only missed ONE day of work in his 30 year career! As time went on and the company grew, Fred got promoted up a rung and he selected me to step into his old position, so I moved into a management role. One of my tasks was scheduling training and vacations for our team, which was spread out all over the western U.S. This was not a huge deal, I created a calendar for the entire year and let all my techs know to put in requests with a reasonable notice and things should be ok. One day one of my techs, Chuck, comes into my office with a vacation request. Chuck was an excellent tech, customers loved him, and he never asked for anything unreasonable. I checked my calendar, initialed the request, and asked him to show it to Fred just to be sure. Chuck pops next door to Fred's office and suddenly I hear Fred yelling, he can't believe Chuck is asking for time off! Chuck is "never here"! How dare he even think of asking for vacation! I'm out of my chair and in the hall when Chuck, pale as a ghost, comes out of Fred's office. The rest of the office staff is silent, staring toward the sound of the outburst. I signal Chuck into my office, close the door, and ask what happened. He has no idea, he just handed the paperwork to Fred, and Fred exploded. I have no idea what set this off, but I take the request form, tell Chuck to leave it with me. My first impulse was to march into Fred's office and argue with him, but I realized that was probably a dumb idea. I sat down and spent about ten minutes thinking through possible approaches, and came up with something that I thought would work. I quietly walked into Fred's office, he was hunched over his desk, very tense, and I assumed he was a bit embarrassed since he knew everyone in the office had heard his tantrum. I sat down opposite him and very quietly said, "Fred, I need your help". Fred's manner changed quickly. He relaxed and I could see he was going into his "coach mode". I quietly explained that since he had put me into my supervisory position, I wasn't sure how to handle things like what had just happened. Could he help me out? What was I supposed to do? I had verified that Chuck had the time off coming, and that there was nothing scheduled that we needed Chuck for. Was there something I didn't know about? I asked all these questions in the calmest manner I could, I wasn't arguing with him, I was asking for his help. Fred replied that no, there was nothing I didn't know that would require Chuck to be available. It just "seemed like" Chuck was "always" asking for time off, as were other people. And some people were NOT taking vacation time, so why should Chuck? He was kind of mumbling all this and I got a strong sense that he was stressed about something completely unrelated and had just exploded at Chuck as a kind of safety valve. I quietly pointed out that I could not do the job he had put me in if he didn't trust me to make routine decisions. Fred agreed and mumbled an apology, and said Chuck could have the time off. I produced the request form and Fred signed it. I thanked him and went to find Chuck and give him the good news. After that incident Fred was a lot better about things, eventually I just stopped asking to sign off on small things. He realized I was actually pretty good at my job and he didn't have to sweat the details, that was what I was there for. [link] [comments] |
| Everyone's Outlook is Crashing Posted: 07 Feb 2022 10:17 AM PST I work at a vaguely Med/Pharma company. We have an IT department of 4 but I was the only one on-site for a while. Low man on the totem pole will do that to you. We work 8-5 but a few of the departments, especially a lot of the engineers, work 7-4. My mom happens to work at the same company (she got me the job) and on this day we were car-pooling. She was driving and I felt my work phone vibrate in my pocket with an IM. One of the engineers has an issue with his Outlook crashing and gets an error message telling him to try to start it in safe mode. He even sent a screenshot. I try to give him brief instructions and let him know I'll be there in about 30 minutes. If it doesn't work he will be my first stop when I get in. No dice, it keeps crashing even in safe mode. Also, all the other engineers in his cubicle pod are having the same problem. A couple minutes later, I get an email alert from our ticket system that one of the maintenance managers is having the same problem. I instantly assume the problem is with our Exchange Server, which is one of many systems I have no access to. Partly because I'm still a temp (in the middle of converting to being hired) and partly because it's good security to limit the number of privileged users. I forward this information along to the guy I work with who does have this access. By the time I get to work, the engineers have done enough Level 0.5 troubleshooting and realized it's all happening when they open one specific email from another user, a program manager. Very thankful to have big pockets of competent users who try to solve their own problems. I contact the user who sent the email. She says she's already been told by the people she sent it to that it was causing problems. I had been concerned it might've been something malicious, but at least it was actually from her. She told me what happened. They have a weekly standing meeting with about 8 people. She'd been taking notes at each of these meetings for all of 2021. Turns out she was trying to share the file and attempted to send it as an email attachment. The file was too big and told her as much. Naturally, she decided to instead copy and paste the contents of the document into the body of the email. We have network drives. We have Sharepoint. But no, she decided to email a 50 page document. [link] [comments] |
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