High Impedance Air Gap Tech Support |
- High Impedance Air Gap
- Big egos make for big workloads
- Not a real developer anyway
- My webcam isn't working!
| Posted: 04 May 2022 03:00 AM PDT Background: I work in the Digital Signage industry, a lot of our work involves menu boards for chip shops, takeaways etc. We have a number of methods to remotely control the signage displays, and one of these is a home-grown system involving a Raspberry Pi and a VPN, which is generally quite reliable and very cheap. On this occasion, I was out on a site about an hour's drive from base adopting some existing screens, when I got a call from my manager: $Manager: Did you know $FarPlace needs their content updated today? $Me: Uh, no - when does that need to be done for? $Manager: Well, they open at 4... It's around 3:30 - but I'm just finishing up the current job, and can remote into screens from anywhere via 4G and my laptop - so this seems fine - although I don't have any recollection of $FarPlace ever getting remote update capabilites. $Me: OK, I'll finish up here and give you a shout back. A few minutes later, I'm sat in the car park logging into the system - but I can't find $FarPlace's Pi on the system, let alone their three screens. After checking the system to assure myself that they were installed with remote access, I phone back $Manager: $Me: Could you ask $FarPlace to plug their Pi out and in again? I can't seem to get access to their displays. After a few minutes, he informs me that $FarPlace have restarted their Pi; but several minutes later, there is still no sign of it on the system. $Manager informs me that I'll need to attend the premises right now to update the content, and figure out why the remote access isn't working. This news gives me mixed feelings; On the one hand, an hour's drive to $FarPlace sounds like a much preferred use of the evening than another few hours in the office; on the other, it pretty much guarantees I won't be home until well after the normal Quitting Time. ($FarPlace is about 1 hour's drive from where I was working, but almost 2.5 hours from my home) I arrive at $FarPlace, and start examining their screens, and searching for their Pi: which I found, amongst a nest of wires behind their counter, with no indications of life. I'm sure you can guess what the problem is, and it was immediately obvious to me, 2 hours drive from home... It simply wasn't plugged in. Needless to say, $manager was unimpressed and imformed $FarPlace they would have to pay a call-out fee, since this problem wasn't our fault. Lesson learned anyway, in future I'll always ask them to check the unit is lit up before driving out. [link] [comments] |
| Big egos make for big workloads Posted: 03 May 2022 10:37 PM PDT To set the scene: I am a support officer for a government department, started off as level One support agent and have recently been moved up to a level Two/VP support agent for the higher ranks (think commissioners, deputys etc). We support at rough guess - about 8,500 users in total. Get an email come through - Dom need you to facilitate incorporating and supporting Apple watches into our environment, get them set up in In-tune, policies to allow them to access apps and make sure you abide by all current security policies (due to the nature of the dept, security is heavily scrutinised). Managed to get the cellular provisioned, get stuck at outlook not installing onto the watches, queue trawling through log files to find out theyre being blocked. A day or two later and the issue resolved. Next hurdle is that even though outlook is now installed on the watches, they're not triggering any calendar notifications. Back to the log files, and a three-way conversation between Apple and M$ support to find out what im missing. Took about a week and we found the offending policy and was able to get the happy little pings on the watch. Great success. I then proceeded to ask my manager/director how many of these devices we were planning on providing the execs/GM of sites to prepare for the rollout: "Oh just one, the VP just wanted to be able to go swimming and still be contactable". So much time and effort for just one man so he can hit 'Dismiss' on meeting invites while doing laps in the pool. #justVPthings *edited to remove identifying info [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 03 May 2022 11:51 PM PDT An old gig I did was running a few Microsoft SQL Server 2005 servers. 2005 was Microsoft's first serious SQL server with all the modern Big Iron features behind it. It was still useful ten years later. The role was as a temp to provide support on their databases and database servers. The now-wife had fallen pregnant with our first and I was looking for something more permanent, but it would have to do. The developers designed the databases, but I indexed them, I optimised their queries, I maintained the backup schedules and backups. Being a contractor, I was treated not as a member of the team, but as some "do this, go there, jump here" lackey. Instructions were barked, jobs passed over with very brief, curt, requirements. I was made to feel every bit an outsider. Fine: The money was okay, and the contract wasn't exclusive. They didn't want me, felt I was intruding, but couldn't argue with the results. No major SQL server outage all year, all servers running faster and more reliably than ever, and they getting development databases within the hour rather than a three day lead time. Older systems which ran DTS packages were uplifted into SSIS (DTSX) by myself and ran in some cases hundreds of times faster. A job which had to run every weekend because of how slow it was could now run four times a day. They'd come to rely on me, which was a bit foolish as I was a temporary contractor with just a 12 month fixed-term. Management began to take note of how some "blockers" had disappeared, and my name was brought up whenever they were. Usually as "the contractor has..." or "that temp we hired did..." They must have warmed to the idea of having me around because as my contract came to an end, the team leader (and ringleader of the cold shoulder I was getting) offered me a full time position starting as a junior member of the team, at 75% of the pay I was getting, saying "We sort of don't know what to do without you now, so we'd like to welcome you aboard." They refused to meet my salary expectations, saying it went against the pay structure and "We expect you to be reasonable, it's not a real developer role anyway." I didn't accept. They seemed shocked or surprised. I have no idea why they'd expect me to take a huge pay cut and be happy. Amazingly, they didn't require any handover documentation at all and my last day was a fairly normal day. I got a few SMS (texts) messages on my personal phone in the coming weeks asking "how would I have done..." and didn't answer. I can't possibly imagine it ended well for them. I moved on, found myself at a big company for 8 weeks, and I'm still there eleven years later, managing a team of ten and looking after our ITSM product. [link] [comments] |
| Posted: 03 May 2022 08:55 AM PDT So a company I worked for also supported IT for a legal firm in exchange for legal services - a mutually beneficial agreement. The staff of this firm were one of two types;
There is literally no in-between. This story is about the latter type of person. For this story I will be ME and they will be AH. I get a call that goes exactly like this; ME - "Hello IT, ME speaking" AH - "My webcam doesn't work. I've got a VERY important meeting in 10 minutes so you need to come and fix it NOW now." ME - (Trying to resolve remotely) "Sure, what's the problem with it exactly?" AH - "I don't have time for this, just come over and fix it like you're supposed to." I go over begrudgingly because manners cost nothing, walk into his office and look on top of his monitors but can't see a webcam. I assume he takes it off when he's not having meetings so I ask him here it is. He gestures vaguely at the monitors. ME - "It's not there, have you put it in your drawers?" AH - "No, it's part of the monitor" I know for a FACT that none of the monitors have built-in webcams as we supplied them. I still check anyway just to be sure he hasn't bought his own. ME - "AH, there's no webcam here" AH - "Don't be silly, it's behind the screen!" ME - (confused) "....no, there's no webcam in these monitors. 90% of the employees in <my company> have the same ones. We all have external webcams that sit on top of them when we make video calls" AH - "Right, well go get me one then" while turning away and shooing me out of his office. So I went from my desk, walked straight passed the stock cupboard, up 3 flights of stairs, across a skybridge and down another flight of stairs and across their office, only to go all the way back and do it all again when I could have just brought the webcam if this guy wasn't such an arrogant, dense arsewipe. EDIT - I understand those who are saying that I should have made him submit a ticket etc. but despite how much this incident annoyed me, this guy would have annoyed me 10x more and made my life difficult if I tried that with him. He was highly senior and had the backing of the other senior members who would all put in complaints about the service to my department head which would result in a formal investigation. I get the importance of logging tickets, but sometimes it's easier to just keep the peace. [link] [comments] |
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