I will consider the big picture of the IT department at my company when one of them actually bothers to tell me what it is rather than just ignoring my calls
This 100%
One of the good things my old manager did was explain the reasoning of using the ticketing system for tech support and specifically highlight the benefits of it to the users and that resulted in it getting buy in from everyone but the most selfish of dickheads.
IT has gotta learn that sweet spot of communicating in plain english why this is happening, and what it means for you as a user. Then they have to take feedback on that.
What I'm mostly used to seeing is either no communication or over communication, which is just IT technobabble to the user, and both are detrimental to user experience and trust.
I honestly wish users would quit asking me to explain what went wrong.
It broke, I fixed it.
You're not going to understand it and I don't really feel like explaining the intricacies of a memory leak, or, simplifying it.
Just reboot your PC next time.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
+4
Options
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I will consider the big picture of the IT department at my company when one of them actually bothers to tell me what it is rather than just ignoring my calls
This 100%
One of the good things my old manager did was explain the reasoning of using the ticketing system for tech support and specifically highlight the benefits of it to the users and that resulted in it getting buy in from everyone but the most selfish of dickheads.
IT has gotta learn that sweet spot of communicating in plain english why this is happening, and what it means for you as a user. Then they have to take feedback on that.
What I'm mostly used to seeing is either no communication or over communication, which is just IT technobabble to the user, and both are detrimental to user experience and trust.
I honestly wish users would quit asking me to explain what went wrong.
It broke, I fixed it.
You're not going to understand it and I don't really feel like explaining the intricacies of a memory leak, or, simplifying it.
Just reboot your PC next time.
My favorite thing is someone asking me what went wrong, me explaining it, and then them complaining at me for talking about things they don't understand. Well, you did ask.
"I don't understand, what is engineering?"
"Well, in this case engineering are the folks who plan fiber infrastructure and decide what neighborhoods get fiber service when, and..."
"No, no, this whole neighborhood was wired for fiber, I know it was!"
"Yes it was, but when they lay out the fiber they don't assume that everyone in the neighborhood is automatically going to get the service. The do market research and figure about how many people will probably sign on, and then they put enough facilities in to cover that amount. Then if more people join than they planned for, they add more in."
"What are you even talking about? This is gibberish to me! What do I care about 'engineering', get me my tech tomorrow or I walk!"
"I understand why you would feel that way, if you feel you need to go to another provider there's nothing I can do."
"Ugh! Just get me my date and stop giving me technobabble!"
ad nauseam
Cambiata on
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
I'm lucky. Anyone who talks to me is either A) competent and just needs guidance or way in over their head and willing to do exactly what I tell them to do to finish their project.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at how large the monster inside me has become. Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
my former coworker would give these long incredibly detailed explanations to people in order to make himself look smarter and more important
90% of the time he did this after being stumped by the problem and having me look at it and then I solved it, 100% of the time his explanation was incorrect.
50% of the time he was explaining huge security flaws in our system that were of his creation.
He would constantly complain no one would listen when he told them how to solve their own problems.
Whereas my explanations are: "If this happens again, look here, and do steps 1, 2, 3, ..." Which resulted in people very happy to have me work on their issue, and no repeat calls about the same issue from the same person, unless it was an issue that they didn't have the permissions to fix on their own.
The copier's busted, the printer's busted, the boss is out of the office so I can browse/post the forum a bit without being caught, and so far I've written 3,000 words with 3.5 hours left to go.
I mean it's all worldbuilding thus far but I'll take my wins where I can.
my former coworker would give these long incredibly detailed explanations to people in order to make himself look smarter and more important
90% of the time he did this after being stumped by the problem and having me look at it and then I solved it, 100% of the time his explanation was incorrect.
50% of the time he was explaining huge security flaws in our system that were of his creation.
He would constantly complain no one would listen when he told them how to solve their own problems.
Whereas my explanations are: "If this happens again, look here, and do steps 1, 2, 3, ..." Which resulted in people very happy to have me work on their issue, and no repeat calls about the same issue from the same person, unless it was an issue that they didn't have the permissions to fix on their own.
I find that those types of people are drawn to IT, and often I think it's because of exactly that. It lets him feel superior, which maybe he needs, even if it isn't true.
On the other hand, sometimes people who aren't skilled at software/whatever will ask me how works going or what I'm working on and I legitimately don't know how to give the correct amount of useful information. Because "I'm writing a driver" is super duper vague, but any more detail than that is going to lose them. So I usually just make something up.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at how large the monster inside me has become. Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
The copier's busted, the printer's busted, the boss is out of the office so I can browse/post the forum a bit without being caught, and so far I've written 3,000 words with 3.5 hours left to go.
I mean it's all worldbuilding thus far but I'll take my wins where I can.
If they're using any sort of web filtering tech, which I assume they are, reports of this may be automatic.
Our IT has generally been fine to deal with when your workstation or laptop has a problem, if quick to go to the 'solve it by wiping the drive' route.
The part of IT dealing with campus networking is more frustrating; when something breaks it takes a good part of a day to address even simple problems thanks to all the bureaucracy. And a good chunk of the time you only find out they changed things because the network goes down, informing people is the exception.
To be fair, solve it by wiping is a good response. It's relatively quick, we don't accidentally sink untold man hours down a terrible rabbit hole problem, and things will definitely work when we're done. Learn to back up your shit.
Agree with this, there's a point at which it's just not worth it to tie up the IT person. And they're very up front about this being part of the deal, so it's on you if the only copy of something is on the laptop when things go south.
You can run into someone that moves to reimage the drive after sinking in a few man minutes. Which, eh, could be avoidable. And then things don't always work after the reimage is done--not typically on the person doing the reimage, could be HW, software, or IT service problems--but boy do people get salty when that happens.
Our IT has generally been fine to deal with when your workstation or laptop has a problem, if quick to go to the 'solve it by wiping the drive' route.
The part of IT dealing with campus networking is more frustrating; when something breaks it takes a good part of a day to address even simple problems thanks to all the bureaucracy. And a good chunk of the time you only find out they changed things because the network goes down, informing people is the exception.
To be fair, solve it by wiping is a good response. It's relatively quick, we don't accidentally sink untold man hours down a terrible rabbit hole problem, and things will definitely work when we're done. Learn to back up your shit.
Agree with this, there's a point at which it's just not worth it to tie up the IT person. And they're very up front about this being part of the deal, so it's on you if the only copy of something is on the laptop when things go south.
You can run into someone that moves to reimage the drive after sinking in a few man minutes. Which, eh, could be avoidable. And then things don't always work after the reimage is done--not typically on the person doing the reimage, could be HW, software, or IT service problems--but boy do people get salty when that happens.
One of the good things about the move to the cloud is, if you set up Sharepoint and OneDrive (or whatever collaboration and document solution you use) correctly, all the important shit should live off the computer, and the Windows 10 System Reset functionality is a really easy way to reimage.
I was having issues with my system a few months ago and was able to get back up and running in, like, 3 hours.
Our IT has generally been fine to deal with when your workstation or laptop has a problem, if quick to go to the 'solve it by wiping the drive' route.
The part of IT dealing with campus networking is more frustrating; when something breaks it takes a good part of a day to address even simple problems thanks to all the bureaucracy. And a good chunk of the time you only find out they changed things because the network goes down, informing people is the exception.
To be fair, solve it by wiping is a good response. It's relatively quick, we don't accidentally sink untold man hours down a terrible rabbit hole problem, and things will definitely work when we're done. Learn to back up your shit.
Agree with this, there's a point at which it's just not worth it to tie up the IT person. And they're very up front about this being part of the deal, so it's on you if the only copy of something is on the laptop when things go south.
You can run into someone that moves to reimage the drive after sinking in a few man minutes. Which, eh, could be avoidable. And then things don't always work after the reimage is done--not typically on the person doing the reimage, could be HW, software, or IT service problems--but boy do people get salty when that happens.
One of the good things about the move to the cloud is, if you set up Sharepoint and OneDrive (or whatever collaboration and document solution you use) correctly, all the important shit should live off the computer, and the Windows 10 System Reset functionality is a really easy way to reimage.
I was having issues with my system a few months ago and was able to get back up and running in, like, 3 hours.
hands down cloud makes my home pc wiping pretty amazing
wipe and redownload from google drive and dropbox, resync my git repos, reinstall from steam and bingo bango bongo I'm done
All in all it only takes a few hours to get back into fully working condition vs a few hours just to get windows installed.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
+1
Options
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I mean I'm sticking to my guns on this one, I still think our IT department sucks. I also have no chance of driving any systemic changes as I am a slightly above junior minion in the corporate edifice I work in (maybe slightly higher still soon though!)
Eh, your IT probably does suck.
I'm just willing to bet that the reason your IT sucks is because your upper management sucks.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Yes, this plus IT catalogs of what you are installing locally make it much nicer to deal with reimages or new systems. Although it can also make losing the network proportionally more painful.
I have a few special sets of software for VPN connections on one system which suck to set up again, but anything that involves security and bureaucracy tends to.
With SCCM I was working on getting it to the point of being able to re-image a computer complete with local user data backup and restore, applications re-installed and re-configured and zero required interaction after you started the process. Depending on the amount of data and applications the average time to re-image would be about 2 hours.
Enterprise level software like that being cost effective is the only thing I miss about old job.
0
Options
The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
edited August 2017
I don't understand people who just leave their computer on all the time. Like... just turn it off when you're done with it, save some energy, leaving it on isn't doing you any favors (and just makes things worse under the covers). I'm actively annoyed with my new laptop sometimes because I'll set it to shut off then come back in the morning and it wakes up like I had just left it asleep.
The Escape Goat on
+4
Options
Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
My team just met for 40 minutes with a man who explained successfully (I understood, at least) that his existing software does exactly what our software was going to do and is available to everybody within the company who might have wanted to use our software.
Other technical people on my team asked a million irrelevant questions about features and implications of his and other people's software that has nothing to do with anything we've been asked to work on. My boss suggested at length but vaguely with zero details that we still need to do something so that people can log into our software to use this software, and seemed impervious to suggestions from me that they could just use this software.
I posted in open group chat that we've just learned my project is obsolete and I'm happy to discuss anything he thinks we can add to this thing but at the moment I'm blocked with no work to do unless he wants me to keep working on stuff as if we hadn't had that meeting
if you set up Sharepoint and OneDrive (or whatever collaboration and document solution you use)
Frequency with which I see an organization pull this off? One Google out of every 100 mid-tiers.
What is this I don't even.
+1
Options
Powerpuppiesdrinking coffee in themountain cabinRegistered Userregular
I think it's been six days since my boss, Joe asked this guy Bob's boss's boss Sarah whether we were duplicating effort or there was anything she knew of that we should be made aware of. That suggestion to talk to Sarah was made by my Boss^3, Mark, who set my project in motion 8 weeks ago.
I don't understand people who just leave their computer on all the time. Like... just turn it off when you're done with it, save some energy, leaving it on isn't doing you any favors (and just makes things worse under the covers). I'm actively annoyed with my new laptop sometimes because I'll set it to shut off then come back in the morning and it wakes up like I had just left it asleep.
Sometimes I don't want to reopen and find where I left off the next day. My work PC is always on.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
The copier's busted, the printer's busted, the boss is out of the office so I can browse/post the forum a bit without being caught, and so far I've written 3,000 words with 3.5 hours left to go.
I mean it's all worldbuilding thus far but I'll take my wins where I can.
If they're using any sort of web filtering tech, which I assume they are, reports of this may be automatic.
All web traffic is filtered and monitored by an outside contracting company, but nobody is actually looking at it at the institution and the outside contractor doesn't care so long as people aren't actively browsing porn sites with viruses galore. My boss's boss doesn't have access to those logs, she's only concerned with what she sees on my monitor. Which for most of the day has been a Word doc and job-related programs.
I mean I'm sticking to my guns on this one, I still think our IT department sucks. I also have no chance of driving any systemic changes as I am a slightly above junior minion in the corporate edifice I work in (maybe slightly higher still soon though!)
Eh, your IT probably does suck.
I'm just willing to bet that the reason your IT sucks is because your upper management sucks.
My upper management does suck
But then upper management is responsible for everyone, and IT still sucks more than the other departments, so I don't see how that's an excuse
Again guys I know a lot of you work in IT but it is possible that our IT department is just notably shit, you know?
Just like how when some of you get mad about user departments I'm sure that they can't just explain all that away to upper management too
Cause I didn't really want to bring this up as it seems like I am going after you guys a bit
But one of the most difficult things about dealing with IT in my company is that any problem is upper management's fault not theirs, as far as they are concerned
They don't do any wrong they're just directed the wrong way. The idea that people in the IT department might be at fault is alien to them
But like I said earlier my hands are almost always tied.
I can't help people out, I can't make phone calls, I can't make things better without approval and a budget.
I can still schedule my badminton games after hours with my peers though, since that isn't policed like a motherfucker.
There's still a significant chance it's entirely your IT department, of course, but you keep referencing how shitty your management is and how they don't listen to anyone soooooooooo. Maybe they also just made shitty hire decisions based on it too, or maybe they hamstring (which is how it usually happens). Maybe they forced them to do the upgrade without consulting and also don't allow them to even give a courtesy call to get an idea of what's going on.
Maybe I'm also wrong!
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
+1
Options
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
Listen, folks, I get it. You haven't been to the library since 2012 because you checked out $300 worth of spellbooks and never brought them back. At this point, your local library is much more interested in getting you back as an active member than kicking you out over $300 you're never going to pay and a dozen crappy books that would have been stolen or weeded by now anyway.
Just tell us a story. It doesn't have to be a good story. You lost them in a move and were too embarrassed to tell us. You got out of a bad relationship, went out West with whatever you could throw in a trunk, and now you're back in town and you have no idea what happened to the books. There was a tornado. This is Oklahoma, just pick a tornado and say it ate your library books.
What you shouldn't do, please, is flatly deny that you ever had a library card, or lived at that address, or checked out any books until the circ clerk gives up and issues you a new card. Especially don't do that and then check out a bunch of spellbooks again. Because then we can either believe that there are two Wiccans in OKC with the same name, middle initial, and date of birth, or we can merge the accounts the next day when the manager gets in and now you're stuck with those books again and you have to make up a story anyway. Only this time, everybody's kind of pissed at you, so the story has to be better now.
Cause I didn't really want to bring this up as it seems like I am going after you guys a bit
But one of the most difficult things about dealing with IT in my company is that any problem is upper management's fault not theirs, as far as they are concerned
They don't do any wrong they're just directed the wrong way. The idea that people in the IT department might be at fault is alien to them
Not to defend your It Department, but that's a problem for people in general
It's very hard to admit when you're at fault, since everyone's playing from their own perspectives
Bowen says all this stuff but is constantly annoyed by other IT departments failing to admit they fucked up and being lazy fuckheads and not doing shit until he CC's their boss on emails.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I think what honestly happened is that the person who did the change simply didn't think to ask the opinion of the person using the system because it never occurred to them that their opinion might be worthwhile listening to
Maybe that's because they hired someone who is bad at their job. I dunno. I think it's more likely that they're immersed in a culture which tells them that the opinion of the person using the system isn't relevant to what they're doing, but it's hard to tell because they are so hard to get hold of. I did sit with that person for a long time sorting it out, however, and that was the impression I got.
i don't think i'm lazy, but lack motivation, especially towards consistent daily self-improvement. whether it's just ADHD or addt'l personality quirks, it's a challenge fo' sho', sigh brain, sigh.
anyway, trying to get said brain working to send some fact-finding emails to people actually doing mental health social work type things. typical lost GenX/Millenial, i lack confidence or work/educational background, but i see a need for mental health outreach and education at the secondary level, especially in generally underserved populations. so, iffen i follow through -- ideally, i'd be able to set up mental health counseling programs and student-led groups, and counsel individuals as well in a school.
from what i've read and the folks i've talked to, HS counselors are too caught up in class scheduling and college advising to get the opportunity to really talk to kids who might need a therapeutic ear, much less do the kind of education and outreach to make people aware of issues and combat the stigmas. so equally accessible counseling would probably have to come in via a nonprofit or the like to have allocated funding and workhours. there is at least one national org that sets up student-run groups at the college level, so i'll be shooting an email their way, as well.
most of my current knowledge base for mental health care is as a client, and while they do what they can to give me tips and possible leads, ain't no LinkedIn networking through those sources. which leaves me to my own BA-in-English devices to suss out appropriate people to contact. so that's my focus-melting project this week! (for those following along, that conference i attended was my first dip in the waters to test my interest; i'm not put off, at least? so maybe, maaaaaaybe LCSW, LPC, or LMHC in my future?)
I would say that in the very least I blame both of them
The project manager for not being more careful with the possibility that different teams might encounter different problems, and the guy doing the roll-out for utterly failing to communicate in the slightest
I don't think I can emphasize enough how much state hates technology and wants nothing to do with it until they're forced to adapt kicking and screaming the whole way. That's why they contract to an outside company, so they don't have to bother and have people to badger when computers, copiers, and printers don't work. This is a state that did not figure out the idea of teleconference interviews until a year or two ago...and it still makes every single person on the interview panel fly up to Sacramento to cram into a small room so they can teleconference with the people being interviewed. Hell our entire warehouse inventory is still mostly analog with some SAP.
I once flew across 4 states to go help uninstall and reinstall some hardware because the other person refused to do it again because he was sure he did it right the first time.
I uninstalled and reinstalled and it worked fine. Our contract was for 3 days (on the off chance it really was broken) so we stayed around a couple days and helped on their project and then they tried to bribe us to stay longer but I get cagey and irritable when I can't go home, so we went home.
Trust me, I know how terrible IT people can be.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at how large the monster inside me has become. Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
+1
Options
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
My personal experience, and this could have nothing to do with what your IT is like this is just what I've been through, is that when someone says to me, "it would take you 30 seconds to give me a heads' up about this!", and if I take them seriously and give them a head's up, that's never enough. Me telling someone, "so hey, just wanted to let you know to help you out, but this is the process", ends up with me spending 15 minutes training them on the process (over chat), training which should be paid for by their own department, not paid for in my time in a completely different department, and more importantly could be incorrect process for their department and their supervisor/manager has a different process for them to use. And then even sometimes that is not enough, and they want to know things I don't have the answers to, like how soon that ticket they put in will get answered. I am not the department you put the ticket in to, I have no idea how soon they'll answer, maybe ask them. "I can't contact them!" Well, me neither! And then it becomes a discussion telling me to fix something that I have no power to fix, and asking me why I'm being so mean as to send them towards a group that notoriously doesn't like to answer tickets. I didn't create the process! I have no power over the process! I don't run that department and I have no phone number for them! So my 30 seconds of being helpful turned into 45 minutes of me being attacked for not being able to mold the company like an omnipotent sculptor.
Not. Worth. It.
So when I tell someone, "you should ask your supervisor about that", I'm not trying to be cagey and unhelpful. I leading them towards the person designated to actually help them with this. And if that person is a piece of shit who won't pay for training and won't inform their underlings of any important updates, don't lay that shit on me.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
I understand that is your personal experience, and I appreciate that this can happen for sure, but I don't think that saying it can't be done because it inevitably becomes a 45 minute consultation is a reasonable response to one expecting someone to give me a short call before they start messing about with my stuff. I don't think that people taking the piss is reasonable. But I don't think it's reasonable to say "fuck them because otherwise they'll fuck me" either. All communication inevitably becomes a drain on our time and resources is not something I can agree with. Bad communication is bad. Good communication is good. The trick is to make the latter not the former. I want the latter, not another form of the former.
Or; let me put it another way
Let's say that I can, through my access to the work system, change the structure of the code you are using to do your work, your critical work that you have to get done
And let's say that I do that without telling you I am going to do that and you come across this, by surprise, and find out it has stopped you doing something very important. Business critical.
How would you feel? I imagine you'd be pretty fucking furious. How the hell can you do your job if I'm sat somewhere else, changing everything you need to do it? And to top it off, I don't even pick up the phone! And if I do I shrug and say that it's not my fault, it's upper management's fault for giving us improper direction?
Every time someone in IT changes the system, without telling us, they run the possibility of doing that and sometimes, it happens. And I don't think it's in the slightest unreasonable to expect people in IT who are pissing around with our systems to tell us they are doing so. You can argue over who's job that is in IT all you like and in all honestly I couldn't give the tiniest fuck who calls me as long as somebody does, so I can put the breaks on that shit asap.
This conversation has been going in circles for a while. I think Solar just needs to be able to vent about his IT issue. That is one of the key points of this thread after all.
Posts
I honestly wish users would quit asking me to explain what went wrong.
It broke, I fixed it.
You're not going to understand it and I don't really feel like explaining the intricacies of a memory leak, or, simplifying it.
Just reboot your PC next time.
My favorite thing is someone asking me what went wrong, me explaining it, and then them complaining at me for talking about things they don't understand. Well, you did ask.
"I don't understand, what is engineering?"
"Well, in this case engineering are the folks who plan fiber infrastructure and decide what neighborhoods get fiber service when, and..."
"No, no, this whole neighborhood was wired for fiber, I know it was!"
"Yes it was, but when they lay out the fiber they don't assume that everyone in the neighborhood is automatically going to get the service. The do market research and figure about how many people will probably sign on, and then they put enough facilities in to cover that amount. Then if more people join than they planned for, they add more in."
"What are you even talking about? This is gibberish to me! What do I care about 'engineering', get me my tech tomorrow or I walk!"
"I understand why you would feel that way, if you feel you need to go to another provider there's nothing I can do."
"Ugh! Just get me my date and stop giving me technobabble!"
ad nauseam
Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
90% of the time he did this after being stumped by the problem and having me look at it and then I solved it, 100% of the time his explanation was incorrect.
50% of the time he was explaining huge security flaws in our system that were of his creation.
He would constantly complain no one would listen when he told them how to solve their own problems.
Whereas my explanations are: "If this happens again, look here, and do steps 1, 2, 3, ..." Which resulted in people very happy to have me work on their issue, and no repeat calls about the same issue from the same person, unless it was an issue that they didn't have the permissions to fix on their own.
I mean it's all worldbuilding thus far but I'll take my wins where I can.
I find that those types of people are drawn to IT, and often I think it's because of exactly that. It lets him feel superior, which maybe he needs, even if it isn't true.
On the other hand, sometimes people who aren't skilled at software/whatever will ask me how works going or what I'm working on and I legitimately don't know how to give the correct amount of useful information. Because "I'm writing a driver" is super duper vague, but any more detail than that is going to lose them. So I usually just make something up.
Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
If they're using any sort of web filtering tech, which I assume they are, reports of this may be automatic.
You can run into someone that moves to reimage the drive after sinking in a few man minutes. Which, eh, could be avoidable. And then things don't always work after the reimage is done--not typically on the person doing the reimage, could be HW, software, or IT service problems--but boy do people get salty when that happens.
One of the good things about the move to the cloud is, if you set up Sharepoint and OneDrive (or whatever collaboration and document solution you use) correctly, all the important shit should live off the computer, and the Windows 10 System Reset functionality is a really easy way to reimage.
I was having issues with my system a few months ago and was able to get back up and running in, like, 3 hours.
hands down cloud makes my home pc wiping pretty amazing
wipe and redownload from google drive and dropbox, resync my git repos, reinstall from steam and bingo bango bongo I'm done
All in all it only takes a few hours to get back into fully working condition vs a few hours just to get windows installed.
Eh, your IT probably does suck.
I'm just willing to bet that the reason your IT sucks is because your upper management sucks.
I have a few special sets of software for VPN connections on one system which suck to set up again, but anything that involves security and bureaucracy tends to.
Enterprise level software like that being cost effective is the only thing I miss about old job.
Other technical people on my team asked a million irrelevant questions about features and implications of his and other people's software that has nothing to do with anything we've been asked to work on. My boss suggested at length but vaguely with zero details that we still need to do something so that people can log into our software to use this software, and seemed impervious to suggestions from me that they could just use this software.
I posted in open group chat that we've just learned my project is obsolete and I'm happy to discuss anything he thinks we can add to this thing but at the moment I'm blocked with no work to do unless he wants me to keep working on stuff as if we hadn't had that meeting
Frequency with which I see an organization pull this off? One Google out of every 100 mid-tiers.
Sometimes I don't want to reopen and find where I left off the next day. My work PC is always on.
All web traffic is filtered and monitored by an outside contracting company, but nobody is actually looking at it at the institution and the outside contractor doesn't care so long as people aren't actively browsing porn sites with viruses galore. My boss's boss doesn't have access to those logs, she's only concerned with what she sees on my monitor. Which for most of the day has been a Word doc and job-related programs.
My upper management does suck
But then upper management is responsible for everyone, and IT still sucks more than the other departments, so I don't see how that's an excuse
Again guys I know a lot of you work in IT but it is possible that our IT department is just notably shit, you know?
Just like how when some of you get mad about user departments I'm sure that they can't just explain all that away to upper management too
But one of the most difficult things about dealing with IT in my company is that any problem is upper management's fault not theirs, as far as they are concerned
They don't do any wrong they're just directed the wrong way. The idea that people in the IT department might be at fault is alien to them
But like I said earlier my hands are almost always tied.
I can't help people out, I can't make phone calls, I can't make things better without approval and a budget.
I can still schedule my badminton games after hours with my peers though, since that isn't policed like a motherfucker.
There's still a significant chance it's entirely your IT department, of course, but you keep referencing how shitty your management is and how they don't listen to anyone soooooooooo. Maybe they also just made shitty hire decisions based on it too, or maybe they hamstring (which is how it usually happens). Maybe they forced them to do the upgrade without consulting and also don't allow them to even give a courtesy call to get an idea of what's going on.
Maybe I'm also wrong!
Just tell us a story. It doesn't have to be a good story. You lost them in a move and were too embarrassed to tell us. You got out of a bad relationship, went out West with whatever you could throw in a trunk, and now you're back in town and you have no idea what happened to the books. There was a tornado. This is Oklahoma, just pick a tornado and say it ate your library books.
What you shouldn't do, please, is flatly deny that you ever had a library card, or lived at that address, or checked out any books until the circ clerk gives up and issues you a new card. Especially don't do that and then check out a bunch of spellbooks again. Because then we can either believe that there are two Wiccans in OKC with the same name, middle initial, and date of birth, or we can merge the accounts the next day when the manager gets in and now you're stuck with those books again and you have to make up a story anyway. Only this time, everybody's kind of pissed at you, so the story has to be better now.
Not to defend your It Department, but that's a problem for people in general
It's very hard to admit when you're at fault, since everyone's playing from their own perspectives
My Steam
Maybe that's because they hired someone who is bad at their job. I dunno. I think it's more likely that they're immersed in a culture which tells them that the opinion of the person using the system isn't relevant to what they're doing, but it's hard to tell because they are so hard to get hold of. I did sit with that person for a long time sorting it out, however, and that was the impression I got.
Whoever was in charge of that project dropped the ball big time.
anyway, trying to get said brain working to send some fact-finding emails to people actually doing mental health social work type things. typical lost GenX/Millenial, i lack confidence or work/educational background, but i see a need for mental health outreach and education at the secondary level, especially in generally underserved populations. so, iffen i follow through -- ideally, i'd be able to set up mental health counseling programs and student-led groups, and counsel individuals as well in a school.
from what i've read and the folks i've talked to, HS counselors are too caught up in class scheduling and college advising to get the opportunity to really talk to kids who might need a therapeutic ear, much less do the kind of education and outreach to make people aware of issues and combat the stigmas. so equally accessible counseling would probably have to come in via a nonprofit or the like to have allocated funding and workhours. there is at least one national org that sets up student-run groups at the college level, so i'll be shooting an email their way, as well.
most of my current knowledge base for mental health care is as a client, and while they do what they can to give me tips and possible leads, ain't no LinkedIn networking through those sources. which leaves me to my own BA-in-English devices to suss out appropriate people to contact. so that's my focus-melting project this week! (for those following along, that conference i attended was my first dip in the waters to test my interest; i'm not put off, at least? so maybe, maaaaaaybe LCSW, LPC, or LMHC in my future?)
The project manager for not being more careful with the possibility that different teams might encounter different problems, and the guy doing the roll-out for utterly failing to communicate in the slightest
I uninstalled and reinstalled and it worked fine. Our contract was for 3 days (on the off chance it really was broken) so we stayed around a couple days and helped on their project and then they tried to bribe us to stay longer but I get cagey and irritable when I can't go home, so we went home.
Trust me, I know how terrible IT people can be.
Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
Not. Worth. It.
So when I tell someone, "you should ask your supervisor about that", I'm not trying to be cagey and unhelpful. I leading them towards the person designated to actually help them with this. And if that person is a piece of shit who won't pay for training and won't inform their underlings of any important updates, don't lay that shit on me.
Or; let me put it another way
Let's say that I can, through my access to the work system, change the structure of the code you are using to do your work, your critical work that you have to get done
And let's say that I do that without telling you I am going to do that and you come across this, by surprise, and find out it has stopped you doing something very important. Business critical.
How would you feel? I imagine you'd be pretty fucking furious. How the hell can you do your job if I'm sat somewhere else, changing everything you need to do it? And to top it off, I don't even pick up the phone! And if I do I shrug and say that it's not my fault, it's upper management's fault for giving us improper direction?
Every time someone in IT changes the system, without telling us, they run the possibility of doing that and sometimes, it happens. And I don't think it's in the slightest unreasonable to expect people in IT who are pissing around with our systems to tell us they are doing so. You can argue over who's job that is in IT all you like and in all honestly I couldn't give the tiniest fuck who calls me as long as somebody does, so I can put the breaks on that shit asap.
IT think their time is too precious to call me and ask me if they can change something?
My time is too precious to try to figure out how to do this now IT have fucked it up
We're not allowed to do so 9 times out of 10.
I have no idea if your IT is in that 1 time out of 10 though.
Because like I said a saintly few do
But most don't
You'd have thought they'd learn from the fuck-ups but no
Crunch Crunch! Munch Munch! Chomp Chomp! Gulp!
I don't progress as quickly in Clicker Heroes if I shut it off.
First day back come onnnnnn you guys whyyyyy
I was working at GenCon and now I'm sat in my office getting fucked by my IT department *sobs pathetically*