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[Sysadmin] Nightmare fuel

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Posts

  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    excel is basically it's own IDE and programming language.

    XBL: thewunderbar PSN: thewunderbar NNID: thewunderbar Steam: wunderbar87 Twitter: wunderbar
  • hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    wunderbar wrote: »
    excel is basically it's own IDE and programming language.

    The language is Visual Basic, isn't it? With a lot of extra Excel API hook-ups, mind you, but it is VB in the background, isn't it?

  • SiliconStewSiliconStew Registered User regular
    hippofant wrote: »
    wunderbar wrote: »
    excel is basically it's own IDE and programming language.

    The language is Visual Basic, isn't it? With a lot of extra Excel API hook-ups, mind you, but it is VB in the background, isn't it?

    yes

    Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
  • Apothe0sisApothe0sis Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Registered User regular
    Cog wrote: »
    I hate when someone asks me how to fix something in Excel and on the outside I'm nodding along and on the inside I'm like "Are you fucking shitting me, I didn't even known Excel could DO that"

    I just get angry because my role is to be an expert in real shit not the usage of user applications

  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    Perfect time to use LMGTFY to its desired effect.

  • lwt1973lwt1973 King of Thieves SyndicationRegistered User regular
    Aioua wrote: »
    I'm lucky in that our boss will back us up on people bringing their excel bullshit to us.

    Oh your 2 gig spreadsheet with links to 100 other spreadsheets isn't working right and you want us to fix it?

    Hmm let me check, yup, making excel spreadsheets is literally your entire job, this one's on you buddy.

    I just bring it to our resident Excel expert aka the Controller.

    "He's sulking in his tent like Achilles! It's the Iliad?...from Homer?! READ A BOOK!!" -Handy
  • CogCog What'd you expect? Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    This is a tricky one cause it's like...

    "Hey Cog, we were embedding PDFs into Excel spreadsheets and we started getting Adobe errors"

    And on the inside I'm all "You were fucking WHAT?! WITCHCRAFT! And also, fuck, if it gave an error message I have to try to fix it you asshole!"

    If they just don't know how to do something I can tell them to google it.

    Cog on
  • CogCog What'd you expect? Registered User regular
    lwt1973 wrote: »
    Aioua wrote: »
    I'm lucky in that our boss will back us up on people bringing their excel bullshit to us.

    Oh your 2 gig spreadsheet with links to 100 other spreadsheets isn't working right and you want us to fix it?

    Hmm let me check, yup, making excel spreadsheets is literally your entire job, this one's on you buddy.

    I just bring it to our resident Excel expert aka the Controller.

    The Controller is the person who put the ticket in. I'm screw't.

  • BigityBigity Lubbock, TXRegistered User regular
    ArcSyn wrote: »
    I was once asked to troubleshoot the shredder, because it plugs in to electric and that falls within IT.

    No, no it does not.

    I say this about alarm system batteries constantly.

  • ThawmusThawmus +Jackface Registered User regular
    Apothe0sis wrote: »
    Cog wrote: »
    I hate when someone asks me how to fix something in Excel and on the outside I'm nodding along and on the inside I'm like "Are you fucking shitting me, I didn't even known Excel could DO that"

    I just get angry because my role is to be an expert in real shit not the usage of user applications

    Unfortunately we've taken the step of giving everyone Linux workstations, and the productivity software is a big black eye on the matter. They know how to do X in Excel, but I'm expected to know how to replicate the behavior in Libreoffice Calc.

    The answer is usually really fucking complicated and way the fuck over my head. User gets frustrated that my answer is, "I need to play with this for a while and get back to you" instead of giving them the answer right away, and I get called out on the carpet for it when this happens.

    Generally speaking, I think when they're doing complicated shit like this, it should probably be a function in our in-house accounting software instead, but I don't know that for sure.

    There's also a weird love of pivot tables being created in Excel that do a bunch of fancy bullshit and when they get imported into Calc they just take a complete shit and I get called out for that too.


    Like, don't get me wrong, I love having Linux workstations. A user had a virus recently on their Windows machine, and it sent an email to everyone else in the company, and almost everyone in the company opened the attachment and tried to run it. Their Linux workstations didn't know how to run it. For that alone, I'll fight very hard for keeping Linux workstations, but fucking hell does something need to happen on the productivity software front.

    Twitch: Thawmus83
  • AiouaAioua Ora Occidens Ora OptimaRegistered User regular
    Cog wrote: »
    This is a tricky one cause it's like...

    "Hey Cog, we were embedding PDFs into Excel spreadsheets and we started getting Adobe errors"

    And on the inside I'm all "You were fucking WHAT?! WITCHCRAFT! And also, fuck, if it gave an error message I have to try to fix it you asshole!"

    If they just don't know how to do something I can tell them to google it.

    INC001453556
    SUBJECT: embedding PDFs in excel spreadsheets
    DESCRIPTION: you broke something with excel when we embed PDFs now we get adobe errors please fix right away
    STATE: Resolved
    RESOLUTION NOTES:

    life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
    fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
    that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
    bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    Can they use productivity software within WINE? Then just buy a 365 license or something?

  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    why the fuck would you embed a pdf into an excel document

    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
  • lwt1973lwt1973 King of Thieves SyndicationRegistered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    why the fuck would you embed a pdf into an excel document

    I've had a person want it so that they can embed a copy of an invoice into their excel.

    Yes, it doesn't make sense to me either but people can have some...interesting...ideas.

    "He's sulking in his tent like Achilles! It's the Iliad?...from Homer?! READ A BOOK!!" -Handy
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    You can create local hyperlinks though.

    Put it on a network drive and create a hyperlink to it.

    Click it and boom, opens up the PDF.

    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
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    They wanted me to make a system in their excel that change colors based on date.

    Which, I'm sure is possible, but it was something that would work much better in our EHR system instead. This way everyone can see what's up instead of just 1 person, if they happen to look at it.

    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
  • AiouaAioua Ora Occidens Ora OptimaRegistered User regular
    edited November 2017
    bowen wrote: »
    They wanted me to make a system in their excel that change colors based on date.

    Which, I'm sure is possible, but it was something that would work much better in our EHR system instead. This way everyone can see what's up instead of just 1 person, if they happen to look at it.

    can't Conditional Formatting do that?

    I've never tried using it to manipulate dates but it seems like it could do it

    e: yes, of course, it's got a ton of Date options built in

    Aioua on
    life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
    fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
    that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
    bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    fuck if I'm going to have it marquee blink at someone, that's their job not mine

    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
  • CogCog What'd you expect? Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Conditional formatting is like.. the fucking *easy* part of Excel.

    If they needed your help with that part of it, you are straight doomed.
    bowen wrote: »
    You can create local hyperlinks though.

    Put it on a network drive and create a hyperlink to it.

    Click it and boom, opens up the PDF.

    You can't email it externally though! :rotate:

    EDIT: Also, you can actually visually embed the PDF into a cell, which is apparently desirable for some fucking stupid reason.

    Cog on
  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    Why the fuck would you externally email the company's bookkeeping stuff in re: invoices?

    That's all kinds of bad ideas.

    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
  • CogCog What'd you expect? Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    Why the fuck would you externally email the company's bookkeeping stuff in re: invoices?

    That's all kinds of bad ideas.

    I don't know, that's not my job. I'm an MSP. I can tell them that putting the loaded gun into their mouth is not an optimal business strategy but it's not my job to actually take it out of their mouth for them.

    Being an MSP is kinda cool in that regard.

    You wanna figuratively blow your small business brains out? I won't load the gun for you but I also don't have to clean up the viscera.

  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    If they called and asked me for bullets to blow their brain out I'd tell them no though.

    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
  • twmjrtwmjr Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    If they called and asked me for bullets to blow their brain out I'd tell them no though.

    this doesn't actually seem like a request you would refuse, bowen

  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    ... well you're not 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
  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    My boss wants to start automating more shit, which is fine, but he's wanting us to come up with methods to automate the exceptions to rules. Example is for Windows updating. He wants not only just an automated thing to show that windows updates happened, when shit goes sideways he also wants to automate the reports we generate that show what went wrong, why it went wrong, and what can be done to fix/mitigate/deal with.

    This is not going to be fun.

    XBL: thewunderbar PSN: thewunderbar NNID: thewunderbar Steam: wunderbar87 Twitter: wunderbar
  • ThawmusThawmus +Jackface Registered User regular
    Mugsley wrote: »
    Can they use productivity software within WINE? Then just buy a 365 license or something?

    It's something I explore every 6 months or so, and no, it doesn't work well at all.

    Office Online seemed like a good fit for a while, too, but then you run into a file size issue. Plus you can't work with local files, you have to upload them to a cloud service, yuck.

    I kinda get caught in the middle between two sides. There's one of the owners + the Network Admin, who want Linux workstations and think if you need to do special shit in MS Office you're probably not reaching out to our internal Dev team enough, and another owner + the CEO + the users, who show me how something it supposed to work in Excel/Word, it seems to me that what they want to do is pretty complex but a simple operation, but LibreOffice takes a shit on the whole process. Most things take 7-8 more steps to accomplish, or they flatly aren't possible. Both of these, IMHO, are reasonable positions. But they talk past each other, and I'm the only one patient enough to sit with someone and listen to them.

    It's frustrating because I can understand the frustration, and I can understand why I want users to have Linux workstations, but the reasoning the others give for why they have them are.....cost related? Which I just shake my head at, because there should be some fucking dialogue here between IT and the users, and we should be finding a solution that works for everyone, and instead both sides are going, "Fuck it, have Thawmus fix it."

    In my opinion, if people need to have Microsoft Office, and they should put their shit together and make a case for it, I will completely support letting people have Windows workstations so they can have a properly functioning MS Office suite. I'm good with it. There's shit I don't like about it, but in the end, I'm the money drain, they're the folks that make the money, by all means, let me help you make us some more fucking money. But it's not up to me and there is no dialogue, just kicking me around while I'm trying to also run an ISP and negotiate contracts and do sales analysis for new/old regions and and and.....

    Twitch: Thawmus83
  • CogCog What'd you expect? Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    If they called and asked me for bullets to blow their brain out I'd tell them no though.

    You're still thinking in a "I work here too" mentality.

    If they really want to send their sensitive company information to others, it is literally not my problem.

  • CogCog What'd you expect? Registered User regular
    I mean, I can't willfully violate HIPPA or PCI or anything, and if they're actually hosted in our infrastructure, we have certain requirements. But if it's their equipment on their network and we just give them support? I'll fix your error and when we hang up the phone, if you want to drive your company into a ditch, that's your thing, whatever. Just try to save enough money to pay our invoice when it shows up.

  • ThawmusThawmus +Jackface Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Cog wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    If they called and asked me for bullets to blow their brain out I'd tell them no though.

    You're still thinking in a "I work here too" mentality.

    If they really want to send their sensitive company information to others, it is literally not my problem.

    Depending on the services you're providing, there's also sometimes an RFC that doesn't let you say "no." This can happen with providing email services a lot.

    EDIT: Comes up with Internet provision too. If someone wants me to open up a gaping hole in our firewall for their connection, I have to do it. I do not get to refuse. I can try to advise them against it, but in the end, it has to happen if they want it.

    Thawmus on
    Twitch: Thawmus83
  • CogCog What'd you expect? Registered User regular
    Thawmus wrote: »
    Cog wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    If they called and asked me for bullets to blow their brain out I'd tell them no though.

    You're still thinking in a "I work here too" mentality.

    If they really want to send their sensitive company information to others, it is literally not my problem.

    Depending on the services you're providing, there's also sometimes an RFC that doesn't let you say "no." This can happen with providing email services a lot.

    EDIT: Comes up with Internet provision too. If someone wants me to open up a gaping hole in our firewall for their connection, I have to do it. I do not get to refuse. I can try to advise them against it, but in the end, it has to happen if they want it.

    Yeah we get this kinda thing a lot too with hosted firewall and internet access.

    If your servers sit in our infrastructure, though, we do have some rights to say no to things, and we can enforce security standards, cause every dumbfuck thing you do can expose our datacenter. Every customer more or less exists in their own DMZ but there's no guarantees.

  • ThawmusThawmus +Jackface Registered User regular
    Cog wrote: »
    Thawmus wrote: »
    Cog wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    If they called and asked me for bullets to blow their brain out I'd tell them no though.

    You're still thinking in a "I work here too" mentality.

    If they really want to send their sensitive company information to others, it is literally not my problem.

    Depending on the services you're providing, there's also sometimes an RFC that doesn't let you say "no." This can happen with providing email services a lot.

    EDIT: Comes up with Internet provision too. If someone wants me to open up a gaping hole in our firewall for their connection, I have to do it. I do not get to refuse. I can try to advise them against it, but in the end, it has to happen if they want it.

    Yeah we get this kinda thing a lot too with hosted firewall and internet access.

    If your servers sit in our infrastructure, though, we do have some rights to say no to things, and we can enforce security standards, cause every dumbfuck thing you do can expose our datacenter. Every customer more or less exists in their own DMZ but there's no guarantees.

    Yeah, to clarify:

    I have a firewall sitting between my ISP customers and the Internet. It's a pretty normal thing at a WISP, because you can take a call from a 16 year old hooking up his Xbox, asking for a port to be opened, but you don't have the staff to handle customer routers turning into DNS phishers. I block everything inbound (except established or related traffic).

    If someone asks to have a port opened, or to just be exposed, I offer the absolute minimal amount of resistance to the latter, and none at all to the former. Being a small ISP, I'm allowed to firewall off my customers like this (I wouldn't if I had 100,000+ customers), but I have to allow traffic that the customer wants.

    Twitch: Thawmus83
  • CogCog What'd you expect? Registered User regular
    Fucking sales guys shouldn't sell shit without running it past engineers.

    Sales Guy: "Hey Cog, install this Sophos software on all the servers and workstations at <client>"

    Cog: "Hey Sales Guy, that software doesn't work on Servers and they have thin clients, not workstations, and it's not compatible with the AV that's on the like.. 3 desktop PCs they do have."

    Sales Guy: "WHAT?!? But I sold them like fourty licenses for this! What are we going to do?!?!?"

    Cog: "The fuck do you mean 'we'?"

  • BigityBigity Lubbock, TXRegistered User regular
    That shit is why I insist on talking with engineers along with sales people. At least once things get serious.

  • bowenbowen How you doin'? Registered User regular
    You can tell a good company from a bad company because a good company will have sales engineers.

    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
  • FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    Best sales engineers I've ever dealt with, hands-down, are at Nimble.

    Those guys know their stuff.

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • CogCog What'd you expect? Registered User regular
    bowen wrote: »
    You can tell a good company from a bad company because a good company will have sales engineers.

    Oh we have SEs. Fucking sales weasel just didn’t bother to involve them.

  • SeidkonaSeidkona Had an upgrade Registered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Seriously my brain is not the brain you guys want making a presentation but ok.

    A lot of words and one really bad visual representation coming up!

    Edit: Visual representation too bad. Cutting it.

    Seidkona on
    Mostly just huntin' monsters.
    XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
  • CogCog What'd you expect? Registered User regular
    God dammit, IPv6.

    You're fucking it up for everyone.

  • SeidkonaSeidkona Had an upgrade Registered User regular
    IPv6, I still love you buddy.


    It's not their fault they don't understand.

    Mostly just huntin' monsters.
    XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    Hour 3 of no internet or email. Right when I started updating contract info in a online database. I am now organizing my physical files.

This discussion has been closed.