Why in all the blazes would you have a printer that can order ink by itself?
on managed copy machines (i.e. the Xerox, ricoh, etc of the world) it's great. You never have to think about it.
Plus, you usually pay per printed page with those leased systems. You aren't paying for the toner. The cost per page generally comes out to much less than a dinky little home printer. Especially if it's competing with an inkjet.
You could also be like my workplace and outsource absolutely everything printer related.
I hate our outsourced printer contractor, but not enough to find a new contractor.
Because I have a feeling that any of their competition would be equally stupid just in different ways.
We have a pretty good contractor. We have a big enough org that they have a tech on-site at the main campus with their own office and everything.
+1
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ThegreatcowLord of All BaconsWashington State - It's Wet up here innit? Registered Userregular
Yeah once you reach a certain size/volume of printing, having a dedicated printer service/contractor makes sense. Back when I worked for Entertainment Partners, we were the single largest consumer of paper and toner in the city of Burbank, we went through so much of it we arranged to have a dedicated storage space set aside that the vendor had access to, JUST for toner, paper and spare printer parts. Our contract basically guaranteed a printer tech onsite when a printer broke within 2 hours.
3 hours trying to fix a broken VHD only to find out that someone set it up as a differencing VHD and it got moved and had no idea where the parent vhd was.
3 hours trying to fix a broken VHD only to find out that someone set it up as a differencing VHD and it got moved and had no idea where the parent vhd was.
I had no idea it was a differencing vhd.
I want to die.
We've been spending the past few weeks getting bounced between Microsoft and Veeam on a similar issue. Somehow differencing disks are created even though the vhd itself is not set up as a differencing vhd. Colleagues have been moving the VMs around and then the backup runs again, but I can clean up the differencing disks later, because it's quickly filling up the volume on the SAN.
Steam/Origin: davydizzy
0
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
One of our spam gateways is partially down and no mail is getting through for any of our clients with it as their primary. The only people with a login for the VM are out of the country. Oh happy days.
I kept asking my boss about organizational structure to the point he got a little annoyed.
Just understand, I am trying to find the catch here. This is a nice little env and I have spent a lot of time being responsible for much bigger and more chaotic things.
This is such a nice change of pace I am trying to make sure there's no switch after the bait.
Mostly just huntin' monsters.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
My boss lost his shit this morning. He's on full tilt. Putting up sarcastic signs around his office and our department, all sorts of goosey shit.
Why?
Because once again a user bitched about a problem he's been having for years. Years. Years, everyone. Years.
And this is the first time he's mentioned it to us. Along with a remark about how it's annoying that this shit doesn't ever get fixed. Talked about how everyone runs into this problem all the time, and nobody does anything about it. And no, nobody's ever told us about it, at all. It's a secret. Can't tell IT, or else they might commandeer 5 minutes of your time and ask questions. We've got time to prank call other branches in other states about college football but we don't have time to tell IT about a major frustration we've been living with for years.
My boss railed on one of the secretaries a few weeks ago for something like that. I had been complaining that people have been coming up to me with problems that were bothering them for weeks without telling me at this point, and then a few hours later one of those same people came in to try and throw me under the bus while we were having a meeting:
"Did you tell bowen? Send an email or tell (practice manager)." (this is when he knew he cornered her because we would all have proof I didn't do anything about it)
"No"
"why not?"
"I don't know"
"Well I guess it wasn't really a problem then?"
That's the first time he took my side instead of hers. I was kind of happy about that.
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
Like, I understand momentary frustrations that pass, and you feel silly, so you let shit go. I get that. I also understand that people can get too busy and forget that they had a problem. Perfectly normal.
But the fucking gall to act like other people should know about a problem you've never presented to them, and that they're somehow responsible for years worth of pain? That's the actual problem, right there.
It's kind of frustrating how small of a problem they passed this off as, ok a small amount of youtube etc. affected. We have 20+ Servers in GCP with multiple zone redundancy, they were all totally unavailable for 4+ hours sunday with no communication from google. Ololol /facepalm
Like, I understand momentary frustrations that pass, and you feel silly, so you let shit go. I get that. I also understand that people can get too busy and forget that they had a problem. Perfectly normal.
But the fucking gall to act like other people should know about a problem you've never presented to them, and that they're somehow responsible for years worth of pain? That's the actual problem, right there.
Clearly you've never been in a relationship with a narcissist. =P
So if you're trying to start a QuickSupport session on a linux box, it downloads a tar.gz file.
That's what the end user gets to work with for starting up a no-questions-asked simple-as-shit you-can't-follow-instructions-so-let-me-do-it remote session. They get a tar.gz file.
So I get to looking and sure enough, this was a design decision around 2015 because they didn't want users to have to pick which linux distro they were on, when they were on the download page. The user wouldn't know, so you've got to give them packages for every distro in a tar.gz!
And I was trying to understand how they wouldn't understand that a tech's always going to be on the phone when they're asking the user to start this shit up in the first place, and could probably just tell them which button to push, and it occurred to me that their entire design of QuickSupport revolved around the idea that folks would start up remote sessions as if they were help requests that had to be assigned to available technicians, rather than a no-questions-asked simple-as-shit you-can't-follow-instructions-so-let-me-do-it remote session.
Apparently they know where I work and I left them on the line for a good 20 minutes just saying "uh huh" and "sounds great!"
Until it got to the point where the sales rep was asking for payment method and I said "Oh, I have to pay? No thanks, then" and hung up.
Cold calling IT people for sales is just a disaster waiting to happen.
Solarwinds salespeople are ridiculously aggressive. Once they smell blood, multiple daily calls, emails, voicemails, "did you have a chance to look at the quote I sent you?" over and over again.
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.
Like, I understand momentary frustrations that pass, and you feel silly, so you let shit go. I get that. I also understand that people can get too busy and forget that they had a problem. Perfectly normal.
But the fucking gall to act like other people should know about a problem you've never presented to them, and that they're somehow responsible for years worth of pain? That's the actual problem, right there.
This has been a big problem at my work. It's been getting better but it's still an issue.
What's been frustrating me recently is how our management has reacted to it. Both IT and non-IT management are encouraging employees to put in tickets (yay!) and call IT on urgent issues (yay!) instead of letting them simmer. However, when somebody goes to a manager to complain about a problem, they're not consistently smacking that person back into the proper channels.
It's because it's not in our "corporate culture" of "open communication."
Instead the manager will often put in a ticket on their behalf which turns the whole fucking thing into a stupid game of telephone. Or the other department manager will call the CTO and then the CTO will come to a tech (like me) and say "hey can you call {department manager}" and then that manager will say "oh, I'm not having the problem, it's my employee, you need to talk to her"
YES LET'S CREATE A GAME OF TELEPHONE WITH MULTIPLE PEOPLE INCLUDING C-LEVEL EXECS INVOLVED INSTEAD OF PUTTING IN A GODDAMN FUCKING TROUBLE TICKET. THIS IS AN EFFICIENT PROCESS THAT DOESN'T FRUSTRATE ANYBODY.
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.
Apparently they know where I work and I left them on the line for a good 20 minutes just saying "uh huh" and "sounds great!"
Until it got to the point where the sales rep was asking for payment method and I said "Oh, I have to pay? No thanks, then" and hung up.
Cold calling IT people for sales is just a disaster waiting to happen.
Solarwinds salespeople are ridiculously aggressive. Once they smell blood, multiple daily calls, emails, voicemails, "did you have a chance to look at the quote I sent you?" over and over again.
I'm not sure how well that works with IT people who are typically antisocial and hate talking on the phone.
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
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TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
I got a text from an unsaved number today "hi (name), we have some questions about the laptops you set up for (client), can you give me a call"
I quit this job 3 weeks ago and last touched the laptops in question like 6 months ago.
Lol
+5
Options
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
I got a text from an unsaved number today "hi (name), we have some questions about the laptops you set up for (client), can you give me a call"
I quit this job 3 weeks ago and last touched the laptops in question like 6 months ago.
Lol
My hourly rate is $Texas with a minimum of 4 hours per consult.
Yup, at least $300/hr 4 hr minimum. Double it for weekends, after hours, or holidays.
They legit do not need you or need to ask you, they just don't want to take the effort to figure it out themselves and hope you'll do it for them for free. And if you do this it'll be the first of many more until you put your foot down.
Or just don't answer it at all.
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
This is also why I use a google voice number forwarded to my phone, and it's the only number my employer/coworkers have. If I ever leave this place, I'll just delete the number.
Probably the smartest advice my boss ever gave me.
Apparently they know where I work and I left them on the line for a good 20 minutes just saying "uh huh" and "sounds great!"
Until it got to the point where the sales rep was asking for payment method and I said "Oh, I have to pay? No thanks, then" and hung up.
Cold calling IT people for sales is just a disaster waiting to happen.
Solarwinds salespeople are ridiculously aggressive. Once they smell blood, multiple daily calls, emails, voicemails, "did you have a chance to look at the quote I sent you?" over and over again.
I'm not sure how well that works with IT people who are typically antisocial and hate talking on the phone.
I kinda have to just let sales calls just roll into me. There are just too many wireless solutions out there that are trying to break into the WISP picture, many of them with legitimately good and new ideas, that I just have to entertain them. I often try and get them to cut off their sales pitch and give me their literature, so I can go over it with my RF engineer, but sometimes they don't want to do that right away and so I just tell them what we're doing. That's at least, potentially, data.
Of course I also get hilarious calls asking about how and where I purchase my windows licenses and Office licenses and anti-virus.
Ok but have any of you actually done the "billing your old job as a contractor" thing and not just as a way to tell them to fuck off?
Yes.
It was pretty amicable and while they initially thought I was overcharging ($200/hr, 2 hr minimum), when I pointed out that my responsibilities had shifted to my new employer, and that this was going to happen during my off-hours and needed to be worth it to me, they understood.
Also it helps them evaluate whether this is worth it to them or not. We joke in here about quoting that rate, but the reality is that I've had people bite off on that quote about 10 times in the past 10 years. Sometimes people are in that much pain, sometimes they're in that much money. None of them ever gave me shit about my skills or knowledge, none of them doubted my results.
We could speak for days about what charging that amount does to the social dynamic between you and the people you're trying to help. I see it a lot as an ISP. People treat you like shit when it's a free service call, and they treat you like an equal when they're getting charged $125/hr to be on the phone with you.
Find a job estimate template online for Word, fill it out with a good rate like $200/hr or $300/hr, any other terms you want to include, how much time you think it'll take you to do it, and send it to them. You're either going to earn extra money or make it clear what your value was to that company. Either should make you feel good, and their behavior doesn't matter.
Posts
Plus, you usually pay per printed page with those leased systems. You aren't paying for the toner. The cost per page generally comes out to much less than a dinky little home printer. Especially if it's competing with an inkjet.
I hate our outsourced printer contractor, but not enough to find a new contractor.
Because I have a feeling that any of their competition would be equally stupid just in different ways.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
We have a pretty good contractor. We have a big enough org that they have a tech on-site at the main campus with their own office and everything.
Wud yoo laek to lern aboot meatz? Look here!
https://www.androidcentral.com/we-now-know-what-caused-google-outage-over-weekend
But I tied in the show finale with my experience working in IT in a way y'all might sympathize with
https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/41264768/#Comment_41264768
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I had no idea it was a differencing vhd.
I want to die.
We've been spending the past few weeks getting bounced between Microsoft and Veeam on a similar issue. Somehow differencing disks are created even though the vhd itself is not set up as a differencing vhd. Colleagues have been moving the VMs around and then the backup runs again, but I can clean up the differencing disks later, because it's quickly filling up the volume on the SAN.
Just understand, I am trying to find the catch here. This is a nice little env and I have spent a lot of time being responsible for much bigger and more chaotic things.
This is such a nice change of pace I am trying to make sure there's no switch after the bait.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Why?
Because once again a user bitched about a problem he's been having for years. Years. Years, everyone. Years.
And this is the first time he's mentioned it to us. Along with a remark about how it's annoying that this shit doesn't ever get fixed. Talked about how everyone runs into this problem all the time, and nobody does anything about it. And no, nobody's ever told us about it, at all. It's a secret. Can't tell IT, or else they might commandeer 5 minutes of your time and ask questions. We've got time to prank call other branches in other states about college football but we don't have time to tell IT about a major frustration we've been living with for years.
Fucking. Years.
"Did you tell bowen? Send an email or tell (practice manager)." (this is when he knew he cornered her because we would all have proof I didn't do anything about it)
"No"
"why not?"
"I don't know"
"Well I guess it wasn't really a problem then?"
That's the first time he took my side instead of hers. I was kind of happy about that.
But the fucking gall to act like other people should know about a problem you've never presented to them, and that they're somehow responsible for years worth of pain? That's the actual problem, right there.
It's kind of frustrating how small of a problem they passed this off as, ok a small amount of youtube etc. affected. We have 20+ Servers in GCP with multiple zone redundancy, they were all totally unavailable for 4+ hours sunday with no communication from google. Ololol /facepalm
Found the main atrium today. Ate next to an indoor stream.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Clearly you've never been in a relationship with a narcissist. =P
Where are you working now? The Shire?
Probably Rivendell.
Seeing as I am looking out from the 20th floor.
More like Isengard.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Well, tell the hobbits we said hello when they get there.
So if you're trying to start a QuickSupport session on a linux box, it downloads a tar.gz file.
That's what the end user gets to work with for starting up a no-questions-asked simple-as-shit you-can't-follow-instructions-so-let-me-do-it remote session. They get a tar.gz file.
So I get to looking and sure enough, this was a design decision around 2015 because they didn't want users to have to pick which linux distro they were on, when they were on the download page. The user wouldn't know, so you've got to give them packages for every distro in a tar.gz!
And I was trying to understand how they wouldn't understand that a tech's always going to be on the phone when they're asking the user to start this shit up in the first place, and could probably just tell them which button to push, and it occurred to me that their entire design of QuickSupport revolved around the idea that folks would start up remote sessions as if they were help requests that had to be assigned to available technicians, rather than a no-questions-asked simple-as-shit you-can't-follow-instructions-so-let-me-do-it remote session.
Oh, Teamviewer.
:tell_me_more:
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Tell me what it is like I'm 5.
And still Thawmus.
Well still Thawmus. . .
It's a Time Series monitoring system with the ability to tie into a bunch of cloud services really easily.
So far I have exposed a number of managed services we had little insight into back to the monitoring plane.
It also has a nice full API and metrics built into it.
Four lines of code from the Software aide and the app on our platform will also be insturmented.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Apparently they know where I work and I left them on the line for a good 20 minutes just saying "uh huh" and "sounds great!"
Until it got to the point where the sales rep was asking for payment method and I said "Oh, I have to pay? No thanks, then" and hung up.
Cold calling IT people for sales is just a disaster waiting to happen.
Solarwinds salespeople are ridiculously aggressive. Once they smell blood, multiple daily calls, emails, voicemails, "did you have a chance to look at the quote I sent you?" over and over again.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
This has been a big problem at my work. It's been getting better but it's still an issue.
What's been frustrating me recently is how our management has reacted to it. Both IT and non-IT management are encouraging employees to put in tickets (yay!) and call IT on urgent issues (yay!) instead of letting them simmer. However, when somebody goes to a manager to complain about a problem, they're not consistently smacking that person back into the proper channels.
It's because it's not in our "corporate culture" of "open communication."
Instead the manager will often put in a ticket on their behalf which turns the whole fucking thing into a stupid game of telephone. Or the other department manager will call the CTO and then the CTO will come to a tech (like me) and say "hey can you call {department manager}" and then that manager will say "oh, I'm not having the problem, it's my employee, you need to talk to her"
YES LET'S CREATE A GAME OF TELEPHONE WITH MULTIPLE PEOPLE INCLUDING C-LEVEL EXECS INVOLVED INSTEAD OF PUTTING IN A GODDAMN FUCKING TROUBLE TICKET. THIS IS AN EFFICIENT PROCESS THAT DOESN'T FRUSTRATE ANYBODY.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I'm not sure how well that works with IT people who are typically antisocial and hate talking on the phone.
I quit this job 3 weeks ago and last touched the laptops in question like 6 months ago.
Lol
"new phone who dis?"
My hourly rate is $Texas with a minimum of 4 hours per consult.
Yup, at least $300/hr 4 hr minimum. Double it for weekends, after hours, or holidays.
They legit do not need you or need to ask you, they just don't want to take the effort to figure it out themselves and hope you'll do it for them for free. And if you do this it'll be the first of many more until you put your foot down.
Or just don't answer it at all.
Probably the smartest advice my boss ever gave me.
I kinda have to just let sales calls just roll into me. There are just too many wireless solutions out there that are trying to break into the WISP picture, many of them with legitimately good and new ideas, that I just have to entertain them. I often try and get them to cut off their sales pitch and give me their literature, so I can go over it with my RF engineer, but sometimes they don't want to do that right away and so I just tell them what we're doing. That's at least, potentially, data.
Of course I also get hilarious calls asking about how and where I purchase my windows licenses and Office licenses and anti-virus.
There is another way other then "fuck off"?
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Yes.
It was pretty amicable and while they initially thought I was overcharging ($200/hr, 2 hr minimum), when I pointed out that my responsibilities had shifted to my new employer, and that this was going to happen during my off-hours and needed to be worth it to me, they understood.
Also it helps them evaluate whether this is worth it to them or not. We joke in here about quoting that rate, but the reality is that I've had people bite off on that quote about 10 times in the past 10 years. Sometimes people are in that much pain, sometimes they're in that much money. None of them ever gave me shit about my skills or knowledge, none of them doubted my results.
We could speak for days about what charging that amount does to the social dynamic between you and the people you're trying to help. I see it a lot as an ISP. People treat you like shit when it's a free service call, and they treat you like an equal when they're getting charged $125/hr to be on the phone with you.
Find a job estimate template online for Word, fill it out with a good rate like $200/hr or $300/hr, any other terms you want to include, how much time you think it'll take you to do it, and send it to them. You're either going to earn extra money or make it clear what your value was to that company. Either should make you feel good, and their behavior doesn't matter.