So I had my driver pick me up and take me to the lottery commission because I just won the 600 million dollar powerball, and my friend Heather Graham was in the back seat with me rocking her roller skates ala Boogie Nights. We were driving along, and we found a couple of members of the US Olympic women’s beach volleyball team stranded by the road in a broke down van (wtf were they doing in WV- forget it, it wasn’t over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, either), so I had my driver pull over, and we tried to help them but they had no cell service or anywhere to be for the next week, so they hopped in the limo and started partying…
What a small world it is.
In another note, if you call my office demanding that your support ticket be moved to the front of the queue, you godsdamned well better be sitting by your fucking phone when I call you, with your computer turned on, waiting. If it’s important enough to divert me from an action item that closes Friday at 5:00PM, it’s sure as shit important enough for you to answer the fucking phone or be in your office or at least have somebody in there who has the faintest damn clue what your issue is, so that when I drive across town to your office I’m not wasting two hours of my life that I could have used to finish the action item. Like, oh, I don’t know, maybe your supervisor. And then when I counsel you for visiting porn sites on your government issued laptop and submit your name to the Information Security Officer to schedule training, don’t try to tell me that nobody views porn on your government laptop and cast aspersions on my competence or integrity when I have screenshots of porn sites in your web cache. Thank you, and have a nice day.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
I wonder how big a problem pr0n surfing on company-issued computers is. We had an IT dept worker canned and arrested for surfing and storing child pr0n on his work desktop computer. An IT worker! If anyone would understand how that shit works, you think it would be them.
satby
Fellow IT support person here: amen, and serving “customers” stinks. I like many of them, and don’t mind that they may not know even simple things because that’s my job, but butt-stupid and proud of it is no way to go through life, and too many people take that path.
KXB
“Poor planning on your part does not make it an emergency on my part” – I’d love to say it out loud with some customers, but I usually just keep such thoughts to myself, unlike that time I went to the Duff Brewery.
danimal
Gawd, and I worry about accessing BJ (this site, definitely NOT p0rn, most of the time) on my computer. Who surfs the hard-core stuff on employer-issued equipment? It’s pretty stupid behavior, if you ask me (which you didn’t).
NonyNony
You made up that bit about the support ticket, didn’t you? That totally sounds like a story someone would make up.
But congratulations on winning the lottery like Cole did!
jayjaybear
Office Setting Rule #1 (Revised Modern Update): NEVER mess with the IT person. This includes Clerical, to whom this rule USED to refer…
Cassidy
I would rather shower in prison than deal with one another network issue.
Chet
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): It’s a huge problem. There’s almost always one person in every building for whom this is the first broadband internet they’ve ever had in their life, and they just can’t handle their shit. It’s all saved porn and pirated movies, all day long, with apparently no understanding whatsoever that, as a first approximation, sex and SEX (Software EXchange) are the primary vectors for malware.
Just found out today, somebody infected one of our Illumina gene sequencers with a computer virus. (Yes, we have scientific equipment that runs Windows 7, if you can believe that.) Vector was a flash drive he also uses for, ahem, ‘non-work purposes.’
WereBear
Judging by what my IT friends tell me, it’s HUGE. And yes, women, too.
gbear
Other than that, how’s your day going?
I’ve been having a shitty week, but John’s post last night about the ducks getting to swim for the first time has put me in a good mood that’s going to carry into the weekend.
kindness
Where I work the IT department won’t even allow me to go to the California Lottery web site. They block everything. So when I do hit a link that then proceeds to pop up the unexpected photo I jam outta there immediately.
I like my job & want to keep it.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Cassidy: how much mileage do you think you can get out of that line?
schrodinger's cat
Thread needs more kitteh, Trekkie kitteh.
shortstop
May I just piggyback on your well-earned outrage to say that a self-managed condo association is SELF-MANAGED. That means that all the work is done on a VOLUNTEER BASIS by other OWNERS JUST LIKE YOU. When you tell me you “don’t have time” to pitch in on the smallest task, while I am working 70 hours a week, caring for elderly parents, balancing three volunteer gigs and slotting in social stuff where I can, and then you whine that you need something fixed in a common area now now now, I WILL SEND YOU A NASTYGRAM THAT WILL CURL YOUR PRINCESS HAIR.
And we’re moving in six weeks, so let the bridges burn burn burn. Eight years of being a personal slave to pathologically lazy neighbors has taken its toll on my patience.
Villago Delenda Est
The stupid of the lusers. It BURNS!
Cassidy
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I’m not sure. It still makes me giggle. I would say not much longer, but there is a good chance that whiskey will be happening later, so we’ll see.
Omnes Omnibus
@jayjaybear: When I started my new gig last week, I immediately made efforts to make nice with the maintenance dude, the IT dude, and the lead support staff person (who is in charge of scheduling hearings). As a junior army officer, I had been told to never fuck over any NCOs or warrant officers because they can make your life miserable.
Shorter me: Never piss off the people in charge of the toilet paper.
Villago Delenda Est
@satby:
The spirit of the teabaggers, captured.
AdamK
@Cassidy: Can I watch you shower in prison on my company-issued laptop?
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
This, this, this.
You may outrank them, but you treat them like inferiors at your peril. They ARE formally subordinates, but they have knowledge you do not and they can use that to screw you up, but good.
Treat everyone with respect and kindness, and you’ll go much further.
Cassidy
@AdamK: You gotta pay for that.
Cassidy
@Villago Delenda Est: Ah, the stories I could tell. I have never purposely screwed over a young LT. I have informed a few that they need to unass my AO before we had a significant emotional event.
catclub
@schrodinger’s cat: Live long and prospurr.
WereBear
Dear Penthouse,
I never realized my (cartoonishly large body parts) would make me so popular at college. So imagine my surprise when a group of Young Republicans began sending me email with links to chocolate chip cookie recipes. But when I clicked on the link it took me to porn sites!
And that, sweet and understanding IT person, is how that got there.
fuckwit
humans like to fuck. surprise!
Soonergrunt
@Cassidy: I have stood there passively and watched them do something stupid and embarrassing rather than used my experience to save them from themselves. But I’ve never gone out of my way to fuck one over.
schrodinger's cat
@catclub: Trekkie kitteh changed it a bit, you no likes it?
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Good plan.
/Sgt Major of his local army
Soonergrunt
@fuckwit: But if you wouldn’t fuck on your desk at work in the middle of the workday (or you can at least theoretically appreciate that it wouldn’t be the most productive use of your time, from your employer’s standpoint) you can safely assume that you shouldn’t be trying to watch video of people doing that at your desk either.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cassidy:
I knew I had made the right impression in my first assignment when I came back to my first unit after being rotated off to SigO duties in an infantry battalion, and one of the newer troops saw me, recognized the name, and asked me if it was true that I single-handedly erected an TRC-145 antenna in a rainstorm. I think this story grew out of an actual incident where I twisted my knee helping some troops move a stuck generator trailer…and hobbled around a FTX two weeks later on crutches.
Apparently I had passed into legend in my old company.
japa21
@Cassidy: My son went through ROTC, and they taught him to be very sure he didn’t mess with his support staff when he had his first posting. He told me some very interesting stories of what happened to other new LT’s who didn’t take that advice.
schrodinger's cat
@Soonergrunt: How is Soonergoggie? We can has update?
Omnes Omnibus
@Cassidy: I had a CW3 save my battery commander’s ass as a favor to me be cause he liked me. During a change of command inventory we found about $5K in missing stuff for which the BC was on the hook. I was new as supply officer so none of it was due to errors on my part, but I was still supposed try to fix it. The CW3 in charge of the property book decided to mark it all as new equipment that was on order and wiped out the problem. Was my OER from that commander great? Yes, it was. All because I was polite, decent, and smart in dealing with “subordinates.”
Shakezula
Ah, porn at the office. As one IT guy put it, If I knew what he knew I wouldn’t shake hands with a lot of co-workers. Yech.
@Omnes Omnibus: WOs won’t actively fuck with you. They will respectfully and gleefully let you fail hard if you are a dick.
Nicole
I really just can’t understand why anyone thinks looking at porn at work is a good idea.
But, you know, everyone thinks they’re special. I got in trouble at a job once for looking for my staff’s paychecks at the department secretary’s desk (she would often leave them out, I would sign for them, whether she was at her desk or not, and that would be that). She wasn’t there when she was supposed to be, the checks weren’t where they usually were and I had a bunch of weekly employees justifiably eager for their pay. Rather than come to me later and ask, “What were you doing, rifling through my folders?” she reported me and I had to explain to Security what I was doing at her desk. In fact, I was reported because I wasn’t being surreptitious about it; I looked for the checks in full view of other employees, one of whom told her and she went to Security, rather than to me. I was a little startled, since we had a good working relationship, but not a biggie, I apologized to her, and assured her I was really just trying to get my staff paid. Lo and behold, a few years later, it was discovered that she was using her boss’s corporate credit card to pay for her utilities. As in, her home utilities. So, looking for staff’s pay, bad. Embezzling, AOK!
Of course, now that I type it out, it makes more sense to me why she totally freaked out about my being at her desk when she wasn’t there…
WereBear
@Soonergrunt: To quote George Costanza:
Cassidy
@Soonergrunt: Done that too. Only twice, though. It tooka real special kind of tool for me not to intervene, knowing that I would have to go behind and fix it later.
@Villago Delenda Est: I can tell you that Grunt LT’s can be special. Most are really good, and some are complete skycranes. One of my lessons to all my new medics was that when you’re busting your ass taking care of casualties, LT’s make great litter bearers.
@Omnes Omnibus: Wow. I was on the hook for some SAPI plates that I had a turn in document for, but it wasn’t the right one. I had to call Kuwait, 3 years later and ask for help to get it transferred to the right document. The CW3 told me to hold on and about 30 seconds later siad it was taken care of (after I emailed him the document).
Villago Delenda Est
@WereBear:
Well, in George’s case, it was after normal business hours. So there is that.
Soonergrunt
@schrodinger’s cat: She’s settled into the new house fine. She likes to go out and bark at the ducks in the pond behind our house, and they like to politely ignore her as they go about their business.
pharniel
The main problem with finding The Weird Stuff on a company laptop after someone ‘leaves’ is that there’s then a metric fuckton of paperwork for the person’s supervisor.
And HR interviews.
People who view Teh Nauwty on company kit are going to the Special Hell.
FourTen
Science help me if I have to listen to another IT “professional” labor (like they know what that means) on and on about how ‘hard’ their job is when it’s your fault that the people who do the actual work for the companies that employ you have to wrestle with our customers AND the muddled mess of a ‘good enough’ computer system that’s dropped in our laps (with the IT staff job protecting ‘Administrative Controls’ on and locked), and when we need help we have to sit at our desks like kids at detention while you are off playing air hockey!
Open this “Trouble Ticket:” KISS MY ASS.
FourTen
Science help me if I have to listen to another IT “professional” labor (like they know what that means) on and on about how ‘hard’ their job is when it’s your fault that the people who do the actual work for the companies that employ you have to wrestle with our customers AND the muddled mess of a ‘good enough’ computer system that’s dropped in our laps (with the IT staff job protecting ‘Administrative Controls’ on and locked), and when we need help we have to sit at our desks like kids at detention while you are off playing air hockey!
Open this “Trouble Ticket:” KISS MY A**.
The Moar You Know
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): I do IT work for an environment much like Sooner’s. Unlike Sooner (i think) every machine that is retired or replaced gets forensically imaged by me and examined. Let me put it this way. The number of computers I have found that have not been used for porn viewing, after 11 years in this job, is zero.
Frankly I don’t give a shit about that. I’m looking for people who are committing security violations, stealing IP, or doing very illegal things (drug sales, gambling, being a pimp, etc.) on their computers. About 40% of my job is now spent in a courtroom or doing prep for same, because apparently a lot of you motherfuckers have no impulse control. Or cell phones to keep that shit off my network, for that matter.
schrodinger's cat
@Soonergrunt: You should post pics, when you has time. Does she have a new haircut for the summer?
ruemara
This is why I have a personal laptop for my guv job. Work machine is for work, pr0n-or in this case, talk radio or Hulu reruns and all the personally owned software I use to enhance my work projects-on my lappy. As I prepare my case to defend my support position, I think I see my boss’ tactic is to allow my position to be dissolved just so the merry fuck-ups can fall on the right shoulders. I hope he’s right. Never seen people in power take the blame for their stupid.
shortstop
@Soonergrunt:
I had a job like that. The benefits were ridiculously bad, though. Every time I’d ask for healthcare, my boss would tell me the oxytocin was all I needed.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
SG: Fellow federal IT support person here.
As mentioned above, I’m quite surprised VA doesn’t filter those sites. We do it at the departmental level.
Of course that’s only if the moran is at work. Surfing for pr0n at home on your gubmint-issued laptop is entirely another question.
I realize that this issue would be determined way above your pay grade but the cost of filtering is far less than the cost of wasted bandwidth plus it allows employees to waste their time in other, less system-threatening, manners.
WereBear
@The Moar You Know: It’s a wonder anything works at all, ya know?
muddy
@shortstop: And you don’t even get it until the project is finished.
The Moar You Know
My worst “customer” was a drunk who couldn’t get her shit done on time and then would try to blame IT for it. Abusively. Very, very abusively.
Still being unable to get her shit together, she finally went as far as squeezing staples onto the battery terminals and then inserting the battery. The resulting fire was impressive, but unfortunately her supervisor wasn’t as stupid as she thought he was, and realized he was dealing with psycho-level sabotage.
That was one where I was glad I was working the IT end of things and not HR. I didn’t like the unjustified abuse but firing someone like that is “inevitable lawsuit city”, and HR has to clean up that mess.
Soonergrunt
@FourTen: Unless you’re one of the 10% of users in your organization that creates 70% of the workload for your IT people, probably don’t have a problem with them. But if you are, you may not still have a problem with them if you are polite and treat your IT people like human beings who have other customers to take care of. Of course, if you, like the person about whom my rant was written seem to think that you’re a special little snowflake who can get bumped ahead of other people and then not assist in solving your own problem, because you think that you are more important than the others or that I live to support you and you alone, well then, don’t go violating policy or (in this case) the LAW and look to me to cover your ass.
@The Moar You Know: As you know, a LOT of porn sites load viruses onto people’s computers. Viruses that could potentially steal information. Like, say, social security numbers an addresses and other information about our Veterans for whom we care.
@schrodinger’s cat: Not yet.
Rosalita
Oh I can do one better… the PRESIDENT of our division was complaining about his company laptop being sluggish. IT manager finds all kinds of nefarious (under age girls) temp files on there, asks regional management for a copy of the policy because she’s sick of looking at that crap and region management shows up to fire his ass. As a government contractor, you really, really, don’t want someone surfing smut. The kicker was, the president blamed it on his son — his son with muscular-distrophy. Scumbags just never cease to amaze.
Capri
In the past, I’ve had to go onto Beastiality websites for my work – preparing lectures on animal abuse. I’ve never had an IT person question that, although it may be illegal to even look at them in my state. I have a feeling that I’d get a few eye rolls if I explained I was only doing research.
Soonergrunt
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: We do filter them, but when individuals have laptops that they can take on the road (and/or home) there’s not a lot we can do to control it. Our actual environment is rigidly controlled, and that’s how this person got caught–when she plugged her laptop back into the network and triggered a security alert.
Villago Delenda Est
@Soonergrunt:
Which may, in fact, be their primary business. Pr0n is just the lure to get people to fork over the info.
Redshirt
I got involved in a divorce battle when the husband dragged me into the middle claiming he didn’t put the porn on his company laptop that his wife found. It just got there by a virus or something!
It was awkward.
Villago Delenda Est
@Capri:
“I’m reading Playboy for the articles”
different-church-lady
I promise to do all that if you promise to stop upgrading my workstation without telling me.
(“You” in this case being not you, but the guy at the place I consulted with long-term, who had an upgrade fetish, the result of which was I would regularly lose half a day’s work on deadline every single time a new release or patch of anything at all hit the intertubes.)
Soonergrunt
@Capri: I used to work at a law firm and we had special computers that were walled off from everything that the staff could use for research.
It’s freaking mind-bending what would end up in there.
different-church-lady
@Villago Delenda Est: @Redshirt: Combining 55 and 56, now I so want to write a virus that installs porn, just so I can be a real life version of black hat on xkcd.
Jebediah
@schrodinger’s cat:
Cute! But it would be easier to believe it is a peaceful greeting if those claws weren’t sticking out…
Soonergrunt
@different-church-lady: we test the living crap out of everything that purports to be an upgrade. That’s why our Java is three versions back, our Adobe Reader is two versions back, and there are Windows updates that will never get on our systems. One of those will hose CPRS (the GUI for our UNIX-based records system).
mai naem
Years ago, I went to a dog site that had the various dog rescue website/emails listed and I clicked on the springer spaniel link and it took me to a pron site. At this point, I thought it was a pop up ad which back then I used to get(but not pron!!!) so I tried it again and sure enough it took me to the pron site again. WTF who would used a freaking dog rescue site for a pron site? Seriously? Think of the children!!!
Luthe
Even though my pr0n of choice is of the fanfic variety (and therefore rarely comes with NSFW images), I never go anywhere near the stuff while on a work machine. I have a firm policy of not crossing the streams of my fandom life and my professional life. That said, if I want to goof off at work I come and read this fine site here or find a free game of mah-jongg and go to town.
Here’s a question: is it suspicious if an employee *doesn’t* have any non-work related sites in their history? I mean, goofing off is a natural human instinct, so it would be a bit weird to me to find someone who never did anything like that…
different-church-lady
@AdamK:
Raven
Jesus an officer and nco circle jerk. FTA motherfuckers!
different-church-lady
@Soonergrunt: Can I come work for you?
different-church-lady
@different-church-lady: FYWP had another FYWP moment: obviously the text in the quote box should not be in the quote box, and FYWP decided I was no longer who I was, so I couldn’t fix it.
Oh, and btw, we need the little text editing box zoom thingy button back again, or else I will forever be resigned to fixing only the left two-thirds of mispostings.
Redshirt
@Soonergrunt: My last job had some highly proprietary data and for a special class of employee we built virtual machines that were reloaded weekly. The intent was to ensure no spyware or tracking software could live for long on any of those machines. It was pretty slick.
tybee
ah, yes. the life of a sysadmin. have any of you ever looked back at the old (alt.net i think) BOFH tales?
and to the special snowflake who doesn’t want to fill out the request ticket, we sincerely hope you figure out what you fucked up on your system ’cause for my team, “no tickee, no fixee”.
Ruckus
@Cassidy:
I’m beginning to believe that you have a jones for soap and water. Either that or men in showers with soap and water. Or maybe it’s the soap, or dropping the soap. Or maybe it’s totally innocent.
Raven
@tybee: Headed your way next week at that joint across the river.
tybee
@Raven:
HH ?
FourTen
@Soonergrunt: Loving this “if i have a problem then I’m the problem” reasoning. Must be true since our IT Masters know better then us puny mortals due to their mastery of Ctrl Alt Del.
IT folk are little more than plumbers who go around creating their own clogs and expecting pats on the head for eventually getting aound to fixing them.
schrodinger's cat
@Jebediah: IDK the outstretched claw seemed to me like the Vulcan greeting or may be attack kitteh wants to lull you into a false sense of complacency.
mantooth
@FourTen:
It’s so perfect that you double-posted that comment.
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven: At ease.
FourTen
@mantooth: better call IT! I’m sure the folks you brought your acronyms like FYWP will get right on the issue.
Ruckus
Did it just start snowing in here? I smell snowflakes.
Raven
@tybee: No the Westin Savannah .
Jebediah
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well, kittehs can be pretty wily… maybe I am better off making sure I always have some tuna with me, just to keep it peaceful.
scav
Some corporate borg apparently didn’t make partner.
schrodinger's cat
@Jebediah: Always a good idea, they has weapons and is not afraid to use them.
mantooth
@FourTen:
Curious, what is it you do for a living that is so above reproach? My money is on university faculty.
greennotGreen
Years ago, before everyone and her brother had their own computer, our department had a resource room with computers for the students to use. One night some of the students came in and found one of the security guards surfing pron sites there. I reported him, but it didn’t do any good; the local administrative staff seemed to think it wasn’t a big deal. I thought it was a big deal because, even aside from the risk of viral infection, the guard sitting in a little room closed off from the rest of the building WASN’T DOING HIS JOB. (He was supposed to be patrolling the halls to prevent theft of very expensive lab equipment.)
A little before that, one of our students, a young woman of no little naivete, answered a pron spam email with an email of her own demanding they never contact her again. They used that reply to load some rather surprising pop-up pron onto our shared computer, and the program would reload with every reboot, even though I had tried to remove it. Our IT guys could hardly stop laughing long enough to delete it for good.
FourTen
@mantooth: do you really care or are you asking me if its ok for me to cast stones? Are you, pray tell, in the messiah biz then?
When I front page a whine about how no one understands how tough my job is and that -sniff- no one understands me, you can take me to task then, but of course I’m stupid enough to do that.
FourTen
@mantooth: do you really care or are you asking me if its ok for me to cast stones? Are you, pray tell, in the messiah biz then?
When I front page a whine about how no one understands how tough my job is and that -sniff- no one understands me, you can take me to task then, but of course I’m not stupid enough to do that.
FourTen
@mantooth:
do you really care or are you asking me if its ok for me to cast stones? Are you, pray tell, in the messiah biz then?
When I front page a whine about how no one understands how tough my job is and that -sniff- no one understands me, you can take me to task then, but of course I’m not stupid enough to do that.
Redshirt
@FourTen: Looks like you’re having some kind of computer problem brah.
Soonergrunt
@FourTen: I don’t have a problem with people who have problems. They are the reason I’m gainfully employed. I have a couple of users who do critical work taking care of Veterans who just can’t seem to use their computers without problems, with whom I’m on a first name basis, and who do their very best to do their jobs to the best of their ability, and for whom the computer seems to be as much of a curse as it is a tool in accomplishing their jobs.
I have a problem with the special people who seem to think that their problems are more important than anyone eles’s problems for no other reason than the fact that they are having problems. I have a problem with people who, having successfully pushed their routine issue to the top of the queue with a phone call or email have then decided that they don’t need to actually assist in solving that “critical” problem. I have a problem with the special people who think that they shouldn’t have to abide by the same rules everybody else has to–rules that are designed to ensure that work can get done by as many people as possible as securely as possible without having to quadruple the IT budget, needlessly wasting the taxpayers’ money. I have a problem with people who, when they get caught breaking those rules, try to get out of whatever the system has in store for them by lying and blaming others (often times doing so in ways that implicate them in breaking other rules or laws, ironically.) I have a problem with people who think that they can do whatever they want on the system, whether or not it has anything to do with the job they are being paid to do, and that nobody should ever say anything to them, especially when their behavior compromises the security of the system that contains the personally identifiable information of millions of Veterans (our customers.)
Now, maybe you’re not one of these people and you’re just playing devil’s advocate. Maybe you are one of those people, or your organization’s version of them. I don’t know, and I don’t care. You aren’t causing problems for me.
Now, for the record, I’m working from home today, and I’m VPN’ed in on my government laptop. I’m doing other things on my home PC. Things which are nobody’s business but my own, and which will generate no paid work for me or my IT coworkers.
Jebediah
@FourTen:
As much fun as your double-posted rays of sunshine are, remember if you don’t like what you see, you can always move along til you find something you like. No one is a prisoner here.
greennotGreen
@FourTen: There are both good and bad IT people. Our LAN manager: good. The overall IT department at my university: unwilling or unable to translate computerese to a more generally understood English.
By the same token, there are both knowledgeable and/or competent users. For example, after using a PC for several years, one should know how to copy and paste, but just yesterday I had to help someone who had managed to avoid learning that basic skill. IT workers who have to deal with that level of ignorance all day among people who should really know better might be forgiven for sometimes losing patience.
FourTen
Ok, I agree with the calls for detente on this issue.
Here is my story if u r interested. I’m a mid 30s MBA middle manager with a very old international packaging concern (how old? We still get pensions) I am also the youngest person in my building by ten whole years so naturally I must know everything about computers.
While I am infact exceptionally bright, I can’t do things like set up our new office’s entire computer network. IT was supposed to have that ready for when we move in. In the latest of a LONG string of disappointments, they didn’t even start on it even though they had 2 months warning. So instead of my job I’m googling around about IP addresses and SAP printing. Who is doing my job in the meantime? No one.
Now the lunch hour is almost over (old company) and since the WiFi isn’t set up either, I’d like to stop paying AT&T now.
No hard feelings
4:10
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@FourTen: Looks to me like you don’t have the native smarts to understand that Sooner was complaining about people jumping the line and then being an ass to the customer service rep who gets stuck with them.
If you don’t think that’s something to get pissed about, let’s see if we can convince the universe to land you in a shitty customer service job where every person you deal with starts off their conversation with “Don’t you know who I am?”
Here, have some pie.
Ruckus
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
The explanation – snowflake with a must be asshole degree. Now it all comes together.
scav
It also sounds like his core problem isn’t IT per se, it’s crappy management. First, they didn’t ensure / follow through making the system was installed properly, and then they think they can bootstrap it on the cheap on the side with any spare labor to hand. (not unheard of, local idiots thought they could design and build an international geographic data warehouse — with automated real-time web- and print- enabled output routines for multiple scaled products — using active geographic researchers while maintaining all existing production runs plus new product creation.) If the task was so easy as “plumbing” why can’t joe mba brought in off the street manage it with one hand tied behind his back? Too personally dangerous to complain about management though.
Jebediah
@FourTen:
Do you have the option of just saying “setting up networks isn’t my job” or some such? And that there are other people whose job it is?
Omnes Omnibus
@scav: as you probably know, plumbing ain’t necessarily easy.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep, entirely. Was hoping the scare quotes / quote quotes could multi-task. Should pay them time and a half.
Redshirt
My least favorite “customer” is the person who’s incompetent and an asshole about it – like it’s your fault they don’t know how to copy and paste.
Ben Cisco
I love this post so much I want to take it home and hug it and squeeze it and call it George. I could easily add to this…and I think I will…
Don’t tell me how the crappy freeware works on your computer at home. We ain’t at home, and this computer (as well as all the rest of them) is MINE, you’re simply being allowed to use it.
Don’t tell me how the guy(s) at your last job let you do x (where x = something so incredibly stupid it made my head hurt when you asked). If it was so great there, why are you here?
Don’t tell me, “I don’t believe that’s right.” This ain’t sunday school; I don’t care whether you believe it or not.
If you argue with me based on something your parents, child, neighbor, dog walker, lawn care specialist, butter ‘n egg man, gerbil whisperer, and/or Best Buy guy told you, I’m going to punch you in the junk.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Cisco: Gerbil whisperer is a profession? Why wasn’t I informed?
Soonergrunt
@FourTen: I will NEVER say that we IT people are better, or better workers, or anything else. I work with some lazy SOBs and I have worked in the past with some incompetent people.
I genuinely am sorry that you’re dealing with that right now. In this day and age, having poor IT support is a very real detriment to an organization completing their work and servicing their customers and making profits for the shareholders as that may apply.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Ruckus: Yup.
My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad IT story from this week:
My boss upgraded the wide format plotter to what I found out on install day is the printer equivalent of the first model year of a new car. It took all freakin’ day to get it installed and successfully get test prints run.
Same day, our WV office was struck by lightning. I troubleshot their network problems by phone while the install went to hell in a handbasket around me.
I confess to being exhausted by that point. It’s my only excuse for not seeing the rest coming.
Day before yesterday, only one person in the office could print plans to the new plotter: the guy with a brand-new Windows 8 laptop. Test prints ran fine from everyone’s machines. 24×36 plans, no.
I copied the printer manuals onto my tablet and read through them over supper. That’s when it jumped out at me: the only drivers we’d been able to get to work with the plotter were postscript. So I went digging on the manufacturer’s site and eventually turned up a set of heidi drivers for this model. The installer, bless him, is very good with printers and networks, but he knows precisely dick about AutoCAD.
First computer I tried them on the next morning refused to install the heidi drivers. I wasted a good deal of time on that before another designer wrapped up his emergency redlines and I could appropriate his machine. Then, having successfully installed them there, I could do some handstands, sacrifice a chicken, and copy them to the first machine.
My last act of the day was to text the guy with the first computer, who had taken the afternoon off. “I have set you up the plot.”
Soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: That could be a good sideline. I could pay for my new storm shelter quicker.
Omnes Omnibus
@Soonergrunt: You are a retired infantry NCOS, right? As such, are able to whisper? I doubt gerbil shouter is a career.
Soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, whispering with the command voice isn’t easy, but just so long as I’m not trying to give the gerbil D&C commands, we should be OK.
Can gerbils EVEN DO pushups and side-straddle-hops?
mclaren
Thanks for proving yet again what an asshole you are.
Meanwhile, the CEO is spending all day playing solitaire and surfing underage Russian kiddy porn sites in his corner office.
Asshole.
Ben Cisco
I had no idea there were so many IT peeps on this site.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Quoi?
Central Planning
@Soonergrunt:
Doesn’t have to be that way – always on VPN (except when you’re on trusted networks) and use certs (so people don’t have to login every time they change) or, enable auto-reconnect
With the always on VPN, you’re always connected to work (unless you’re not connected to the network, so who cares). You can still run all your traffic through content filters/firewalls/IPS/etc.
There’s also some products that will check for web threats even if you’re not on the corporate network.
@Ben Cisco: No idea there were so many here either.
Sad_Dem
@Villago Delenda Est: This is also true in the legal world. Standard advice to new attorneys: Do NOT be snotty to court clerks.
Ruckus
@Sad_Dem:
Shouldn’t it be standard advice to well, everyone?
Don’t treat the rest of the world like your shit doesn’t stink even if mom
told youlied to you about it?Darkrose
I work at a large state university. Last week I had the following call:
Me: What’s the error message?
Student: I don’t know, it said to call you guys or some shit.
Me:…
Me: Can you read me the specific text of the shit in question?
Student: Hold on, I have to go get my computer.
Me: Wait–you’re calling us and you’re not even at your computer? Why don’t you call us back when you actually have the site up?
Student: It’s right here, you don’t have to be so rude.
(And yes, I actually asked him for the text of “the shit in question”. I have to take crap from faculty and other staff. I do not have to take it from a punk-ass freshman who can’t follow instructions.
Darkrose
@FourTen: You know why I have a job?
Because people don’t read instructions.
I spend half my day repeating the instructions on our site because faculty, staff, and students alike don’t understand the sentence: “If any one option is unavailable to you, please click another option listed.”
Soonergrunt
@Central Planning: I don’t know why they didn’t run with that or something like it. I’m sure they will in the future. That’s an extra layer of security I’d be happy to see installed.
Ted & Hellen
Ah, Soonergrunt. Mindless government bureaucracy, full of ratting on fellow comrades, red tape, regulations, and ISO training sessions. Why am I not surprised your “job” is well suited to your brainless, authoritarian style of thinking?
I’m sure you’ll go far.
Soonergrunt
@mclaren: I don’t have a CEO you stupid shit. If you’d ever paid attention at all and NOT sustained a head injury in the mean time you would know that I work for the federal government, specifically the Department of Veterans Affairs. It’s not like I’ve been remotely coy about it, you massively imbecilic jerkass. I’ve only mentioned that I do IT at a VA hospital literally dozens of times on this blog.
You are so wrapped around the axle with saying something vicious and bitchy either to me or about me that you miss very basic things that easily expose you as having not done the most basic homework. It makes you look even more petty and pants-shitting crazy-mad. Which is fine. I’ve been blessed in the quality (or lack thereof) in my trolls, but this is getting a little ridiculous. There’s not a single person on this blog who reads your comments and thinks “she might have a point there.” They read you and think “she’s got some issues,” and “she’s a little unhinged about this guy,” and “she’s crazier than a shit-house rat.” Seriously, you come off as if you’re going to hitch-hike to OKC to boil my dog or something.
Look, you’re not very bright–bordering on moronic, in fact–so I’ll use short words of one syllable each:
I do not know or care what your thing is. Please try to not say things that make you look dumb or nuts or both. It will help you make friends. I swear. Oh, and seek help.
Ted & Hellen
@Soonergrunt:
Overly defensive much?
Weak ass dumb shit cog.
Don’t you have some more comrades to report to the authorities?
Redshirt
My last job was a blank slate “build the perfect IT setup” job. Twas awesome. EMC storage, Cisco everything, redundancies everywhere. A dream.
Fort Geek
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): A few years ago, the manager of a car parts place where I worked spent his mornings in his office looking at cameltoe.com and other such sites. When the District Manager decided to axe a couple of people, though, it was me (one of two delivery drivers, always busy delivering) and a useless woman who shopped online all day.
Soonergrunt
@Ted & Hellen: As I noted, “I’ve been blessed in the quality (or lack thereof) in my trolls.”
Central Planning
I have a customer (he’s in IT – network architect/support) that told me his neighbor asked him if he would come over on the weekend and fix his computer. His neighbor was a chef. He proceeded to ask the chef if he would come over and cook him dinner.
He didn’t get any more support requests from him.
Ruckus
@Soonergrunt:
Nicely done. In fact I didn’t know that an army NCO could talk that nice when talking to an idiot. You must have gotten out a least a decade ago to have lost that much steam.
Soonergrunt
@Ruckus: Only three years ago. I could have gone full metal sergeant on her, but that would only have played into the stereotype. Besides, that’s a lot harder to do when you’re typing. It’s something you have feel to get it right, and I didn’t want to stand in my home office yelling at the dog.
zzcool
I work on an IT helpdesk and have a precious little snowflake that I get the pleasure of dealing with every so often.
I love it when he complains that it’s almost impossible to get any work done and that at his last workplace they never experienced these sorts of problems. His previous workplace being an national corporation that has been in business for more than 20 years as opposed to our statewide corporation that has only existed for 3 and had the task of merging the systems of about 19 different councils. I wonder why they might have a more stable network than us.
My favourite job that he logged was that his monitor was broken and that there was no display on the screen and that he had work to do “TODAY” – rant rant rant.
After I turned his monitor on for him he was strangely silent and sheepish.