IT Geeks. Gotta love 'em.

[WRT]

Not a voyeur then WRT?

I am if what I am watching is attractive.

[Blackbird]

Hahahaha - I love all the cut and thrust.

Our corporate IT function is full of spotties with mickey mouse watches and totally incapable of holding conversations about the wider world. They are quite properly locked away from public gaze.

Our IT project managers are a bit better, at least they make eye contact. The best one is an ex-forklift truck driver from one of our manufacturing sites who has a natural bent for IT work. I'm sorry to say that he exercises poor judgement by owning a GSX-R 1000, but I guess that's ok.

IMHO, Lou's wife's boss did absolutely the right thing

Right, having offended 90% of the KB website, I'll now go to lunch

[Ixion]

..
Brother Ixion has been hard at work studying the words of the prophet Simon I see.

...

Chap I work with was actually at Waikato Uni with him! Closest I've ever come to knowing someone who knows someone REALLY REALLY REALLY important.

[Wolf]

Louy should of known better to post such a thing on a website full of nerds.

Considering that nerd, geek and hacker personalities have a predisposition towards motorcycles, it is not too unusual that there should be so many on this site - and there's also a predisposition for those types to be vehement in the defence of their roles - and in defence of biking, too.

[Cookie]

I reckon I was pretty close with my post. You know, the one before all the shit slinging started.

Yep

[...]Yes, sure it can be done, but your not gonna be too keen to do it unless the big boss comes down and says do it now [...]

That's how I work. I don't have a problem with this method of prioritisation.

IT work can be bloody busy and stressful at times (I am sure others will agree). In a lot of jobs, you can point at a physical problem and discuss it. In IT, the pointy head's eyes glaze over pretty quickly in most cases. That makes it tough to explain why something is difficult or risky sometimes.

[Lou Girardin]

.. her other role..

Company Treasurer.

[Lou Girardin]

The rabid response to a simple thread by some of the IT types on this site has merely served to confirm normal people's perception of them.
To suggest that someone you have never met should die horribly because they've dared to ask an IT God for a simple favour is the mark of a truly sick individual.
It's like hoping he falls off his bike and dies. But none of us would contemplate that, would we?
What kind of person would sabotage their workplace because someone's upset them?
Grow up, get a life, join humanity.

[Sniper]

Sniper, if you give me a job can I sit on KB all day stirring shit?

Sure thing cuzzie bro..

[Wolf]

The rabid response to a simple thread by some of the IT types on this site has merely served to confirm normal people's perception of them.
To suggest that someone you have never met should die horribly because they've dared to ask an IT God for a simple favour is the mark of a truly sick individual.
It's like hoping he falls off his bike and dies. But none of us would contemplate that, would we?
What kind of person would sabotage their workplace because someone's upset them?
Grow up, get a life, join humanity.

While I agree that wishing someone dead is an extreme response, your assumption that the request is a trivial thing and that the IT bods were wrong for being reluctant to do it is not without fault.

I will not bother reiterating the many wonderful posts about the security ramifications and what it takes to ensure that such remote access is secure but I will say that it does take time an effort which may also not be available unless a "higher up" says "this has priority".

Consider, the typical IT dept usually has various Mission Critical - read, "money making" - projects under way plus is responsible for ensuring that all employees can do their work - computers going down, network issues that need resolvong, ensuring the people can print and communicate. In short, they would have a number of current jobs on, many of which are high priority and directly or indirectly related to the ability of staff to make money for said company.

Along comes someone with a non-standard request that will involve - owing to the required time-frame - dropping everything and working on it. It is not, despite how simply it can be phrased, a trivial task - we do not just wave wands and make things happen.

So, yes, given the time-frame, the complexity of the task and the current work load it is "impossible."

Until the head honcho says "This is more important than the other jobs you have on."

While we have a certain latitude in assigning and determining priority as IT professionals, it is not our place to say "this person's mission critical request is more important than that person's mission critical request." Ergo, we execute the requests on a first in, first served basis. In geek-speak: a FIFO stack.

Or would people prefer that we just dropped everything for everyone who turns up and to hell with the person who put in their request last month because "we've been busy dealing with people who have just phoned up".

If a person expects IT to drop everything for them, then they can also expect IT to drop what they're doing for them in favour of anyone else who turns up. Fair?

Of, course not. The priority goes to existing mission critical tasks until such time as a person who has authority to reprioritise does so. It is not the place of IT to turn around and say to the Sales Manager "sorry we just had to stop doing what you wanted because someone came in and said "drop everything and do this, it's important", I hope the loss in sales won't inconvenience you too much."

End lusers whinge and whine that IT doesn't jump to attention when they make requests but few have the knowledge of what those requests actually entail and I would say none have a clue (not having access to the IT Dept's job tracking software) what other mission critical works are underway. I find the end-luser assumption that we sit around waiting for that one person to phone up, and we have nothing else to do, particularly annoying.

And by we, I do not just mean those of us who sit on the Help Desk trying to get a better error report than "It don't go", I mean the site support techs and server/infrastructure teams that usually are hidden behind the Help Desk - the ones that the Help Desk assign the tasks to if they cannot be resolved over the phone and the ones that are also usually involved in the implementation of any forward planning and future-proofing the company requires - e.g. building the new servers and setting them up.

"Sorry, sir, our planned expansion won't be going ahead on schedule, someone wants us to drop everything and give them a secure line so they can telecommute."

Edit: Tell us the full story, Lou. Who went without so that your wife could get the remote access. In fairness you should acknowledge the poor saps who had requests in that did not get resolved in a "timely fashion".

[Pathos]

It sounds to me that the IT geeks did the right thing. They said no because it was a risky and complex operation security wise and probably goes outside normal security recommendations.

They implemented it once they got the go ahead by one of the big wigs that such a risk was necessary for the business.

Its easier to tell someone its impossible than to argue with them why you are not going to do it. But I don't why they just said at the start that they would require authorization from someone higher up...

[ManDownUnder]

Sounds liek a little perspective was needed... i.e. the consequences of that particular task not being done at short notice.

I've been on both sides of the argument, the IT geek and the luser, and I prefer being the luser...

IT have their own priorities, and a request for anything often gets assigned to the bottom of that list. No big deal - it makes sense.

If that person's request is going to impact cashflow (read "lifeblood of the business" - directly or indirectly) then it should get more priority.

It's not a complex thing - but the whole thread has indicated to me that each side simply needs to understand the other (now THERE's a novelty). Those with the big picture generally understand best and if those in IT aren't willing to accept that maybe they can go play somewhere else.

Lias - bad call dude.

[ManDownUnder]

It sounds to me that the IT geeks did the right thing. They said no because it was a risky and complex operation security wise and probably goes outside normal security recommendations.

They implemented it once they got the go ahead by one of the big wigs that such a risk was necessary for the business.

Its easier to tell someone its impossible than to argue with them why you are not going to do it. But I don't why they just said at the start that they would require authorization from someone higher up...

No - the it dudes looked at why it shouldn't be done instead of looking for a way it can be done.

You and I both know a VPN could be laid down, firewalls and necessary Virus protection put on possible points of entry, and the issue is a non issue.

It might cost money - no worries... let them know that and ask for budget.

What's the problem again?

[Ixion]

Technically, not hard. BUT - odds are if it's a large organisation that there are POLICIES. That say "you can't do that". CFO is willing to take the risk of ignoring them - fair enough. Not fair to ask some IS geek to put his job on the block.

[Wolf]

You and I both know a VPN could be laid down, firewalls and necessary Virus protection put on possible points of entry, and the issue is a non issue.

It might cost money - no worries... let them know that and ask for budget.

What's the problem again?

A) VPNs don't materialise at the wave of a hand, they take time - usually take time away from other requests. IT Depts do not have a spare technician sitting around doing nothing and praying someone is going to request a VPN at short notice. One (or more if you want it done faster) of the technicians has to stop doing something else and do the task.

B) From my experience of IT Depts they don't have money sitting around and the higher ups actually have to approve expenditure - in some cases the higher ups are reluctant to part with money.

In this case, the higher-ups sanctioned the reprioritising and whatever expenditure was required - but that is their job, not the IT Dept's job.

If Mrs G had insufficient clout to get the IT Dept to do the work on her say so, then she wasn't going through the right channels.

If we get a call saying "create this account" or "give that person access to this shared folder" from anyone but certain authorised persons, we tell them to get in contact with their manager for authorisation to do so. If the request entails expenditure then it has to pass through both their manager and the Purchasing dept.

Instead of bitching that the IT dept won't do whatever, perhaps people should approach those in a position to authorise whatever access, priority and expenditure is required and get them to request the work be done.

In the case of Lou's wife, the IT Dept should possibly have said "we cannot do this without authorisation/expenditure/whatever, you will need to get it approved by So-and-so" rather than flat out saying "it's impossible", if that is precisely what they did say and not just a vague summary of their response.

[Dai]

You lot should have a look on the "internet" for a British TV program called

"The IT Crowd"

If you look you can find a downloadable copy of the fiorst 5 episodes.

Very similar to "The Office" in its approach and very similar to all the comments posted about IT.

Dai.