IT Geeks. Gotta love 'em.

[WRT]

All good points Wolf and MDU. Not sure if Mrs G has a company laptop or not (presumably if she did then it would already have been set up for remote access), but if we are talking about her using her own home computer then that opens up a whole other raft of issues too. Can the IT dept trust that computer to be safe for use on the company network? I'm sure she will say yes, call me jaded but they always say "yes, its got up to date virus scanners/antispyware/applicable patches".

Quite often a VPN will require software to be set up on the remote PC as well, or at least the connection configured using the built in VPN client with Windows. Who's going to do that? Do you send one of your techs out there without managements authorisation? Is there a company car for him to use, or a way for him to get payment for mileage covered? He'll probably find out when he gets there that the CD-ROM doesnt work properly, or that the administrator password has been forgotten.

However, all of this is conjecture. We are merely stabbing in the dark at a scenario outlined in one short post from Lou.

[Wolf]

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.

True.

And while there are those who may argue that the policies are just arbitrary, it is not the place of the IT dept to countermand them. We have policies on network/computer/internet use that many of our staff seem to think are arbitrary and perhaps we could just ignore them - I know of one that came to us direct from the CEO after someone had phoned him at home and whined that his girlfriend was spending all day on our internet link chatting with blokes in the USA. Now the CEO might not care about the paranoid jealousy of some bloke whose girlfriend is merely chatting with people she's never likely to meet but he certainly cared about his home life being restful and uninterrupted so the edict came from on high: "There Shalt be NO Chat Access Through the Internet".

All because of one (reported) person wasting some of our bandwidth and her boyfriend, all chat sites are blocked and it is part of our duties to regularly check the logs to locate new ones.

IT is governed by company policy as well. And if Head Office says "there shalt be no VPNs" then that is it - unless someone with the authority to countermand the policy says otherwise.

But people here are free to believe we can do what we please with no effort whatsoever and no matter what the expense, and that our refusal is just because we're a pack of pricks who like nothing better than refusing reasonable requests and never look at how it can be done.

Lou gave extremely sketchy details that amounted to "IT said they couldn't do it but they jumped when the CFO said to do it" and later said that the "geeks" were "rabid" in their response. And as extreme as some of the geek responses were, the other camp was just as quick in condemning the IT team as slackers and "only looking at how things cannot be done rather than how they can be done".

[WRT]

Just as a point of referrence further to Wolf's comment that people percieve the IT team as slackers . . .

Have you guys read the "To-do" list that SpankMe has created in another thread? From our perspective as users, KB runs pretty damn smoothly, and when a change is requested to the site (such as BD asking for his Flame Warrior nomination to be removed) its normally assumed that he just needs to flick a switch and it shall be done. Sorry Big Dave, not singling you out here, just using that as an example.

But then if you go and read that To Do list, it gives quite a good insight into how much work goes on behind the scenes just so that we can have this smooth-running website. Even for someone who works in the IT industry and has managed many websites in the past, its a real eye opener. Just because SpankMe doesnt appear to be running around screaming "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" doesnt mean that he's short on work to do. No siree . . .

Now imagine if you were to go to him and ask him to allow access from home to someone who doesnt even have an internet connection, what do you reckon his answer is going to be?

[oldrider]

Interesting thread!
Contributions on here come from a very wide spectrum of the countries commercial operations.
Interesting reading indeed.
I wonder who else reads this forum? Cheers John.

[Big Dave]

How is any financial report going to affect profit in the slightest? Let alone send the company broke. A financial report, if it has anything to do with profit at all, reports the profit that has (or has not) already occured. Bean counters don't contribute to profit in any way (and spare me the flames, I'm one of them) ; they just keep score.

In a perfect world maybe.
The top layers of every corporation I've worked for are clogged with them - and a retrospective, invasive and generally lacking in 'people skill' management style.

Tell that to your effect on profit.

[Wolf]

All good points Wolf and MDU. Not sure if Mrs G has a company laptop or not (presumably if she did then it would already have been set up for remote access), but if we are talking about her using her own home computer then that opens up a whole other raft of issues too. Can the IT dept trust that computer to be safe for use on the company network? I'm sure she will say yes, call me jaded but they always say "yes, its got up to date virus scanners/antispyware/applicable patches".

Quite often a VPN will require software to be set up on the remote PC as well, or at least the connection configured using the built in VPN client with Windows. Who's going to do that? Do you send one of your techs out there without managements authorisation? Is there a company car for him to use, or a way for him to get payment for mileage covered? He'll probably find out when he gets there that the CD-ROM doesnt work properly, or that the administrator password has been forgotten.

From the point of view of our work:

Company laptop: No prob, the person can bring/send it in and we can work on it, they all have modems built in and it's a matter of taking the time to configure it.
Home PC: No way. Policy prohibits the attaching of personal PCs to the company network.
Work PC: Software and connection to the network no issue, however a modem would have to be purchased and installed - purchasing requires Finance Dept and managerial authorisation (submitted business case blah, blah) and takes ages from our approved suppliers... popping down to DSE or PB Tech is not permitted. Machine would have to be configured at our workshop and sent out.

Going to the person's home: Forbidden by policy. We have a large number of dial-in staff and we are not permitted to go to their homes - not even if the caller is on the Board of Directors (as at least one is). If their work PC is knaffed, they have to bring it to us, if we can dial in using their kit, it's Telescum's problem.

Transport: Getting a work car requires the sacrifice of three virgins and we're running out! Getting authorisation to use your own vehicle and reimbursement of costs requires managerial and finance dept approval in advance. Wasn't always like that - I had great fun riding my LS400 down to our Palmerston North site (and severe arse-pains riding it back). Now, they'd rather fly you down (I suspect because the price is fixed and they can guarantee it is going on transport costs.)

However, all of this is conjecture. We are merely stabbing in the dark at a scenario outlined in one short post from Lou.

So right. We have no idea of the workload, policies, constraints, authorisation requirements etc of that work place. I suspect that if Lou looked into the situation he would not have been so hasty in blaming the IT team.

Most of our own staff have no idea what is required for what they ask. We are frequently taking calls and saying "That needs to be in writing from a manager", "that requires and Equipment Request Form to be filled out and passed by Finance", "that is prohibited by company policy" etc.

Some of the staff - those whose job it is to make such requests frequently - know the drum and don't submit their requests until they have chased up the relevant authorisation and give sufficient notice so that we can slot it in amongst the other jobs, others phone up and ask for shit-loads of stuff that require authorisation that they wanted yesterday and wonder why it's not being done instantly.

[Big Dave]

(such as BD asking for his Flame Warrior nomination to be removed) its normally assumed that he just needs to flick a switch and it shall be done. Sorry Big Dave, not singling you out here, just using that as an example.

Always happy to be used as a bad example - I work on it.

KB is also a community rather than an enterprize.
and furthermore - I'm scared shitless of spankme - anyone who has a mass murder site.....

[WRT]

LOL - Yeah, sorry about that BD, you were the only example I could think off from the top of my head!

And Wolf - I'll loan you my car for the measly sum of 2 Virgins, and I will give my personal guarantee that the only thing getting scacrificed will be their virginity.

I wanna be able to pick which virgins tho . . .

[Wolf]

LOL - Yeah, sorry about that BD, you were the only example I could think off from the top of my head!

And Wolf - I'll loan you my car for the measly sum of 2 Virgins, and I will give my personal guarantee that the only thing getting scacrificed will be their virginity.

I wanna be able to pick which virgins tho . . .

Sorry, the only one we had was male and in his late thirties and we suspect he no longer qualifies for "catching unicorns" these days...

[WRT]

Let me guess - he's the IT manager? Or an accountant . . .

[Finn]

Haven't read all of this thread but I will add this...

IT people have pulled the wool over so many companies and held them to ransom with their bullshit. But this is only because so many NZ companies have very poor or no corporate governance. IT is just a tool and should be used to create portability and transparency to make doing business easier and improving customer support.

This is one reason service in NZ sucks big time. Try ringing a large company and get any meaningful information out of them. You can't. Most of the blame can be proportioned to companies that are driven by IT and not the Business. Too many disparate IT systems built without any vision. I see this every day, it's what I do.

Let the business decide what they need and IT should facilitate this.

[Cookie]

[...]I'm scared shitless of spankme - anyone who has a mass murder site.....

Excellent! Can you post the URL for that?

[Big Dave]

Excellent! Can you post the URL for that?

Don't remember - I think I got there from his profile page.

[Lou Girardin]

Haven't read all of this thread but I will add this...

IT people have pulled the wool over so many companies and held them to ransom with their bullshit. But this is only because so many NZ companies have very poor or no corporate governance. IT is just a tool and should be used to create portability and transparency to make doing business easier and improving customer support.

Careful there Finn, you'll upset them and they'll band together in their musty little rooms and think up ways of getting even.
Meanwhile the rest of us will keep enjoying life.

[Wolf]

Let me guess - he's the IT manager? Or an accountant . . .

Server team geek - think of a chubbier version of AJ in UserFriendly.org.

I was just thinking, if Mrs G had come to us and said "I need my work machine set up to dial in from home so I can access the network and complete a report needed by the end of the week", the deadline would have come and gone by the time our approved supplier got the modem to us.

The only machine we have that has a modem (other than those physically located at remote sites) is used daily by our finance dept so "borrowing one" would not be possible, either.