on the up
Of course I have a bloody deadlineOriginally Posted by Blakamin
AS400 will be back online in 30 minutes once its refreshed its databases.
As for the main server, we have to wait for the IT manager to arrive at work.
Some days it's just not worth getting out of bed.
Except for the half hour bike ride to work but.
And I to my motorcycle parked like the soul of the junkyard. Restored, a bicycle fleshed with power, and tore off. Up Highway 106 continually drunk on the wind in my mouth. Wringing the handlebar for speed, wild to be wreckage forever.
- James Dickey, Cherrylog Road.
Hardcore Biker
That one aint so bad actually. You might be closed, and still be on the premises, unless you are open 24hrs....
FINE. This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.
Hardcore Biker
I had a bad IT day. Actually I've had a bad IT month. I'm an end-user in a company that has approximately 150 computers (Macs)
It started with an incompatibility between the Cisco Routers and OS 10.3.7. This manifested itself in a URL coming back as "location not found". Type it in again, press return and the page comes up.
It's irritating, but Apple's had a fix for it for yonks so I find the Technote on the Apple site and helpfully pass it on to the IT manager in an effort to fix the problem. Get a message back condescendingly thanking me for my input but reminding me that as I'm not IT staff I really should leave it to the experts. To this day, the problem remains. Most irritating, as its a simple fix.
Then we get to the laptops we use for working from home. I place print work with a number of companies overseas, particularly in Hong Kong. Well with Chinese New Year coming up I have had some deadline pressure on me, and as I work 7.00am - 3.00pm I need to send an receive email.
ME: "Can I check my email from off-site?"
IT: "No, sorry email is only accessible through the intranet, as the mail server isn't exposed to the outside world."
ME:"Right - what about the VPN?"
IT: "We don't have a VPN"
ME: "What's this VPN connection on my laptop for?"
IT: "Oh, that's never been implemented."
Dammit, I'm not gonna put up with that. So I get home. Log on to the internet on my laptop using MY dialup so as to not waste company resources on this venture.
Activate the VPN - whaddaya know - a response from the VPN server. Okay, I'll log on using my work Kerberos ID. Hey - access to the network. Let's go find the hosts file for the DNS server - okay, here's the real name for the mail server - oooh - that's an external IP address. Let's enter that in the POP3 settings and use my ISP as the SMTP in my email programme and wow - it works!
So now I've got access to:
1. The Filemaker Pro server
2. Using a TN5250 javascript shell I have access to the AS/400
3. I can check and send emails
Get to work on the Monday and - you guessed it - IT have found out and my laptop privileges are revoked.
Then the printer (which has been stuffed for ages) finally dies. I've been going spare about this for ages and this is the last straw.
So I pick it up and place it on the IT manager's desk with a big sign on it saying "EXORCISE ME"
Boy does that attract a shitty email about removal of IT equipment without permission of the IT department. Which is promptly ignored by me of course.
The new printer turned up last Tuesday and was installed finally yesterday.
The first document printed on it was the company policy on IT, and there it was, placed on top of my desk, ready for me to read today as soon as I got in.
And to top it all off, for some strange reason, my username had been removed from the network.
It took me until 2.00pm to log on today.
Dude. I so need to work for your company. Id be perfect, I can be arrogant, condesending and a right bastard, plus Id lock out accounts willy nilly everyday.
If i was you m8, id be calling the helpdesk everyday, they'd probably fix the problems just to stop you calling.
FINE. This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.
Hardcore Biker
Oh well, a representative of IT should be in in an hour or so...
Where do I send my CV ?
FINE. This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.
My Brian hurts!
Celtic No.6 - Are you really Scott Adams?
I snipped the rest (Far too funny) - sounds like you and I have both been on the receiving end of the "Have you tried rebooting" procedure (otherwise known as "I haven't got a clue" or in medical terms "It's a virus")
Scenario: Geek (me) trying to perform a Low Level Format on a SCSI drive for QA reasons. Nerd (him) thinking I had a hard drive crash (I didn't). Internal Company Support.
G: Hi - I'm hoping you've got an LLF util for the engineering Maxtor drives.
N: Ummmm - what's wrong with it
G: Bad data and some seriously corrupted sectors
N: Have you tried Scandisk and Checkdisk?
G: Uh no... I'm up in Qual.....
N: Well - sometimes these problems are cleared up by that. Can you do that and then call us back I'll log a ticket for you.....
This thing went on for nearly 15 minutes. With me alternately laughing hard and then banging my head against the wall in frustration. After about minute 3 I did a quick search on the 'net and got the utility off the Maxtor site!
Last edited by Yokai; 11th February 2005 at 09:19. Reason: Celtic's Real Name
Yokai - bendamindaday
Forum whore
Don't scoff at 'have you tried rebooting' - it's an honest question as most end users don't try anything at all before they pick up the "wave a wand and solve my problem" phone. As we all attest to, Windows, in all its flavours, is often a garbage operating system, and rebooting does fix and/or alleviate a whole range of problems. If the support guy doesn't know you well enough, ie you work in a large organisation, how can he second guess your ability to perform some basic trouble shooting things yourself.
OTOH...
As per your part II scenario, I have spent many, many phone arguments with ISP hell-desk staff teaching them how to fix their own network problems so my own customers can get back to work. It's especially frustrating trying to get warranty support these days, as you get routed through to India and they make you go through and hour and a half of red herrings tests only to come up with the same conclusion you told them about in the first 30 seconds of the phone call. No, I didn't want you to help me trouble shoot, I know what the problem is, just log a god dman number at my local support centre so I can drp the friggin thing off to get repaired...
PS - I've got MAXLLF.exe right here if you still need it
Brain meats taste good
I was out on a site installing Fax and Emailing portion of our software, and couldn't send any email. 30 mins trouble shooting our product later and I find out that noone had been able to send email for two day's. Call up the ISP and spend 45 mins being bounced around from place to place. Figured out that the ISP had placed a password on the SMTP sending for this one client. When I finally get to talk to a decent tech, he couldn't tell me why it had changed and he couldn't turn it off, but he would get back to me about it. 6 months later I'm still waiting for that call.
Speed limits are just a suggestion, like pants.
Hardcore Biker
Shes a hard road finding the perfect ISP
FINE. This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.
on the up
No - but I am a great Dilbert fan.
Oh - and the server's still not up.
I sent assistance a web ad which discussed erection problems
"Having trouble getting it up?" but so far have not received a job ticket reply.
I just don't think they understand me any more. :spudwhat:
At least everyone else has lost the server too...
And I to my motorcycle parked like the soul of the junkyard. Restored, a bicycle fleshed with power, and tore off. Up Highway 106 continually drunk on the wind in my mouth. Wringing the handlebar for speed, wild to be wreckage forever.
- James Dickey, Cherrylog Road.
Hardcore Biker
Buwhahahaha...
the server is up...its now being used by IT as a games server.
FINE. This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.
on the up
Buwhahahaha...
the server is up...its now being used by IT as a games server.
grrrrr. now the mail servers crashed.
I've entered the twilight zone.
Thank goodness there's no bloody proxy server ...
or I wouldn't even have internet.
I might as well go home.
135 users. No server. Not a good day today at work...
just caught the IT manager with his head under the tap in the loos making funny squeaking noises.
And I to my motorcycle parked like the soul of the junkyard. Restored, a bicycle fleshed with power, and tore off. Up Highway 106 continually drunk on the wind in my mouth. Wringing the handlebar for speed, wild to be wreckage forever.
- James Dickey, Cherrylog Road.
My Brian hurts!
It's called "Caller ID" - there shouldn't be anyone in that lab other than geeks. It's also called listening to the first part of the call - anyone who actually knows what LLF is is probably a geek.
But I do agree - reboot does work. The number of times I have to support family members and it's a case of "Please reboot" is huge. In fact my best one was a charge out rate to a friend's Mum. I was told "it's stopped responding completely" - I booked an afternoon said "Oh - should be able to get it working in an hour or so - call it 60bucks" and drove down there. 4 keypresses later the machine was running.
Win98 stuck in MS-DOS Mode... the 4 keypresses? w i n {enter}
Yokai - bendamindaday
e mare libertas
I've stopped accepting compensation for helping people out with their PCs.
(a) I hate faffing with the damn things, and (b) I always feel obligated to do more when something else happens down the track, because I KNOW they're thinking something along the lines of "Dan changed it around, and now it does THIS!".
Sigh.
So before I fix someone's computer, I always force them to repeat back to me, "This computer might, in fact, probably will, break horribly again at some point in the future, and I understand that Dan will have nothing to do with that, whether or not it may end up being his fault due to what he's about to do to it".
And then I refuse any offers of beer or cash. In fact, I usually bring my OWN beer and make THEM drink it after I fix their machine for them.
That way, I can still sleep at night, and people get their stupid Windows problems fixed.
kiwibiker is full of love, an disrespect.
- mikey
My Brian hurts!
I charge. At $40 an hour - minimum compensation $40. It's enough that people will think twice about asking me, and little enough that if they have to have it fixed it's Ok....
But on top of this I have one word and one word only for you:
Family.
AARRGGGHHH!!!!
Yokai - bendamindaday
Crikey!
I'm so over corporate IT.
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