Apparently, my MOM is smarter then my cow-orkers....

[jecook]

Quick recap: I am the 'senior' support tech at my company. We are in the gaming industry, and My job is to act at the 'alpha geek' for the rest of the support staff at the facility I work at. My primary job function is to manage the site's inventory for about a third of the gear that IT supports, (computers, printers, and Point of Sale gear) administer the preventative maintenance process, and refresh old computers with new computers when the old ones fall out of warranty. I also handle the odd escalation, and act as backup for the support team.

It's a bit on the long side, as are most of my rants.


[names changed to protect my bottom line]

So, this month we are refreshing some 20 machines at our site out of the ~200 that are in service. This started at the end of last month, and I had scheduled for our grave shift techs to build the machines, (i.e., put the OS/App image on, and install the relevant apps) and day shift techs (whom I'll call "L" and "C") to deploy the machines. Due to the scheduling overlap which our company uses, there are two deployments in the middle of the week when both techs are there. I don't see a problem, it's well within *my* capabilities to do, if I were the one doing all 20 machines¹. I figured that worst case, the day shift tech hands the phone to the swing shift when they get in (there's an hour overlap between their shifts) and they deploy the machine.

The kids ended up getting some five days behind when El Boss intervened, and then things started getting deployed, albeit incorrectly. I had to fix one build partially, because the tech forgot a bunch of crap, and five of the machines didn't get a new power brick.² No biggie, once it's all blown over, I'll have the same tech go crawling around and swapping bricks like he was supposed to do the first time. *feral grin* At the same time, the keyboard and mouse didn't get swapped out either one or two of the machines.³ Again, I can fix this post install, but I still have to track those machines down. El Boss and myself decided that if the techs are going to act like retarded children, that I need to treat them like retarded children. So, to each of the remaining build sheets, I put three check boxes: 'Replace power brick', 'replace keyboard/mouse', and 'install vanity cover'⁴

So far, everyone I've talked to agrees: I should not have to do that. Even my MOM, who has written instructions to use a fricken MAC. (Yeah, she's *special*.... )

if it were a handful of mes, or people I knew to be totally competent, running the joint, they'd all be installed by now, because I once we crank up, I can put in over 20 machines in the space of a week and a half, scheduling permitting. I talked with a couple other friends at the beginning of the process and they thought I was being quite reasonable as well.

So what do "L" and "C" do this morning before I come in? They get caught up by installing five of the 8 remaining machines, and causing a panic amongst the sheep users by not being able to jump on an emergency issue right away. The IT director heard about it, and I got a very minor talking to by both her and El Boss about not giving the poor grave shift kids more work to do by deploying the machines that belong to "shared" positions.⁵ El Boss was ok with what I did after I explained that only 3 of the machines that the kids were given to deploy were for such positions, so my ass was largely covered there.

And of the machines that got deployed? one of them is fucked up in a manner that I have to personally look at and/or fix tomorrow, and three of the systems did not have their modified paperwork filled out correctly, do El Boss now has ammo to smack them with. *BIG evil grin*


1: As it turned out, I got two of them to do, because of the criticality of them, but that's not relevant.
2: The old machines are Dell Ultra-Small Form Factor (USFF) machines approaching the end of their warranty life; we are replacing them with the current iteration of the USFF machine, which happens to use the same specification power brick, albeit a different model. As such, it's still part of the computer, because when you replace a computer, you *don't* swap the guts of a brand new one into a chassis with a three year old power brick that's bee running 24/7 the entire time... or do you?
3: The keyboard and mouse cost... $20-$30... tops. I don't care if the user likes the old one. swap the mother fucker out unless it's an ergonomic keyboard of some shit. Plus, I've got a _stack_ of the motherfucking keyboards from the _last_ time we did a large-ish deployment...
4: The USFF systems have a plastic cover on the ass end that hides the cables. We order them because we like things to look nice, especially if it's in a place where our patrons can see the machine...
5: We have a number of these spots where there are several people who use the computer- it's not assigned to a single person.

(edited to correct speling errors.)

Comments

[museology.livejournal.com]

You mistyped your tag:

<*lj-cut text="rant ahoy!">
blah blah blah
<*/lj-cut>

:)

And in response to the post.. The only thing that stuck with me is that your mother needs INSTRUCTIONS for a Mac?

[jecook]

Clearly, I need either more caffeine in my blood stream, or less blood in my caffeine-stream... :)

[museology.livejournal.com]

Hahah, that second one was me this morning. Two giant coffees the size of my head and I was still half-dead. That is why you shouldn't stay up until 5:30AM coding for fun when your alarm is going off at 7.

[azurelunatic]

You know, hcolleen is a biddable monkey working on her A+, and reasonably local...

[jecook]

Alas, we are not hiring anymore, otherwise I'd be sending you a private message with details on how to apply... :)

Although if "L" and "C" don't get their acts togather, they might be looking for something...

[azurelunatic]

Best wishes on that. Do keep us posted here, as their incompetence is our entertainment as well as your pain.

[thebabynancy.livejournal.com]

bah. protected post.

[jecook]

Hows that?

[kingogre.livejournal.com]

Yikes, sheesh.. Gotta love silly people who don't know how to follow directions, although for work meh... but home I'm hella picky about my keyboard/mouse so I can semi understand that. Ya know the key's press down hard ect (Learned to type on an OLD typewriter from the 50's)

We have gaming places still in the valley? I thought the last one here was totally gone under and that was the company who made the MMO Horizons before it went fail utterly.

It's scary how many people in the valley are in this ranting journal, hell I've found quite a few and I work for a domain provider = P

[ohmyhead.livejournal.com]

Cow-Orkers! aaaahahahahahaha!!!!

[kizayaen.livejournal.com]

Heh.

"Gaming" industry has multiple possible meanings based on personal hobbies. Every time I read that I have to forcefully remind myself that you work with casinos and not with, say, Electronic Arts or Wizards of the Coast...

[jecook]

It's what I work in. :)

It's an easy way to tell people where I work without coming out and telling people *where* I work, especially in a place like this. ^_^

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

Better than EA and WotC (http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/).

[kizayaen.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, but that's not really related to the point I was making.

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

Me? Go off on random tangents? Never! :-)

I need a different icon for this...

[jecook]

Inconceivable!

Re: I need a different icon for this...

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[ghostdandp.livejournal.com]

When I deploy a computer I almost never deploy new mice/keyboards (unless it's from a old dell with a ps/2 to a new dell with only USB). I have too many users who like to spill coffee on peripherals to do that. I'd have to be placing monthly orders for new parts.

[jecook]

ok. Consider that I'm sitting on something like 10 spare keyboards, all USB, all new in box, from previous deployments. Please we get a brand new keyboard and mouse with each new computer that are largely identical to the old ones. The _mouse_ I can dig, as the new ones are all curvy and frankly I don't like them. but the keyboards? I don't see an excuse.

as for monthly part orders? I do that at my place to. I don't care if the great unwashed start eating keyboards. it'll get rid of the stockpile I've built up, and I have an actual budget for parts every month..

[ghostdandp.livejournal.com]

See you guys do things the right way. YOu have a budget, you can buy a spare part.

Support does not have a budget here (beyond our own equipment, which isn't much, I'm still on a Latitude D600) anything I want to purchase has to be approved by the department I am purchasing it for. It's a sucky setup, because I have 3 departments that share office space in different locations. So if I wanted to purchase 10 keyboards for spares I'd have to wait for the 3 department heads to duke it out and figure out who was going to pay for what percentage. And then they complain when I have to order everything peice by peice and they have to wait for it to be shipped.

And my users do eat keyboards and mice I think. I deployed 12 computers last month. Maybe 2 of them I felt hte need to replace the keyboard/mouse because of old equipment. So that leaves 10 extras. I have 3 left.

[jecook]

ouchies.

Oh, the 'parts' budget gets abused- we just got a Precision 490 for our apps department which ate about a month plus worth of what we get for parts budget at both sites. that dsepartment , even thought they *knew* they had someone coming in, didn't put in a request for a new computer until the day the guy started, and then went "Oh, right! We need a computer OMG NOW!!!11oneoneone".. *rolls eyes*

We are also in the stupid position of we have to go through a licensed supplier to get anything- we had a large fight to be able to order stuff from dell directly without having to go through a middleman, but we ended up getting it.

[ghostdandp.livejournal.com]

We get that "OMG We need a computer now!!!!111eleventy!!!" thing all the time too. I guess that's a good thing about our setup, cause I get to look at them blankly and say "You'll have to wait, you just told me to order one this morning. Dell has up to 2 weeks to ship to us." (We order everything custom built and customized to our needs) Sometimes if they are lucky we can throw them a "about to be retired" machine. Nothing like running Autocad2008 on a 1.8Ghz P4 machine with 1GB of ram to make a new user feel real at home.

[mattcaron.livejournal.com]

About 2 years ago, I gave the FNG a Sparc 20...

[major-error.livejournal.com]

Having done a couple system refreshes similar to this (in the past), all I can say in response is wow.
You've got a couple of extra-super-special snowflakes on your hands. I don't see how any marginally skilled person can mess this up.

• "remove all existing hardware." check.
• "install new hardware" check.
• "clean up wiring and make presentable" want velcro zip-ties w/ that?

...bunch of underdeveloped, knuckle-dragging monkeys... o.O
Hell, I could manage deploying 2-3 a day, *and* supervise the image & app installation at the same time.

[jecook]

The only reason I split it out was on El Boss's orders to give the grave shift crew something to *do*- otherwise the same person who installs the apps also deploys the system, generally.

if I had the crew I'm thinking of- this would be a non-issue, and I'd have to be digging up work for the _day shift_ people to do- the crew I'm thinking of is highly motivated, and can crank out stuff like whoa.

[freaktech.livejournal.com]

You are being completely reasonable. I managed a large swap out for a Health care provider in our area recently. 5000+ systems. It was me and two other guys doing exactly what you were doing and we were putting out 24-30 a day.

[miertam.livejournal.com]

WOW! I have to say, to screw up that bad takes talent.

By myself last January (crunch time) in a three day period I built(clean physical, clean electronically, install XP, install Office, install other software)36 computers. I wasn't deploying them so we have to spend some time moving from office to office. But I wasn't working with new computers I was working with the junk we get donated to get those 36 I went through about 50.

20 in five days with new hardware LUXURY!. I would have to spend the last couple days making forts out of the empty boxes.