Justice to the I.T staff

[meljane.livejournal.com]

My husband works for a university as a Desktop Build Administrator  and I work for the same university as an I.t Build assitant( I get to do all the jobs that the field support officers won't do like delivering computers to the customers/staff) .

You'd think if you someone that is administer things in your department and most of the university you would have the power to say  no to some staff members that want to go against university regulations in purchasing certain things eg computers bought from somewhere that they shouldn't have .

Anyway I'll get on to the story , Picture this a staff member has decided rather that buying a computer from the purchasing page of the university he wants to buy one from cash converters or a newspaper .

He has tryed getting permission from Ken , Ken has said no we won't support it if you  buy it ,this guy wants a non standard machine , he is annoyed he won't get his own way so Ken gets so annoyed that he recommends talking to the purchasing officer (this guy is a pitball to deal with) .

The other thing he is complaining about like many others is the computer is too expensive (all departments of the uni have their own budget , it's not like he is paying for it out of his money )

The next week the guy comes down to the Build area with a computer that he has bought from somewhere other than the purchasing page and most likely not a Dell computer( the most recommended brand at the uni) .

He wants Build to , support ,install his computer and put software on it .

Ken refuses , the guy gets really annoyed ,this guy won't back down and Ken gives all the reasons why he he won't support it , the guy continues to argue and when he sees that he is not winning his argueemnt he eventually storms off .

Yah!  Ken has won and after the battle he cc's an email to his boss and purchasing offficer .

This guy that messed with Build is going to get into so much trouble by the department head , but knowing how the uni runs he only get a talking to and nothing else .

eh?

[laurajpetri.livejournal.com]

"Hi, thank you for calling ****** hardware and warranty support. How can i help you today?"

"Hey, ... How's your day going?"

".. I, ... it. It's good..." *confused*

"Good, i just didn't figure anyone asks you that."

"They don't. You've confused me."

"Haha, well then let's start on the tech stuff. My hard drive's broken."


and then it just went from there. i help other techs and replace parts. fortunately not home user support, company support from anywhere in the united states. and even though my calls are already mostly decent, this just threw me off completely.

Thank you Sir!

Words to the younger set....

[patgund.livejournal.com]

In my current incarnation, I'm a field engineer, which means I spend half my time researching problems at my desk and the other half out at customers locations. It's actually pretty enjoyable, and its with a company that really likes to invest in their people.

My desk is in a small room in the back of a retail computer store that is owned by the parent company of the company I work for. One big happy family.

So in the break room, I had one of the retail support and sales people venting about a problem child they had to deal with. And so they asked me for advice, words of "wisdom" from someone who's done it a long time.

What I told them?

"Yeah, some people aren't worth the effort it takes to cover them up in a catbox. Anytime you do support, be it retail, corporate, freelance, field, whatever, you're going to have some jackass who thinks their farts smell like jasmine and that your sole purpose in life is to bend rules of reality to fit their demands.

When you get these, I have four words for you: 'They're Not Worth It".

They're not worth the heartburn, upset stomach, sleepless nights, anger, or anything else. They are a sad, pathetic human who acts they way they do because it's the only way they feel power over anything or anyone else. And you know what, eventually their attitude catches up with them. So you ignore them when you can, deal with them when you can't, and never give them the power over you they crave. Because they're not worth it."

So, what other words to the wise would the people here offer?

Yesterday...my troubles seemed so far away...

[shadowfairy.livejournal.com]

I work for a county school system.  I am what is laughingly referred to as an Educational Technology Facilitator.  Basically, my job is to trouble shoot and repair anything from virutal servers to electric pencil sharpeners.  If it plugs in and whirs, I seem to manage to be in charge of it.

Anyway, we do not have an official trouble ticket system.  However, I request that the teachers email me with their issues so I have some way of tracking of them.  When they email me I ask them to give me as much detail as they can about the situation and the computer number which is on a silver tag and very easy to see.  I need the number because most classrooms have 3 to 5 computers in them.  The other day I got this email.  This is the email in its entirety:

"Yesterday started making a loud screeching sound and the fan was running like crazy. I cannot boot it up this morning either."

Well, yeah, yesterday was Monday and they do tend to screech.  I wanted to ask her if her's screeched like a banshee like mine Mondays usually do. 

Now the funny part about all this is I went into her room and booted all 5 of her computers and all loaded up normally.  I left them on for several hours to see if maybe it was a heat/fan issue and nothing happened.  Everything was normal.  Soooo, I guess she was really just referring to yesterday.

I have to say at least it was better than the email I received last year that read, "My computer is sick.  Please make it better."  I left a box of kleenex and some aspirin on the keyboard ;)

(no subject)

[slayne-souls.livejournal.com]

(no subject)

[alliemunkee.livejournal.com]

I have to have a rant about this friend. She's 17, and is at tafe getting her Cert III Information Technology, where they teach you the shit you need to know to get into the techie, administration, helpdesk, "information technology" jobs. She shall be known from hereon as J. J wants to be a web designer...

I was on MSN minding my own business. She IMed me and linked me to a band's myspace page, asking if it loaded funny. I had a look and said it was fine, what's up? She said there were strange boxes all over the page. Myspace layouts mainly use CSS, and I remembered another techie friend saying earlier that IE fucks CSS up badly. So I asked J if she was using FireFox, and J said no. *Headdesk* She uses FireFox in her Cert III IT course, I have told her so many times not to use IE and to use FireFox, gave it and a number of antivirus & spyware programs to her last time she brought her computer over for me to fix. Oh yeah, because my dad's an expert computer technician, means that I'm everyone's free techie too. Bastards.

So I told her that was her problem; and to switch to FireFox right away and she'd be able to see the content properly. She insisted on sending me a screenshot, and here it is:



That is indeed a shot from her camera phone. Keep in mind that she is in her last semester, last unit of Cert III IT, and wants to be a web designer. Oy vey. You ought to see the website she made with Dreamweaver to show a potential employer.


Really.