Filk - the upgrade craze
Sep. 11th, 2005 11:48 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
the-s-guy.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
techrecovery(x-posted to own journal)
Executives and CEOs, they caught the upgrade craze;
They spurned as 'old' the systems that had served them many days;
They called to arms the managers who thought they had a stake;
They talked up all the features that were there for features' sake.
And as the meeting finished up, they wondered what they'd bought -
But hey, if there were problems they could call IT Support.
"See here," they said, "these systems need a dozen functions more,
Five people want these updates, so we'll roll it out the door.
We couldn't care that staff out in the network might complain,
When twenty thousand PCs slow to crawls under the strain.
We want to boost our egos, so we bought the salesguy's best -
We want it now, so bypass all those checks and silly tests.
There's nothing that could cause a pause, or wander from our line;
We took a peek, the code is ones and zeroes, so it's fine."
'Twas Software Distribution folks who had to roll this out.
They weren't too thrilled, and one or two expressed a tiny doubt.
But yet the Words had come from high, this was no simple patch.
And so the code was wrapped and packed and readied for despatch.
Then as the night unfolded, this release crept through the land,
While helpdesk staff slept on, not knowing what what the day had planned.
A clarion resounded through the next entire day:
All leave and training cut, all staff now summoned to the fray,
The callers in the queue were stacked up fifty deep on hold,
It was Helpdesk versus Killer Update, awesome to behold.
Co-ordinators vanished in a paper blizzard twice
(We sent in St Bernards with extra keyboards, pens and mice.)
And then, as heated phones and keyboards warped and creaked with strain;
The plug was pulled. The calls dropped off. The helpdesk still remained.
Executives and CEOs, they wondered what to do;
They said "We never realised just how much the techies knew;
We've handled people problems, from the large to the mundane,
But never have we ever had to utilise our brain.
We'll ponder on this outcome and recover from this bout,
We promise that in future we'll sit down and think things out.
And now our most important question's one we hold quite dear -
Just how do we remove all these computers from our rear?"
Executives and CEOs, they caught the upgrade craze;
They spurned as 'old' the systems that had served them many days;
They called to arms the managers who thought they had a stake;
They talked up all the features that were there for features' sake.
And as the meeting finished up, they wondered what they'd bought -
But hey, if there were problems they could call IT Support.
"See here," they said, "these systems need a dozen functions more,
Five people want these updates, so we'll roll it out the door.
We couldn't care that staff out in the network might complain,
When twenty thousand PCs slow to crawls under the strain.
We want to boost our egos, so we bought the salesguy's best -
We want it now, so bypass all those checks and silly tests.
There's nothing that could cause a pause, or wander from our line;
We took a peek, the code is ones and zeroes, so it's fine."
'Twas Software Distribution folks who had to roll this out.
They weren't too thrilled, and one or two expressed a tiny doubt.
But yet the Words had come from high, this was no simple patch.
And so the code was wrapped and packed and readied for despatch.
Then as the night unfolded, this release crept through the land,
While helpdesk staff slept on, not knowing what what the day had planned.
A clarion resounded through the next entire day:
All leave and training cut, all staff now summoned to the fray,
The callers in the queue were stacked up fifty deep on hold,
It was Helpdesk versus Killer Update, awesome to behold.
Co-ordinators vanished in a paper blizzard twice
(We sent in St Bernards with extra keyboards, pens and mice.)
And then, as heated phones and keyboards warped and creaked with strain;
The plug was pulled. The calls dropped off. The helpdesk still remained.
Executives and CEOs, they wondered what to do;
They said "We never realised just how much the techies knew;
We've handled people problems, from the large to the mundane,
But never have we ever had to utilise our brain.
We'll ponder on this outcome and recover from this bout,
We promise that in future we'll sit down and think things out.
And now our most important question's one we hold quite dear -
Just how do we remove all these computers from our rear?"
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-11 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-11 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-12 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-12 06:45 am (UTC)We got hit hard by that. So when, a few weeks later, we need to send an email to people advising them to change their dial-up number to our new national number, do they send a plain-text email with the incredibly simple instructions to change the number on every operating system we support? Or do they send an email which doesn't even contain the number, directs the customer to a link which still doesn't have the number, but contains a .exe which they need to download and run which then makes system changes? GUESS!
Way to confuse the customer. We spent ages telling customers to be careful of email, don't trust emails even if it says they're from us, don't download strange .exes etc.. Then they send this out. I couldn't believe it.