(no subject)

[bassgirl.livejournal.com]

I am internal tech services for a large corporation who does third party support for a big cellphone company. There are a couple hundred computers in here - a little over 700 when you include HR. They're Dells. They break. Someone NOT in our center made the most recient image for our rep's computers, and brilliantly decided that having the logout AND shut down option was a bad idea, so they removed the shut down option from the Start menu, apparently trying to force the reps to logout before rebooting their computers at the end of the shift.

The reps have decided this means they are NOT ALLOWED to reboot. So they won't. And given we're running Dells with not enough RAM to begin with, we get blue screens everywhere. Our computers are locked in little cabinets, so part of my job is to crawl around on the floor, unlocking and pressing the power button because the (l)users cannot.

However. We also have this handy dandy work order system where you simply fill out a little form saying what's going wrong where, and we come fix it.


It's Sunday. No one works on Saturdays, and I'm the ONLY ONE HERE on Sundays, and I start at noon. Therefore, do NOT for the LOVE of GOD come running up to me as I've just walked in the door, saying "You know, there are Blue Screens EVERYWHERE!" in the reproachful manner like I've been sitting in my office sucking my thumb all weekend.


ACK! And now I just called a team lead to ask her to call me when a rep is available for troubleshooting, and she says "Call? How?" I say "just the regular tech line." to which she replies "What tech line??". She has worked here for THREE YEARS!!!

*sob*
It's going to be a very long day.

Comments

[jecook]

The people who made that image need to be slapped upside the head.

[jecook]

With a canvas sack filled with:

rotten citrus

Thinnet terminators

and the stuffed into a larger canvas bag with a wolverine that's high on angel dust.

[bassgirl.livejournal.com]

I believe the image came from the same folks who said "Firefox?!?!! Oh my! We can't use that because it's *insert scary timpani here* open source! Something might happen!"

(and then started talking about using Open Office instead of having to pay for all the Microsoft Office licenses.)

[residentgeek.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I'm reasonably patient with the crazy shit that goes on where I work, but the one thing that makes my blood boil is getting jumped on as soon as I hit the door. Not the door to my office. Not even the door to the area my office is in. No, I get jumped at the door to the damn building, carrying my backpack and coat, obviously fresh from the parking lot, and they act like I have frelling ESP and know that none of the printers are working just by touching the door. And, of course, it's all my fault they're broke anyway.

Oy, the panic attacks they can have over the most inane shit. Argh.

That image, though? That's just *beyond* stupid. Wow.

[jecook]

I used to be 5 minutes out driving to work in the mornings, and they'd call the damn cell phone that the company provided me to tell me that they locked themselves out, and when was I going to be there to unlock them, and could I please make the quadruple wreck involving an ambulance, a gasoline tanker, a school bus filed with "short bus" kids, and a farm truck hauling chickens that I'm stuck behind go away?

Yeah, I used to carry a cell phone for work. My cow-orkers could rattle that puppy off better then their own damn home phone #.

A few found out very fast, and very quickly that "Thou shalt not call my home number and cell number for work".

[jecook]

Yes, I'm bitter about having to have a work cell, with the number publiclly published.

This plaec does have a football, but there are very strict procedures on when it gets used.

[jecook]

And I'm not one of the poor schmucks that gets stuck with it.

Yet.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

That's the most bizarre policy I've ever heard. I've heard of people removing the Logout option (so as to force a reboot when they logoff), and even the Shutdown one (where the machiness are locked away like yours), but certainly not Reboot.

Also, what badly designed cabinets! All the ones I've encountered at least give access to the on/off button. I don't see any advantage to not making it available, and plenty of advantages to ensuring accessibility to it.

Finally, have you got policies in effect on your domain, or is the image one of those where they stupidly configure everything locally? Because in instances like these, where someone makes a bad policy and you want to revise it, GPMC Is Your Friend. If all they've done is tweak the Registry, you've still got the option.

[kayfox.livejournal.com]

I have a simaler problem at work, Dells, bloated apps that leak memory like a sieve, and machines running those apps that never get rebooted.

But, like many other things (the damn radios for example*) I can write out a sign or label and noone will ever read it (and if people do read it, they wont do anything about it anyway).

* One of the radios needs to be removed from the charger and put back into the charger about twice a week so that its Li-Ion battery remains charged and therefore dosnt die, and its also was a good idea to swap this with the other one of that type, so they both remain charged... unfortunately emails signs and the like never got the message across, and now one radio's battery is completely dead, and the other battery is weak.

[kayfox.livejournal.com]

Oh, and btw, I dont see why logging out before rebooting is necisary, as rebooting or shutting down logs you out the same way as just logging out. Then again, I was told that Microsoft exams 70-290 and 70-291 are hard (they wernt in my oppinion), so theres probably alot of people working in IT that dont really have the "common sense" for their field.*


* 70-290 could very well be called "Windows Server 2003 Common Sense."