Dear Users... (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people)

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TragicMonkey said:
Now they want to know why I can't "just add" the data to the database. Because a) I don't have access to add things, I'm a read-only user, and don't own any tables--nobody in my entire silo is allowed to add things to the database, and b) I don't know the data to add. I don't even know who in the company to ask what the data in question should be. And neither do these people, now including my chain of command, asking me to do it.

To sum up: I'm to add something nobody knows to a database that isn't mine and I don't have authority or access to write to. And can I do it quickly? No. No, I cannot.
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Reminds me of the joke:
Code: 
sql> SELECT * FROM users WHERE clue IS NOT NULL;
0 rows returned
 
CORed said:
Well "git" is not really a very commonly used perjorative in the US. i think I first encountered it in the Beattles' song, "I'm so tired"
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It is sort of the equivalent of naming a new car model "Pajero" and then trying to sell it into Mexico. The naive assumption that your idioms are the same as mine.
 
arthwollipot said:
I do love these emails where they assume that we know what they're talking about.

"Reports aren't working. Please fix."
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Oh boy. A tester I have to work with is like that. A *tester*! You'd think a primary skill would be describing the bug he's found.
"DA tool isn't working" can mean anything from getting a 500 HTML response to it failing to find a specific record.
 
Wudang said:
Oh boy. A tester I have to work with is like that. A *tester*! You'd think a primary skill would be describing the bug he's found.
"DA tool isn't working" can mean anything from getting a 500 HTML response to it failing to find a specific record.
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And get this. When asked what software they are using to generate reports, they sent us a screenshot - a screenshot - of the words "SQL Management Server".
 
Wudang said:
Oh boy. A tester I have to work with is like that. A *tester*! You'd think a primary skill would be describing the bug he's found.
"DA tool isn't working" can mean anything from getting a 500 HTML response to it failing to find a specific record.
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Thanks for the non-specific update. I will start reading all the code for this application starting at line 1 to find something that looks like it might be anything of a problem. It took 30 people 3 years to write this application. So I expect to be some time getting back to you with a solution.
 
arthwollipot said:
I do love these emails where they assume that we know what they're talking about.

"Reports aren't working. Please fix."
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Lucky dog. Your users at least narrow it down to "Reports."

I just get "I NEED HELP!" or "MY COMPUTER IS BROKE!" in all caps e-mailed to me instead of the Support E-mail.
 
Wudang said:
Oh boy. A tester I have to work with is like that. A *tester*! You'd think a primary skill would be describing the bug he's found.
"DA tool isn't working" can mean anything from getting a 500 HTML response to it failing to find a specific record.
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Someone needs to raise that as a "training issue"
 
I got yelled at today by the Most Important Person in the Department. It was one of those hellscape calls that generates an email from me to my section head registering a formal complaint.

This is why I will never work for any call centre other than government. Public servants have a Code of Conduct.
 
The 1,000 year old lady in the waiting room's ringtone is literally an automated voice at full volume saying "YOUR HUSBAND IS TRYING TO REACH YOU ON YOUR CELLULAR DEVICE. YOUR HUSBAND IS TRYING TO REACH YOU ON YOUR CELLULAR DEVICE." over and over with very bright (like I legit thought it was the fire alarm strobe at first) flashing over and over. It's been going on for over a minute. She's not answering it.
 
JoeMorgue said:
The 1,000 year old lady in the waiting room's ringtone is literally an automated voice at full volume saying "YOUR HUSBAND IS TRYING TO REACH YOU ON YOUR CELLULAR DEVICE. YOUR HUSBAND IS TRYING TO REACH YOU ON YOUR CELLULAR DEVICE." over and over with very bright (like I legit thought it was the fire alarm strobe at first) flashing over and over. It's been going on for over a minute. She's not answering it.
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Mebbe she's tired of the bastard calling up and checking on her all the time, and doesn't want to talk to him.

If he's still a jealous prick after all these years then he doesn't deserve to be answered.

































:p
 
Well, naturally: I do a lot of extra work and research and get a certain piece of vital data that was missing from being 5% present to being 92% present and what do they say? You know what they said: "where is the other 8%?"

Your butt. That's where it is, I wanted to tell them.
 
Things IT Support is NOT #247.

Some sort of "Tech Sommelier" which can whip out some sort of technology sampling tray and/or somehow tell you what you want when you don't know yourself.

I haven't personally sampled every wireless phone headset on the market and can't somehow tell you which one you will like the best.
 
Nothing like being landed with URGENT REQUEST, starting work on it, only to discover that the parties concerned are now out of the office on PTO, "without access to email". When's it wanted, URGENTLY URGENTLY? "By end of day Monday". When do they get back? "Tuesday afternoon".

Guess who needs his questions answered before the work can be done?

Answer: the same guy who's going to be yelled at on Tuesday afternoon for not having it completed on Monday.
 
Sigh, I just got an e-mail from our security group. Apparently one of the students working for them found a Tomcat found a bug report from back in Feb it's now "urgent" we upgrade all our Tomcat instances to the version where it's fixed. Now our executive management is up in arms because we haven't applied the patch for a critical security vulnerability even though it was released back in Feb.

the bug is that the default server.xml file allows AJP connections from any IP address. The fix is that the default server.xml now only accept AJP connections coming from the local machine. Now I need to explain to executive management that this:
- We looked at this 6 months ago
- We don't use the default server.xml so it doesn't apply to us
- Most of the instances they identified are Windows severs that do not even run Apache (AJP is used to proxy Tomcat applications though Apache web servers. IIS doesn't support it)
- Our security group (same group who sent this e-mail) insist on using a micro-segmented firewall configuration. IOW you can't get to any port on any server from anywhere without a specific firewall rule to allow it, so even the service allowed connections the firewall does not allow connecting to this port from anywhere

- the final and real kicker is that the update they are asking for would not fix the issue even if we were vulnerable because all it does is change the default server.xml file on a new install. Updates don't replace the server.xml because that would break stuff, so updating to the recommended version would not even fix the problem even if there was one.
 
lomiller said:
Sigh, I just got an e-mail from our security group. Apparently one of the students working for them found a Tomcat found a bug report from back in Feb it's now "urgent" we upgrade all our Tomcat instances to the version where it's fixed. Now our executive management is up in arms because we haven't applied the patch for a critical security vulnerability even though it was released back in Feb.

the bug is that the default server.xml file allows AJP connections from any IP address. The fix is that the default server.xml now only accept AJP connections coming from the local machine. Now I need to explain to executive management that this:
- We looked at this 6 months ago
- We don't use the default server.xml so it doesn't apply to us
- Most of the instances they identified are Windows severs that do not even run Apache (AJP is used to proxy Tomcat applications though Apache web servers. IIS doesn't support it)
- Our security group (same group who sent this e-mail) insist on using a micro-segmented firewall configuration. IOW you can't get to any port on any server from anywhere without a specific firewall rule to allow it, so even the service allowed connections the firewall does not allow connecting to this port from anywhere

- the final and real kicker is that the update they are asking for would not fix the issue even if we were vulnerable because all it does is change the default server.xml file on a new install. Updates don't replace the server.xml because that would break stuff, so updating to the recommended version would not even fix the problem even if there was one.
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Great. So, what's the timeline for getting this done?

- Management.
 
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