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

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JoeMorgue said:
Why do I have a hunch I'm safe in assuming that one of the "Sources of the One True Data" doesn't want to have responsibility if the "One True Data" is wrong.

I've met a lot of "The Buck Stops Here with Me, but Where the Blame Stops is a Lot More Negotiable" people in my time.
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I'm even more cynical than that: the project's point is to move the source of truth to my department, from the current sources. I think the current sources are engaging in some attempts at job security by trying to sabotage my efforts. This will not succeed because (unlike them) I can prove every one of my numbers by pulling the actual detail data straight from the source. Challenge one of my figures and I can provide millions of rows of detail to prove I'm right. Challenge one of their figures and they get mad and can't explain where they got it from. Which is why the powers that is want to move the data to my group in the first place.
 
We have a Corporate Directory that uses two separate things as its Source of Truth, depending on the particular field - the IT systems and the HR systems. We handle the IT end but we do not handle the HR end.

I wish more users would understand this.
 
arthwollipot said:
We have a Corporate Directory that uses two separate things as its Source of Truth, depending on the particular field - the IT systems and the HR systems. We handle the IT end but we do not handle the HR end.

I wish more users would understand this.
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Good luck man.

Users tend to see "Anything that uses technology" as being fair game for IT. I cannot count the number of phones, televisions and gaming consoles people have asked me to fix.

Two systems in the same company that do similar things and hoping users will some day differentiate? A laudable goal, but probably unachievable.
 
arthwollipot said:
We have a Corporate Directory that uses two separate things as its Source of Truth, depending on the particular field - the IT systems and the HR systems. We handle the IT end but we do not handle the HR end.

I wish more users would understand this.
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People need to understand the same demarcation when their lead hasn’t engaged process to extend or establish their IT access.

Had a contractor who kept wanting to discuss access that was being denied to him by a manager. Looked at me mournfully as he told me about his business needs.
 
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"Crazy He Calls Me"

Sung by Billie Holiday, 1951


"Like the wind that shakes the bough
He moves me with a smile
The difficult I'll do right now
The impossible will take a little while"


 
"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." Charles Babbage.
 
Wudang said:
"On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." Charles Babbage.
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What's interesting about that quote is immediately after he wrote that, he went on to examine a real problem of the machine's programming being maliciously altered to produce incorrect results, and suggested a solution:

Charles Babbage said:
On two occasions I have been asked,—“Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?” In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. I did, however, explain the following property, which might in some measure approach towards an answer to it.

It is possible to construct the Analytical Engine in such a manner that after the question is once communicated to the engine, it may be stopped at any turn of the handle and set on again as often as may be desired. At each stoppage every figure-wheel throughout the Engine, which is capable of being moved without breaking, may be moved on to any other digit. Yet after each of these apparent falsifications the engine will be found to make the next calculation with perfect truth.

The explanation is very simple, and the property itself useless. The whole of the mechanism ought of course to be enclosed in glass, and kept under lock and key, in which case the mechanism necessary to give it the property alluded to would be useless.
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Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, Chapter V: The Difference Engine [Project Gutenberg]
 
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There are people who really are very uncomfortable talking on the phone.

"Uh, yeah, I'm... I'm just calling... uh. I'm calling to... um, ask whether... um...I'm calling about ahh..."

I really can't get annoyed because it's not their fault, but it does make the call difficult.
 
arthwollipot said:
There are people who really are very uncomfortable talking on the phone.

"Uh, yeah, I'm... I'm just calling... uh. I'm calling to... um, ask whether... um...I'm calling about ahh..."

I really can't get annoyed because it's not their fault, but it does make the call difficult.
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It applies to the people on the other end tood.
I've spent 100+ minutes on to Eir's "customer support" lines for a friend over the last couple of days. Most of them are script-monkeys
 
catsmate said:
It applies to the people on the other end tood.
I've spent 100+ minutes on to Eir's "customer support" lines for a friend over the last couple of days. Most of them are script-monkeys
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But isn’t that is what they are employed as?

It’s a sad state of affairs and lots of people really don’t understand how many companies now run their customer services. The people you talk to can’t do anything but what is in the script and if it isn’t in the script it doesn’t exist!

When people ask to speak to “a manager” they think they are going to speak to someone who has more authority in the company and can overturn SOP. The reality is that most of the time you are just going to be speaking to the manager of the customer service team, they have no authority outside the CS team, but they can approve holidays for the team members - as long as it is within company policy of course.

It’s often made even worse because you will find that the “customer service department” isn’t even part of the company you think you are dealing with! They will have outsourced their CS department to a company that provides script monkeys.

And to be one of these outsourced monkeys has to be one of the ********* jobs going.
 
catsmate said:
It applies to the people on the other end tood.
I've spent 100+ minutes on to Eir's "customer support" lines for a friend over the last couple of days. Most of them are script-monkeys
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If you are knowledgeable enough to solve the problems that the script-monkeys can solve yourself, the trick is getting past the script-monkeys to somebody that actually can solve your problem. With some companies, that is next to impossible.
 
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CORed said:
If you are knowledgeable enough to solve the problems that the script-monkeys can solve yourself, the trick is getting past the script-monkeys to somebody that actually can solve your problem. With some companies, that is next to impossible.
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Next to? It needs to be impossible!
 
Darat said:
But isn’t that is what they are employed as?
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Yes. And given Eir's customer dissatisfaction rates it shows.

Darat said:
It’s a sad state of affairs and lots of people really don’t understand how many companies now run their customer services. The people you talk to can’t do anything but what is in the script and if it isn’t in the script it doesn’t exist!

When people ask to speak to “a manager” they think they are going to speak to someone who has more authority in the company and can overturn SOP. The reality is that most of the time you are just going to be speaking to the manager of the customer service team, they have no authority outside the CS team, but they can approve holidays for the team members - as long as it is within company policy of course.

It’s often made even worse because you will find that the “customer service department” isn’t even part of the company you think you are dealing with! They will have outsourced their CS department to a company that provides script monkeys.

And to be one of these outsourced monkeys has to be one of the ********* jobs going.
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Generally I agree. I never did phone support in my twenty plus tears years in IT. But I've dealt with lots of people who did (one of whom finds the 999 control centre a relaxing change).
But I've got to experience to say to the script monkey that A, B, C, D, E, F and G don;t work, therefore the problem is I, J or K which are down to you. So escalate them beyond the appeasement level, and right now. I want to talk to the person who can fix the problem you have caused. And this morning I did that by talking over the script monkey until he escalated it, and repeated this until I spoke to person#4 who could actually see the relevant system and fixed the problem.

The only time I want to talk to a manager, with actual authority, is when I'm discussing (in great detail) what will happen if my friend does not receive concessions W, X, Y and Z. Which was call #2 this morning and got him his new toys...
Which I'll be setting up for him. Oh well......:boggled:
 
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