Mongrel
Begging for Scraps
Now though it takes you to the Windows 'Default Apps' page and you have to change the setting manually.
Dear Users… (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people) Part 10
- Thread starter TragicMonkey
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Now though it takes you to the Windows 'Default Apps' page and you have to change the setting manually.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
Dear User: if you ask the database two separate questions looking for different things, then the results of each are probably not going to be identical. I do not know why you think they would or should be the same. If you go to the restaurant and order a burrito and a pizza do you get confused when you are not brought two identical items?
Also: we can't really code to exclude results based on certain future events which have not yet occurred. You'll need to query a database on Gallifrey for that sort of thing.
Also: we can't really code to exclude results based on certain future events which have not yet occurred. You'll need to query a database on Gallifrey for that sort of thing.
It's amazing how many users requests boil down to nothing more than "Can you make my job exactly easy enough so that I don't actually have to do anything but don't make it obvious so I'm not replaced with a small script program or drinking bird toy that pecks the keys."
I mentioned earlier that is seems my users all way a magical process where they press a button and everything just happens exactly as it should with no input from them and don't get if the process could be simplified to a button press it would be literally no more work to automate the button press and get rid of you entirely.
I honestly do want to ask people sometimes "If we got rid of all the parts of your job you don't want to, what we would be left over to pay you to keep doing?"
I mentioned earlier that is seems my users all way a magical process where they press a button and everything just happens exactly as it should with no input from them and don't get if the process could be simplified to a button press it would be literally no more work to automate the button press and get rid of you entirely.
I honestly do want to ask people sometimes "If we got rid of all the parts of your job you don't want to, what we would be left over to pay you to keep doing?"
CORed
Penultimate Amazing
I always preferred the term "lusers". Well, not out loud or in any official communication, but in my head.
gnome
Penultimate Amazing
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In my last role we were really trying to do this in a good way--we were a small analyst team but we spent most of our time maintaining reports that had started as an ad-hoc analysis but then were requested to become a recurring published result.
We were SUPPOSED to be using the reports to analyze trends, point out challenges and opportunities, and recommend actions. But we never had time to do that until there was serious effort to automate the reporting. We were still struggling to expand that available time when I wound up in a new role.
"I see that Jane Doe was fired on the 1st, but her account wasn't disabled until today. Terminated employees accounts have to be disabled the day they are fired."
"Yes I'm aware. HR literally sent us the e-mail that she was being fired an hour ago. I disabled the account 55 minutes ago."
"Her account was enabled for days after she was fired, that is not acceptable."
"I agree. HR needs to tell us when they terminate people."
"We just can't have accounts associated with fired employees for that long."
"Then remind HR to let us know when they fire people. You guys have almost 800 employees and we don't know if you fire them unless you tell us."
"I just need you to make sure that you immediately disable the account when an employee is..."
(And this just went on for about another 10 back and forths, her never seeming to actually get that we had disabled the account literally 5 minutes after we became aware that the user had been fired and that HR just didn't tell us they were fired Monday morning until like noon today.)
"Yes I'm aware. HR literally sent us the e-mail that she was being fired an hour ago. I disabled the account 55 minutes ago."
"Her account was enabled for days after she was fired, that is not acceptable."
"I agree. HR needs to tell us when they terminate people."
"We just can't have accounts associated with fired employees for that long."
"Then remind HR to let us know when they fire people. You guys have almost 800 employees and we don't know if you fire them unless you tell us."
"I just need you to make sure that you immediately disable the account when an employee is..."
(And this just went on for about another 10 back and forths, her never seeming to actually get that we had disabled the account literally 5 minutes after we became aware that the user had been fired and that HR just didn't tell us they were fired Monday morning until like noon today.)
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
You should have disabled your interlocutor's email account, that that would stopped the exchange quite satisfactorily.
Norman Alexander
Penultimate Amazing
Part way through, I would have been asking: Excuse me just a moment. Do you know which department you are currently talking to? This is not HR. We do not fire people. And we are not mind-readers for HR either. Here, let me get you their number. You can then tell them what you have just been telling me. Because that's THEIR job, not ours.
gnome
Penultimate Amazing
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Don't know if it would have knocked any sense in, but my impulse would have sent the conversation this way:
"Let's back up, I think we're talking around each other. What exactly do you want us to do differently?"
They'd say something like, "Terminate the employee immediately next time."
"You want me to terminate an employee before we receive notification from HR? How do we get the name?"
"..."
Thinking that might derail their circular thoughts at least.
BowlOfRed
Master Poster
Nah, gotta be explicit.
I'd try to change the documentation so that rather than "disable the account after employee is terminated", it became "disable the account after notification from HR".
I'd try to change the documentation so that rather than "disable the account after employee is terminated", it became "disable the account after notification from HR".
If this is email, I would be copying in both mine and their manager at this point.
Jack by the hedge
Safely Ignored
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It sounds like the person knew they were talking to IT not HR but were uncomfortable about being the one who had to complain to HR about HR. By persisting they were hoping IT would eventually volunteer to do it for them, without being directly asked. Social anxiety, not stupidity.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
Perhaps you're right, murder really is the wisest course here. Murder doesn't solve every personnel problem, of course, only most of them.
Jack by the hedge
Safely Ignored
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Even better if someone else does it for you without your explicitly asking. Who will rid me of this turbulent user?
malbui
Beauf
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Wudang
BOFH
"If you're asking me to not to follow the documented process I would prefer if that were confirmed in email cc:ing HR."
For the record the person I was talking to is REAL bad about repeating herself in discussions, so anytime you talk to her involves the same thing repeated a lot. She has that weird "If I don't say it 5 times I don't think you'll remember it" quirk.
My best guess is that they had multiple terminations Monday morning (these were all temp employees that had been brought onboard for I think 3-4 months to knock out a backlog of some kind) and they sent us 3 of the termination notices and forgot one. I remember seeing 3 terminations notices in our queue first thing Monday morning, and then this one pops up with all the same dates on it middle of the week.
But as you can imagine our policies are firm, we don't disable accounts without an in-writing notice from the client company's HR (if they have been fired) or a in-writing notice from our Cyber-security team (if it's security/hacking/compromise/whatever related.)
My best guess is that they had multiple terminations Monday morning (these were all temp employees that had been brought onboard for I think 3-4 months to knock out a backlog of some kind) and they sent us 3 of the termination notices and forgot one. I remember seeing 3 terminations notices in our queue first thing Monday morning, and then this one pops up with all the same dates on it middle of the week.
But as you can imagine our policies are firm, we don't disable accounts without an in-writing notice from the client company's HR (if they have been fired) or a in-writing notice from our Cyber-security team (if it's security/hacking/compromise/whatever related.)
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Either way, I would be copying both managers to get them to sort it out. Somebody wasting my time by trying to get me to something which is not my job and is probably theirs is something my manager needs to deal with.
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