Dear Users… (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people) Part 10

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JoeMorgue said:
Basically I wish when supervisors/managers would tell us "Here's what my the people under me want" either it was actually what they people under them want or the people under them got the word that "This is how your boss wants it, suck it up."
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Problem with that is that what the people under them want is new functionality but everything stays the same.
 
Sometimes the underlings are the sort of people that if the desktop colour changes then they are lost. Their "computer is broken" and they can't do their job any more. Even just moving or changing the icons of an existing app for their current process produces drop-jaw catatonia.

So introducing a new process with new apps that look and work differently? Have you tried teaching your dog to speak Russian? It's sometimes easier...
 
Norman Alexander said:
So introducing a new process with new apps that look and work differently? Have you tried teaching your dog to speak Russian? It's sometimes easier...
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Having just been through that I have a modicum of sympathy.

A lot of us have been working in SCSM for a long time, and we've internalised most of its default behaviours and workflows. ServiceNow does quite a few things differently. It's actually easier once I've got a handle on it, but I am getting a few sticking points where I don't even realise that the defaults have changed.
 
We made it to the end of the week. Everybody working here has been an absolute trooper, up to and including our management and admin team. We've has some challenges, and we've identified some opportunities for improvement, but nothing crashed and burned, and everybody seems to be ending the week with a sense of accomplishment and hope, rather than depression and anxiety. We're not going into the weekend convinced that everything is going to go wrong on Monday.

The week has been long and tiring. But we made it. We made it.
 
arthwollipot said:
We made it to the end of the week. Everybody working here has been an absolute trooper, up to and including our management and admin team. We've has some challenges, and we've identified some opportunities for improvement, but nothing crashed and burned, and everybody seems to be ending the week with a sense of accomplishment and hope, rather than depression and anxiety. We're not going into the weekend convinced that everything is going to go wrong on Monday.

The week has been long and tiring. But we made it. We made it.
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Take a free lunch out of petty cash.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Reoccurring issue #3,573.

Me, the other techs, my boss, and one of the team leads / managers / supervisors will sit down and have a discussion that goes something like this.

Team Lead: "We're rolling out new software/computers/processes soon. Here's how I want things done."

IT Dept: *Deploys the software/computers and/or initaites the process per their instructions."

The actual techs/workers on the team: "Immediate loud screeching about how they can't work because this isn't how they work, this isn't the process we told our supervisor we wanted to use with the new system, this is all wrong, IT fix it, we can't work because IT messed up the upgrade/install/rollout."

Basically I wish when supervisors/managers would tell us "Here's what my the people under me want" either it was actually what they people under them want or the people under them got the word that "This is how your boss wants it, suck it up."

Usually the functional manifestation of this is a supervisor who assumes his underling follow some official streamlined ISO 9XXX procedure when in real life it's much more tribal knowledge, do what works kind of thing.
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Steve said:
During my many years in mechanical engineering I was on the tech side of this. I was a little fortunate that my combination of seniority and knowledge made it possible for me to mostly ignore this type of crap and just do what worked. I did occasionally feel a little sorry for those lower on the rungs than me because, on occasions when the process became of overriding importance to management, I would go to my own techs and tell them “Here is the technical answer/solution. Fit it into the process”. I was a bottom line sort of designer and it kept me employed for 43 years.
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Also in mechanical engineering but had experience in ISO 9XXX rollout as well as having internal auditor training. The new company I was with wanted to get ISO 9XXX set up. So me and the QA guy (also with ISO 9XXX experience) go to the major, and even minor, people to get them involved to write the procedures for what they actually do. No one would have any of it, they all basically said just get some procedure's down on paper and we'll just say that's what we do. Knowing that wouldn't survive even an honest internal audit, let alone and actual certification audit, the push for ISO 9XXX petered out. After I left, I heard that got some rubber stamp off the shelf quality system.
 
*Groans, head into wall*

More desk moves. 8 of them. And at least 4 of them are users being moved back to their original desk.

Okay seriously someone reading this thread has got to have been a manager/supervisor at some point in an office setting. Please help me understand the constant need to arbitrarily move people.
 
The other thing is... why am I moving computers? They are networked. They have roaming profiles.

Why? Because my users seem them as "their" computers even though they are all identical HP business class machines.
 
Wudang said:
One joke in IBM was it stood for I've Been Moved. Also Ive Been Married, Idiots Become Managers and Insert Bug under Mask.
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I once worked in an organization that had a grandiloquently named unit called the Space Management Group. I came to think they mostly moved people around just to justify their existence. I remember our unit being moved into temporary accommodation because our current space was needed by some other group. For some months the area we vacated was completely empty until after the time we were moved to our "permanent' digs.

If we stopped playing musical chairs, the SMG would have been out of work.
 
JoeMorgue said:
*Groans, head into wall*

More desk moves. 8 of them. And at least 4 of them are users being moved back to their original desk.

Okay seriously someone reading this thread has got to have been a manager/supervisor at some point in an office setting. Please help me understand the constant need to arbitrarily move people.
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At one company the primary owner/president would get local, sate and federal grants to make building and work space improvements. However, he also was a principle owner of the construction and electrician companies that always ended up doing the work. So your desk was constantly being moved from here to there as walls went up, then came down and the whole office layout changed every couple/few months or so.
 
JoeMorgue said:
*Groans, head into wall*

More desk moves. 8 of them. And at least 4 of them are users being moved back to their original desk.

Okay seriously someone reading this thread has got to have been a manager/supervisor at some point in an office setting. Please help me understand the constant need to arbitrarily move people.
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At an earlier job I was with the company for 18 months, in the same department, in the same job. I was moved seven or eight times, all within the same room of the cubicle farm. The cubicles themselves were broken down and rearranged three times.

The reason behind it all was simply that Melissa was in charge, and Melissa was very, very bored.

eta: Someone suggested we simply give Melissa a dollhouse to work her rearranging urges upon.
 
JoeMorgue said:
The other thing is... why am I moving computers? They are networked. They have roaming profiles.

Why? Because my users seem them as "their" computers even though they are all identical HP business class machines.
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What's the bet that they've been storing personal data on their C: drives?
 
JoeMorgue said:
*Groans, head into wall*

More desk moves. 8 of them. And at least 4 of them are users being moved back to their original desk.

Okay seriously someone reading this thread has got to have been a manager/supervisor at some point in an office setting. Please help me understand the constant need to arbitrarily move people.
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I’m used to being moved all the time. After a bit I just stopped bringing personal stuff up to work. It was a pain with all the moves and who really cares to see your diplomas and licenses and pictures of your wife and kids. A bottle of whiskey is about it for my personal items.

Because of this I’ve been in my “temporary” office for over a year. I’m sure covid plays a role, but I expect that when we move to our permanent space I’ll soon have to move.
 
I guess, fair being fair, that's one of the reasons it annoys me so much.

My "office" is a Husky brand rolling contractor bag filled with tools and spares. My "desk" is my work issued laptop balanced on my knee half the time. I take hour long phone calls with my cell phone wedged between my shoulder and ear.

But one of the reason desk moves are such time sinks is everything having to be ergonomically perfect and exactly set up to their exacting specifications exactly at their new desk because they all have brittle carpel tunnel restless leg syndrome.

"I can't function unless I have two monitors, an ergonomic keyboard, a wireless mouse. Also I'm blind and need the fonts to be 45 feet high. Oh and the screen is too bright. No now it's too dim. Also I need a specific model of wireless headset that was only manufactured in West Germany for 8 months or I simply cannot function."

I've fought goddamn cyber wars from a 3 generation old Panasonic Toughbook laptop with an 11.3 TFT screen on a ship that was pitching back and forth in the North Atlantic. Shut up and type in your goddamn overdue insurance claims Karen.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I guess, fair being fair, that's one of the reasons it annoys me so much.

My "office" is a Husky brand rolling contractor bag filled with tools and spares. My "desk" is my work issued laptop balanced on my knee half the time. I take hour long phone calls with my cell phone wedged between my shoulder and ear.

But one of the reason desk moves are such time sinks is everything having to be ergonomically perfect and exactly set up to their exacting specifications exactly at their new desk because they all have brittle carpel tunnel restless leg syndrome.

"I can't function unless I have two monitors, an ergonomic keyboard, a wireless mouse. Also I'm blind and need the fonts to be 45 feet high. Oh and the screen is too bright. No now it's too dim. Also I need a specific model of wireless headset that was only manufactured in West Germany for 8 months or I simply cannot function."

I've fought goddamn cyber wars from a 3 generation old Panasonic Toughbook laptop with an 11.3 TFT screen on a ship that was pitching back and forth in the North Atlantic. Shut up and type in your goddamn overdue insurance claims Karen.
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My theory is that the people who fuss the most about such things are the ones who do the least amount of actual work. There's a lady on my team who (in the olden days when we were still in the office) spent at least 80% of her working hours fussing about her benefits, her online learning courses, her chair, her cubicle, her supplies, her computer...everything except the actual tasks she was being paid to do. She occupied herself with the accoutrements of work, rather than the actual work.
 
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