Norman Alexander
Penultimate Amazing
At their cost.
Dear Users… (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people) Part 10
- Thread starter TragicMonkey
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Filippo Lippi
Philosopher
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2002
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- 5,363
Dunno. Probably not. We haven't had any failures, but have been told we have to test it, so I'm copying other teams jobs. Who will also be testing. What a complete waste of time
Norman Alexander
Penultimate Amazing
Don't they provide test rack space at this aircraft company? Perhaps a quiet but firm word from the chief sysadmin might be needed.
BowlOfRed
Master Poster
Oh, we have a lab area with lots of benches that's normally used for testing junk (easier than racking it up if you need to get in and out with hardware changes).
Just the folks sometimes think that they can do one quick thing at their cube.
catsmate
No longer the 1
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- Apr 9, 2007
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- 34,767
Some servers default to max fan if there's only one power input.
Norman Alexander
Penultimate Amazing
Perhaps their neighbours should be allowed one quick swing of a pick-axe...
BowlOfRed
Master Poster
That as well. In this case it was because even with 2 plugged in, they don't spin down until the OS starts. And he was fiddling with cards in the "BIOS" screens, so 2 supplies didn't help.
BowlOfRed
Master Poster
We didn't have one nearby. We threatened to lock him into a closet.
He was apologetic that he didn't realize quite how loud it would be. One more server in the server room or even in the lab doesn't sound like a big deal. (Especially if you're wearing hearing protection like you're supposed to). Then in a regular office you realize it's insane when it turns on.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
Two gemlike questions, from two different people, on the same day:
1. "Why didn't the July report have the August data on it?"
2. "Why doesn't this data reflect the changes I forgot to ask for?"
Honorable mention to the person who panicked because the latest figures showed "very low numbers" for one particular thing. Yeah, the numbers for that thing are low. They were low every month this year. And last year. And the four years before that. In fact, those numbers are low every month since we started recording data. This person had no idea what the numbers normally are, they just saw it for the first time ever and decided it was unusual and cause for a fuss.
1. "Why didn't the July report have the August data on it?"
2. "Why doesn't this data reflect the changes I forgot to ask for?"
Honorable mention to the person who panicked because the latest figures showed "very low numbers" for one particular thing. Yeah, the numbers for that thing are low. They were low every month this year. And last year. And the four years before that. In fact, those numbers are low every month since we started recording data. This person had no idea what the numbers normally are, they just saw it for the first time ever and decided it was unusual and cause for a fuss.
CORed
Penultimate Amazing
Because the AC thermostat is set way to low (at least as far as the person with the space heater is concerned), I suppose. What better way to deal with it than waste lots of KW to have cooling and heating fight it out?
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CORed
Penultimate Amazing
Regarding the honorable mention. It's a variant of, "The numbers weren't what I wanted or expected them to be, so there must be something wrong with your report."
alfaniner
Penultimate Amazing
In my car and at home, on certain days I like to have both the A/C on and the window open. It's OK, Dad... I'm paying for it myself.
gnome
Penultimate Amazing
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And yet is there anything (at work) more sublime than having someone question the data on a report and being able to prove it's accurate?
Ok, probably lots of things but I still like it.
Typical non-helpful support staff not trying to help build synergy and efficiency across the organisation.
1) don't you understand if they could have the August data they'd be able to get ahead in their workload and be able to plan better?!?
2) how am I meant to know what I need to know - it's all computers and that's what you are meant to do?!?!?
alfaniner
Penultimate Amazing
My former company used to do something called front-loading at the end of each quarter. They would pull all the orders for October 1 and process them as September 30 items, to make the quarter's numbers larger. I never understood it because they were just translating them from the next cycle.
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
Unless they only do it once, and double-count that month in the numbers. That's what in some industries is called "fraud", and leads to a bit of a fuss sometimes.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
Amen! That's why for every high-falutin', summarizin', mathin', complex query I do I also write a parallel version that uses the same logic except just returns the base level detail, hundreds and thousands and sometimes millions of rows. So if anybody dares to challenge my accuracy I can spit out bazillions of rows of data, dump it into Excel, and send to to them and their bosses asking "show me where you think the error is".
Or sometimes if someone questions my logic in a call I'll share my screen and show them the SQL and go through it bit by bit, Socratically asking about each piece. "This is the part that excludes the deceased from the counts. Did you want to include the deceased in the counts, Kevin? No? Then this bit is right and we move on to the next bit. You can see in the notes I included that this bit was added on 3/1/2017 per your request, Kevin, and it quotes the email you sent me asking for this to happen. Did you not want to have this part happen, Kevin? Yes, you did? Then this bit is right and we move on to the next..." And if they're especially annoying to me I'll type in more notes, right in front of them, "--confirmed correct in call 8/27/22 by Kevin, Nancy, Joan..." listing everyone in the call.
My performance reviews usually include the word "thorough". I thoroughly enjoy thoroughly proving that everything that ever happens is never, ever my fault. CYA ought to be painted in four-foot-high letters on the wall of every IT office.
alfaniner
Penultimate Amazing
Dear xFinity support bosses: Get your people some decent headsets -- ones that can filter out all the other people shouting in the obviously close quarters. It doesn't help on top of an accent that's difficult to parse, and as one with hearing difficulties anyway it makes for a difficult experience. Also, adopt standard words for spelling out difficult words. "I" as in "information", or "N" as in "nuance" are just as hard to parse. (Exaggerating here to make the point.)
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