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

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arthwollipot said:
Users are advised that any use of this technology will increase the amount of entropy in the system. While no liability is implied, this will eventually lead to the heat death of the universe.
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Hey, don't think you can duck your liability so easily with that smarmy disclaimer. If your product causes the heat death of the universe, I will sue you for everything you've got.


Seems to be a flaw in that plan, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
 
Filippo Lippi said:
Last night I had a nightmare that I had been woken up and made to go and test all of the connectivity to and from our application in a three hour window.

It's fine though, in actuality I have just under a month to invent a big team of people, train us all up in the application (millions of lines of code), the connection technologies, and then design efficient, thorough, but fast protocols to test it all.

And run two other projects being staffed by a very inexperienced team.

"It'll be fine," he says as he Googles for jobs elsewhere.


Actually, it won't be fine.
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Thank ****, my concerns have been heard and have been raised at "the top." Whether it trickles down the other side and things change is another matter
 
alfaniner said:
I have this recurring dream that I'm back at my old operations job, having to follow a schedule, and I've mostly forgotten how and when to do everything. It's been over 30 years since I did that job, and it still has the power to stress me out!
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One of our next tasks is to bring the QA batch into line with production so we can start running in a couple of weeks.

"Our" task, but, importantly, not "my" task
 
I hear that as one of those contradicting Morgan Freeman voice overs.
 
So I took a fun call this morning. The Chief Financial Officer of one of our smaller agencies submitted a request to get access to SAP Financials. We require a business case. His business case was:

I am the Chief Financial officer for <agency> and I require full access to <agency>'s financial management information.
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Our Definitive Media Library replied:

Unfortunately, the business case provided in your SAR does not provide enough details for us to approve the installation of the software. Your business case needs to clearly explain what you will be using the software for and how it applies to departmental, programme, policy or project work outcomes. Please do not use acronyms in your business case. Please provide the license key details to allow DML to assign the key to you.
Regards
Definitive Media Library (DML)
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He lost his ****. He threw a massive wobbly. He called me and chewed my ear off for five minutes, talking over me while I explained that yes, he will have to resubmit the request with a more detailed business case, and advised him of the established procedure for submitting feedback to our Service Delivery area. His rage was barely suppressed.

Now we've received the (strongly-worded) feedback, and all the agents are having a good laugh in the Teams chat.

ETA: This is his feedback:

I find this disgraceful that my business case is being rejected. I indicated in my form that I am <agency>’s Chief Financial Officer and require full access to SAP financials for <agency>. This is inefficient, stupid and makes no sense. Why some nameless and contactless folk referred to as DML can make such a dumb decision for the CFO of an independent commonwealth entity is beyond me.
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Darat said:
Who actually makes this decision? Surely not the technical team?
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It's the DML. And they do so according to a very strict set of rules. There is no-one that those rules do not apply to.

Procedure doesn't exist to inconvenience people. It exists to make the job of providing services to an 8,000 strong workforce easier and more streamlined.
 
arthwollipot said:
It's the DML. And they do so according to a very strict set of rules. There is no-one that those rules do not apply to.

Procedure doesn't exist to inconvenience people. It exists to make the job of providing services to an 8,000 strong workforce easier and more streamlined.
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My response in this sort of situation, based on being on both sides of the fence on various occasions, is to accept that "Them's the Rules". You can rail against them and potentially do your career and mental health irreparable harm. Bur it is better to conform (or "play along", if you will) and get the results you want.

Whatever you do, don't take it out on the poor guy responding. He did not make the rules and you don't know who his friends are or what damage he can do if he is the vindictive sort.
 
Over the years on different consulting assignments I've taken great pleasure in refusing this kind of request. Show me a business case and exactly which data and functionality you need access to. "All the data" just doesn't cut it. In my experience, the more senior the role, the lesser the need to actually get their hands dirty.

At one company the access rights were such a disaster that the board decided to remove all application access rights over one weekend and wait for people to complain on the Monday morning, after which we'd reactivate rights based on our assessment of operational need. My analysis a month later showed that only about 25% of user accounts were brought back to life, which shows just how necessary the thousands of previous accounts actually had been.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
My response in this sort of situation, based on being on both sides of the fence on various occasions, is to accept that "Them's the Rules". You can rail against them and potentially do your career and mental health irreparable harm. Bur it is better to conform (or "play along", if you will) and get the results you want.

Whatever you do, don't take it out on the poor guy responding. He did not make the rules and you don't know who his friends are or what damage he can do if he is the vindictive sort.
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Yes. 100%. Later that day, one of the other T2 agents took a call from someone who was being similarly unreasonable. It was that kind of day. She's pretty new, and she has some stress and anxiety issues, but she handled it very well.
 
catsmate said:
"So that's why I tracked down his desk and, on my next visit, sprinkled some zinc phosphide on his unattended latte".
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Not hugely imaginative. And much too fast. An incident I remember from the days when Batch Processing was king was the story from a friend who knew the guy who maintained the payroll system for a large US city. The guy was hassled by a city cop and told him, "Your paycheck will never be right again". It never was and every two weeks the poor cop had to deal with the payroll department to get it corrected.
 
Dear User: if you're going to ask me for the spreadsheet, please don't do so by replying to the email to which the spreadsheet in question was attached. It demeans us both.
 
When people move desk (which the do way too often for no reason but that's neither her nor there) I move IT equipment. I do not move anything else.

Like I honestly do try to maintain a good working relationship with my users but I'm not "the help." I don't work for your company. My company has a contract with your company for me to perform very specific actions.

I'm not the janitor, I'm not the on call "there's a spider in the bathroom" guy, I'm not the electrician, I'm not the "Do things on my computer that are my job but I never bothered how to do" guy.

So do not make some backhanded appeal to "We're both on the same team" because we're honestly not.
 
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