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

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I got a call at 4:59:36 today. I'm glad it was me that took the call and not someone whose shift ended at 5:00.

They were calling while driving.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Our SLA gives us 3 business days to make new user accounts.

HR has sent us 12 new hire requests since 3:30 for people who start first thing Monday morning.
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Welcome to Contractor's World! What I call the "Just Before You Go's". Their time is precious but yours is not.

"Just before you go...fix my smoking heap of a PC by tomorrow, will you?"

"Just before you go...can you make this report print backwards...and sort it in Cyrillic order?"

"Just before you go...rewrite the whole asset register module to comply with American accounting practices. [this was an Australian subsidiary]"

"Just before you go...can you change all the RAM in this server - I think it's got memory leaks."

And so on.

The solution is to hide somewhere in the building from about 16:00 onwards. Then you can't be assailed by these passing asshats at 16:45.

The other solution I did for management I could not avoid was to tell them I would fix their problem doohickey as long as they stayed back with me to test it was working afterwards. In other words, I would leave when they did. Testing could take MANY hours, perhaps even overnight... It was that or else their problems could wait until they were back at their desk tomorrow or in a few days time or whenever. Funnily, only one ever did pick unwisely...and lived to regret it by 3am.
 
Norman Alexander said:
Welcome to Contractor's World! What I call the "Just Before You Go's". Their time is precious but yours is not.

"Just before you go...fix my smoking heap of a PC by tomorrow, will you?"

"Just before you go...can you make this report print backwards...and sort it in Cyrillic order?"

"Just before you go...rewrite the whole asset register module to comply with American accounting practices. [this was an Australian subsidiary]"

"Just before you go...can you change all the RAM in this server - I think it's got memory leaks."

And so on.

The solution is to hide somewhere in the building from about 16:00 onwards. Then you can't be assailed by these passing asshats at 16:45.

The other solution I did for management I could not avoid was to tell them I would fix their problem doohickey as long as they stayed back with me to test it was working afterwards. In other words, I would leave when they did. Testing could take MANY hours, perhaps even overnight... It was that or else their problems could wait until they were back at their desk tomorrow or in a few days time or whenever. Funnily, only one ever did pick unwisely...and lived to regret it by 3am.
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I favour the "Overtime rate starts in one minute. You'll need to authorise it before I continue this call".
 
Hell if anything it's an improvement over how it was when I first started when we'd get a panic, angry banging on our door from some team lead or frustrated phone call from a site manager on a Wednesday morning because their new hire started on Monday and still doesn't have an account and we hadn't yet received the paperwork from HR.
 
Norman Alexander said:
Welcome to Contractor's World! What I call the "Just Before You Go's". Their time is precious but yours is not.

"Just before you go...fix my smoking heap of a PC by tomorrow, will you?"

"Just before you go...can you make this report print backwards...and sort it in Cyrillic order?"

"Just before you go...rewrite the whole asset register module to comply with American accounting practices. [this was an Australian subsidiary]"

"Just before you go...can you change all the RAM in this server - I think it's got memory leaks."

And so on.

The solution is to hide somewhere in the building from about 16:00 onwards. Then you can't be assailed by these passing asshats at 16:45.

The other solution I did for management I could not avoid was to tell them I would fix their problem doohickey as long as they stayed back with me to test it was working afterwards. In other words, I would leave when they did. Testing could take MANY hours, perhaps even overnight... It was that or else their problems could wait until they were back at their desk tomorrow or in a few days time or whenever. Funnily, only one ever did pick unwisely...and lived to regret it by 3am.
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"Oh, too bad, you just missed it by a minute! I've started the nightly server defragmentation alignment. It's automatic and can't be stopped once it's started...none of the fluvial functions will work until the optimization is completed overnight. And because this is the scheduled weekend for the registry parallax it won't be finished with the retro-index schema until Monday morning. Sorry, buddy, nothing we can do until then."
 
I'm gloriously happy for IT folks who are in the sort of positions where they can play games with their clients/users when they get unreasonably stupid.

I'm not.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Hell if anything it's an improvement over how it was when I first started when we'd get a panic, angry banging on our door from some team lead or frustrated phone call from a site manager on a Wednesday morning because their new hire started on Monday and still doesn't have an account and we hadn't yet received the paperwork from HR.
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My clients are distributed over forty separate buildings in all seven states and territories. We don't get people banging on our door. Anyway, it's an open-plan office - we don't have a door.
 
Right now being asked to make specific weekly predictions of work volume based on inputs that cannot be forecasted with precision.

It's not really a problem so far as long as the couple of people planning to use it take it with a grain of salt somewhat. And I'm making them aware of the broad assumptions being made that enable even being able to have an educated guess. I think if they treat it as a sort of sensitivity model more than a crystal ball they'll be alright.
 
catsmate said:
I favour the "Overtime rate starts in one minute. You'll need to authorise it before I continue this call".
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Contractors don't get overtime. They are already considered "overpaid" just by being there. And this was invariably delivered in person.

TragicMonkey said:
"Oh, too bad, you just missed it by a minute! I've started the nightly server defragmentation alignment. It's automatic and can't be stopped once it's started...none of the fluvial functions will work until the optimization is completed overnight. And because this is the scheduled weekend for the registry parallax it won't be finished with the retro-index schema until Monday morning. Sorry, buddy, nothing we can do until then."
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Aye aye, cap'n!

Didn't matter how much effluvium had to be enervated. As long as they weren't there to help mop it up, they felt free to call out their parting requests anyway.
 
Right now we've got four New Starter Requests each demanding that they be completed before the others, each with an appropriate business case and executive-level approval.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I'm gloriously happy for IT folks who are in the sort of positions where they can play games with their clients/users when they get unreasonably stupid.

I'm not.
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It's a two-way street. If you look at just about all the IT war-stories from the days of soldered discrete-component circuit boards to Snapdragon, it's a classic mistake for management to make all sorts decisions and promises that involve extensive IT services without actually even talking to IT about the issues first. Leaving their involvement to the last day or so to do weeks of work and then wondering why IT folks get angry is endlessly frustrating. Which is why we do get perverse joy out of needling some of the dimmer ones who pull these types of mindless stunts.

The obverse is those managers who do get IT on board up front usually get great service, because we are grateful to do our jobs with some sense of pride.
 
gnome said:
Right now being asked to make specific weekly predictions of work volume based on inputs that cannot be forecasted with precision.

It's not really a problem so far as long as the couple of people planning to use it take it with a grain of salt somewhat. And I'm making them aware of the broad assumptions being made that enable even being able to have an educated guess. I think if they treat it as a sort of sensitivity model more than a crystal ball they'll be alright.
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Easy one. Make whatever adjustments you can to the prediction model that will give you the maximum time to complete the task, budget to buy stuff, or days off (combine to suit your taste).
 
arthwollipot said:
Right now we've got four New Starter Requests each demanding that they be completed before the others, each with an appropriate business case and executive-level approval.
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"Your prioritization request conflicts with others of equal authority. To resolve please report to the fighting cage where you will earn preferential treatment by defeating all rivals in the ring of honor."

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 
Sooo... we've had a confirmed case of COVID in the building.

I've been WFW through the current lockdown as I have an Essential Worker permit because I don't have the space at home for the ergonomic equipment I require due to my WHS assessment. The case isn't on my floor - it's two floors up - and all the staff on my floor who have been to that floor have tested negative. But we're all WFH tomorrow until we know more. I'm pretty sure we'll just be a "monitor for symptoms" contact, but it's annoying. I haven't WFH for a while now.
 
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