I don't need IT, ipads fuck ralara every day (IT thread)

[gtphanta]

I work on a hell desk as a "Senior Service Desk Analyst" - which doesn't mean I have any extra authority, or get paid any more - it just means I'm the one responsible for actually making things happen when the rest of the team can't be arsed to do it, plus having to do a whole lot of covering for my manager who isn't at all technical and not overly engaged (he's just resigned).

We have 9 positions in our team, but 3 vacancies and 1 person on leave and 1 person seconded to a project, which leaves myself and 3 others working our butts off to keep on top of things - but 1 of those 3 is lazy, constantly watching movies on his macbook, and working for a large retailer, this is the busiest time of year with 50% of our sales happening in the lead up to Xmas...

Had a huge argument with lazy guy and secondment guy about our building's telephony ( Meridian Option 11C that was used in ancient times - Manager is being a dick and siding with the lazy guy on making me do all our building's telephony (on top of having to do my job, plus the work of 3 regular analysts whilst said guy watches youtube clips). Was || this close to quitting yesterday, but thankfully I have 5k in credit card debt and owe my dad 5k towards my car which kept me from doing so...

I really don't get paid enough for the amount of responsibility on my shoulders...

It would be okay if, A. I got paid a competitive market rate,
or
B. I got to do the stuff I was hired to do (as in work on the knowledge base, setting the processes etc.
And
C. My manager actually supported me, rather than everything having to be this huge battle with me vs. him and the whole team until I can prove I'm right - which thankfully, I normally am)
And
D. I was actually given some authority to handle the responsibility I'm taking on (this is a tough one because technically it's not my responsibility, but since my manager knows nothing about IT, and the team are constantly passing the buck, I end up taking it all on, to the point of working weekends for them because I'm the one making the roster which they happen to disagree with).

Sorry for the rant, but I think the title of this thread is appropriate.

[olivehehe_03]

Spend the entire day working on one thing but actually had something to show for it, unlike my usual efforts. A bit of background, I work IT Helpdesk at a school so our users are teachers and students and we use Websense Web Filter for internet filtering. Teachers are always whinging that websites are blocked and there's no way to check them beforehand when planning lessons and such. So I sat down and created a PHP page to allow a user to select a year group (eg. Prep to year 4, year 5 to year 6 and so on) and enter a bunch of URLs to ask the websenseping.exe tool if it's blocked or not. Kinda proud of that one.

[Ben Derindar]

I work on a hell desk

Yes, yes you do.

[Aramendel]

I considered for about 30 seconds not doing it and sticking to my guns, but I couldnt do that..

Yes, would never use that approach myself either, simply because if he asks someone for a 2nd opinion and he tells him "sure, just do..." that won't exactly look good. Saying "Sorry, I was wrong, I found a way to do it." causes far less "damage".

Nevermind that refusing to do it to win an argument would be rather childish

[Itiken]

on the MS SCCM Course this week.
It's been pretty chilled so far - i managed to pick a relatively cool dude to sit next too - and am so far happy to knnow my self-taught SCCM has been 95% correct, though we've not started using it in anger yet.

Yesterday afternoon's "install and get it working" lab was hilarious though as most of th epopel are either user/deployers or managers who have touched the console, but get totally lost when needing to make it work.

I finished at 4:15. Peopel were there until 6pm.

In general though, it's good - and hopefully will get harder.
Any SCCM users know of a good resource for getting either MOF files or pre-compiled Reporting Services packs to make :ShinyManegementReports: ?

[Itiken]

doublepoasting because sccm is boss.

[Itiken]

As a consultant I never say x, y, z can't be done. I say it is impracticly because of a, b, c, but if you have $ I can do x, y z. That either shuts them up or makes my monthly bonus.

I use the term "IN Theory" liberally. That and "It'll be done by Christmas" as a poke towards the WW I armchair generals who though just that.

After a few Hours / Days working with me, 'people' usually figure it out for themselves.


"Can we deploy X to Y within Z timeframe"
"In theory we could"
"What about in practice"
"It'll be over by Christmas"
"That bad huh?"

[Equium Duo]

I get the feeling that most of you IT guys think you are in a special bubble and only you guys are subjected to this kind of crap.

Not saying that I had to do any remote diagnosis of a server somewhere that turns out to be some dickwad unplugging a vital part to use his phone charger. I get similar shit in my line of work. I get phone calls from some fuck the other day asking me for the rig (this is a mechanical machine that process pharmaceutical product in conjunction with a chromatography device) asking for the manuals for my departments rigs because they lost theirs. Refuse to tell me what the problem is. I finally get it out of them and it as simple as two fucking mouse clicks at the controlling PC. The reply.. I literally got a lecture that started with 'listen here boy, when I worked at Ford....'



TLR Most of the stuff you write is not a unique experience just because you work in IT.

[gtphanta]

on the MS SCCM Course this week.
It's been pretty chilled so far - i managed to pick a relatively cool dude to sit next too - and am so far happy to knnow my self-taught SCCM has been 95% correct, though we've not started using it in anger yet.

Yesterday afternoon's "install and get it working" lab was hilarious though as most of th epopel are either user/deployers or managers who have touched the console, but get totally lost when needing to make it work.

I finished at 4:15. Peopel were there until 6pm.

In general though, it's good - and hopefully will get harder.
Any SCCM users know of a good resource for getting either MOF files or pre-compiled Reporting Services packs to make :ShinyManegementReports: ?

SCCM Arrrggg

We implemented it - and in theory it works awesome, but in practice we've had users who never get the software installed on their pc's, and you can never tell when something is going to install. Users really don't like us saying "it will install automatically in the next week or so..." - but that's all our infrastructure can say as a timeframe...

[Lana Torrin]

Nevermind that refusing to do it to win an argument would be rather childish

Not above being childish to win an argument..

[Muffinsrevenger]

on the MS SCCM Course this week.
It's been pretty chilled so far - i managed to pick a relatively cool dude to sit next too - and am so far happy to knnow my self-taught SCCM has been 95% correct, though we've not started using it in anger yet.

Yesterday afternoon's "install and get it working" lab was hilarious though as most of th epopel are either user/deployers or managers who have touched the console, but get totally lost when needing to make it work.

I finished at 4:15. Peopel were there until 6pm.

In general though, it's good - and hopefully will get harder.
Any SCCM users know of a good resource for getting either MOF files or pre-compiled Reporting Services packs to make :ShinyManegementReports: ?

SCCM Arrrggg

We implemented it - and in theory it works awesome, but in practice we've had users who never get the software installed on their pc's, and you can never tell when something is going to install. Users really don't like us saying "it will install automatically in the next week or so..." - but that's all our infrastructure can say as a timeframe...

Spend some time learning it, it's super fucking sweet when you figgure out the basics and have the ability to shit software everywhere you want as well as haveing it tell you everything about everything all the time and then, like say that one thing your boss wanted to know about all the computers? It can find that thing out for you, and then make a graph about the output

[Itiken]

on the MS SCCM Course this week.
It's been pretty chilled so far - i managed to pick a relatively cool dude to sit next too - and am so far happy to knnow my self-taught SCCM has been 95% correct, though we've not started using it in anger yet.

Yesterday afternoon's "install and get it working" lab was hilarious though as most of th epopel are either user/deployers or managers who have touched the console, but get totally lost when needing to make it work.

I finished at 4:15. Peopel were there until 6pm.

In general though, it's good - and hopefully will get harder.
Any SCCM users know of a good resource for getting either MOF files or pre-compiled Reporting Services packs to make :ShinyManegementReports: ?

SCCM Arrrggg

We implemented it - and in theory it works awesome, but in practice we've had users who never get the software installed on their pc's, and you can never tell when something is going to install. Users really don't like us saying "it will install automatically in the next week or so..." - but that's all our infrastructure can say as a timeframe...

Get on a course.(*) Get to grips with it. Learn It, Love it.
It's an all singing all dancing motherfucker until you get it under control, then your life is not only easy, but more proffitable.

(*nb: or man up - re-build it on a lab environment, and spend a month getting to grips with it yoruself)
\o/

Wondering whether to wait until next month and roll out 2012 though, or stick with 2007.

[Itiken]

I get the feeling that most of you IT guys think you are in a special bubble and only you guys are subjected to this kind of crap.

Nah, but we know your ip address, and where you live :P
how long would a "I Work in marketing and drawing pictures all day is hard" thread last before ?
/jk

Besides, you deal with science, that's so fucking similar you may as well tell us about it. I have several EX's in hi-grade biology research and some of the shit they coem out with. Man...

[mqoca]

I think I'm lucky. I'm a data analyst for a law firm and having some VBA skills means that I'm practically a god.
Being a tech support agent for Verizon on the other hand, made me want to kill myself

[dpidcoe]

I get the feeling that most of you IT guys think you are in a special bubble and only you guys are subjected to this kind of crap.

I won't deny that a lot of IT think that, but a lot of this stuff is actually pretty unique to IT (and other highly technical fields to some extent). It stems from doing a job that's very technical and requires specific knowledge such that your superiors don't understand exactly what it is that you do, nor could they do your job if you left. That's not a problem with the 10% of managers who know how to manage correctly by delegating authority, providing support, and occasionally acting as the voice of reason. Unfortunantally, the other 90% who don't know how to manage try to take direct control over everything (even though they're not capable of doing so) and it causes a disaster.

That effect doesn't happen so much with a typical 9 to 5 job that any idiot can do, as whoever's been assigned to manage it probably could work any of the positions under them. That means there's less chance of them bungling stuff when they assume direct control and attempt to micromanage everything.

[Itiken]

Today - i'm going to install server core for the first time.
I am excite.
Really
Maybe i need to get out more ?

[Lana Torrin]

Today - i'm going to install server core for the first time.
I am excite.
Really
Maybe i need to get out more ?

Have you used it before? If not its going to rock your mind.. (sconfig is your friend.. At least I think its sconfig)

[Itiken]

Today - i'm going to install server core for the first time.
I am excite.
Really
Maybe i need to get out more ?

Have you used it before? If not its going to rock your mind.. (sconfig is your friend.. At least I think its sconfig)

For some reason in the god knows how many years i've been doing this, and it's been out, i've never installed it, but for this little bit of work it's the perfect choice. (And in vitalized environments)
it is, indeed, rocking my world.
in my future, there is only core installations.

[IceBlock]

anybody know of a good open source alternative to spamtitan?

[Itiken]

SpamAssassin?