Grumpy Techs

Okay, seriously, Endusers, I *do* know if the network goes down simply because I would be unable to access World of Warcraft in the middle of the day.  That being said, please don’t tell me that the network has been down ALL DAY ‘cuz, seriously, it hasn’t been.

Also, if you’re gonna leave a voicemail on The Curmudgeon’s phone and his outgoing message states he won’t be in for the rest of the day, shouldn’t common sense dictate that you *might* wanna give me a call if you need help with sometime? I *may* or *may not* bite your head off out of the irritation I experience when I get a call from The Curmudgeon (as he sits in his doctor’s appointment getting his prostate checked.  TMI, y’all?) and I have to get back in touch with you in a silly, roundabout way only to find out that YOU are at a doctor’s appointment too.  (WTF? Is *everyone* falling apart around here??)

Finally, little kiddies, I know it’s the end of the day for you but that doesn’t give you the right to come tearing into my workplace, demanding that I open up the content filter so you can check your porn.  Fuck off and do it at home.

GT out…

Current Mood:  annoyed

Every once in a while The Curmudgeon and I need to come in on our off-hours, even on vacation days.  Just the name of the IT field.  I’m sure anyone working in this field can certainly relate.  Not a problem.  The fun part is when we schedule network downtime and *still* get complaints about it being down.  We can come in at 3am on a Sunday and someone will *still* complain that they can’t get to the Internet.  First of all, WTF are you doing here at 3am on a Sunday?  Go to an all-night coffee shop and grab your porn there.  Hell, most of the time those late-night shift workers know the best porn sites anyway.  (Cough, cough.)  Anyway, I digress.  Here’s my point…

About a week prior to performing big-time maintenance, we sent out a sickeningly sweet email to everyone, letting them know the network would be down for a day over a time when everyone was on a break (okay, *that* should give y’all an idea of what kind of environment I work in!).  No response from anyone.  The day prior to the downtime, we sent out a reminder.  Again, no response.  The day of, we shut the network down.  OMG.  Hell broke loose and the calls and bitching started coming in full force.

ICAN’TGETONTHEINTERNET!!!!

OMGOMGTHENETWORKISDOWN!!!!

HEYMYEMAILISDOWNANDINEEDTOGETTHISWORKDONENOW!!!!

Needless to say, it was kinda empowering, especially since we had a good idea of who was throughout the campus that day, even though no one but us was supposed to be there.

The best one, however, came when someone called me and said their printer was jammed and could I clear it out?  When I mentioned that we were working on the network and that printing wouldn’t happen until the network was back up anyway, the reply I got was “that’s nice but I really need to get this report printed.”

::sigh::

Such as the life of a Grumpy Tech.

Current Mood:  apathetic

Now that we’re pretty much back into the swing of things and we’ve gone from 300+ workstations to 700+ workstations and from 500+ people to 1,000+ people to support within the last six months, I like to take some time every so often to…well…hide.  I was actually on my way to doing exactly that when I was hit up with yet another question.  Now, I don’t mind questions.  It’s the ID-Ten-T one’s I have a hard time with.

Me:  :::Walking, walking, practically jogging:::

Enduser: ::literally runs up to me and gets in my face:: “I CAN’T GET TO MY COMCA$T ACCOUNT!!!”

Me: “Oh, hi.  Good to see you.”

Enduser: “DIDN’T HEAR WHAT YOU SAID???  I CAN’T GET TO MY COMCA$T ACCOUNT!!”

Me: “Why, yes, I heard you.  In fact, I’m pretty sure everyone down the hall heard you.” (Noticing a bunch of heads that immediate popped back into their offices after overhearing the sudden outburst.)

Enduser: (More subtly now as I think she noticed those heads too.) “Well, what are you gonna do about it?”

Me: “I’m sorry but corporate policy has dictated that personal email accounts are not to be used with corporate computers.  It’s not my call but a corporate mandate.”

Enduser: ::blink, blink:: “Do YOU mean to tell me that I CANNOT check my Comca$t email at work??”

Me: “Ummm, yeah.”

Enduser: “Well, we’ll just SEE about that!”

Me: “Okaaaaaaay.” :::start walking away:::

Enduser: “Hey, where are you going?  We need to look into this!!”

Me: ::thinking “oh, this is gonna be FUN!!:: “You want ME to go with YOU to ask Corporate why YOU can’t access YOUR PERSONAL email on COMPANY TIME and EQUIPMENT?”

Enduser: ::blink, blink:: (I think she has a nervous tick.) “You lead the way.”

Aaaaand, so I do…lead the way, that is.  I lead the way so much that I had that woman doing enough laps around the campus that by the time we got done, we could have logged a half marathon.  Funny all the time she kept screaming at me about the offices being “this way or that way.” “Don’t worry,” I kept replying over my shoulder, “I know lots of shortcuts.”  But, for *some* reason, I kept getting lost.  Hey, I’m a guy…I don’t *do* directions.

Needless to say, my mission was accomplished when she exasperatedly threw her hands up and screamed “JUST FORGET IT!!!” and raged off in a huff.

And now I’m in hiding.  Shhhh…don’t tell anyone.

Current Mood:  grumpy

Seems like lately I’ve been making awesome use of the “ID-Ten-T” error.  It’s the only way I’ve been getting through my days, considering I’m surrounded by a bunch of, well, ID-Ten-T’s, of course!  Now, before y’all go on thinking “Oh, geez, another Grumpy Tech whine post.  You want some cheese with that whine?  Hardeeharhar!” let me point out that it can sometimes be cool to be surrounded by morons because these people make for excellent content.  Since it’s been such a slow summer, I’ve obviously been remisce in posting but now that Fall is about here and we’re back in the thick of things, it’s time to ramp it up a bit.  So, stay tuned for more!

I recently received word that one of our test labs was on the fritz.  Frankly, considering the workstations are more than 10 years old, I’m really not surprised.  It’s about taking a shot of moonshine and a tube of Ben-Gay just to keep them up and running.  When they run too hard, there’s nothing a little Pepto-Bismal can’t handle.  Many employees know this and they also know that we’re just getting the budget we need to replace these systems.  I mean, after all, it’s more important to put a “don’t park here” sign on the new CFO’s parking space as well as by the CEO an iPhone which she keeps losing (I think she’s on her third now).  Screw production and profits!  :D  Unfortunately, however, one particular employee just didn’t get the “Leave Grumpy Tech alone about the aging test lab!!” memo.  I mean, I guess deliberately walking away while she was in mid-bitching and getting up from the lunch table while, again, she was in mid-bitching mode just wasn’t a subtle enough hint for her.  No, the time finally came for her when she came into my workplace to “passively aggressively apologize” for her behavior.  She probably took notes from the infamous Canadian Rick Mercer for that little gem.  Thank goodness for me her last words were “FINE!  I JUST WON’T TALK TO YOU AT ALL!!!”

THANK YOU, LADY!!!  OMG!!!  YOU TOTALLY GET IT NOW!!!!

(and she hasn’t lately either!)

Anyway, talk about elation.

So, a word of advice for techs wanting to get out trying to fix workstations that are, in dog years, about 70 years old (hell, that’s waaaay older than a Yugo!), just ignore the psychotic wonder wenches and you too may receive the cold shoulder from that very person too!

So I wonder if not posting in a while is a good thing or a bad thing.  Actually, it may be one of those times when not posting in a while allows everything to bottle up inside.  Quite possibly the case here.

First of all, I’d like to talk about respect.  I’ve always felt respect goes both ways, i.e. not only from the subordinate level up to management but vice versa as well.  Unfortunately, that’s just not the case here.  Here’s a taste of what I mean.

The following Grump regards the Big Boss’ printer which I, being the guy that sets up *all* the network printers, had nothing to do with.  The department head took it upon himself to make a “special” purchase for the BB without letting anyone know.  He didn’t take into consideration that we have a print server that all network printers must be added to.  In addition since this particular printer is wireless, this is the first time that we’ve ever incorporated a wireless network on the network.  Finally, we have a standard vendor/manufacturer we use for all of our printers (most IT shops are like that of course).  The department head failed to consult with us and randomly selected a printer we have no experience with.  Finally to top it all off, the department head is on vacation for a month, leaving us to deal with this issue.  Oh, how we’re so utterly incompetent, apparently!

Big Boss: “My printer doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked since you looked at it on Friday.  I really need this thing to work.” (The thing about the “Big Boss” is that this individual never gives anyone, especially us “geeks” the time of day except when there’s a problem.  No “hi” no “what have you been up to?” nothing)

Me: “I’ll be happy to come over there and look at it.  Please let me know when’s a good time.”

BB: “I’ll be out of the office until Thursday so come then.” (For reasons I won’t go into here, there’s a specific reasons why I cannot work on the printer before then.  Let’s just say it has to do with “lack of access.” ::sigh::)

Me: “Unfortunately, I’ll be in training as we’re implementing a new system for one of the departments and I’ll be getting up to speed on it Thursday and Friday.  How’s next week?”

BB: “That’s not good enough.  You’ll simply have to reschedule the training.  I need my printer fixed then.”

You can imagine how the conversation when after that.

Here’s another gem for you, dear reader.  Remember this one?  Yeah, I got an email from this person who, apparently, was basking in the sun on her back deck, sipping Pina Coladas before getting caught in the rain.  She wanted to know why *she* had a virus on *her* computer when *she* connected to *another network* that had *nothing to do with us.* May I get a “HUH???”  Exactly, my friends.  The kicker is that she’s not such a moron that she knows how to send a screen shot of the a/v software which detected the virus.  Here’s a bit of the conversation:

User: “Any idea what is up with this report?” (included said screenshot of a/v log)

Me: “Looks like a website you hit is trying to infect your computer w/ a virus.  Fortunately the anti-virus software blocked it.”

User: “Good to hear, but I did not access a website this morning at all!    Could it have been from days ago?”

Me: “I don’t know what websites you’re visiting so I’m not sure if you hit a site that infected your computer or if you clicked on a banner that said something like ‘click here because your computer is infected!’” (note: we’ve sent out *numerous* communiques about these banners and “please DON’T CLICK ON THEM!!!” I guess she didn’t get that memo.)

User: “This is an interesting question [sic].    What does it mean? -I’m at home……………..dial up, XXX Online service is what I use.”

I stopped communicating with this person at that point.  Ran. Out. Of. Time. (and wanted a beer.)

Onward and upward!