Grumpy Techs

I encounter a lot of gossip where I work.  For the most part, I really don’t wish to partake in the gossip as I have a lot better (okay, perhaps not “better” but *more*) things to do than engage in an hour long discussion about how one can see the color of a coworker’s panties through her white slacks to why a senior manager spends so much time in the bathroom to whatever.  Personally, I prefer to go with the mantra of “the less I know, the better.”

That being said, I decided that today’s the day to official start the “gossip timer.”  There are a few individuals who work close to me, one in particular, who has, IMHO, juuuust a little too much time on her hands.  She constantly runs around in a frenzy, sometimes muttering “screw this” under her breath, to the point that I even wonder what she does around here.  Seems like she’d be a lot more productive focusing her energy on her actual work than portraying herself as “the martyr.”  I wouldn’t doubt coming to work one day and she’s in the middle of the floor, on her knees, screaming “SAVE ME, JAYZUSSSSSS!!!!”  I guess I’d have to keep a large distance for fear of lightning tearing through the roof and striking her down.

Alright, the time I started this blog post is 7:55am.  Timer’s ticking…  Oh, and there they go… Off to “whisperland.”

Update:  it lasted exactly 49 minutes.  Next series commences…now…

I’m falling behind on my project list.  Yesterday was a huge help.  In addition to that, there are a number of reasons for this.   Some of them are pretty amusing; some annoying; all make me just say “I really don’t care.”

I received the following email from the same user that wanted me to “speed up” her ‘Net connection at home (actually, that one reminds me of  the time when one of the “big bosses” wanted me to sit by her home computer and make sure her ‘Net connection stays up.  Priceless.  And, this user also sent us this gem.):

“Did you uninstall my college internet connection for home, which was on my laptop when I went to lunch? Curiously enough, it is not installed now!”

You know, this one is so off the top, I don’t even know how to respond.  Yes, we just happened to break into your *work* laptop to remove your *personal* VPN connection.  Hell, do you even know what “VPN” stands for?  It’s certainly not “very perfect nutcase.”  We have nothing better to do than wait around for people to go to lunch and fuck with their laptops.  We like to think of it as “job security.”  So, yes, we did that.  Oh, and doesn’t it run much faster now?

Here’s another one:

“I can’t get into the XXX directory.  Did you change my password without telling me?”

Well, let’s see.  More job security because we figure if we change people’s passwords, they’ll *have* to come to us to get them back on track.  But, with a little bit of troubleshooting, we come to find out that your account was actually “locked out.”  So, you see, this means that not only did *you* not know *your own* password, *you* actually locked *yourself* out.  But because the domain controller has feelings, it decided to pick on *you* today because you were mean to me.  Never, ever piss off the domain controller.  It is your friend.  (But, I’ll be nice and reset your password for you and we’ll never tell another soul that this was actually *your* doing.  I’ll gladly take the blame.)

And one more time waster to prevent me from working on anything worthy is a “requirement” to attend a vendor mini-conference today.  (Actually, this one was kinda cool as it was about cloud-based computing.)  All the while, however, I had to listen to the Curmudgeon share how “great” his son’s company is.  Now, a little Google digging will reveal that his kid’s company has actually received a number of customer complaints that were submitted to the BBB.

I guess the apple really doesn’t fall that far from the tree.  (Actually, I almost wish *I* worked there so I could treat people like shit!  Oh, but wait, I already do that.  But maybe I’d make more $$.)

Here we go:

• Curmudgeon gets off his lazy ass to share with me how much his son is making to build a survey application for a government website.  Survey Monkey “isn’t good enough.”  $150 an hour for a Cold Fusion app.  Didn’t Allaire sell Cold Fusion to Adobe about eight years ago and is even phasing it out in favor of “Bolt”?  Actually, Curmudgeon Jr. should be commended for bullshitting a government entity to rely on him using an obsolete programming language.  Wonder what’ll happen when the application breaks.
• Curmudgeon decided to “ramp up” the anti-virus scanning policies across all the servers.  Instead of staggering them across a wide schedule, he launches the policies at the same time, pretty much bringing our entire VM environment to its knees.  I had to “save the day” by putting our two ESX boxes into mainteance mode (one at a time, of course), migrating the VMs to the first dying ESX box, bringing the HA functionality back up and stabilizing it then bringing then moving the VM’s to the other ESX box prior to bringing it down and stablizing that one.  Now I’m dealing with broken file share permission issues so Curmudgeon called Microsloth and used one of our two critical support calls per year.  Oh, and the kicker is he’s blaming all of this on my Ubuntu box that just sits there and runs Nagios.
• Calls coming in left and right about the downed file server thanks to the previous bullet line.  Of course, everyone’s up in arms because they “HAVE TO GET THESE PROJECTS DONE FOR XXXXXXX DAY!!!!”  People, we’re having bigger problems than that.
• Kicker of the day:  While at lunch, I get the “I know you’re eating but we really need to have these issues fixed, mmm’kay??”  Yeah, okay, Mrs. Lumbergh, I’ll get right on it.  Just as soon as I down this fifth of tequila.
• Business manager tries to get into an argument with me, telling me *I* hooked the MFP machine up to everyone’s workstation on the network.  I politely informed him that I gave the vendor an IP address for the network but that’s where my involvement stopped.  Of course, he insists that *I* got *his* machine hooked up.  Of course, I just happened to have the email the vendor sent to me several months ago, confirming his connecting the business manager’s laptop to the MFP machine.  Yeah, and *I* need a CAT scan?

More tomorrow, I’m sure!

Current Mood:  grumpy

Thought this might be a perfect opportunity for me to share how a typical day goes for a grumpy tech.  For those who may relate, feel free to comment and let me know if I’m off base or close.

8am – Stuff myself with oatmeal, a piece of sausage and Crystal Light strawberry with a splash of vodka mixed in (not bad, eh?).  Sauntered over to my desk where I found a Crapple CrackBook No sitting on my desk.  The topping is that my wireless mouse and mousepad had been placed *on top* of the laptop.  I guess this is one’s way of saying “FIX THIS NOW BEFORE YOU TURN ON YOUR OWN COMPUTER!!!” The kicker is that the laptop’s owner calls me at 8:05am to “just inquire if my laptop is finished.”  “Ummmm, no,” is my stand reply, of course, followed by a BSSSTZZZZAAAAPPPPPP and the phone being subtly hung up.  I *hate* when the phone system acts up.

8:10am – I overhear one of our “technical assistants” talking to an enduser about our email system, saying how “it’s the best!!!” while the enduser shares a number of frustrating issues about it.  “No, it’s *the best*,” comes the standard reply.  That’s great to relay your opinion but how about getting off your ass and helping the enduser figure out how to effectively use the system?  Oh, and, by the way, our email system does *suck*.

8:30am – After surfing Google Reader and catching up on my comics, I decide to turn on the CrackBook and start looking into the problem which is:  “My Acrobat PDF Printer all of a sudden ‘disappeared’ from the printer menu and I need this fixed immediately.” (Oh, but, *of course* you do.) Realizing I should probably do some actual work, I fire up the CrackBook and begin removing all of the related applications.  (I wonder if I should have left the actual operating system intact?  Oh well.)  Because Acrobat’s “owner” likes to install about 4Gb worth of crap on a “basic” installation, I figure it’ll take about two hours to install.

9am – The laptop’s owner calls me to tell me she has an “important email I *must* send out before a meeting at 10am.” Again, of course you do.  She comes over and decides to perch herself at the corner of my desk while checking her email at the same time I’m reinstalling the software, mind you.  The caveat is when she complains about her computer “running too slow.”  Oh, you think?  Of course, with all that going down, I decide to leave the Princess to her own devices and go grab a cup of coffee long enough so that she won’t be around when I get back.  That ploy works.  She did leave her cell number so I can call her when I’m done.  Yeah, I’ll get on that too.  But, perhaps the best part of all this is that she leaves her snotty nose paper sitting on the corner of my desk.  Of course, I just had to wrap her power cord around the tissue which I’m hoping she’ll appreciate when she gets back.

9:30am – I receive another call from someone whose computer “won’t turn on.”  I ask if they held the power button down for 10 seconds.  “Yes, I need you to fix it NOW!!!” Again, of course you do (Hey, might be a good idea for another category.)  I politely inform her that I’m currently working on another computer and I’ll get over there when I can.  :::SIGH::: (Actually, it sounded like a Hoover vacuum cleaner blowing dust.) “FINE!!! But I need this working ASAP!!!”  Ummm hmmm…  Update: The power cord to the power brick was unplugged.  Awww…

9:50am – One of the “big bosses” who’s not technically capable of anything…at all…comes up to me and demands I look at her printer…right now.  “Yeah, okay.  And good morning to you too.”  Of course, all I get in return is a blank stare.  Now, this person is on the verge of retiring so I’m hoping that Alzheimer’s hasn’t begun to shut her down entirely.  This thought promptly goes out of my head and makes me think it’s already too late when I simply power turn her printer, turn it back on and, voila, it works.  Yes, I ran a ping to see about connectivity.  All’s fine.  Of course, I receive no “thank you” or anything.  Yeah, you’re welcome.

12:48am – The curmudgeon and I received an email from one of the “big bosses” demanding that we set up a workstation in his conference room and that this is “of the most utmost priority.”  Oh, and he wants this done by this Friday.  No problem that our budget is done for the year.  Your wish is our command.  Oh, and we’ll contact our PC vendor and have them Jetson-rocket it to us within an hour or so.

2:30pm – The Princess picked up her laptop and stated, in a disgusted manner, “I guess you want me to throw this Kleenex away.” Actually, Lady, I was hoping to hang it off the yardarm and salute it every morning.

I would go on but really don’t want to make this one into a 1,000 word blog entry.  You get the gist.  Let’s see how tomorrow will go, shall we?

Current Mood:  grumpy

To expand on this post, the one about our department head, aka the “big boss” decided that he was gonna have the CEO use a laptop with the symbol that looks like a fruit instead of the one with all the pretty logos.  The funny thing is that the BB is pretty much clueless when it comes to technology.  “Why is he the BB, then?” you ask?  Pray tell, Grasshopper, pray tell.

Well, the BB is actually out of the country for the next couple of weeks so one of my other coworkers (thank God I have other coworkers instead of just the curmudgeon) stepped in to take care of this conversion.  The person tasked with this “very important project” seems to be under the impression that I’m the personal lacky, i.e. this person will reap all the notoriety after I finish taking care of the conversion.  Here are a couple of points which confirms I’m generally the “fall guy”:

• The password was wrong.  No, I didn’t set this system up yet I’m, somehow, supposed to know what the original admin password.  Granted this is easy enough to crack but if I’m working in another building at the time this system is being established, *of course* it’s gonna be my fault when the password is incorrect.  After all, I’m the lacky!
• Most of the files are not converting properly from PC to Crapple format.  Well, duh.  If one is trying to convert a proprietary database file that only runs on a PC into the Crapple file format (actually, that’s a misnomer because no such file format exists in the first place), *of course* it ain’t gonna work.  But, hey, let’s blame that one on Grumpy Tech too because, after all, *he* wrote the original application in the first place! (If that were the case, I surely wouldn’t be working here.  I’d be kicking it with Richard Branson on Necker Island).

And here’s a little something extra (you *knew* I just *had* to bring up the curmudgeon!):

If one doesn’t understand how something works, rather than continuously arguing with me about it, you’re gonna get better results listening to me and then asking questions if you still don’t understand.  Trying to berade me will only help me realize how much *more* of an idiot you are.  I’ve discovered the deeper the attempted berading, the more ignorant the curmudgeon is.  Reverse psychology works wonders in these types of situation:  “yeah, you’re right.  I don’t get it.  I don’t understand.  Would you show that to me?  What’s a DNS server?”

Why is he reaching for his heart medication?