Jon wrote:
I sent a new laptop to a company. Where I am sure they have at least 3 engineers.

One of the guys call me and says the laptop is broken. This is the typical complaint where broken can mean just anything.

I said the laptop was new straight from the factory. I purchased so many laptops there I was suspicious the laptop was broken.

I said what do you mean by broken. He says the keyboard does not work. He says that when he logs in, when typing letters he gets numbers, and that he needs to return the laptop. (The other 2 engineers could not figure it out either)

I look at my laptop (cause it is the exact same model), and the reason is obvious. Some letters on the right are also used for numbers with “Num Lk”.

So I say (and think doesn’t this guy have a masters?), hit the “Num Lk” key, it has to be activated. So he did, and he says, now it works. Never heard a “thank you” from this guy.

…I always made fun and sometimes pissed me off, when back in the days I used to call tech support and they tell me “is it connected?” Well there is another story about that.

Yeah … this happens a lot …

IT departement send and email about eamil server being down. And this was not before they took it down. It was during the downtime.

The communication is so awsome …

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Link ]]> http://ihatemyitguy.com/2008/05/20/this-is-kind-of-funny/feed/ http://ihatemyitguy.com/2008/04/29/please-dont-install-that/ http://ihatemyitguy.com/2008/04/29/please-dont-install-that/#comments Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:30:15 +0000 Jesse http://ihatemyitguy.com/?p=16 How many times have you had to tell your kids, “don’t touch that, it’s not yours?” Well believe me, it doesn’t stop there. Us adults have this same issue. We can get very cranky when things that are ours (or things that we think are ours) get touched, moved around, modified, destroyed or simply looked at in the wrong way. This brings me to two interesting arguments (from both sides of the IT/end-user world)… First, from the IT guy’s side:

I know you think it’s your computer but in all honesty, it’s not. - See, just because the IT department gave you a computer, a login to the network and maybe a pretty Blackberry (oh how I miss my Blackberry), these are still company-owned items and in the end are controlled by none other than, the company. There are reasons that there are rules and regulations about what can and can not be used on the company computers and this is to A) keep the trouble tickets down on messed up machines and make sure that productivity stays at 100% all the time (this doesn’t include the 50% of your time that’s spent on Facebook, LinkedIn and the other time-consuming sites) and B) keep the spy-ware, ad-ware, mal-ware and other-ware that can impact a company’s intellectual property by stealing or destroying the data.

On the other hand, the end-user definitely has something to say to the IT guy:

I know you think it’s your computer but in all honesty, it’s not. - At the same time that my report had to go out, an email from an important client was coming in and my latest TPS reports were being uploaded to the server you, the IT guy, came along and installed updates, rebooted my company and now caused a BSOD every time I try to open Lotus Notes (ouch), Internet Explorer or any number of applications that used to be used for the daily grind of work. These “upgrades” or “enhancements” that are added to the computer should always be tested on someone else’s computer before taking over the employee’s laptops.

Sometimes these issues go in both directions. Both the all-powerful and all-knowing IT guy and the angry and busy end-user are both wrong. Make sure you take the time to follow the golden rule… Treat others as you would like to be treated. And if you like it rough, then treat them much gentler because odds are they don’t.

A few days ago, I had a fairly funny request to turn the “network” time back 10-15 minutes. The only reason being someone didn’t get their proposal finished on time and wanted to make it look as if it was sent before the deadline. Since this wasn’t the first request for this issue, I could only shake my head and remind myself not to try explaining that the network time isn’t just to keep employees on the same schedule, but actually has a purpose and a potential consequence if it is not within certain parameters. My explanations, as simple as possible nonetheless, are now contributing to global warming. Nothing but CO2 gets processed.

After I got done laughing at some of the strange questions we receive in IT I realized that we are doing a grave injustice to our users by not explaining the reasons that this can not be done. See, I got started in IT because a teacher cared enough (well maybe she was simply paid to do it) to teach me a bit about an Apple IIe computer. I was hooked. From that point forward I’ve always made it a point to not only learn all I could about the inner-workings of the information highway and all of its surrounding entities but also to teach people along the way. When I learn a new WEP cracking method (not that people don’t know about the insecurities of WEP anyway) or of a new great service online for scheduling events, I let people know.

As an IT guru you should be helping people on their quest along that long and dark (or light) fiber connected road. It can only help you later on while figuring out why the new router or firewall went down or why the spam appliance is blocking all incoming email (or worse, allowing open relaying)… Just don’t give them the keys to the castle — they’re yours and yours alone.

“Why would you like a new cell phone?”

The answer from the end-user is generally something along the lines of:

“Because I do.”

This is never a good answer. See no matter how high up you are in a company, justification must be made for each and every purchase. I love to order the latest and greatest laptop, iPhone, projector or whacked out spam fighting appliance but without justification it’s only a cost — not an advantage for the company. This carries through directly to your cell phone as well. While you may want the new Apple phone, Palm OS (not sure why) or, gasp, Windows Mobile smart phone but if it doesn’t help the company you just won’t get it.

Now don’t get me wrong. There are many times when the newest Blackberry is important to your job function or department but we just need a reason why. Usually us IT folk have a process for approvals or justification but we just need to follow that process before you can get the device. Just remember, it’s not about you. It’s about me — I mean the company — and me. Just fill out the proper paperwork.

Let me show you by quoting a famous movie about a guy who works in a boring, dead-end job:

Peter Gibbons: The thing is, Bob, it’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care.
Bob Porter: Don’t… don’t care?
Peter Gibbons: It’s a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don’t see another dime; so where’s the motivation? And here’s something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.
Bob Slydell: I beg your pardon?
Peter Gibbons: Eight bosses.
Bob Slydell: Eight?
Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That’s my only real motivation is not to be hassled; that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

It may not be to this extreme but this is how most IT people feel when they have someone coming over with a story about their life and how their computer not working will affect their kids, their spouse, their dogs, cats, roosters, pigs, and cars — all without telling me what the problem is. A prime example is the other day when someone came to me with a laptop that “didn’t work”.

They sat down, explained how they took it home, it wouldn’t work, they took it to their grandmother’s and it wouldn’t work, they even brought it to the airport for a trip and it wouldn’t work. In addition, it caused them to be late on sending out an Evite for their kid’s birthday party which meant that it inconvenienced their husband because he had to send it out at the last minute. All the while they never once explained what was happening with the machine when it “didn’t work” because as I saw it (on my desk), it was running, with word open and their Lotus Notes software churning away at their email. Finally, they explained that their wireless would not work and when they were away from the office they could never connect to the Internet. A simple push and explanation of the “wireless on/off” button did the trick. A 10 minute explanation took a 10 second fix.

So please, be kind to your IT guy. Cut him/her some slack as they probably have 8 different bosses who all want their time and your life story doesn’t make their day any easier.

1. “I NEED” - We all need. We all need something done for us later, now or yesterday but we can’t always get what we want. We have more than one person to help out and your probably probably isn’t nearly as important as theirs.
2. “to be able to” - This is a very interesting part of the sentence. You probably would have been able to run this report if you had worked on it last week or the week before like you were supposed to. Now you might just have to wait till I get around to fixing the problem (that odds are a user, likely the one who sits next to you, broke).
3. “pull this Unix report” - Interestingly enough, I do not even have a login to most of the Unix systems at my company and I have not been trained in how our business system even runs. On top of this, it’s clearly been explained to you what my job is and still you come to me to fix it.
4. “right away.” - Please see point number 2.

Now I know what you’re thinking — the IT group is a service group and that’s what you have us for. While that may be true, we are also trained to not only prioritize what we work on but also ignore YELLING. That’s right, yelling never solved a situation when you were 2 years old and wanted another pudding and it probably won’t fix your issues today when you’re 45 years old and still want an extra pudding.

So please, understand that an IT person’s job is not to make your job more difficult but it is to make sure that the organization as a whole runs well. This may involved tell you no sometimes or simply making you wait another 15 minutes for your report. And remember, if you send us your IT issues, we might write about them as long as you keep this simple rule in mind — you’re not the only one.