I.T. Department

aap1966 · aap1966's Garage

I do not pretend to possess more than basic computer skills, but am constantly amazed by our IT department.

First was the incident when no-one could access their e-mail accounts. I.T. was notified in the morning and, having not heard anything (and still not able to access the E-mail), we rang again the following morning at which time we were told...
..... (wait for it).......
"That's been fixed, we e-mailed how to access the accounts to everyone yesterday"

Now, I.T. have seen fit to upgrade security by assigning multiple individual passwords of at least 6 letters (at least 1 capitalised) and 2 numbers, that are changed randomly. (We ring I.T. for updates). The result is that stuck to every computer is now a post-it note with a list of sign-on names and passwords!
Way to upgrade security!!

Feel free to submit your own I.T. tales.

911Rob · 911Rob's Garage

Cheers to the IT guys/gals!!!

svandamme · svandamme's Garage

surely you must have pissed off the IT dept.

i mean , mailing how to regain access to email , that's just their way of telling the rest that they are dissatisfied over something...

perhaps they didn't get a raise
or they are in need of a new desktop pc that is stuck in approval mode on some managers desk...

stuff like that

Paul_Heery · Paul_Heery's Garage

RIM did the same thing yesterday. They notified all of their Blackberry users that there was a service interruption. How did they do it? Via an email sent to their Blackberries.

Tim Walsh · Tim Walsh's Garage

Happens ALL the time the other way around, you probably wouldn't believe the number of times I've gotten generic emails(from yahoo,gmail,hotmail etc or even a generic web emailer form) that we had no idea who that person was when I was working the helpdesk. The other great one was the classic "I can't get into my email can you call me back" Voicemails.

KFC911 · 02-12-2008, 04:11 AM

One of the benefits of switching phones over to IP...now when someone "calls" with a "network problem", I ask them how they called and move on to the real issue at hand

.

lendaddy · 02-12-2008, 04:14 AM

IT is currently in a much coveted position, one in which no one else at the place has a clue how to do their job or even what exactly it is they do. Can you imagine the god complexes?

KFC911 · 02-12-2008, 04:16 AM

I have a dog complex

Tim Walsh · Tim Walsh's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by lendaddy

IT is currently in a much coveted position, one in which no one else at the place has a clue how to do their job or even what exactly it is they do. Can you imagine the god complexes?

*AHEM*http://bofh.ntk.net/Bastard_Indexes.html

When I was on the HD, sometimes this was the only thing that got me through the day.

Tim Walsh · Tim Walsh's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by KC911

One of the benefits of switching phones over to IP...now when someone "calls" with a "network problem", I ask them how they called and move on to the real issue at hand

.

Ok now that's funny.

legion · 02-12-2008, 04:36 AM

Yes, us IT guys are reall @$$holes.

Nevermind that all of our business partners want stuff done yesterday--and will give us the requirements tomorrow....

For the third time in three years, I'm being asked to stop everything and put together a proposal for implementing one of my projects early. It's a huge freakin' deal because none of the supporting architecture will be there--I'd have to fudge it all myself. So I'd effectively have to create two versions of my program: the "early" version and the version I've been working on since 2005--and they want it third quarter of this year. The funny thing is, the head on the business side is dead-set against this. It will never get off the ground. Still, I'm wasting two months on this again...

I'm third-level support and spend most of my time writing new programs. If a problem lands on my desk, it's because it has no where else to go. I'm the guy that wrote the program. I'm not the flunkie with a God complex that fields general IT questions. My biggest complaints are end users who are unable to describe a problem. I don't know how to investigate and diagnose "It doesn't work." I try to be polite and ask probing questions, but it's obvious some people hold IT in contempt and will only answer specific questions and volunteer no information. (I feel like a lawyer doing a cross-examination.) The root of the problem is often in that additional information that is not being volunteered--and it is often because it is a situation that we either hadn't anticipated when we wrote the application or my business analysts told me "would never happen". Yes, it is important that you are trying to use your iPhone to access a secured intranet application. We have big firewalls in place to prevent that very thing. Yes, it is important that when it "worked yesterday" you were at your desk and now you are at Starbucks.

cool_chick · 02-12-2008, 04:38 AM

Legion, that is all well and true, but what he's describing is very poor customer service. There is no excuse for that. Like it or not, we are providing a service for these people. They are our customers, whether internal or not.

SlowToady · 06:31 AM

My only problem with the IT dept. at work is that they don't get paid enough

Edit:

Actually, here's a real story. Website used to be hosted through some local company where my employer moved from. They were pretty good on the tech side, although they missed a few things here and there that I caught. Well, when I got ahold of the new website, I tested it first on a sub-directory and noticed that PHP must not have been installed. Called our guy up, told him to install PHP..and oh by the way, is he aware of how to do it on Win2k3? It's slightly different from Windows 2000 and NT4. Yea, yea, he'll do it no problem, and text me when it's done. So, about 2 hours later I get a text, PHP is GTG. Backup old site, upload new site, and leave Lexington to go home for break. 8 or 9 hours later when I'm home I show my friend the new site...except that there is nothing there. Web server admin dude didn't install PHP correctly, and so for 9 hours, users have been getting nothing. Put old website back up, and call screaming. Change hosting companies.

Vipergrün · 02-12-2008, 06:31 AM

I've been in IT for 17 years, start-ups, private sector, public sector. Without a doubt, the majority of IT-related issues with end users is between the keyboard and the chair.

That said, it sounds like the poster has an incompetent IT group....gives the rest of us a bad name!

Scott R · Scott R's Garage

lol @ end users.

legion · 02-12-2008, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cool_chick

Legion, that is all well and true, but what he's describing is very poor customer service. There is no excuse for that. Like it or not, we are providing a service for these people. They are our customers, whether internal or not.

I was just trying to point out that it goes both ways.

Even as an IT professional, I have dealt with incompetence both within my own organization and with vendors.

Part of the problem is there are a lot of IT people who know their stuff, very few are good at customer service. Companies will hire the high school kid who is a genius hacker (and has the corresponding communication skills and inferiority complex) over a college graduate to do entry-level IT service work because the kid is cheap. Things get even worse when that kid's job got outsourced halfway around the globe...

stomachmonkey · 02-12-2008, 07:47 AM

Worked for the worlds 4th largest SW co.

Service issues had to be posted to an online resolution system. You could track the progress. Generally the issue would be refereed around to various individuals for a couple of days. Then the updates would start claiming that "tried to contact client at desk, left voicemail" They never left voicemail.

Utter BS.

svandamme · svandamme's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

"tried to contact client at desk, left voicemail" They never left voicemail.

Utter BS.

they must not be very experienced
i ALWAYS leave voicemails
in some occasions for the big pricewinners, i'll even find a way to leave a voicemail when they are actually waiting by the phone..

my phone
cellphone, caller ID off

cell phone ring
other phone ring
before target phone has a good idea to ring
other phone get's busy tone, goes to voicemail
cell phone *click*

it's all about timing

legion · 02-12-2008, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Worked for the worlds 4th largest SW co.

Service issues had to be posted to an online resolution system. You could track the progress. Generally the issue would be refereed around to various individuals for a couple of days. Then the updates would start claiming that "tried to contact client at desk, left voicemail" They never left voicemail.

Utter BS.

Computer Associates?

cool_chick · 02-12-2008, 09:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Worked for the worlds 4th largest SW co.

Service issues had to be posted to an online resolution system. You could track the progress. Generally the issue would be refereed around to various individuals for a couple of days. Then the updates would start claiming that "tried to contact client at desk, left voicemail" They never left voicemail.

Utter BS.

This is what we implemented:

Cut out of this pic is our company name and our departmental logo on top, and phone number at bottom......

This is a triplicate form. Top copy to the customer, bottom copy to the Tier II supervisor and middle copy for the technician's records.... PLUS, a journal note in the call tracking incident.

yep.