I'd say. Most people live by the "Storage space cost is a rounding error", but that can be very different in DB installs...Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
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I'd say. Most people live by the "Storage space cost is a rounding error", but that can be very different in DB installs...Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
Well of course! It's the HAXXORS!Quote:
I work for a small company of 20 people. Every damn one of them believes that their password gets changed behind their back. Every. Damn. One.
Response: 8% of nothing is still nothing.Quote:
The size addition is an 8% increase and if this goes live that will make lots of tech people unhappy!
Okay, so the company I work for is spread out nationwide.
Our CTO creates quarterly meetings that involve every department head to do a presentation.
Okay, fine, mandatory attendance for 2 hours every few months. It's an impediment to actual progress because I can read faster than any of these people speak, but I'll join in. I love my job and the people I work with.
Sometimes they really spare no expense.
We have some wonderful conference room gear at every major location provided by an industry leading vendor. The conference rooms seat about half or more of each major office and it's not like we can force EVERYONE to attend, because we still have to do business during business hours.
But does that become an option?
No.
Because sometimes they get some random technology vendor BURR UP THEIR ASS and decide to not leverage the perfectly working technology we've already purchased.
No, no, let's pay MORE MONEY for the sake of convenience.
It's a pittance, comparatively, so it's hard to be TOO upset, but given what happened, I can picture a few dozen or more ways to spend money more effectively.
Enter the scenario:
CTO provides an external vendor with a dial-in number.
Hundreds of employees, all with VOIP desk phones.
Two major trunks that fail over back and forth (because, HA), with more than enough SIP licenses to handle everyone using their phone all at once internally on the VLAN/LAN system...
...but suddenly every single desk in IT is dialing in to an external number.
..Now, that in and of itself is bad, but then we exceed our outgoing bandwidth through one trunk.
(because how often do 700 people call out on the same set of outgoing lines at the same five minute deadline?)
Then...
...connections start dropping.
Now, you'd think that a professional media conferencing software vendor could handle that, but NO!
The connections weren't closed on the audio/video conferencing vendor's side, they were closed on OUR external side.
So people get disconnected.
They dial back in. (It's a "required attendance conference" after all) and now?
They have two sessions.
Add more external connections.
At about 40 minutes in, there were de-doops and be-deeps for disconnects and reconnects happening so often that presenters couldn't speak.
At 60 minutes in, we lost video AND audio.
At 70 minutes in they reset the video, but the audio was still cutting out regularly.
At 80 minutes in it stayed straight silent except for the bleeps.
It also clogged up the phone system so hard that it brought the company down for about 4 1/2 extra hours.
Customers couldn't call in.
Office locations couldn't call each other.
The call logging system was registering calls, but noone could speak.
We brought an entire company's phone system to a halt because the people in charge decided to not use the systems in place.
All I can say is "Thank you Comcast/Dell/TechnologyServiceProvider for setting the bar so low that the company that employs me doesn't stand out as a larger failure."
Wait, why is the VOIP being routed through the vendor's servers?
Customer: I understand you can password protect your program in order to prevent unauthorized access
Me: That's correct. How many people will be using the programs?
Customer: One
Me: Just one?
Customer: Yes, just one.
Me: Most of the customers who use the programs in a single-user environment don't bother setting up passwords or additional users
Customer: But I'm trying to throw off hackers
Me: Pardon?
Customer: I'm trying to throw off hackers.
Me: Um... okay
Customer: So are you going to help me or not?
Me: Of course I'm going to help you. I just wanted to bring to your attention that it wouldn't be necessary.
Customer: It is most certainly necessary! As the primary user of this program I want to lock down as much of it as I can!
Me: As you wish.
42 minutes later...
Customer: This is more involved than I thought. It's only me using the programs, and no one else in the office but the tech guy knows about it. I want to prevent internal and external hackers!
Me: No, ma'am, it's rather quite simple. You are the one who required me to walk you through creating a bunch of fake accounts that will never, ever be used. Further, any hacker that is worth their keystrokes is going to go after your emails, PDFs, and documents, before they even try to find any tiny little niche program like mine. Further, if no one else but the tech guy knows about it, why would you worry about there being "internal hackers" who are going to alter or steal your data? If that's the case, maybe you should lock down your environment more instead of this one program.
Customer: Why would I need to do that?
Me: You need to do that because you are the only user of these programs, no one else who might want to use the programs in the office knows about their existence, and again, any hacker attempting to get your information will either target everything, or very specific things that are NOT this program.
Customer: But I need to be safe from hackers!
Do you want the Red Pill pr the Blue Pill?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
What happens if you take them both at the same time?Quote:
Do you want the Red Pill pr the Blue Pill?
You become the customer.
The purple pill, duh and/or hello.Quote:
Originally Posted by Schezar
Multiple coworkers: We're having problems with the phone system
Manager: Please call the Helpless Desk
Coworker A25: I've called the help desk, but I'm still having problems
Manager: Please provide the service ticket number
Coworker A25: sends an email with a screenshot of the intranet website that shows the Help Desk's 800 number
Coworker: I've gotten two calls and an email from this brand new customer about how they've yet to receive a call from our usage support group to some questions they had last week.
I look up the account information.
Me: They licensed on Thursday 10/29, made their first call at 3pm on 10/30, and they're complaining that they didn't get a call back by Monday at 9am?
Coworker: Yes
Coworker: When can I tell them to expect a response?
Me: As I'm not that department, I cannot begin to guesstimate.
Me: However, given that out of 5 people in that department, there's only two people available, you'll have to tell them something like "it's been unseasonably busy, please be patient and wait for a call back".
Coworker: What do you mean there's only two people available?
Me: One resigned. One's out sick. One's on disability til the end of the year. The fourth is on part time hours.
Coworker: I'm jealous
Me: Don't be, she had to have a heart attack to get that
Coworker: Still, it might be worth it.
:wtf:
Customer: Hi, we need the license activation code for the most recent version of your software.
Me: Which program and year?
Customer: gives the information
Me: Okay, did you send the activation email?
Customer: The what now?
Me: The activation email. You need to send me that email so that I can generate the activation code.
Customer: Oh, we haven't even installed the software yet - we wanted to take care of everything at once instead of drawing out the process with our internal tech group...
Me: Oh. While I certainly understand your wish to consolidate your issues, you need to have the program available before you can take the next step, which is the activation process.
Customer: Really?
Me: Really really.
Attachment 4434
At my sister-in-law's house setting up her new modem, wifi, and wireless printer.
S-i-L: While you're here, there's one other thing I need you to look at
Me: Oh?
S-i-L: Yeah it's in the kitchen. There's a clock I need to fix.
In the kitchen...
Me: What's wrong with it?
S-i-L: It ticks REALLY REALLY loud so I can hear it in my room clear across the house
Me: I take it off the wall, pop out the battery.
She looks at me, looks at the clock, looks at the battery, looks at me, and just starts giggling.
S-i-L: That's IT!?
Me: shrugs
It's been that kind of month.
One of my hats is prepping the notification email when an update to certain programs becomes available.
I've prepped one such email to go out later this week, once the download hits the website.
I sent a test email of the content to the product manager and the analyst manager and immediately get back an IM from the latter.
Analyst Manager: Your content links are showing outdated information
Me: Pardon?
Analyst Manager: All of your content links are showing information from the prior version of the program, dated January
Me: Yes, I know
Analyst Manager: So... Fix it?
Me: It won't show the correct linked information until the actual download hits the website. The email test - as with all other email tests I send in this manner - was strictly for a verbiage review: to make sure I didn't miss any important points.
Analyst Manager: Well, you should make sure the linked content is correct.
Me: The linked content won't be correct until the update is updated. I don't have the ability to change that. I'm just making sure the email has all the information you need to provide.
Analyst Manager: The email looks good, but you really should fix those links.
Sigh.
We work closely with another company that allows our product to access a service of theirs.
This involves importing certain data into the tax returns my program handles.
My product manager shared this email thread with me before involving me in the issue reported by this other company's VP of development whereby they're having problems using our program to import their data:
VP: You see, we're trying to import information as of a certain date, and none of the information comes in correctly for rows 35+
PM: Lots of emails going back and forth with "did you try this" and "did you try that"
VP: Yes, yes. Can't you get a developer to look at it?
At this point, I get involved and look at the issue.
Me: (to PM) The data is provided in a comma-delimited text file. Did you open it in Excel?
PM: Do what now?
Me: renames file extension to .CSV and opens in Excel
Me: Look, there's your problem
PM: What?
Me: Past row 34, you've got over a hundred rows whose entries are offset by one or more columns. If you have a process in the program that's looking at Row 50 Column 10, for example, and Column 10 has a number, the program'll import that number, right?
PM: Right...
Me: But if you're looking at Row 51 Column 10 and it's blank, it's not going to import anything, right?
PM: But the program should know that the value in Column 9 (which should be in Column 10) actually belongs in Column 10
Me: No, it doesn't. It has no idea what Column 9 is, because this program doesn't know that column 9 exists. According to the import spec, Column 9 is supposed to be always empty.
PM: But Column 9 isn't empty.
Me: Right. But again, the program's not looking at column 9. It's looking at column 10.
PM: looking panicked You mean we need to change over 30 programs to alter the way they import this data!?
Me: NO! as nicely as I could You get THEM to change THEIR output so that the data that's supposed to go in the respective columns actually goes there and doesn't get lost in the process!
VP: Why are you looking at the file in Excel? It's not an Excel file!
Sigh...
VP stands for virtually pointless(person) ;)
first thing in the goddamned morning the other day:
"Yeah, my streamed app session is hung in citrix"
"Okay what's your windows username?"
"Capital S first initial, last name oandso"
"Okay, I'm pulling up your sessions, is the problem only with this one application?"
"Yes."
"Okay, I'm going to go ahead and reset your session for that application, if you could wait about 15 seconds before loggi..."
"...Thanks! *click*"
"...ng back in that'd ensure that the....*sigh*"
===2 minutes later===
"Yeah, this is Soandso again and this one streamed application is still hung in Citrix"
"Okay, I'll reset it again, but if you could stay on the line and verify that you can log i..."
*click*
"...n before hanging up the ... pho..n..e.."
-----------------------
Cue several more attempts before I was able to convince the person to stay on the phone long enough to realize that it wasn't that they had wireless and LAN on at the same time (disturbingly common and interrupts session resets and causes app hangs) and that they didn't need to close out of citrix receiver entirely.
They were just impatient and killing it if it didn't launch within 15 seconds.
Final successful launch took about 45 seconds. Worked just fine after reset then.
and another one dealing with vendor we've used for almost a decade.
Us: "We just got a notice from you that we need to renew our support, that shouldn't come up for another year yet."
Vendor: "No you've been out of compliance for a year, you now owe us backpay for that year, a re-instatement fee, and the year going forward"
Us: "That's funny, our licenses are still valid, we're getting support and new downloads of new versions. Care to check your records again?"
Vendor: "Nope, we guarantee you're out of compliance"
Us: "But the dates you're quoting don't make sense. We have Purchase Orders sent to you dating all the way back to the beginning of the relationship. Check these numbers".
Vendor:"You owe us backpay, a re-instatement fee, and the full cost of a new year".
*Okay, these guys are being dicks, let's find another VAR*
*Find multiple other Value added resellers, get quotes from them*
VAR folks: "Yeah, this is a lot cheaper than you can get from them. No fee, no backpay.
Us: "Great, let's do that"
VAR folks: "Oops, sorry, the Vendor won't sell anything to us for you unless you pay the fees first."
Paperwork is ALL IN ORDER.
Vendor can't get their shit together.
I had a call exactly like this Monday.Quote:
Originally Posted by Merrick ap'Milandra
The guy simply wouldn't wait two minutes.
So when he called back, I told him that there seemed to be an issue with the system and would require handwavy wibbly wobbly special stuff, and asked him to hold.
Four minutes later (twice longer than needed) I got back to him, told him to complete the process he'd need to reboot his computer and he'd be good to go.
*knocks wood* Haven't heard back from him yet.