To some degree. But it really makes it stick out when it's people who know better and are just being lazy.
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I am not saying all developers but the greater percentage of people I've gotten this from are developers.
December:
Customer's Project Leader: We're starting a Disaster Recovery scenario soon
Me: Okay. When you do, know that what you're planning will cause our programs to not work. You'll need to call us during operational business hours so that we can help you get them up and running.
CPL: But the test will be over the weekend.
Me: So call me Friday afternoon, to give me a heads' up, so that I can prepare what I would otherwise need to do on my side, and give you the instructions you need on your side.
CPL: Well...
Me: Tell you what, I'll schedule myself something for the day before you plan to do this, and send you an email two days before for clarification, how's that sound?
CPL: Okay
January 11th:
Me: Hi, CPL. I'm writing to follow up regarding your DR drill that we spoke about in December. If you are ready to go through with your DR plans, I can set the system to be ready for your software reactivation. Here are the further steps you'll need once you complete the data migration.
CPL: The DR drill has been canceled.
January 17th:
CPL: Our DR drill went as planned, however your software does not work. Why were we not warned in advance?
It's the typical response of people who are clueless about computer networks or even computer science in general: "You shaman types with your tech mumbo jumbo broke my computer again, didn't you? All I did was bang on the keyboard and waggle the mousie thingie and giggle at the pretty Internet pitchers. It must be your [INSERT RANDOM COMPUTING PHRASE HERE] that did it."
I had a Comcast Supervisor (of the cube farm obviously, not a real tech) tell me that the reason my new Xfinity modem was working in wifi but not in hard wired connections was because I needed to "open some ports on your computer." Turned out to be I'd been connecting to my old router via crossover cable with no problem, but their box needed a straight connection. Had to figure it out myself.
We've got some freaky ghost shit going on!
Phone on the receptionists desk called supervisor A! For No Reason!!! With nobody even at the desk!!! Just out of the blue!!!
So we unplugged, and plugged it back in, and,.... What do you think?
"I think we should let all the water dry out of it over the weekend and see if it works on Monday."
Pack it in dry white rice.
Brother in law: We've got an old external hard drive that died. What can we do?
Me: Is the date important?
BIL: Not really
Me: Toss it
BIL: But we want the data off it
Me: ... Okay, so... put it in a zip lock bag with some silica gel dessicant packs, suck all the air out, put it in the freezer for 2-3 days, then plug it in. If it spins up, get all the data off it as quick as you can because it won't last long.
BIL: Have you had that work before?
Me: I'm 50/50 on success with that trick.
BIL: skeptical Any other suggestions?
Me: Data recovery services
BIL: How much is that gonna cost?
Me: I paid close to 1400 for a 500GB drive, I think, when 500GB of that model were still consistently sold. You have an 80GB drive from 2003-2004. Not sure how much the going rate on that might be.
BIL: So... Maybe 250?
Me: ... Because 80GB is proportionally that much less than a 500GB drive? I hate to tell you it doesn't work that way. Explains a couple different ways the drive might be recovered
BIL: What if we take it to Microcenter?
Me: They're going to tell you to take it to a data recovery place.
BIL: skeptical Well I'll try your suggestion
A week later
Me: How'd the freezer therapy turn out?
BIL: No go, we're going to take it to Microcenter to see if there's anything they can do
I don't know why I bother
of course I am guessing they did not specify how it sounded when it died. That is total lack of spin up, clicking or grinding noises...
I had an external go tits up once and my solution was to crack it open and sure enough normal SATA drive in there. popped it into the PC and it worked, Was merely the electronics that did USB-SATA in the external itself that died.
Spin-CLUNK
It's an old, old, old Quantum 80GB IDE drive. I don't have any IDE-capable computers, and I don't have an IDE USB converter, and he seemed more inclined to not listen to me.
I'd have popped for an IDE to USB converter but you know what, I ain't gonna force my help on him.
I amazingly have an IDE to USB still, its likely collecting dust next to my 3Com LAN-Modem. Which I still have for I dunno why, Not like I'd ever use a 56k again but I have a box that is a Modem router still
This.
This is the 5 panel sunday comic of every aspect in my professional life in a nutshell. Backwards... Forwards... It shan't fucking matter what the situation or who is speaking. No one fucking gets it.
Today alone, i had a friend who is handling a DUI for the first time. The day he told me, 3 months ago, i told him to lawyer up and start making payments arrangements from the get go.
Ffwd to today. "hey, I'm wondering what i should do about my court case tomorrow."
"what did the attorney say?"
"i never called. "
3 fucking months of nothing to lead up to this.
I finally threw my box of computer parts that I've been lugging around since i first moved out of my parents house. I realized that every single part in there, i could replace with the help of amazon or ebay for less than the amount of time it would take me against regular wages to find any specifix part i may be searching for.
I still have all my old hard drives - one of those has some booby pics of an ex-g/f - but even so, I'm so close to sledge hammering all of them, despite one being sure to have some of my old writing as well.
Yeah, but this guy is Mexican. He is seriously fucked.
Third Party Tech: My customer is having problems using your software
Me: What's going on?
TPT: Communications issues
Me: Based on the error you're giving me, that means you have a firewall or proxy in place
TPT: I have no firewall in place
Me: Don't know what to tell you then. Something is blocking our program's ability to download certain information.
TPT: Our inbound filter...
Me: You just said you don't have a firewall or proxy
TPT: It's not a firewall or proxy, it's a traffic filter
Me: Terminology aside, it's something that meters and otherwise redirects or alters the traffic across your network out to and back in from the internet, correct?
TPT: No
Me: ... What does it do?
TPT: It routes and shapes traffic based on load or certain criteria and filters out known problematic sources
Me: ... So, could it be blocking my program's ability to download information from certain DNS names or IP addresses due to it being a non-browser application trying to pull XML information across port 80?
TPT: Maybe, but it wouldn't be blocking it...
where are other techs going today?
in that situation my first solution would be if I had permissions to do so, shut the filters off. if program working=yes its time to keep the filters off or update the whitelist.
The sysadmins who run their system and/or get paid the big bucks decided and/or were told to block everything that didn't meet certain program parameters for all systems their monkies work on.
Before escalating the ticket to Silverback, they have to call product support to blame it on them.
So it's still at Gibbon Level?