|
blackswordca posted:So a bunch of phone calls came in Haha. Dealt with this again today. The success of streaming media is definitely being felt hard in N. America right now. Maybe ISPs in Canada will start spending all those grants they got for improving infrastructure on actually improving infrastructure soon.
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2014 00:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 18:42 |
|
|
Theresa Frontpage posted:Haha. Dealt with this again today. The success of streaming media is definitely being felt hard in N. America right now. Maybe ISPs in Canada will start spending all those grants they got for improving infrastructure on actually improving infrastructure soon. Hah, no. execs need more retreats to discuss improving infrastructure.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2014 00:36
|
|
|
The windows update to fix windows updates getting stuck is, itself, stuck. God dammit.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2014 01:51
|
|
|
blackswordca posted:I was sure the raise never existed either. Now they have a better excuse to not give it aside form "welp, were too cheap" I loving hate it when they play games. If you're too cheap, just say so. I remember when my boss told me of the time when he gave a guy the highest rating, but the higher ups just straight up cheated and bumped up his grade down anyway they could so they wouldn't have to pay out a pissy extra 1000 bucks a year. As far as I know, every firm in every industry does this. I know the accounting firm I worked at as a audit intern was known to do it too. At least my firm straight up told us "No raises unless executive, bonuses will be 80% of what they would be unless we get an excuse to make it even lower. Eat a dick". They also implemented a program where you can earn the full bonus and then some if you're a top performer. They say it's the top 20%. I say it'll be the top nobody and they are just bullshitting, or at least it'll only be the people who brownnose the right people just so they can say "hey we did it, try to at least sort of give a poo poo". That's why my philosophy is park and ride. Do your bit and git. Extra effort will be not rewarded, so don't put any in. It's also how I justify spending hours and hours building a LAMP wordpress server out of a spare desktop which eventually get poopooed anyway because it's tooooo haaaaard to uuuuuse. I'm having fun, learning tons of poo poo, and it's technically work, so off I went.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2014 04:28
|
|
|
Zorak of Michigan posted:When I was at Worldcom, their big Ashburn office complex had the bathroom tile laid at about a 15 degree angle from the walls. They did it deliberately to make the bathrooms unpleasant. As you can imagine, this did not actually improve productivity. The ashburn campus (now Verizon)! Apparently someone high up wanted to find a way to maximize the time that people spent set their desks. They were worried that people would spend too much time loitering in the halls and whatnot, so they hired a psychologist to deliberately design everything outside the cube farms to be as unpleasant as possible. The campus is huge; 11 buildings attached by a shared hallway half a mile long. It looks soulless from above and a prison inside. Looking down the hallway, The walls are bare painted cinderblock and the roof is high ceiling'd open I-beam with rectangles of fabric hung like pavilion tents in random directions. The entire place is filled with stories from top to bottom. There was worry about even being able to support something so large in a place that was seriously undeveloped at the time, around late 2001. It turns out the fears were founded. They built 7 buildings initially but it was discovered the power grid could only support 3 of them, so the rest remained dark and unused for years even though construction continued on the rest. Finally, 5 got populated. Then Bernie Ebbers did his thing and so while it was worldcom less than half those buildings were ever used at all. I assume now that it's Verizon the place is full, and I know the power infrastructure caught up and they can supply power to the whole thing. The carpet, though. That's what I wanted to talk about. The carpet immediately draws your attention. It's a work of art. A bunch of colors mixed in with hard lines like a magic eye painting gone corporate then put through a wavy The Scream filter. The result is that while it looks normal if somewhat generic up close, after about 20 feet a trick of perspective causes the whole thing to crawl and shift like an optical illusion. It's so nauseating it had to be deliberate. I wish I could find pictures of this remarkable place online just to show everyone. The only indoor picture I could find is of the massive NOC, with it's custom curved desks that the builders messed up installing twice because the desks were curved slightly different and numbered to fit together like a space center. I have tons of stories about that place but this post is already an essay. Like the time we discovered half the A outlets were incorrectly wired to the B PDU. Or being locked out of the data center and discovering that you can just pull up the carpet on the raised floor, crawl underneath the locked door, and pop up on the other side. Or when a coworker zapped himself running cable because there was a live wire grounding to the power box under the floor. Or spending 8 hours a day for 3 weeks unboxing and installing desktops in that NOC but first having to open the things up and install memory because the vendors didn't ship the right specs. Out of all of it, my favorite was the blowjob room. You see, prospective clients would get the song and the dance and the tour, where you can overlook the NOC from the conference room that has a lightswitch that opaques the glass. They would walk through massive cube farms to see people diligently working. Then they would go upstairs to this room where the worldcom logo was projected spinning on the carpet. There were chairs and sofas and it was all completely over the top trying to impress. The thing is, it was so jarring because of being dimly lit compared to everywhere else on the account of the projectors. It got that name because what else do you do for prospective clients in a dimly lit room? Bhodi fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Feb 22, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2014 16:54
|
|
|
Bhodi posted:The carpet, though. That's what I wanted to talk about. The carpet immediately draws your attention. It's a work of art. A bunch of colors mixed in with hard lines like a magic eye painting gone corporate then put through a wavy The Scream filter. The result is that while it looks normal if somewhat generic up close, after about 20 feet a trick of perspective causes the whole thing to crawl and shift like an optical illusion. It's so nauseating it had to be deliberate. The carpet never worked on me, but I remember one of my coworkers from the branded dial project having to hold a note pad just under his eyes while he walked down that corridor. Seeing the full expanse of the carpet gave him debilitating migraines. I want the windows with the switch to turn them opaque for my bedroom at home. Those were awesome.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2014 17:38
|
|
|
I think you need to post the rest of these stories ASAP, this sounds amazing/horrifying.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2014 21:58
|
|
|
Jesus blackswordca, I feel for you man  only time I ever got written up for refusing to do work was when I did tech support like 8 years ago, and we were doing document conversion using Adobe Live Cycle. We got initial instructions on what fields needed to be where, formatting, and all the documents that needed conversion.A week later, the team who wanted the conversion decided they didn't want things done in Adobe after all, just to do some straight changes in Word, slight modifications to fields and formatting, no big deal. Only problem is we have to start ALL the previous documents over again using the new format. Woohoo. We get part way into them again having to re-do our work with the new instructions, and guess what? Yep, the team in charge decides to change their minds AGAIN, we're going back to Live Cycle, but with new, updated, more complex changes to formatting and layout. Which means we have to start over from the beginning, but I saved a bunch of work from the first time we used Live Cycle, so it was a matter of making slight changes versus starting all over fresh. Still a pain, but not a huge one. Few days later, we get told we're going away from Live Cycle AGAIN, going back to a different formatting tool altogether that isn't Adobe or Office based, and will have to start all over. I flat out told them "nope, not doing it, this is the fourth change in a month and I'm not starting anything over until <team> makes up their drat minds on how they want things done." Management didn't like it, said team didn't like it, I got written up for it despite valid points about people not having a solid plan in place they wanted to stick to. On the plus side, I didn't have to do all that work, and ended up scrapping/deleting anything I'd already done in the first place. Best part was that about 4 months later, the location I worked in was closed down, we were part of a larger company and our location apparently was "underperforming" despite all of us being told we were consistently #1 or #2 out of all our North America offices. Inspector_666 posted:God I loving hate having to solo rack UPSes. Yes, I love having to manhandle 60 pounds of sharp metal box first thing in the morning. These things are a bitch, but any time someone needs one done I usually help (good to be the only guy in the office that lifts weights regularly, I suppose). They're more awkward than anything to lift by yourself, but it's doable, albeit ill-advised. Speaking of UPS units...had a client a couple weeks back that lost power to their internet and phone system 3 times in a week. Went out on site, they're in a big office building and the way they're connected, they share a circuit with a neighboring office. Apparently people over in that office kept overloading the circuit, causing power to cut out - at least 5 people had personal space heaters, all running at nearly full blast, and we traced it to them. Building management had to get involved to get things sorted, so in the meantime I let them know I'd get a quote for a good UPS that should at least last them 3-4 hours on battery, since they didn't have much running. At the time they had a cheap consumer-grade Tripp Lite battery backup, and it maybe lasted 30-40 minutes on a good day with everything connected to it.  They didn't have a rack, so we got a UPS quoted from APC that was our standard, base unit we quoted, basically bare minimum depending on what they ran and would definitely work wonders for their system. Had sales send the quote, didn't hear back for a few days, so I touch base with the front desk receptionist to see if they had any concerns.  Oh yeah, we got the quote, but the manager said it's too expensive. We went to Best Buy and bought another one that was a little more power to add to what we have.Can't wait to hear back the next time the power goes out, and power stays up for maybe 90 minutes tops while they scramble to fix things. Oh well, I can't force their hand on it, but so help me, they better not try to blame me or the other engineer that supports them when things inevitably go wrong. BOOTY-ADE fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Feb 22, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2014 22:01
|
|
|
Small businesses are without doubt the loving worst. Everyone knows just enough to second guess your recommendation and Google something inappropriate under the guise of being budget-conscious. I had someone query the need for a network card in a UPS when they had more than one thing they wanted to gracefully shut down, because apparently that's what a USB hub is for.
|
|
#
?
Feb 22, 2014 22:03
|
|
|
Amazon related: gently caress you Amazon (and Prime, and UPS, and USPS). Order some poo poo via Prime because, hey, it is cheaper on Monoprice but I kind of need this within the next few days just to have UPS hand that poo poo over to USPS and to turn 2-day shipping into 20-day shipping. I've never had an issue with Amazon ever outside of like the past 6 months where poo poo just gets lost, or is way behind on schedule, or poo poo is getting damaged. I can't wait to go into Best Buy and buy a $5 dollar cable for $45 bucks. e: code:
Phone fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Feb 23, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 00:34
|
|
|
Raise hell with their chat support. Last time they blew their "guaranteed delivery date" I got on chat and every time they tried to be all "well sometimes stuff happens" I pasted that "GUARANTEED delivery date" and eventually they ended up refunding the entire order AND letting me keep the cord. I doubt they'd do it for expensive stuff but it's probably worth 20 bucks if you have time and want to vent.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 00:43
|
|
|
Yeah, I got a $15 certificate and said something snarky/awful like "oh man, this is going to be worth so much when I buy a $45 dollar cable at loving BEST BUY".
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 01:08
|
|
|
Caged posted:Small businesses are without doubt the loving worst. Everyone knows just enough to second guess your recommendation and Google something inappropriate under the guise of being budget-conscious. Its not small businesses or large businesses. Its just businesses that become loving obsessed with nickels and dimes and end up spending far more in time chasing 'savings' than they'll ever get back. That doesn't even begin to cover the lost business when 'cheap rear end solution' fails.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 01:37
|
|
|
Where I work now has a pretty good number of staff that share or do not have a computer or even a desk, based on the nature of the business. But to clock into the new time system, apparently you have to login to ADP. So now our clock in process is going from: 1> Swipe card into time clock. to: 1> Sit down at the one computer designated for this. 2> Hit CTRL+ALT+DEL and log into the VPN and wait for it to connect. 3> Log into Windows XP and wait for desktop to load. 4> Open IE and load ADP's eTime site. 5> Log into eTime and wait for Java to get its poo poo together and load the page. 6> Click RECORD TIME STAMP. 7> Logout. I've clocked myself doing it at ~90s start to finish. Most of the staff is not uhhh at all computer literate. There are two logins/passwords that have to be used to complete this procedure. I am going to the liquor store in prep for Monday.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 02:15
|
|
|
Call comes in today saying "Help, my wireless doesn't work!". I ask what lights are on on the back of the access point. Of course there's none. I ask him if the access point is plugged in. Of course not. Now, this by itself isn't really that bad, but after I told him what was going on and how to fix it he had the gall to argue with me, bathed in the glorious light of his utter stupidity. "I need to plug this in? But I was told this was wireless!"
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 02:16
|
|
|
AlternateAccount posted:Where I work now has a pretty good number of staff that share or do not have a computer or even a desk, based on the nature of the business. But to clock into the new time system, apparently you have to login to ADP. So now our clock in process is going from: Given that it is a unique login for ADP, why not use a locked down shared account and cut out steps 1-4?
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 02:20
|
|
|
RFC2324 posted:Given that it is a unique login for ADP, why not use a locked down shared account and cut out steps 1-4? Suggested exactly this to the people who sent down this plan, was denied.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 02:21
|
|
|
AlternateAccount posted:Suggested exactly this to the people who sent down this plan, was denied. I love when stuff like that gets turned down in the name of security but actually leads to stuff like writing logons on post-its on the monitor or sharing logons or people leaving poo poo logged in and unlocked
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 09:11
|
|
|
Theresa Frontpage posted:I love when stuff like that gets turned down in the name of security but actually leads to stuff like writing logons on post-its on the monitor or sharing logons or people leaving poo poo logged in and unlocked Shortsightedness is endemic in the industry. Which is why we have things like hiring freezes causing outside contractors to get renewed at double the hiring rate.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 13:28
|
|
|
A couple of years ago some salesperson had to access an old XLS file that nobody knew the password to. I suggested buying the Elcomsoft recovery tool for 80 bucks but was shot down because we were not allowed to simply purchase products in response to incidents. To do so would've required writing an investment request, waiting for the monthly meeting of the IT managers and their opinion and finally a signoff by the country manager. However, there was no such restriction on hiring services, so instead my manager gave the job of decrypting the file to the same external consultants that got hired for every non-bid contract we farmed out, who promptly charged us three hours of work at $200 for it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 13:45
|
|
|
An email came in. After just 3 months, I'm being offered a promotion to L2 Unix Admin, complete with a raise  Gotta find out how likely I am to follow in the footsteps of the last guy to accept this promotion, who immediately got fired because the L2 management didn't like him. Fortunately, I lack his anti-social aspie tendencies, so I think I should be OK.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 15:44
|
|
|
Phone posted:Yeah, I got a $15 certificate and said something snarky/awful like "oh man, this is going to be worth so much when I buy a $45 dollar cable at loving BEST BUY". Don't go to Best Buy, go to your local computer store. You have one, you just need to find it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 16:56
|
|
|
A local store is quite likely to charge exactly the same amount as Best Buy, except they will have to dust off a generic eBay brand bagged cable that will fall apart instantly. At least the Best Buy option has a chance of being a quality product.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 16:58
|
|
|
Last time I was in a Best Buy, they actually did have some reasonably priced cables. They were at the very bottom of the racks and packaged in the most lovely generic plain packaging ever (clearly designed to convince people who don't know any better not to buy them), but the generic HDMI cable was like nine bucks or something instead of $40. Not monoprice prices, obviously, but better than getting ripped off with a Monster cable marked up 10000%. Alternate option: Order cable from monoprice, buy cable at Best Buy. After the monoprice cable arrives, return the Best Buy cable for a refund.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 17:37
|
|
|
Caged posted:A local store is quite likely to charge exactly the same amount as Best Buy, except they will have to dust off a generic eBay brand bagged cable that will fall apart instantly. At least the Best Buy option has a chance of being a quality product. Hah. If they're terrible. My old shop would order in a crapload of cables from monoprice every few months. We'd sell them at about a 300% markup, so about $10 for a cable that's better quality than the poo poo Best Buy sells for $50. A good small shop will carry quality cables at a decent price - still well over buying online, but sure beats the big-box.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 18:46
|
|
|
Bhodi posted:They would walk through massive cube farms to see people diligently working. Then they would go upstairs to this room where the worldcom logo was projected spinning on the carpet. There were chairs and sofas and it was all completely over the top trying to impress. Were all the cube farm workers named Sonmi?
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 18:49
|
|
|
Lum posted:Were all the cube farm workers named Sonmi? I don't think I would want to gather those retirement benefits. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 19:01
|
|
|
dennyk posted:Alternate option: Order cable from monoprice, buy cable at Best Buy. After the monoprice cable arrives, return the Best Buy cable for a refund. Man, don't do this.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 19:27
|
|
|
AlternateAccount posted:Man, don't do this. Just think of it as a form of arbitrage.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 20:21
|
|
|
AlternateAccount posted:Man, don't do this. Normally it would be kind of lovely, but given how much money Best Buy has made over the years by pushing ridiculously overpriced cables and accessories on uninformed customers, I honestly wouldn't feel too bad about "borrowing" one from them for a few days if I needed to.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2014 20:32
|
|
|
A ticket came in. No caller, all other items are set as default. Okay, let's check it o--quote:Them not being relatives nor married, both prospective landlords and Dr. She was added to the USAAF inventory on December 15, 1943, and flown overseas on February 5, 1944. Post Office, three small dwellings, three 19th century brick barns, a 19th century frame barn, and a variety of outbuildings. After graduating from Snyder High School in 1981 he began stage training in San Francisco. James Chidester Egbert, Jr. COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Eindstation kabelbaan droogoven en kolenbunker TMnr 10007249. ..ut? In other news, our SCOM server is having a heck of a time processing all the backlogged alerts we're getting from onboarding a new client with a very poorly managed environment. I ended up closing about 30 tickets, only to have 200 open in its' place. And the worst part was that I couldn't turn the alerting off.  I eventually gave up and called my boss at midnight to take care of it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2014 03:10
|
|
|
Javid posted:Raise hell with their chat support. Last time they blew their "guaranteed delivery date" I got on chat and every time they tried to be all "well sometimes stuff happens" I pasted that "GUARANTEED delivery date" and eventually they ended up refunding the entire order AND letting me keep the cord. I doubt they'd do it for expensive stuff but it's probably worth 20 bucks if you have time and want to vent. The only time I've ever next day'd something ended up taking 3 days. This was a PSU for a build I was doing and it held up the entire project for most of a week since I didn't have time otherwise. I just asked them to refund the shipping. I don't like having a go at CSRs as I always feel really weird being aggressive about not getting my computer crap on time so I can play vidya games when they're in India surrounded by poverty. Priss In Plate posted:A ticket came in. No caller, all other items are set as default. Okay, let's check it o-- That reminds me of the time I found a bunch of word salad on someone's website. I was working at my college's career center not even in IT. A company came there for interviews and I got their website up, but I had java off because of Noscript. Since there was no java covering it up, there was a bunch of stuff on there that looked like people communicating in excruciatingly bad english. It's pretty obvious someone managed to take control of their wordpress build. I brought it up with the partner that was there and he got his people on it. Didn't get a job offer, or even a ticket to close, but whatever, I'm just an IT
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2014 07:26
|
|
|
Priss In Plate posted:A ticket came in. No caller, all other items are set as default. Okay, let's check it o-- Ticket Closed. Remarks: <a random 2-page excerpt from Frank Herbert's Dune>
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2014 07:36
|
|
|
CoCo BoGo. Big companies like to get in on the fun too.  My peace of mind is assuredly assured. All CoCo BoGo
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2014 07:57
|
|
|
skooma512 posted:I just asked them to refund the shipping. I don't like having a go at CSRs as I always feel really weird being aggressive about not getting my computer crap on time so I can play vidya games when they're in India surrounded by poverty. Yeah, I'm not a DICK to them. I make a point of saying I know it's not their fault personally, but here is the problem and here is what I need to happen. The company offers it and guarantees it, something needs to happen if they gently caress it up. The script tells them to say they can't do it but they will eventually. The full refund was unexpected, I WANTED them to send another one faster, but that was almost certainly more expensive to them than just refunding the whole thing. (ordered a cord with 2-day on Thursday with a guaranteed delivery on Saturday and then it got bumped to Monday; caught the change early Friday while there was still time to have one overnighted by Saturday - admitted edge case for sure)
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2014 09:55
|
|
|
The only sites you need for filler content are http://baconipsum.com/ and http://placekitten.com/
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2014 11:36
|
|
|
Collateral Damage posted:The only sites you need for filler content are http://baconipsum.com/ and http://placekitten.com/ Not the first one if you're developing sites for an Islamic organisation. :oops:
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2014 13:53
|
|
|
Collateral Damage posted:The only sites you need for filler content are http://baconipsum.com/ and http://placekitten.com/ A chrome script to automatically replace any images with placekitten.com would be pretty neat.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2014 14:00
|
|
|
Westie posted:Not the first one if you're developing sites for an Islamic organisation. e: Alternatively there's http://veggieipsum.com and http://tunaipsum.com
Collateral Damage fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Feb 24, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2014 14:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 18:42 |
|
|
Collateral Damage posted:Ha, that's actually a good idea. Add a filter to make it only generate non-pork meats. Nearly found that out the hard way - I was blindly uploading dummy content onto my local then the PM requested that the site be exported to staging. Thankfully I realised my mistake before I exported it - quickly removing all references to bacon/pork and then celebrated this near-miss by having bacon and pork sausages for dinner when I got home.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2014 15:40
|
|