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go3 posted:Show me a person I can't fire and I'll show you a person I'll make quit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_An5O5MRUUg
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May 8, 2015 20:59
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MJP posted:I should probably slow down all my work to force it to be spaced better but I simply just can't do it - I don't know how, and my instinct is "let's get this done so you're ready for whatever might come down the pipe." Two steps: First, talk to your manager(s) about it. Don't issue ultimatums, don't make threats, don't tell them you're thinking about leaving. You can communicate the situation in a non-threatening way. Hell, if you've been busting your rear end to do the job of two people, and succeeding, all the management sees is that poo poo is getting done and they didn't really need that person they fired in the first place. They may not even know there's a problem if you haven't said anything yet. You can ask them where they are in the hiring process and express your eagerness to get someone in there to take some of the immense weight off your shoulders. Let them know that this level of intensity is not sustainable for you, and that you're starting to break down mentally, without outright threatening them with quitting. Second, stop caring. Seriously. Make the conscious decision to stop giving a poo poo about the problems that the company is going to have when work starts not getting done, when tickets stop getting addressed, when systems stay down. It's not your problem in the long term, it's theirs for not hiring enough people to do the work. Buckling down and doing an extreme amount of work is doable for most people, in the short term, but as you are discovering there are serious personal consequences when it goes on too long. I can promise you that if you continue to sleep less and exercise less, those consequences are going to get worse for you. The best thing you can do for yourself is to stop caring. You can still take pride in the work you do without fretting over all the work that's left to get done, you just have to not worry that a customer is going to be pissed or a client is going to be lost because they aren't getting attention or their issues aren't getting fixed. Not your loving problem, management isn't paying enough people to handle the problems that a company of that size generates. Full stop. More practically for you, this will make the consequences of not having enough workers more obvious to management. Not everything's getting done? Sorry boss, I'm at the point where this is my max. It's less than my max was at first? Yeah, that was called sprinting, and I can't sprint forever. Hire someone else like you said you would when you fired the other guy in the first place.
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May 8, 2015 21:06
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I was involved in an IT jobs talk recently where we had to really emphasize the second point you made. He didn't want to leave his current underpaid overworked position because he felt like he would be leaving his team members in a lurch. You have to stop worrying about everyone else, particularly the employer. "I don't want to be the guy that leaves and...", or "If I don't do it, it won't get done..." are excuses that only validate the employer's lovely practices. If they won't hire someone to do the other work, do ONLY the work that's in your job description and let them figure out that they need someone else when poo poo stops getting done. Alternatively, if you're an hourly employee, do the extra work off-hours and soak them for enough overtime to justify another hire.
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May 8, 2015 21:10
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Anyone know of a free password reset solution that I can roll out via GPO? I'd like to set something up for my client before I leave so in the event someone locks themselves out of their account or forgets they can answer a skill testing question to reset the password. I want it to be internal only so they would have to be sitting at a computer in house to do it. I had one years ago that was provided via a helpdesk solutions we rolled out.
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May 8, 2015 21:15
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An internal recruiter came in... ... from an MSP that is right next to the WTC PATH station, within my commutability, for a server/VMware engineering role. No helpdesk. No client relationship management stuff. The salary question came up. I started with "I'd like something competitive for the area and reflective of the responsibilities of the role, based on what I can bring to the table." The usual vacillation, asking for a current range, and I ended up basically saying I wouldn't disclose my salary. He asked for a range, I asked for the low six figures, and he came back with a range that would make me instantly comfortable to jump ship so long as benefit costs aren't exorbitant. He said that sounded just about right. So yeah, let's see how things go. My last MSP job didn't allow people to wear short sleeves, because we were so small we might need to send someone to a ~high end client office~ (read: usually a 5-person hedge fund or capital advisor firm) at short notice, even if your job kept you tied to the phone and never, ever going onsite. Glassdoor reviews for the NY office are iffily skewed in either best place ever or worst place ever, with someone as recent as 2013 saying shirts and ties are always required whereas one from 2010 said it's a laid back dress code. Gonna be fun to compile a list of questions, including "no holidays even Christmas" and how they'd pertain to the role. It's a big tech services company, I'd be doing VMware and Windows server engineering/support. Could be promising, especially in my present situation, but a weekend to think is a good thing. Edit: as of 2014, no casual Fridays. Uh oh. (In before the "just wear a tie" debate) Che Delilas posted:Two steps: I'll have a sit-down with the boss on Monday. It seems like the Mon-Thu crunch is the real problem here, and the frequency of helpdesk pulling me off of work + emotionally draining me is not going to change, and I need his support to turn it from helpdesk and calls/walkups to helpdesk with call/walkup if you can't open tickets only. I'd drafted an email I'd asked him to send out reiterating this to the company, which never happened. Time for me to make it happen. I keep telling myself to stop caring as much. To be honest, my reflex is "get it done and then there's less to do later." Maybe if I just print "STOP CARING" and stick it to my monitor as a reminder, that might do the trick. MJP fucked around with this message at 21:36 on May 8, 2015 |
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May 8, 2015 21:33
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MJP posted:(In before the "just wear a tie" debate) Just wear a bow-tie man, that wont get caught in anything. 
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May 8, 2015 21:40
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MJP posted:To be honest, my reflex is "get it done and then there's less to do later." Maybe if I just print "STOP CARING" and stick it to my monitor as a reminder, that might do the trick. My response to this (totally natural) reflex is to say yeah, if you don't get it done it will pile up, and the pile will keep growing because you're only able to get so much done in a day. If the pile grows, that means there aren't enough people working for the volume of work that needs to get done. Which is your employer's problem, not yours. Maybe a better way to think about it than "stop caring" is, "Start caring about yourself more than you care about the company."
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May 8, 2015 21:44
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-Anders posted:Just wear a bow-tie man, that wont get caught in anything. It's more "gently caress ties, this isn't 1965" and a desire to enjoy at least the minimal relaxation that is Casual Friday after working two consecutive jobs that had no such thing. Maybe it's goony despite the fact that most of us are probably corporate whores (and how!) it'd be nice to not be directly reminded of it by wearing a tie and long sleeves even in the summer. Che Delilas posted:My response to this (totally natural) reflex is to say yeah, if you don't get it done it will pile up, and the pile will keep growing because you're only able to get so much done in a day. If the pile grows, that means there aren't enough people working for the volume of work that needs to get done. Which is your employer's problem, not yours. Yeah, I need to remind myself that we didn't get merit increases and I got nickel-and-dimed for part of my bonus since my 90-day probationary period when I started carried over into the bonus period. Really nice way to treat someone by ensuring they get not a penny more than they're mathematically entitled to.
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May 8, 2015 21:49
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I don't mind dressing up at all, but it has to be for a reason. If I'm sitting at a desk answering tickets all day and never meeting with clients, there's no reason I should have to wear a tie everyday. I wear short sleeves in the summer all the time because I would look considerably worse sweating through all of my clothing otherwise. Also shirt and tie with no jacket makes you look like a goober, so if that's the dress code then management have no fashion sense and it is a red flag 
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May 8, 2015 21:53
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Agreeing on there being a reason but as a server/VMware engineer that doesn't go onsite, it's probably just one of those "YOU ARE NOT PROFESSIONAL LOOKING AND THUS ARE NOT WORKING" mindsets. I don't want to be an Entitled Millenial but I'm not wearing a tie everyday.
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May 8, 2015 22:06
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I think a tie without a jacket looks less professional than a tucked in dress shirt and nice pants, and I think that "sartorial professionals" would agree with me. I also think that asking for people to wear a suit to an interview in order to judge their ability to adhere to a dress code that isn't "Suits everyday" is stupid because anybody can put on a suit, not everybody can look presentable every day. Pretty much I think doing things for rote reasons is stupid for everybody involved. 
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May 8, 2015 22:10
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Doing a planned shutdown of our ISIS 5500 today (not the terrorists, our Avid SAN) as Avid recommends a reboot every once in a while. In other words we're going to have Avid on speed dial as we wait for the drat thing to come back up and deal with whiny editors asking us when it'll be back up. And in terms of dress code my current place doesn't give a poo poo, I wear t-shirts and shorts (with visible tattoos!) and nobody really minds. Granted I'm also working in TV. My new gig is "button up and khakis" per the CTO which I'm perfectly okay with since I'll be at client sites most of the time and if I really need to I can take the button up off. But it's an MSP that works with TV production companies so we'll see; probably depends on the client.
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May 8, 2015 22:14
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Che Delilas posted:
That bit about sprinting is really good, I'll have to save it for the next time I have a disagreement with management about the rate of stuff getting done.
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May 8, 2015 22:46
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Inspector_666 posted:I don't mind dressing up at all, but it has to be for a reason. If I'm sitting at a desk answering tickets all day and never meeting with clients, there's no reason I should have to wear a tie everyday. I wear short sleeves in the summer all the time because I would look considerably worse sweating through all of my clothing otherwise. Working in a hospital as a clinical informatics analyst, I get to wear scrubs every day to work and life is grand.
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May 9, 2015 00:14
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kensei posted:I was working with dial up today. On a Windows 2000 Professional machine. Whee. What's up Windows 2000 buddy? Ran into one the other day myself. The System Properties boasted 261,596 KB of RAM! 
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May 9, 2015 01:11
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Inspector_666 posted:I think a tie without a jacket looks less professional than a tucked in dress shirt and nice pants, and I think that "sartorial professionals" would agree with me. Hell, most of our upper management wears button down shirts, business casual pants and *maybe* a jacket. No ties. Before we were carved off my old company and acquired by my current one, we were a Jeans and polo shirt place. Still doing the kakis/polo thing until we get a better feel for the culture (were in the new HQ building now), but I have a feeling I'll be migrating back to jeans before too long.
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May 9, 2015 02:09
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:While that part is legally required, it's not likely to be true. Using FMLA time off is a good way to get your role transitioned and yourself let go for what are of course completely unrelated reasons. I asked for a month off under FMLA to look after mom. I got a little pushback, mainly in the form of trying to talk me out of it. Their best argument was "We don't want you to get any short paychecks." I was able to tell them I wasn't going to get any, because I had that much PTO saved up due to not being allowed to take days off. The sound of silence from the HR Director on the other end of the line was priceless. They gave up after that and arranged for someone to spend a month in temporary housing to cover.
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May 9, 2015 03:29
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mllaneza posted:I asked for a month off under FMLA to look after mom. I got a little pushback, mainly in the form of trying to talk me out of it. What kind of shitbag person tries to talk you out of TAKING CARE OF YOUR MOM??? I know it's more about taking the FMLA but gently caress, it just sounds horrible.
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May 9, 2015 04:49
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quote:I travel to China a couple of times a year. I've found that it is very difficult (almost impossible) to read my email on webmail.COMPANY.com because it uses a google service for the captcha and China hates google. Is there any way to access webmail that does not use a captcha? I was told that using https would solve the problem but that was not the case. That was just as slow and prone to failure to connect. I've been told that using a vpn would be a solution. Do you have any experience with vpn's and webmail? Do any work better than others? I also found that as soon as I turned my laptop on in China Malwarebytes went nuts. I had to turn it off to get on the internet. When I logged off the wifi at the hotel I would run Malwarebytes scan but it never found anything. I'm headed back the end of the month. Do you have any helpful advice?
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May 9, 2015 06:40
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pr0digal posted:Doing a planned shutdown of our ISIS 5500 today (not the terrorists, our Avid SAN) as Avid recommends a reboot every once in a while. In other words we're going to have Avid on speed dial as we wait for the drat thing to come back up and deal with whiny editors asking us when it'll be back up. This made my butthole clench up a bit. The last time I rebooted an ISIS during production two blades refused to mount. Fortunately they were on separate chassis and we were mirrored, but I white knuckled it for two days waiting for the replacement drives to come in. Rebooting an Avid SAN is now on my "don't ever loving do during production" list right next to "upgrade Media Composer". I feel for you if you're in broadcast, because I guess that's never not in production.
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May 9, 2015 07:05
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Mo_Steel posted:What's up Windows 2000 buddy? Ran into one the other day myself. The System Properties boasted 261,596 KB of RAM! That means a 512MB stick has degraded to almost half? Is that as bad as it sounds like?
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May 9, 2015 10:24
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No, its that the computer has only 256mb of ram. Which is even worse, because its on purpose.
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May 9, 2015 11:21
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Who makes their hardware? (surely not avid themselves)
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May 9, 2015 11:32
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topenga posted:What kind of shitbag person tries to talk you out of TAKING CARE OF YOUR MOM??? Advertising agency.
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May 9, 2015 13:05
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anthonypants posted:Uhhhhhhhhh, nope. "We're burning your laptop when you get back"
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May 9, 2015 15:24
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anthonypants posted:Uhhhhhhhhh, nope. Go all out. Get a radiation suit, tongs, and dispose of the HDD in a locking shielded trashcan, then flash the firmware on the laptop. When asked why, just say "forget it Jake, it's China."
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May 9, 2015 16:15
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Mo_Steel posted:What's up Windows 2000 buddy? Ran into one the other day myself. The System Properties boasted 261,596 KB of RAM! Thankfully, once I located and installed another dial up modem, the testing was completed successfully before and after our radius server move. Not going to mess with that again any time soon. I hope.
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May 9, 2015 16:26
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kensei posted:Thankfully, once I located and installed another dial up modem, the testing was completed successfully before and after our radius server move. Not going to mess with that again any time soon. Fortunately we were just getting rid of ours. Naturally the machine itself was some 40 lbs. monstrosity that I'm almost certain had a case made out of lead or iron. This thing wasn't aluminum and plastic, that's for sure.
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May 9, 2015 16:38
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Sormus posted:No, its that the computer has only 256mb of ram. Which is even worse, because its on purpose. Ah, ok. Not good at that whole MB -> kb conversion thing, so I just assumed it was supposed to be more then 256mb. Cheers.
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May 9, 2015 16:44
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Dunno-Lars posted:Ah, ok. Not good at that whole MB -> kb conversion thing, so I just assumed it was supposed to be more then 256mb. Cheers. divide by 1024.
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May 9, 2015 17:02
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OAquinas posted:Go all out. Get a radiation suit, tongs, and dispose of the HDD in a locking shielded trashcan, then flash the firmware on the laptop. When asked why, just say "forget it Jake, it's China." I've heard that some companies have a policy that when their execs travel to China, they are issued burner phones and laptops since not only do you have the usual hackers, but also sophisticated state-sponsored attacks. Anyone come across this for real?
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May 9, 2015 18:15
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spog posted:I've heard that some companies have a policy that when their execs travel to China, they are issued burner phones and laptops since not only do you have the usual hackers, but also sophisticated state-sponsored attacks. While that may be a factor, isn't it also that they can get way better company phone plans by doing that while in China then having to work with the carriers with their typical phones?
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May 9, 2015 18:23
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spog posted:I've heard that some companies have a policy that when their execs travel to China, they are issued burner phones and laptops since not only do you have the usual hackers, but also sophisticated state-sponsored attacks. The policy, yes absolutely. Actual incidents? I can confirm nor deny.
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May 9, 2015 18:24
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spog posted:I've heard that some companies have a policy that when their execs travel to China, they are issued burner phones and laptops since not only do you have the usual hackers, but also sophisticated state-sponsored attacks. Yes, although if you're at the exec level you're possibly better off just not traveling to China.
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May 9, 2015 18:29
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Hey all. I am not in IT, but I love this thread and I wanted to contribute a story about my new favorite sysadmin. I just started a new job which primarily involves running a bunch of resource-intensive computations on various HPC clusters. Eerily similar to my experience in grad school, except there's no job queuing system and I basically get 96 cores all to myself to play around in, which is a nice change. Anyway, the other day the sysadmin comes into my team's cube farm, slightly out of breath, and says, "Hey, can you all shut down your jobs? The server room is up over 110 degrees." Well that's not good. We all start killing processes and shut everything down like we're the President of Madagascar. The server room isn't going to cool off any time soon and there's literally nothing I can do with the clusters turned off, so I put in a ticket for metrics' sake and go home for the day. I come in the next day not quite sure what I'll find. The sysadmin is apparently in the building, but nowhere to be seen. After about two hours, he appears and gathers up my whole team, up to and including my boss' boss, to fill us in. Obviously, the ancient HVAC system in the server room broke down. The temperature ultimately peaked at about 130 degrees -- and that's at the temperature sensor on the wall opposite the room from the actual racks, so who knows how hot the hardware itself got. Building security got an alert from the temp sensor hours earlier, but for some reason decided not to tell anybody, and the only reason the sysadmin noticed was because he happened to be walking by the server room and realized it felt super warm there. If this had happened over the weekend, the whole building could have burnt down. The damage: nothing that was in that room will power on any more. The clusters we just finished paying off? Dead. The clusters we've been renting, for which this kind of damage is almost certainly not covered under our rental contract? Dead. The hard drives which he had spent the morning pulling from the racks and desperately testing in another machine? Dead. The backups, which, because some of the servers are dedicated to classified data, are stored in the exact same room for "security" reasons? Dead. They are going to send the drives out to a data recovery specialist and hope for the best, but the worst-case scenario is that we just lost eight years' worth of data, for both private and government contracts, worth somewhere between hundreds of millions and tens of billions of dollars in failure-to-deliver fees. We're all standing there for a minute, wind knocked out of us, not sure what to do, when the sysadmin speaks up again. "Does that feel bad? You all feel sick to your stomach? GOOD. When you all sit down to talk with [boss' boss' boss] next week, remember that feeling while you're explaining to him what almost happened here yesterday and why he needs to approve the funding for the actually sensible backup system I proposed two effing years ago. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go turn the servers back on; you'll have your access back in about an hour." Shine on, you crazy BOFH 
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May 9, 2015 18:37
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BrainWeasel posted:"Does that feel bad? You all feel sick to your stomach? GOOD. When you all sit down to talk with [boss' boss' boss] next week, remember that feeling while you're explaining to him what almost happened here yesterday and why he needs to approve the funding for the actually sensible backup system I proposed two effing years ago. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go turn the servers back on; you'll have your access back in about an hour."
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May 9, 2015 19:26
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Aunt Beth posted:This man is who we all wish we could someday be I feel like this is just the fastest way to get fired.
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May 9, 2015 19:29
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SlayVus posted:I feel like this is just the fastest way to get fired. That was a 'teachable moment' if ever such a thing existed. Promote that guy.
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May 9, 2015 19:34
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SlayVus posted:I feel like this is just the fastest way to get fired.
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May 9, 2015 19:38
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SlayVus posted:I feel like this is just the fastest way to get fired. With the financial penalties involved, I can understand the frustration and I would be doing the same - either boss' boss' boss says yes to the backup or I as the sysadmin conclude the organization is too loving retarded to properly cover its own rear end and I  as fast as loving possible. Getting fired would just be a bonus at that point because unemployment.
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May 9, 2015 19:54
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