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socialsecurity posted:We are a MSP been helping a startup get going, they really needed Visual Studio Ultimate but didn't want to pay for licensing we managed to get them setup with Bizspark(filled out every form for them) getting them literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in free software they are utilizing. We also setup their server/domain/etc for like half our usual price. Since the server project they have been nagging us for day to day helpdesk stuff without a service contract we have been doing it for basically free trying to get them to sign a contract (2k a month for about 18 people unlimited support 24 hour sla an insane deal for their needs). They recently got a huge investor but they are still price shopping us they have been calling every MSP in the area to come in and give proposals trying to get us to drive our price down further after we have already single handed made their entire operation financially viable. Yeah, our sales team is starting to learn giving away services isn't going to get them commissions if the final contract isn't enough to cover the operating costs for that contract. That and seeing coworkers reprimanded or even fired because you can't sell a service contract for something we don't even do. I'm starting to see why MSPs pop-up and disappear with frightening regularity.
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Aug 7, 2015 04:10
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GOOCHY posted:I'd call her bluff and tell her to point out the policy in the employee manual. Backpedaling. I get it. Meanwhile, my office sent out this big splashy memo about bike racks being installed in our new bike room. Which is in the basement. Where it flooded last December. And we're looking at an El Nino year. Yaaaay.
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Aug 7, 2015 04:23
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socialsecurity posted:We are a MSP been helping a startup get going, they really needed Visual Studio Ultimate but didn't want to pay for licensing we managed to get them setup with Bizspark(filled out every form for them) getting them literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in free software they are utilizing. We also setup their server/domain/etc for like half our usual price. Since the server project they have been nagging us for day to day helpdesk stuff without a service contract we have been doing it for basically free trying to get them to sign a contract (2k a month for about 18 people unlimited support 24 hour sla an insane deal for their needs). They recently got a huge investor but they are still price shopping us they have been calling every MSP in the area to come in and give proposals trying to get us to drive our price down further after we have already single handed made their entire operation financially viable. lol whoever runs your operation is a rube
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Aug 7, 2015 04:24
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Is this thread like 90% msp? Get out people. Look at the pain you're all going through.
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Aug 7, 2015 04:47
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flosofl posted:In another thread I mentioned as insulting as it was to get a Security+ at my point in my career just so mgmt could say "our entire team has X certification" wasn't a hill to die on. Impacting my commute time with petty, nonsensical bullshit is totally my hill to die on. I would continue to do it and dare them to take action. Heh, I actually have like 5 phone interviews tomorrow for midlevel roles, one of which is a team lead position which might bring my pay delta from this time last year to over 100% not counting benefits. Not bad for being given the "dishwasher speech" from a Porche driving consulting business owner who pretty much told me that I wouldn't make it anywhere like I am.
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Aug 7, 2015 04:51
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jaegerx posted:Is this thread like 90% msp? Get out people. Look at the pain you're all going through. Really it's the truth. MSP work was great to gain some experience but holy buckets was it stressful. Glad to be out of it.
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Aug 7, 2015 07:40
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If the bike is a folding bike, why not get a bag for it. Does the company have a policy against storing a bag under your desk?
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Aug 7, 2015 08:05
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go3 posted:lol whoever runs your operation is a rube Yeah, I worked for a company that did a bunch of poo poo for free with sales always saying "they have a potential to bring in millions!" Then they'd move to another company. The previous employer is circling the drain now, wonder why?
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Aug 7, 2015 08:46
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go3 posted:lol whoever runs your operation is a rube Yeah they wanted to sign one when we took on the project boss said to wait for god knows what reason.in general our business model is promise way more then we can deliver charge too little for it then make up the difference by overworking me.
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Aug 7, 2015 12:45
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sfwarlock posted:Meanwhile, my office sent out this big splashy memo about bike racks being installed in our new bike room.  Itera
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Aug 7, 2015 13:17
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Collateral Damage posted:Solution: Did Sweden sentence petty criminals to ride these in public as an alternative to prison?
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Aug 7, 2015 13:25
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Rhymenoserous posted:What the gently caress? Why wait then? Tried already when he told a woman here to 'go have a heart attack'. Edit: Guy has been here for 20 years. 10 years ago the company 'went through some hard times' and he stuck around. Did we pay him or did he work for free for a while? "We paid him" Okay then we don't owe him poo poo!
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Aug 7, 2015 13:36
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Going through this morning's emails, and read one that came in last night from the company. The phrase "yesterday's security incident at [HQ building]" which is the building I work in caught my eye. 1st I heard of it. Then comes a persons name with the two words "former employee" in the same sentence. They helpfully include his ID picture at full size (HUGE) in which, because of the context of the message, you swear you can see the crazy lurking in said former employee's eyes. Other calming lines are peppered in the message such as "security will be increased temporarily at building X and Y" and tips on situational awareness when entering and leaving the buildings, who to contact regarding suspicious activity, and finally a reminder to call 911 if you feel "unsafe". I think I'll be working from home for a while.  EDIT: Boss just IM'd me that there are cops all over the parking areas just hanging out this morning. Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Aug 7, 2015 |
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Aug 7, 2015 13:49
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at ${JOB}-1 there was a network guy that was obsessed with one of the project managers. apparently they dated (read: hosed once in the bathroom) and then he was stalking her like crazy. After an email where he stated something to the effect of, "If I can't have you, NOBODY can!" as well as bragging about how he'd come and "end the entire office" because of "how everyone there looked at (her)" well, he was let go pretty quickly. For the few weeks after that, pretty much everyone formerly on his team broke the company's "no weapons" policy out of a very real sense of fear.
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Aug 7, 2015 14:52
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Many things at my company pissing me off: - Hired a new manager for our department (client-side Support for our hosted financial software), and as soon as that happened many other departments started dumping all their work on him/us. They are telling us this is good which will expand our skills but really we are not increasing our headcount and its just more work on us while we're already slammed. Frustrations are growing. Promises were made that weren't kept. My old manager and I had an understanding that I was an escalated support person, but HIS boss ended up flattening the department which has now led to me taking on some Tier 1 duties on occasion. - Some mid-level manager made it a goal (as in, a personal goal for his performance review) that OUR department (a department he is not in) will get a certain number of clients upgraded by the end of the year. He has no say in our workload, yet keeps pushing us to get low-priority clients upgraded. All bullshit, but he's in bed with our VP so my complaints don't really get past my manager. There are constant battles every day where I need to tell people to politely gently caress off so I can work on larger issues. In general, people tend to keep their head down and just come to work to do their jobs around here. I'm in the Wall Street area, so it's interesting to see how motivations work. I used to work in healthcare, and at least there I HAD motivation because I can see the nurses and doctors using what I setup to help patients. Motivations in the finance industry work very differently, and they're mostly money driven when you get higher up the ladder. My VP has no problems waking people up at 3am if they're the only ones that can help, even though we are a global organization with a follow-the-Sun model. If I slave away at my job, the end result is some billionaire will get to make an extra million (our software deals in the primary market, so IPOs and roadshows). I hardly find that to be a motivation, and I'm yet again I'm leaning towards  . My company is great though with the tech, benefits, etc. which is what attracted me in the first place. They take care of you here, once you prove yourself in this industry, otherwise for most people it is a revolving door (especially for women, sexism is still alive and well on Wall Street). Thankfully I don't work for a bank, so I don't even have much red tape to worry about. I used to be able to innovate and come up with ways to improve the products we use and the Support department but a flattening of the structure happened and all of that has come to a standstill. I'm hoping the tides will change but come 2016 I'll be looking somewhere else.
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Aug 7, 2015 16:01
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jaegerx posted:Is this thread like 90% msp? Get out people. Look at the pain you're all going through. I enjoy MSP work. The only reason I'll be looking to get out of the MSP space is because I have a child on the way and will need more stable hours and better benefits.
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Aug 7, 2015 17:04
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I have one remote site that refuses to play nice. Site lost internet and power a while back and refused to rejoin the domain. Theyre working off of cached or local credentials for now. Figured it was a DNS issue. All the DNS settings are right, the computers are still using the primary DC as their NTP source, DCDIAG DNS tests all pass on the DC's. Had our ISP out who admitted fault with their line and replaced the old modem, still didnt fix it. All the PC's their can get online fine thankfully and are working off of backups and flash drives in the meantime. I;ve just never seen anything like this. Using the PortQuery tool from Microsoft everytime a computer tries to query udp port 389 for LDAP binding it timesout and fails. TCP port 3268 fails timing out as well. Even stranger one of the computers there still works! Figured it was some weird port issue or something and had the users there plug into different ports on the switch still no difference. Thought it may be a firewall or AV issue so I turned off the firewall between sites and uninstalled that POS McAfee Enterprise. Still nothing! At this point I'm down to doing packet captures on a computer down there when I try to rejoin it to the domain and I don't even know where to begin to look. I just wanted an easy Friday to browse Steam sales and motorcycles...
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Aug 7, 2015 17:07
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jaegerx posted:Is this thread like 90% msp? Get out people. Look at the pain you're all going through. Where do you work? There are hundreds of MSP/VARs. Some are great and others I'm perplexed as to how they exist.
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Aug 7, 2015 17:09
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The Fool posted:I enjoy MSP work. The only reason I'll be looking to get out of the MSP space is because I have a child on the way and will need more stable hours and better benefits. Some of the MSP work that people discuss in this thread sounds loving awesome. But I'm stuck doing dumbshit T1 helpdesk work 90% of the time and it's soured me on the whole industry segment.
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Aug 7, 2015 17:13
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BaseballPCHiker posted:I have one remote site that refuses to play nice. Site lost internet and power a while back and refused to rejoin the domain. Theyre working off of cached or local credentials for now. Figured it was a DNS issue. All the DNS settings are right, the computers are still using the primary DC as their NTP source, DCDIAG DNS tests all pass on the DC's. Had our ISP out who admitted fault with their line and replaced the old modem, still didnt fix it. All the PC's their can get online fine thankfully and are working off of backups and flash drives in the meantime. Sounds like your routers might be mangling the traffic in strange and invisible ways
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Aug 7, 2015 17:15
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Inspector_666 posted:Some of the MSP work that people discuss in this thread sounds loving awesome. But I'm stuck doing dumbshit T1 helpdesk work 90% of the time and it's soured me on the whole industry segment. It can be hard to get away from that, since nearly everyone is customer facing. At my company, even the owner takes T1 support calls sometimes. These days though, that type of work is only 10% or so of what I do. Most of my work I get to do projects and installations. Everything from walkthroughs and initial sales meetings, to design and implementation, and even the physical installation. It's been pretty rewarding, but the hours during a large project are exhausting, and with a child on the way I'm going to want something more consistent.
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Aug 7, 2015 17:19
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MSTPMO: I'm a maintenance guy. I fix issues, I don't install or configure things, except at a very small level. Yet somehow, I am the escalation point for failed installs. It sucks that the install folks, who do multiple installs a week, get to throw things over the wall to me, who does maybe 2 installs a year. And of course the problem is always that they missed a step.
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Aug 7, 2015 17:21
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The Fool posted:It can be hard to get away from that, since nearly everyone is customer facing. At my company, even the owner takes T1 support calls sometimes. I still take calls and go onsite because its interesting to see what is happening out there and most importantly there is still a large number of people who want to see people occasionally and not just chat screens. Spending 15 minutes to fix some stupid poo poo and then another 45 talking to my client is a better use of my time than knocking out 4 15 minute jobs remotely.
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Aug 7, 2015 18:46
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BaseballPCHiker posted:I have one remote site that refuses to play nice. Site lost internet and power a while back and refused to rejoin the domain. Theyre working off of cached or local credentials for now. Figured it was a DNS issue. All the DNS settings are right, the computers are still using the primary DC as their NTP source, DCDIAG DNS tests all pass on the DC's. Had our ISP out who admitted fault with their line and replaced the old modem, still didnt fix it. All the PC's their can get online fine thankfully and are working off of backups and flash drives in the meantime. I'm assuming connected via VPN that you manage? If so, as long as the tunnel is up, you should own the entire communication path from end to end that your internal traffic traverses. If your ISP manages the VPN, you'll need to get their network support online to do the pcaps and analysis with you. Try to determine *where* the packets are being discarded. Do pcaps on your bottleneck connections (the VPN interfaces) see if the packets are even leaving your environment or reaching the remote site. If you see a packet leave one side and arrive at the other move further down the chain and check that until you find what's dropping the packets. Are you NATing between sites? Check that too.
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Aug 7, 2015 18:59
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Does it seem hosed up to anyone else that companies that can survive without an employee expect at least 2 weeks notice, but employees that rely on the company for their survival get shut out over lunch with no warning? I know why it is, I just think it's hosed up. Not me getting fired, me getting stuck deactivating an IT employee's accounts while he thinks he's having a normal day.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:32
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Does it seem hosed up to anyone else that companies that can survive without an employee expect at least 2 weeks notice, but employees that rely on the company for their survival get shut out over lunch with no warning? It does, but when you consider a disgruntled sysadmin can cost a company a fortune(and in some cases, kill the company) it makes sense for us. I would hope there is a 2 weeks severance at the least, however, even if they do have to kill my access as a security precaution.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:36
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Does it seem hosed up to anyone else that companies that can survive without an employee expect at least 2 weeks notice, but employees that rely on the company for their survival get shut out over lunch with no warning? It's really in the company's best interest to sever in the case of a termination, and I don't mean from a "we don't have to pay two weeks of salary". It's precisely because they're afraid of a situation developing similar to the company-wide email I alluded to earlier this morning in this thread. Imagine the shenanigans that person could get up to if they were given two weeks to ease out. Even they didn't you'd still want IT personnel to have all accounts de-activated and/or removed before they even get out the termination meeting. They have too much power to gently caress poo poo up, even when you think they don't.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:39
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socialsecurity posted:We are a MSP been helping a startup get going, they really needed Visual Studio Ultimate but didn't want to pay for licensing we managed to get them setup with Bizspark(filled out every form for them) getting them literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in free software they are utilizing. We also setup their server/domain/etc for like half our usual price. Since the server project they have been nagging us for day to day helpdesk stuff without a service contract we have been doing it for basically free trying to get them to sign a contract (2k a month for about 18 people unlimited support 24 hour sla an insane deal for their needs). They recently got a huge investor but they are still price shopping us they have been calling every MSP in the area to come in and give proposals trying to get us to drive our price down further after we have already single handed made their entire operation financially viable. Our MSP has been badgering me that our AVG Cloudcare subscription is due to expire (actually today) and we need to get our poo poo together, of course I in turn badger finance to get their poo poo together and pay them because the company will be both defenseless AND without backups! (Thank god the new server is being set up next week) Eventually finance manager said yeah ok, but I got some correspondence from the MSP that explained we were running with much more licences than we were actually paying for, and they ate the cost to keep it going therefore operating at a loss. Bro, you've should said something earlier I could've lit a fire under some asses. 
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Aug 7, 2015 19:39
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I wouldn't count on it, this guy was a contractor. Didn't really know him aside from meet him once or twice, but it still makes me feel lovely. I guess the market around here is at least better for his specialty than T1 helpdesk like me. Well, hopefully in 6 months I will be completely out of this role, as long as the mentoring goes well. And then I'll never have to do this again.
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Aug 7, 2015 19:41
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Does it seem hosed up to anyone else that companies that can survive without an employee expect at least 2 weeks notice, but employees that rely on the company for their survival get shut out over lunch with no warning? Do you work where I work?  Yesterday they let go one of the developers who's been there for 6 or 7 years and apparently the HR person said 'more is coming on Monday'
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Aug 7, 2015 20:13
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No, because there's only one person in IT that's been here for 6 years, as far as I know. I'm really hopeful that it was a performance thing and not signs of what is to come. Because I'm pretty sure my department could limp along without one of us. It would suffer, but I have least seniority.
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Aug 7, 2015 20:27
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Does it seem hosed up to anyone else that companies that can survive without an employee expect at least 2 weeks notice, but employees that rely on the company for their survival get shut out over lunch with no warning? In some parts of the world, there are actually laws that protect employees from poo poo like this. Hard to believe, right? If iI were to quit, I'd have a 3 month notice period. If my company wants to fire me for any reason, they're bound by the same 3 months, except in cases of gross/criminal misconduct. They are also at liberty to tell me to stay home during those 3 months, but would have to pay my salary regardless. We also have 5 weeks paid vacation, 12 days (4x3) paid sick leave without a doctors note, up to one year paid sick leave with doctors note. Don't get me started on paternity/maternity leave... So for a scandinavian, the prospect of working in the US often goes like this: "Why the gently caress would I bother unless it was literally a position at NASA?"
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Aug 7, 2015 22:16
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Not sure why you would want to work at NASA, their funding is slashed to hell. Do you really have to provide 3 months notice to your company before leaving? Are there exceptions for if you're quitting because of a hostile workplace / poor working conditions? Having to sit through that for an extra three months if you don't decide to give notice without a new job secured sounds pretty awful. Although I suppose there's probably more support if you don't find a job for another month or two after your 3 months ends. To answer your question: You're curious what it would be like to live somewhere that the temperature goes above 25C. E: With an appropriate amount of research and preparation, I wouldn't object to moving to a different country, but trying to move to Scandinavia would result in a divorce.
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Aug 7, 2015 22:29
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Tab8715 posted:Where do you work? 3 letter company.
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Aug 8, 2015 02:01
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So a few months ago, I brought back 8 or 9 laptops from an acquisition, they are all Lenovo W520s in great shape, i7s, 8gig of ram, 1920x1080 screens. Only missing SSDs. My boss in his infinite wisdom decided that our department will take a few of them, and replace our really lovely HP Probooks with them. We kept 3, gave 1 or 2 to another group in our building so they could have a machine for the oncall person and sent the rest on to our other IT building. I found out this week that when they showed up, there was a drawing and the winners got to take them home after they were wiped. Bad enough being handed used equipment, its worse knowing that I could have had the chance to keep one of these machines and replace my old laptop at home. Also, manager of a department here caused a minor shitstorm when he bough some new wireless keyboards for people in his department. He figured that since a good 8 other people had the same model, why not. The local infosec guy was walking by and noticed the keyboards. He raised a stink that they weren't approved and needed to be returned. When asked about the existing ones, he said there wasn't a policy for existing ones, just new ones. So we'll keep using our insecure ones until I guess they stop working.
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Aug 8, 2015 06:07
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Network guy called me, the desktop on call, to go change a UPS battery for him. Motherfucker that's your job. Is the datacenter your thing or not? I guess his time is just plain more important. It wasn't even as a favor, he acting like this is my problem. Wish I could just dump my responsibilities on someone who's paid less than me so I can actually get some sleep for a loving change.
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Aug 8, 2015 07:08
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skooma512 posted:Network guy called me, the desktop on call, to go change a UPS battery for him. Then... don't? It's not your job. He'll be the one to catch hell if the datacenter go down.
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Aug 8, 2015 07:14
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RadicalR posted:Then... don't? It's not your job. He'll be the one to catch hell if the datacenter go down. e: I mean really, "Jacob called me and told me about a battery he wanted me to replace but that's not my job so I went back to bed" - I mean you could be the brand new guy on the helpdesk, that's a one way ticket to an rear end chewing. MC Fruit Stripe fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Aug 8, 2015 |
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Aug 8, 2015 11:10
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Started the new job and it's good, but there's a LOT to be done. The vendor app I'm supporting (and used to work for) has broken more than it worked in the last 10 months so there's a huge backlog of tickets to go through and clean up. Tier 1 is terrible and just categorizes tickets to get them out of their queue with no troubleshooting at all or checking to see if it's something they are supposed to do -- they already don't like me because I've sent back over 50 tickets in just three days of cleaning up the queue. Good news is there's lots of room for opportunity and growth. I may not have a reason to post here anymore... edit: Who the gently caress am I kidding? It's life sciences. Someone will give me a reason to be pissed off. Spazz fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Aug 8, 2015 |
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Aug 8, 2015 15:08
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Talked to my desktop coworker, he's done this same poo poo to him too, only last time he had to rack a server and was there for 6 hours on his account. It's because he had his kid this weekend and apparently that means we need to do his job for him. I'm going to bitch about it on Monday, but I'm probably going get fobbed off. I'm sorry it's so inconvenient for you to be on call Mr. Coworker. Tell you what, I wanted to be running the servers anyway, why don't you get a different job, and I can take your spot permanently? MC Fruit Stripe posted:Network guy will but you know skooma will too. I've never been at a job where being advised of a problem didn't make it your problem. Yeah, I can't imagine I wouldn't be made the bad guy if I told him that he should do his own work.
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Aug 8, 2015 18:45
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