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My office manages tickets by having a big queue and each of the techs just grabs whatever tickets they feel like, nobody actually assigns anyone anything. If you think that all of the techs are adult enough to handle this, you are mistaken. If you think that any of the techs are adult enough to handle this, you are still mistaken. I am not adult enough to handle this because my anxiety plays up if there are tickets sitting unclaimed and so I end up doing all the work.
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 00:31 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 15:36 |
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devmd01 posted:....if you’re using a third party email filter provider why isn’t the tenant locked down to only allow email coming from the filtering provider? Does this open you up to all kinds of attacks? gently caress yes it does.
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 00:33 |
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Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:My office manages tickets by having a big queue and each of the techs just grabs whatever tickets they feel like, nobody actually assigns anyone anything. Hah, we used to have that. There was one guy who got promoted for being an all-time ticket closer, but when you looked at the content of his tickets, he'd show up early and assign himself all the easy ones like software distribution and perms changes, close them in an hour with AutoIt scripts, and gently caress off for the rest of the day. (He no longer works here.) I played the cherry-picking game for one cycle to prove to management I was good for volume, then scaled back to only taking the really weird poo poo that needed hand-holding and/or originated in APAC or Europe (because I worked nights in PST and was able to work directly with those regions). Any time my manager asked why I wasn't closing [absurd quantity] of tickets, I'd show him the content of what I'd closed in the past quarter, and he'd grudgingly give me passing marks. gently caress that quantity over quality bullshit. Apparently it worked, cuz I got promoted out of the phone center to do automation and scripting within 11 months. I think it was 2 years later that they finally started doing automatic ticket assignment on a rotation basis. User complaints have fallen significantly.
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 00:59 |
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Yep, we have the transport rules locked down to only allow email inbound from proofpoint, works like a charm.
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 01:14 |
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The place I worked at was like that too. Eventually the queue would just fill up with the old tickets that no one wanted to touch due to the risk of a bad review because the person'd waited so long. Eventually it'd get so bad me and the only other coworker that cared would try to close out as many as possible. I found out after I left that the way I was closing tickets cause a survey to never be fired off. I'd always wondered why I got so little feedback, but it was almost always good when I did get some so I guess it worked out.
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 01:25 |
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devmd01 posted:Yep, we have the transport rules locked down to only allow email inbound from proofpoint, works like a charm. This place is a dumpster fire, but they pay us a lot to watch it burn
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 01:26 |
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minusX posted:I recently sent a lot of random information from solarwinds to the new director of IT, some managers, my supervisor, and the networking team when I noticed a lot of extra traffic going out to our remote monitoring service's IP. It ended up being a bug where they turned on constant monitoring for holidays but forgot to turn it back off. Found because I was really curious why all that traffic was being generated for one IP and no one really knew what it was. Do you feel that small and clear flame burning brightly in the middle of your soul? Guard it. Protect it. Feed it. Don’t ever let it die.
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 14:06 |
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Agrikk posted:Do you feel that small and clear flame burning brightly in the middle of your soul? It ended up being a configuration issue where they were manually setting it to full video coverage for holidays and not unsetting it for multiple locations so it was constantly going off because people were working at the sites! The director of security was happy for the info and is working to get it not to happen again, but with a manual process who knows if it will.
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 19:00 |
I was so glad to hear that when interviewing that the company doesn't dive too deep on the metrics and got rid of some upper management who just made everyone a statistic, which really put a burden on everyone I guess. I don't see how a manager or upper management would think that ticket counts are any indication of anything except arbitrary numbers. My last company outsourced everyone based off of monthly and yearly numbers. They also had to go back to in-house less than a year later lol
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 20:13 |
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Ticket metrics are useful, but you can't look at them in a vacuum. Person A closes 100 tickets a week. Person B closes 30 tickets a week. Person C closes 80 tickets a week Person D closes 25 tickets a week. So let's look at the tickets Person B does, oh hey they pick up stuff that no one else touches like insert difficult task here, great they are doing good work. Let's see what Person D does, oh they are doing password resets only... maybe we should talk to them about productivity.
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 20:34 |
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We moved to a VOIP phone system a few months ago and once I was satisfied everything was stable, I sent a list of phone numbers to accounting to close out. I was so preoccupied with making sure I didn't include alarms and elevators that I accidentally included our fax lines. Faxes are now broken, zealots of this obsolete technology are pissed, and I, for once, am truly at fault for a monumental gently caress-up.
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 20:44 |
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MF_James posted:Ticket metrics are useful, but you can't look at them in a vacuum. I thought this was going to be Person A only doing resets and well that's important and getting to them fast is useful but oof the turn.
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 20:58 |
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Speaking of ticket closures, I just closed more than three quarters of our hardware reclamation queue. Turns out some dingus had been submitting hardware reclaim tickets for people who weren't issued hardware, using communal machines to do work. Co-ops and interns and the like.
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 21:43 |
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minusX posted:I thought this was going to be Person A only doing resets and well that's important and getting to them fast is useful but oof the turn. Because person A is "accidentally" opening duplicate tickets on unnecessary things and coding then off improperly so they're not excluded from metrics.
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 22:23 |
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Renegret posted:Because person A is "accidentally" opening duplicate tickets on unnecessary things and coding then off improperly so they're not excluded from metrics. Our management swears that it's not possible to game our metrics and that they'll catch it if we do. Their "proof" is the time some dumbass mass modified 800 tickets to click a single radio button, and it was caught because something was obviously up. But if he only did 20 or 30 a day...
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 22:29 |
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larchesdanrew posted:We moved to a VOIP phone system a few months ago and once I was satisfied everything was stable, I sent a list of phone numbers to accounting to close out. Fax machines are bullshit. I don't see that this is a mistake in any way. (I also had to try and unfuck a VoIP setup with fax machines attached at a law firm, where it turns out faxing IS important. Good luck.) Meanwhile, was just informed that we're losing one of our Windows engineers. Is there a sadclod icon?
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 22:32 |
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larchesdanrew posted:We moved to a VOIP phone system a few months ago and once I was satisfied everything was stable, I sent a list of phone numbers to accounting to close out. Killing faxes is a benefit for all humanity.
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# ? Jul 24, 2019 22:33 |
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On Saturday there was a brute force attempt on a Windows server within the same timeframe as a login from an admin from one of the third parties who manages poo poo and runs helpdesk. On Monday morning I asked for the security event logs, because it's likely Edgescan or whatever but you gotta check. I get the event logs, but in a .csv file that just says "a thing happen at time" with no details of what. I ask for the logs in .evtx format so I can use event viewer to dig through them properly. On Tuesday morning I get the event logs in .evtx format, but they are the regular system events, not the security events. I ask for the security events. This morning I get the logs in .evtx format, and they are the security events. But... they only go back to the 22nd. I ask for the correct timeslot of logs. The same admin who was logged in replies "oh sorry the logs got over-written because of the 1024 kb log size". I wasn't suspicious, but now I am. poo poo's been escalated. Renegret posted:Our management swears that it's not possible to game our metrics and that they'll catch it if we do.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 00:35 |
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Arquinsiel posted:When I was in Xbox support it took them eight months to realise one dude changed the contact address, which is distinct from the login address, on every account he dealt with to his own so that he got the surveys for every call he took and gave himself all max scores. Amazing, that’s like some low-rent Wells Fargo poo poo.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 01:37 |
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Arquinsiel posted:When I was in Xbox support it took them eight months to realise one dude changed the contact address, which is distinct from the login address, on every account he dealt with to his own so that he got the surveys for every call he took and gave himself all max scores. When I worked at best buy, we had an outback steakhouse right next to us in the mall. So, being the alcoholics that retail workers are, we were friends with all the bartenders. They'd ring us up for a glass of water, then we'd fill out the questionnaire, give them a glowing review, and get a free blooming onion for filling it out.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 01:50 |
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That's a decent scam to be fair.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 01:55 |
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Renegret posted:When I worked at best buy, we had an outback steakhouse right next to us in the mall. So, being the alcoholics that retail workers are, we were friends with all the bartenders. Sounds pretty sweet to be honest.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 02:36 |
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larchesdanrew posted:We moved to a VOIP phone system a few months ago and once I was satisfied everything was stable, I sent a list of phone numbers to accounting to close out. Yo just agreeing with the masses that you're doing god's work. It doesn't help of course to tell idiots who love faxes (and there are a surprising number of them) that they're idiots and should move out of the 1980s, but you're RIGHT bahgawd. Just did a phone migration where the physical fax machine didn't work with the new ATA (the old system was also VOIP, the fax machine worked with the old ATA, and the new ATA has worked with other fax machines at other clients with the exact same VOIP system, phone provider, and ATA config as we did here, so seems pretty clear it's something with the fax machine). But instead of spending hours troubleshooting that poo poo, I spent my time emphasizing to the client how much better efaxing would be. Luckily as loving dumb and pigheaded as they are, they're also loving cheap, and from a monetary standpoint alone that's started to win them over. (Still an ongoing fight, they brought up the not-at-all-mindblowing question "but with efax now don't we have to worry about PCI compliance storing emails? You see, people are used to faxing us order forms with credit card numbers" no NO NO I DON'T WANT TO KNOW I DIDN'T loving HEAR THAT LA LA LA LA ) Of course I may have padded the estimate for keeping the physical fax with "well you see if we can't get the ATA to work we'll need to get a physical phone line again and y'know it's just a lot of money these days to install a physical copper pair, probably at least $100/month, vs efax which is pennies to send/receive", but you do what you need to to move the ship along and get these stuck-in-their-ways fuckheads to get it. (By the way, I'm not being ageist - stuck in one's ways knows no age and the two people I'm fighting with at this client about keeping the physical fax are late 30s/early 40s). Condolences to those stuck in law/medical fields where faxes are not only used but preferred, I do my best to avoid those fields for many reasons but that's one of them.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 05:46 |
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Super Soaker Party! posted:Condolences to those stuck in law/medical fields where faxes are not only used but preferred, I do my best to avoid those fields for many reasons but that's one of them.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 12:16 |
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larchesdanrew posted:We moved to a VOIP phone system a few months ago and once I was satisfied everything was stable, I sent a list of phone numbers to accounting to close out. In theory you should be able to get them back but it’s not going to be painless.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 12:31 |
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Super Soaker Party! posted:I spent my time emphasizing to the client how much better efaxing would be. When we did this whole project, that was the original plan. It was going to be $8 per month per line vs. $50 per month per line, and all the user would have to do would be to email a digital copy of whatever they were sending using a shared mailbox in Exchange. This was also part of a paper use reduction project administration has been ravenous about in recent years. But it was too much work. It was too different. When faxes came in it, someone responsible for the account would have to log in and get the document to who it was intended for and then delete the email. So I set it up where the copier would work off of the efax email and they could just scan to email documents to the number they wanted to fax to and it would work EXACTLY THE SAME. Likewise, when something got faxed to us, it would eprint to the appropriate device automatically and then delete the document. This was seen as a waste of paper. So, they didn't like the project when it was paper free because someone would have to do a thing. Then they didn't like that it printed out faxes because it wasted paper. In essence, they wanted ME to constantly monitor all fax emails all day every day and dole them out to the appropriate people, rather than the appropriate people in each department monitoring their own fax email. I refused, obviously. The next best solution? Pay 6x more to keep the faxes and use just as much paper. The worst possible solution in every conceivable way. And then I accidentally killed it. A Frosty Witch fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Jul 25, 2019 |
# ? Jul 25, 2019 15:08 |
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larchesdanrew posted:When we did this whole project, that was the original plan. It was going to be $8 per month per line vs. $50 per month per line, and all the user would have to do would be to email a digital copy of whatever they were sending using a shared mailbox in Exchange. This was also part of a paper use reduction project administration has been ravenous about in recent years. Definitely a good way to make poo poo of a week. I'm all aboard the killing faxes train though (as inconvenient as this very sudden plug pull is). You should be able to get all the numbers back but it wont be the most fun you've ever had with your telco.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 15:21 |
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At this point just lie and tell them that the FAX protocol was deprecated and they didn't tell anyone because the FAX authority all died of old age and their kids assumed everyone else who used it did too.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 17:14 |
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The last medical-related business I consulted for specifically called me to set them up with eFax because they wanted to make sure they were future-proofed. Tho this was a very modern therapy office in the trendy Pearl District of Portland, so calibrate accordingly. Actually, that's not a good calibration. There's a rather infamous prosthetic limb company in an equally trendy district that had me run out to consult on improving their LAN and making sure they were HIPAA compliant. They were...not. They were using powerline Ethernet with two Windows XP Home computers with a basic, no auth Samba share on one of them for all their files. When I quoted them a basic file server, two XP Pro licenses, plus a hardware firewall and wireless router with authentication, they laughed and said there was no WAY they could afford all that. Welp. Enjoy your future lawsuits!
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 17:31 |
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Arquinsiel posted:At this point just lie and tell them that the FAX protocol was deprecated and they didn't tell anyone because the FAX authority all died of old age and their kids assumed everyone else who used it did too. Sorry all faxing moved to the new t.39 protocol and our equipment is too old to handle it.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 17:33 |
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Bigass Moth posted:Sorry all faxing moved to the new t.39 protocol and our equipment is too old to handle it. I'm looking on the backend and all I see are ID10T errors coming from the fax's 8th layer.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 18:18 |
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Oh boy I just discovered I also included the line that our 800 number forwards to. So long employment, it was nice knowing you. Cremate me from the neck down.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 18:32 |
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I’ve stopped being surprised how many businesses still live and die by their faxes.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 18:34 |
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larchesdanrew posted:Oh boy I just discovered I also included the line that our 800 number forwards to.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 19:00 |
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MF_James posted:Ticket metrics are useful, but you can't look at them in a vacuum. This is the same for literally every productivity metric ever and it's infuriating to me that managers almost always just go "faster equals better, kick the slow people in the teeth until they game the system" instead of going "hey why is Steve doing three million widgets an hour when the median is forty, maybe we should look at what he's doing"
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 19:12 |
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Fil5000 posted:This is the same for literally every productivity metric ever and it's infuriating to me that managers almost always just go "faster equals better, kick the slow people in the teeth until they game the system" instead of going "hey why is Steve doing three million widgets an hour when the median is forty, maybe we should look at what he's doing" Except that the median will invariably be (re-)set to Steve. Management by metrics is a disease.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 19:14 |
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Schadenboner posted:Except that the median will invariably be (re-)set to Steve. It's funny, the only place I've seen productivity metrics used remotely smartly is sales areas. Who, of course, ignore everything apart from money generated but will absolutely question people who could have made MORE money if they'd gone at the average pace.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 19:16 |
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As someone who once hastened her own work-demise because of telecom fuckery, I feel you. Solidarity, goon-buddy. Can't remember if I bitched about this before...we changed offices, and Qwest was supposed to move all of our DIDs to the new location. Except, for whatever reason, they put in a temporary forward and then failed to do the actual work. On irregular intervals, someone on Qwest's end would notice the temp forward and disable it, so every 2-8 weeks, we'd lose all our phones. I'd call, get stuck in a, "This isn't Engineering/This isn't Sales/This isn't Tech Support," call transfer loop for hours until someone would finally give up and...restore the temporary forward. A year later, I finally took my first vacation of more than a day to spend a week with my SO in Pasadena. That Monday, we were spending a lovely day with our phones turned off in the Norton Simon Museum, when I happened to check to see if I had any texts from my parents. Instead, I had several dozen emails, texts, and voicemails from work, all screaming at me for breaking the phones. Despite the fact that I'd left clear instructions to call Qwest if something went wrong. Nope, instead of checking the, "In case of emergency, do this," list, they decided to spend the entire day blowing up my phone. Around that time, I'd gotten the number for a VP at Qwest, so I called her and told her to unfuck it for me, and lo and behold, someone actually did the loving permanent work. Guess I should have called her sooner, but at the time I wanted to try and work things out the normal way instead of playing the, "I KNOW PEOPLE," card. PROTIP: USE THE "I KNOW PEOPLE" CARD. LEARN TO LOVE THE "I KNOW PEOPLE" CARD. Anyway, by the time I got back, they'd already started a search for my replacement, and they wanted me to stay behind long enough to train him. And lucky me, I had a bunch of health issues and needed the insurance.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 19:18 |
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That's a pretty infuriating anecdote. I'm sorry you had to deal with that bullshit.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 19:38 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 15:36 |
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Dirt Road Junglist posted:As someone who once hastened her own work-demise because of telecom fuckery, I feel you. Solidarity, goon-buddy. You should have sued them. Easy wrongful termination in there somewhere.
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# ? Jul 25, 2019 19:45 |