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AlexDeGruven posted:I would be more worried about actually getting paid. Eh, they've already declared bankruptcy, so they can't do it again for at least 180 days.
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Aug 17, 2013 02:23
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I'm not really a beer guy, but I did pick me up some Angry Orchard Hard Cider after trying some at the pub last week. Not bad.
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Aug 17, 2013 22:07
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EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:A brand new user decided she didn't want to walk all the way to the printer that is roughly 10 steps from her desk, so she went into the office of one of the partners who is away on vacation, took their printer and cables, and plugged it in at her desk. You absolutely must capture this on video.
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Sep 7, 2013 02:10
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Xequecal posted:I don't work in IT, but once when I was working on a Sunday I overheard one of the upper level managers furious and ranting about how he "installed ThinkPoint on all the computers" and that they all had "errors costing $80 to fix on them" and how he was going to let the IT department have it on Monday. For those of you who don't know, ThinkPoint is one of those scare ware virus things that fakes problems to get you to send them money. So on Monday, the IT dept gets to get yelled at by the guy responsible for the issue and then presumably having to spend hours and hours fixing it. You can build a lot of goodwill up by informing IT guys of something like this so that they can respond calmly and provide the proverbial bitch-slap when Mr Chucklefuck comes along and starts screaming at them. After that they can then completely destroy his authority and credibility and turn him into the laughing stock of the company to prevent the next person with more balls than brains from trying the same poo poo.
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Sep 28, 2013 15:47
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I've always operated on the assumption that my boss is out to get me, and if it turns out to not be true, well, then, it's a pleasant surprise. Paranoia has served me well over the last couple decades, so I see no reason to change how I operate.
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Oct 27, 2013 18:13
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blackswordca posted:So a surprise yearly review came in today. I think you all can guess how that went. On the plus(?) side, not fired. At this point I'd be telling my supervisor that I've got an annual review for him and the company as well and start listing all the things that the company is demonstrating inadequate proficiency or lack thereof. Actually, save it for when you hand in your notice and tell them they have two weeks to improve their performance or you'll be forced to let them go, then at the end of those two weeks express how saddened you are that they failed to take the opportunity to make the necessary improvements, then walk out the door with a grin on your face. Make no mention of the new job - it'll be epic when they realize how serious you were about firing them.
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Nov 14, 2013 04:00
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Jesus, that looks like something I would have encountered back in my desktop support days at Kodak. There was one time when we had a contact-testing station running on a computer that was about 15 years old running one of the earlier versions of DOS. The one time it went down I literally had the plant manager and a couple vice-presidents screaming at me to get it fixed now Now NOW!! Fortunately it turned out to just need a CMOS battery, but I thought the horrified expressions in reaction to my suggestion that they pay to replace this critical piece of equipment with something made in this decade was a bit over-the-top.
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Nov 15, 2013 02:38
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New guy started on my team, and the funny thing is I knew him from when I worked helpdesk at the regional medical network. He was one of the field support folks, and we spent a few minutes reminiscing about how lovely things got shortly after I left. Looks like I managed to dodge a howitzer shell.
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Dec 3, 2013 01:33
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drat, a co-worker has found another job and is leaving in two weeks. The lovely thing about it is that I just got him up to speed on things and he's willing to actually help with doing the annoying stuff. Now I've got one guy who just started last week and as soon as they can find the right candidate they'll be replacing the outgoing co-worker. Even busting rear end and throwing the new guy into the deep end is not going to do much to offset the workload - it takes at least a couple months to get into a groove and figure some of the poo poo out. Feeling a little nervous since we just took on new responsibilities, but it's also pretty exciting. I'll let you know in a couple months if I feel the same.
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Dec 10, 2013 01:24
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So a month ago one of the members of our monitoring team decided to take another job, opening up a spot. Without even bothering to ask me (the most senior guy on our 1st shift team) they just transferred the junior-most person after they asked him if he would do it. I kind of bitched about it when my team lead and the monitoring team lead were shooting the poo poo one day - I didn't want the transfer, but just getting asked would have been nice. In my words "it's like being in gym class and being the last kid picked for kickball - really doesn't do poo poo for your pride or confidence." So today my team lead comes out of their morning meeting and immediately walks over to me and asks if I would be interested in transferring to monitoring, since they're opening up a spot and it's mine if I want it. I'll be honest - I was really tempted because it would mean no more on-call, no more late-night patching, and no people with bi-polar disorder hunting for me because something broke at another base and no one else has a clue what to do. But it also means no more working with vCenter, vSphere, ESXi, server hardware, Windows Server, or any of the things that I actually enjoy dealing with because I get paid to play with that poo poo. I like it when someone walks up to me confident that I can fix or deal with whatever isn't working and asks me to help. I like the challenges that come from some of the configurations we have going, and I love the responsibility that I've been given (even if it feels like they're dumping so much poo poo on me to see how much I can take). If I move over to monitoring my day will consist of staring at a computer screen, and when something breaks asking someone else to fix it. Not my cup of tea. So I told my team lead that I wasn't interested, and it was hilarious to see him almost sob in relief, since the only other guy on 1st shift other than the team lead and his assistant is the new guy who's been with us for three whole weeks. I've learned a ton of stuff in the 9 months I've been here, but more importantly the team lead knows that I'm reliable and steady even when poo poo hits the fan. I'm showing the new guy the ropes and trying to get him up to speed as best I can, but he seems a little unmotivated to learn things, and there have been a few times where I've had to ask him if he's done a task, and when he says no, remind him that it needs to be done now. Frankly he's starting to annoy me because he doesn't pay attention to details. Take today for example - he didn't even bother to ask about replacing a drive that was in predictive failure, but instead went down and swapped it without telling anyone. Normally not an issue, except we tend to ask the teams that manage the server how they want to handle it, because most want to bring the server down after hours and replace the drive with the machine off (even though it's hot-swapable, there have been times when the server would crash because of it and everything would be lost, and it's left people a little gun-shy). We lucked out that the server didn't go tits up, but what made it worse was that the guy swapped the wrong drive. All he had to do was ask me and I would have been happy to show him a diagram of the server to tell him which drive bay was which. And, of course, there's the amber flashing light to indicate which drive has an error, and he completely missed that too. I lied to the team lead and told them that the second drive was now in predictive failure state, and then called our warranty vendor up and had them ship me another drive, but I don't have the inclination to cover for the new guy again and just might let him get an rear end-chewing for failing to properly perform assigned tasks. Maybe then he'll pay a little closer attention. And the saddest part is this guy is 7 years older than me and has been doing desktop support work for at least a decade, so it's not like he doesn't know that the little details make a big difference in outcomes. Fortunately we've only got 3 more weeks until we should hopefully be able to get a third person in place on the team, and by then the new guy will either be better, or looking for a new job. His first solo patching tasking is coming up next week, and he'll either sink or swim from that experience. Daylen Drazzi fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Jan 3, 2014 |
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Jan 3, 2014 00:54
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I got the slight thrill of accomplishment today that balanced out the rather slogging drudgery that encompassed the rest of my workday. For the last couple weeks we've been dealing with an ESXi host out in California that, when we look at the logs, gives us a bus error message, but no real idea what the hell the problem is or how to diagnose it. Our virtualization team finally throws up their hands and tosses the issue at me and says it must be a hardware issue. So I contact Dell and go through all the hoops to get an error log sent to them, and in less than an hour they've determined that the I/O board is bad and needs replaced. Awesome! I call our on-site POC and let him know a tech is coming out to replace the I/O board and arrange for everything. Tech comes out, replaces the board, and the machine is back up and running. With one small exception - no more iDRAC. Oops. Probably not a big deal if you have a staff that's experienced with something like that, but alas - we are not. No one knows a drat thing about configuring the iDRAC module, so the assistant team lead and I get our google-fu on and start searching for anything we can find. We determine that since the I/O board was replaced, likely the iDRAC module settings were also lost and need re-entered. Uh oh - no one seems to know what the actual settings are other than the IP address. Plus, how the hell do we remotely configure them since we can't access the system? About this time the virtualization team lead wanders in, and despite orders to the contrary I start asking him about remote access methods. My team lead is on the other side of the cubicle wall muttering and bitching, but I ignore him because frankly there's no one else who knows a drat thing about these servers, so what do I have to lose. Success! The virtualization lead remembers that we set up a KVM server and wouldn't you know it - here's the IP. I bounce the server and hit Ctrl E just like the technical manuals say, but an Emulex controller doesn't look anything like an iDRAC module, so I reboot it again to see what other options are available. Fortunately the assistant team lead is watching and sees a second prompt for Ctrl E to go into iDRAC settings. Cue two hours of me fumbling around with the settings and comparing them with another server's iDRAC settings before I finally stumble on the right combination of settings. Who the hell knew that having the LAN set to SHARED instead of DEDICATED would prevent the fucker from communicating? I write up a short document that details all the important settings and how to access the system and all the piddly little details I had to work through to get the loving thing to work, and all the time I'm doing this I'm trying hard to not get pissed at my team lead for being a little bitchy about trying to get help from other teams because "we should know this." I almost changed my mind about moving over to the monitoring team just so I could see the emotional train wreck I would create.
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Jan 4, 2014 00:07
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namol posted:Sounds like you don't have the enterprise drac license, it then uses the dedicated nic for that. If you're running all dells you can use the dell management console and backup/restore drac settings etc. No idea - it's the Department of Defense, so I'm betting we probably do. The server has a dedicated iDRAC port (left side on the back) and four additional NICs (right side on the back). The issue isn't licensing, but rather the dissemination of information where things get hosed up. Plus, over 50% of our detachment left last year when a new primary contractor came in and told everyone they were going to be taking a 30-40% paycut. Naturally the people who knew all this stuff quickly found new jobs, and they didn't write anything down or pass this information along before they left. We've been playing catch-up and doing OTJ training ever since I started in March. Now we're in the process of re-aligning all the teams, and more people are leaving, and it's playing holy havoc on everything. That's how I came to be the senior-most 1st shift technician on my team - the others either left or transferred to other teams, and the ones still in the detachment have no love lost between themselves and my team lead because of his previous temper tantrums, so they never offer advice or information unless asked point-blank by their team leads with a flight lead standing over their shoulder. I'm not really bothered by the dysfunction, so my frustration levels are pretty low, so I doubt if I'll leave anytime soon unless a really good job appears.
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Jan 4, 2014 19:47
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coyo7e posted:This is way more common with Sony however, it can happen. One of my coworkers had to say almost exactly the same thing to get Sony to cover a faulty-out-of-the-box HDD on a new $3000 laptop with full warranty options across the board - the first 12 month warranty only covered accidental and not defective equipment for some retarded reason, and they wanted to sell us a new HDD for $300.. I must admit, the ProSupport warranty is baller. We had a server crap out on us last week and I contacted Dell and in 5 minutes had an engineer on the phone looking at the event log we sent him. Two hours later there was a tech at the base gate (on the other side of the country) with part in hand. Unfortunately it turns out the engineer mis-read the schematics, and over the weekend the server crashed again with the exact same errors. Fortunately I just emailed the engineer and within 5 minutes he called me back and we were on the road to getting another tech sent out. Either Dell ProSupport is kick-rear end, or when they see "Department of Defense" as the warranty owner they try to be extra helpful.
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Jan 8, 2014 00:46
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Buy the ProSupport warranty or you're an idiot and you'll get jerked around almost every time you call.
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I'm worried about the new guy hacking it - we had patching to do today (his first - he got his cherry popped!) and at 3:30 pm on the dot he logs out of his computer and puts on his jacket. I knew what he was doing, but I played dumb and asked if he was going outside for a smoke. He looks at me like I'm a nutcase and says he's heading to an appointment he has at 4pm. "Oh? You finished patching?" "I'll do that tomorrow." I shook my head and told him that we have other patching to do tomorrow, and the day after that, and we don't leave until the day's patching is complete. His response? "But I've got an appointment." This starts to piss me off, since I told him the first week that we don't leave until we finish patching, even if it means staying late. I'm very certain our team lead told him the same thing. I wasn't about to do his poo poo and mine, so I told him to sweet talk to the second shift guys and see if one of them would be willing to finish things off for him, otherwise he could take off his coat and get back to patching. Fortunately for him the second shift guys take pity and agree to finish his patching. I'm trying hard to not get annoyed by all the hand-holding this guy needs - when I started the job I had almost no help from anyone and just muddled my way through things and figured that poo poo out on my own by reading our process documents. I would ask questions from time to time (I was afraid to ask too many questions for fear that it would reveal that I was terminally incompetent), but for most of it I had to learn as I went. I'm beginning to think that my explaining things and showing him how to do the work is not doing the new guy any favors. Maybe I just need to let him figure this poo poo out on his own and tell him where the process documents are and concentrate on my work. I have a feeling, however, that no matter what I do it's going to come back and bite me in the rear end.
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Jan 8, 2014 03:09
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Sickening posted:How often are these patching days that take you into the night? The new guy was made aware of the patching schedule the same time I was - a week before Christmas. A notice is sent out after the military approves a request for patching, and in the notice is the official documentation that clearly lists the patching window's date and time. It's also added to our shared calendars with a reminder in Outlook. The week of the patch window we receive a break-out list that tells each of us what servers we will be personally responsible for and what patches are going to be installed. This whole process was anything but last-minute or sprung upon him unannounced. We patch our systems once a month after VA analyzes patches and determines whether or not they meet requirements and pass muster by not corrupting or killing test systems set up for that express purpose. Believe me when I say the folks who oversee this process have this poo poo down to a science, and nothing happens unless the paperwork is all in order and signed off by the military. Now, you're right that we should be able to pass things off to the second shift guys, except for one little hiccup - they also have their own patching to do, so they aren't sitting around staring at the walls with nothing to do. There are a lot of things that can only be done after normal working hours when there will be minimal user impact. That's why my team is the only one with a second shift component, and why people joining the team are made painfully aware that when you start the process you are there until it completes, no matter how long it takes (unless you can convince the second shift guys to cover for you, which they sometimes will if they don't have a lot of their own work to do). Quite simply, the new guy was lucky the second shift guys were feeling magnanimous. We have different patch windows for different networks and systems, but basically for one week out of each month we do patching. It's been that way for years, and expecting them to change the system or the process for one person is unrealistic. My normal schedule is 8-4 M-F, but during patch week I can expect to stay upwards of an hour or two late on Tuesday (if we run late), come in an hour early on Wednesday (and leave an hour early), and work 14-16 hours on Thursday (unless I choose to not come in during the day, but then I have to work Friday, plus we have patching during the day starting at noon, so I could only miss a couple hours in the morning, but it's not worth the effort of adjusting my schedule that much). There is nothing about this that is a surprise unless you just don't pay any attention to what anyone says or emails you. If you aren't reading your emails and paying close attention to details then you have no one to blame but yourself, and I feel absolutely no remorse about you suffering for it (especially if I have to be the one to pick up the slack). With all that said I'm cutting the new guy some slack for first-time jitters and rookie mistakes, but as it stands right now we no longer have the luxury of being able to throw additional bodies at the problem because our team size has been reduced by 50% in anticipation of decommissioning several hundred legacy servers. For the next couple months we either suck it up or quit, and since I'm not at that point yet I have no intention of leaving. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's critical for the next few months that the new guy learn his duties quickly and well. Unfortunately, I'm not confident that he has either the willingness or interest in doing so.
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Jan 8, 2014 23:00
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Blue_monday posted:Not on fire not my problem. It can wait till the morning. We support combat operations, so when our poo poo is down then people's lives are at risk. There is very little sympathy from the military leadership that we might have to stay an hour extra to finish a job instead of leaving when we normally do during the day.
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Jan 9, 2014 02:11
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Did our overnight patching on Thursday and finished up after 8 hours early Friday morning - 16 hour days suck, but fortunately it's only once or twice a month. I know some of you ask why we babysit the patching, and what happened was a perfect example why - the patches were all installed automatically through SCCM, but for whatever reason the servers didn't reboot automatically. We'd log in and see a warning that the server needed to reboot for patches to take effect and then wait for 10 minutes to verify the server was back up and running and validate the correct patches were installed times 200. It was a long night. Part of the problem is that since this is a legacy system that is going away in a couple months, there's no real urgency to keep the applications and infrastructure that keep it running up-to-date or functioning smoothly. The teams that were overseeing the systems have been re-assigned, and the much-diminished team that I'm on has been given responsibility for keeping them alive until the migration is complete (without the benefit of having any training on the underlying systems, which means if it breaks we go back to manual updating and such). Once these systems are gone then we'll just have to worry about our virtual systems (of which there are a lot less - God, I'm falling in love with virtualization). Earlier some of you were asking about why things are done in a certain way, but I can't speak as to the reasoning for why things are done the way they are - those decisions were made long before I got here, and arguments that could be used about greater efficiency or monetary savings have absolutely no impact here since money or efficiency is not, and probably never will be, a big part of the decision-making process. There's a poster one of the old-timers put up on the wall, and it just says "IT IS WHAT IT IS". Our job is to not tell the military how to do the work or make the decisions, but implement things exactly as they specify, even if it doesn't make sense or there are better ways of accomplishing the task. I've been told the stories about how suggestions will be made, people will be impressed and amazed and the changes implemented after months of conference calls and meetings, and then six months after it's done a new officer will come in and order the changes reverted because he didn't understand the new system or process or didn't like it. It's no use getting upset about it, because in the end the military owns the servers and ultimately makes all the decisions. As long as I'm getting a paycheck and doing work I enjoy then it doesn't really matter to me. Besides, it's just a contract and I'm betting it will be gone in a couple years, but until it is I'm going to learn as much as I can about VMware, Exchange, SharePoint, AD and anything else I can worm my way into getting involved in.
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Jan 11, 2014 21:06
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ZetsurinPower posted:I can say that some of the people on our helpdesk are worth 25k and not a penny more (of course, they make almost double that so its a career for them). Thats what happens when you staff your helpdesk with 40 year old ex-secretaries We had an honest-to-God massage therapist working Helldesk at my previous job. I tried to not get down on her, but drat she could not remember poo poo. One of my other co-workers told me that the lady had the recall of a goldfish and quite literally asked the same question every week about how to do a procedure she'd been doing for several years. It was a lightbulb moment and spurred me to YOTJ out.
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Jan 30, 2014 23:03
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Collateral Damage posted:You're either trolling or you've never worked outside the IT/web industry. I know of only a couple servers that run Linux (other than our ESXi boxes) on our network, but the remaining several hundred all run Windows. In fact, we just stood up another 50 or so Windows virtual servers in preparation for migrating from OCS to Lync. Of course this is a United States Department of Defense network so that might explain why.
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Feb 2, 2014 15:20
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Well, not really. I'm moving out of my friend's house tomorrow morning to a 1-bedroom apartment five miles away. I've been living here for five years now, and we came to the consensus that it was time for me to get the gently caress out. I'm actually pretty happy to do so, since my friend's idea of a comfortable temperature is around 63 degrees in winter, and since it's his house and he pays the utilities I walk around bundled up like an eskimo. I've got pretty much everything packed up and ready to go, picked up the keys to the apartment this afternoon, and my brand new furniture is coming at 8am tomorrow, with the cable technician scheduled to arrive between 11am and noon. I've planned out the apartment layout, but I'm sure I'll make some changes once I have everything moved in and see how I like the way it looks. I definitely need to buy a new computer desk - the folding tables I've used for the last ten years are convenient, but they're beat to hell after three moves and I want something that goes with the rest of the furniture and doesn't scream "Cheap loving Bastard".
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Feb 8, 2014 03:22
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It took almost 10 hours to move and get everything situated, but my cable and internet are hooked up and my new furniture looks awesome. My friend/former roommate concentrated on hooking up my new speakers and head unit so that I could enjoy my 55" TV and stream movies from my media server from the get-go. Now I just need to go out and buy some other essentials and I will be loving golden.
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Feb 8, 2014 23:01
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Volmarias posted:They could be intersexed We have a person in our unit who requested he be called Vanessa because he was undergoing gender reassignment. The military officers and the lead PM had a mini-huddle for a moment and then asked him if he "still had your dangly bits". When he answered yes they breathed a sigh of relief and told him no. S/he was very upset about it, but not enough to quit.
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Feb 9, 2014 13:34
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Cojawfee posted:Did he legally change his name to Vanessa? I don't know if you can actually be trans in the military. I know a person who was separated for having a mental disorder when he became a she. The most awkward going away of all time. He's actually a civilian contractor just like me, but what generally happens is that since we fall under military oversight we also follow military guidelines and decisions. In this particular case our commanding officer decided that there was no way in hell he was going to call the individual Vanessa until or unless he undergoes the gender reassignment surgery. I'm not sure if the individual got a legal name change or not, but I do know that no one calls him Vanessa. In other news I'm 100% moved in to my apartment and about 40% unpacked and organized. Accommodation-wise the apartment is pretty well set up with refrigerator with ice maker, microwave, dishwasher, stove, washer and dryer and gas heat. My only complaint thus far is the drat toilet, which is small and low to the floor. If I were a short, skinny-as-a-rail old woman then it would probably be okay, but I'm not, so I'm going to be talking to the leasing agent about getting a real man's toilet put in (which I will happily buy and even pay to have installed, although I could do it myself). I've already replaced the shower head and curtain rod, both of which were poo poo (however I did keep them in case the leasing agent wants to pitch a fit, but I doubt it and I'm not telling them). Now I just need to do some organizing and buy some groceries and I'll be in awesome shape. I have, however, made myself a promise that I will only be moving one more time - I slept like a log last night after dozens of trips up and down the stairs carrying all those boxes. I'm getting too old for this poo poo, so next time I'm hiring a moving company. Daylen Drazzi fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Feb 9, 2014 |
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Feb 9, 2014 22:02
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Today we got one step closer to a unified network when my two co-workers and I unracked 30 servers for disposal. We'd shut them down earlier last week, but we were just waiting for the go-ahead and got it today. On the one hand I was a bit sad seeing all that hardware getting stacked on pallets for disposal, but on the other hand it means fewer servers to patch and hardware to replace. Hopefully by this time in April all our legacy hardware will be at the scrapheap and Windows Server 2003 will be a distant memory. I sort of want to grab a couple machines for a VMware lab, but that doesn't look like it's going to happen. Oh well.
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Feb 20, 2014 02:01
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Honestly, at this point you should just show up in dirt- and sweat-stained clothes reeking of alcohol with an unlit cigarette in your mouth and give them the most outlandish story you can think of just to see how they respond.
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Feb 21, 2014 05:15
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Go with "Dear hosed-up Excuse for a Walking Enema..." and then ask them if your previous emails sound abrasive in that context.
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Mar 20, 2014 01:19
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Laserface posted:not having to accurately track my time for every single ticket is such a relief. You now realize that everyone who has to track their time has added you to their hate list. What's up next - free food?
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May 6, 2014 13:13
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Treat this as an opportunity, and be very selective about who you interview with. At your age DT you have a great deal of supervisory experience and a proven track record of delivering results. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of companies looking for that mix. If anyone asks, tell them you're looking for the next big challenge because you've done pretty much all you can at current job. Definitely don't let the person with the axe sneak up behind you, since at this point it's pretty much a certainty that the company figures you are no longer of value. They are only looking at the here-and-now, and no matter what you do your fate has pretty much been sealed by these assclowns. The important thing to take away from all this is gently caress everyone else. You look out for yourself and, if you're feeling magnanimous, a few promising minions. Everyone else can go to hell. Karma has a way of rewarding the douche nozzles.
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May 8, 2014 02:43
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Dick Trauma posted:Yesterday was a big conference call and the CEO and my old boss were anxious about the phones. I put a backup plan in place to ease their concern but everything went fine. Afterward I noticed someone from my last job was in the conference room and it turns out we've created a position he might be a good fit for. When the interview was over my three bosses one after the other came to consult with me about this person since I used to work with him. DT, I have a feeling that once the upgrade project is completed you will be asked to compile a list of things that you think need to be accomplished in the next year or so, plan out a budget and timeline, and then once finished they'll have your rear end thrown out in the street. I imagine that they're already interviewing your replacement at this point but the first couple candidates laughed in their faces when told the responsibilities and pay, so in an effort to keep you from jumping ship at a time that would be inopportune for them they're hoping they can confuse you long enough to finish up a few things and give them a few weeks breathing space.
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May 10, 2014 02:00
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sfwarlock posted:I used to have a postit on which I'd written "DO NOT PLUG IN SPACE HATERS - WILL BREAK CIRCUIT." I put it over the outlet. Someone plugged in their space heater right through the post-it. When you're cold, survival trumps reading skills. Or intelligence.
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May 13, 2014 00:46
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The drug testing is mostly an insurance-mandated thing, plus a drug test is usually required right after an accident so that any workman's compensation claims can be completely denied in the event that an accident does occur and it can be determined that the employee was under the influence. A friend of mine's nephew was working on a tar crew on base and basically fell into hot tar and was completely hosed up. He was looking at a year minimum to recover, but because it was an accident Workman's Comp was going to cover the entire cost of his medical care. And then they found traces of marijuana in his system. That was more than enough for Workman's Comp to tell him to piss off and deny any coverage, even while he was still on a ventilator and no one was even sure he was going to live. He naturally lost his job as well, and that cost him his employer's insurance as well. If he's lucky he might be able to go back to work in another five to ten years, but as it stands right now his family can't afford the physical therapy sessions, and they are drowning in debt just from the initial accident, let alone the week of medical care in the ICU. Pretty sure the hospital just got him stabilized and in no threat of dying before they kicked him out. Have to talk to my friend to see what's happened since then.
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May 16, 2014 01:25
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Back in my pre-IT days I worked as a truck driver for a lumber company, and the running joke was that they regularly tested for drugs and did random screenings. Of course, the joke was that whenever corporate asked for a random screening the management would always send me. After about the 8th test in four months I asked the manager what the hell was up, and he admitted that I was the only person who they were sure could actually pass the test, and since they never had to supply the name - just the results - then it only made sense to send me. When I suggested he go, he glared at me and said 'like I said, I'm pretty sure you're the only person who would pass the test.' Interestingly enough I got a $1/hr raise shortly after that as a merit bonus (and when you're only making $10.50/hr, that extra dollar goes a long ways), so I didn't bitch and enjoyed my bi-weekly two hour break for the next year.
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May 16, 2014 22:40
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lazercunt posted:You are lucky you still aren't at Speedway. They got rid of offices for managers a couple years back, and I've never seen someone so overworked and underpaid. They have too much to deal with before I come in bitching about variance counts and out-of-date products. I was Tier 2 Tech Support for Speedway back in 2009. I managed to last a mere 3 months before I'd had enough of the rampant technology stupidity and left to go work a desktop support job for one of Time Warner Cable's call centers. The IT managers didn't know their rear end from a hole in the ground, and that kind of idiocy had no place in my perception of how IT functions. Happiest day of my life up to that point when I told them to piss off and walked out the door.
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May 18, 2014 22:34
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spankmeister posted:I don't have to take drug tests, it's unheard of and probably illegal here. I did however have to discuss my past (and present, if applicable) drug use with an interviewer of an intelligence service, but that was to get clearance for my gubmint job. Christ, why is it now that I feel like I live and work in some dictatorial hell - I don't think I've ever had a job that didn't require me to take a drug test. Hell, in high school I had to take drug tests because I was an athlete. Over the last 25 years I've just gotten used to having to pee in a cup and I've never gotten worked up about it (probably because I've never used illegal drugs once in my life - yes, boring, I know).
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May 19, 2014 13:12
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Christ, I miss corporate passwords. I have ten network logins, plus a couple local administrator logins across five domains. Passwords must be a minimum of 16 characters in length, must have the usual complexity requirements, plus they cannot have more than two characters that are the same placed together. Passwords must be changed every 60 days, and AD remembers the last 20 passwords you've used. I try to keep mine relatively sane, but I've seen some other people who virtually write a freaking sentence when they enter theirs, with at least 40 or so characters. It's like watching someone make a Twitter post.
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May 20, 2014 02:44
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:A successful HR Meeting came in! Advise him to bitch and moan to Seagate and Western Digital, or better yet send them a sternly-worded letter to see how far it gets him. Then use some aspect of the car analogy.
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May 23, 2014 12:41
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I mentioned in another thread that I told my team lead that I was going to be interviewing for a position tomorrow in order to generate some sort of response from leadership. Apparently it did the trick. I was pulled aside by the Information Assurance Officer that the incumbent for the VA/CSA position was going to be making a decision tomorrow. From the sounds of it, she'll be leaving for another job, in which case they'll want me to move over into the position. It apparently pays more, plus I get out of on-call rotation, however I will be taking a step back career-wise from working with servers to working with desktops, but I figure the other duties of the position will offset that. I'm also fairly certain that if I take the position that my current team lead is not going to quite let me go, since I'm the only person beside the assistant team lead who knows the score for our responsibilities. Should be an interesting day tomorrow.
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May 30, 2014 00:08
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Migishu posted:You should still have her do this, on your last day. I'd pay good money for someone to make a popsicle in the shape a cock-and-balls and a wrapper that says "Suck on this!" that you can give to soon-to-be-former bosses. Also, I'm claiming the copyright on this, but I'm willing to share it for a small part of the proceeds.
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May 31, 2014 03:21
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Caconym posted:You mean a dispatch center with no handheld radios and mobile phones for just such an eventuality? Thats... ballsy. drat, sounds like there was no generator testing whatsoever. We make it a point to test our generators every month and run them for an hour to make sure they can handle the load. Not doing anything like that is just begging for disaster to strike.
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Jun 8, 2014 12:18
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Wilford Cutlery posted:A termination came in... (not mine!) I was asked to submit my resignation to my current employer so that my replacement could be hired when I transfer to the primary contractor on July 14. Our PM comes over to me yesterday and casually says "So, I heard you submitted your resignation. Got any plans after you leave?" and my heart stopped for a second until I realized he was having a little fun. He cracked a smile and started laughing when he saw my expression. I swear, I almost had a heart attack on the spot.
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Jun 26, 2014 12:50
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