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I'm in the process of  'ing by volunteering for a project which should in theory put me in position A1 for the job that will be here when my company formally take over (a wee step up the ladder for me)I've been on site for a couple of weeks now and so far I've found out there are 40 data cabs here. We need to pull 1 or 2 fibres to each cab to ensure info sec compliance with Gov. Policies (which existing infrastructure is non-compliant with, but I'm not allowed to touch it so I hope I get a written letter saying if we (the Gov.) audit we will ignore x y and z but that is the least of my worries at the moment) one slight problem is the latest duct map I have located was drawn in '91 - the contractors mapping the ducts have already a found several blocked ducts so we are going to have some budget 'changes' - glad I didn't write that budget. The local on site IT guy isn't really IT at all, his job seems to be to listen to people's problems them tell them to call the support number on their wallpaper  so he hasn't a clue but he did enquire about IT manager roles going forward  So during my initial survey I found an entire network he didn't know was there because he doesn't support it but on the positive side looking at the fibre panels it suggests there is more there is one way to skin this cat in terms of getting fibres about. All that is before I mention we placed our WAN order on day 0 and the lead time leaves us about 9 days (not working days either) between BT SLA for installing the WAN and go live day for our company taking over. On the positive side I'm raking in mileage claims at the moment and my hotel resides on a golf course!!
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Aug 20, 2013 07:09
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coyo7e posted:I have a request for recomendations on conference speaker/mics, specifically a bluetooth one that can be tethered to a PC (as charging station) in a conference room for skype calls and stuff. 
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Aug 31, 2013 13:17
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SEKCobra posted:I never understood emailing big files. Just set up a FTP or http share or something. Or use mega if you can't get any help from IT. We have a share which is totally public to anyone, so we say to people if you need to share something big leave it in there. The only stipulation is let the other person know because the share deletes all it's contents before the backup runs each night 
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Sep 8, 2013 09:02
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I almost feel bad, I'm going to be doing a mailbox store soon. I'm at the stage where I'm only planning it in my head, so far I'm considering if I give my users a 25mb or 50mb mailbox limit. I guess I ought to raise the limit for senior management but if they have never known any different perhaps it's best to start off with tiny limits. It won't be local so I'm not having anyone pull down masses of data over the WAN!
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Sep 9, 2013 09:10
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I live in a hotel at the moment, no wifi here but nothing a patch lead can't solve... I forgot my patch lead this week so I asked at reception for one. She said 'Oh the guys are in this week installing the cloud so you wont need one much longer' Why thank you sir 
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Nov 18, 2013 19:26
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Today I got the go ahead to start tidying the data cabs on my companies new site. It is now in colour coded pristine goodness... Shame I can't have a camera on site. Hey ho, only about 35 more to do...
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Dec 10, 2013 19:12
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Alctel posted:Is that even legal? What's termination pay? Sure - if you don't give your contractual notice then why should a company give you your contractual pay off
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Dec 14, 2013 00:06
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Varkk posted:One job I left they insisted on 6 weeks notice. At the time I quit I had 4 weeks of holiday time owning I needed to take or lose. I gave them the 6 weeks, then gave them 2 weeks notice I was using the holidays, as the contract stipulated. My last job, contractually was 3 months notice. When the recession hit and they suggested they were making redundancies, the long notice period was almost beneficial. However the risk averse side of me fortunately found a new job. I knew they wanted to keep me at my last job but I suspected the company may go under anytime (it never did in fairness) However I managed to leave within about 3 weeks after pointing out, unlike the redundant staff I'm not asking to walk off with a chunky pay off. I got lucky I guess
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Dec 17, 2013 00:21
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GreenNight posted:I'm flying out for vacation on Sunday and a little bit ago I got an email from a lady in HR saying her PC is slow. I have auto reply on my Outlook saying I'm out until the 17th. She then replied to my auto-reply saying I need to get it done before I leave. If you're on leave why did you even do that much? In theory you won't see it until next week! I like to email when I'm back saying 'I see you had this issue, did someone resolve it for you while I was away?'
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Feb 8, 2014 09:46
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Sailor_Spoon posted:We have a little competition around the office for our email valedictions. The best I've seen yet is "Govern Yourselves Accordingly". We have a chapel on site, the Reverend signs his emails Every Blessing Father Joe Bloggs
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Feb 9, 2014 10:00
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Daylen Drazzi posted: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. I might be a naive Brit but I am guessing bullying and harassment aren't words your military have much use for then?
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Feb 9, 2014 22:13
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I drove over the M62 summit on Friday coming home from Newcastle (for the benefit of people who don't know, it's signposted as the highest point of motorway in the country) I was behind a motorbike which was casually going along at an interesting angle. Jumping back a couple of pages to the Dell power cable issue because I don't read too much during the week - I was specifically told to order the 120 desktops for my project early because Lenovo once had trouble getting hard drive screws for the little plastic mount they use and it delayed a different project. The computers have been sat in my store since October and still haven't made it to many peoples desks yet. Hurrah.
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Feb 16, 2014 15:58
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Lum posted:Been a while since I've been up that way (gently caress the Leeds/Bradford tailbacks and gently caress the entire M60) but yeah it can get interesting up there. One of the few places I've had to lean over and look through the little area swept by both wipers because the rain was so hard that you needed the extra clearance to be able to see. I've gone back the other way and I'm Newcastle again now. The M62 near Leeds has dynamic speed cameras now which I think works but luckily I can travel on Sunday night and avoid that poo poo I've been doing a project for the last 6 months with a severe lack of tickets generally, I'm kinda looking forward to going back to the routine of it soon I do have a meeting on Wednesday to discuss when my minion starts though!
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Feb 16, 2014 23:52
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Then you can get the covers like the top right one and cover it all up  I'm supposed to provide a plan to a PM of a company we are taking over from of how I am going to fix the patching mess I've inherited... The official answer is eventually when my company start phasing in our computers your engineers remove yours (we end up sharing but a lot more of our PCs than theirs) They will take their patch leads with them leaving a lot fewer 3m patch leads that should be 0.33m As I'm a nice guy when I will sort out any remaining poo poo your boys have left behind so all my cabs are pretty and properly colour coded to your specification that you haven't followed in any of the 38 cabs on site!! Not sure how to fit that into Project though!
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Feb 17, 2014 22:16
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All my servers came with SAS cards, when I spoke to our ordering person I stated which specific server needed the card The tape drive also came with a SAS card and cable! All Dell gear too funnily enough...
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Feb 17, 2014 22:42
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We have an on call rota and last weekend was my turn. I call came in ... all printers won't print, not a site I've ever worked at before. Check the usual stuff, restart print spool, which restarted fine... cleared the spool files and restarted spool.. still no joy. Try to log on to the printer, not working... no ping, ok try another one, weird no ping either... Called site back, hey user - what does the LED screen say on the printer? 5/6 and it's just stuck (it's part of the HP 'printer boot' if you haven't used HP before) - ok user go find another printer what does that say? the same! ok a third just to be sure? the same. Weird. So I ping the canon photocopier - works fine. Site is 300 miles away so I call the local manager to advise I have shared their photo copier to allow them urgent printing (there is nothing urgent on a sunday really) and he should check it out first thing tomorrow (i.e. today) We had a call this afternoon so I asked what the problem was - apparently a hard drive failed in the RAID and when he replaced it everything went back to normal. I kind of want to say driver on the dead drive but they have several brands of HP printers - perhaps a particular shared file among the drivers? I'm not sure... weird one anyway!
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Apr 14, 2014 23:00
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:Depending on how the printers were set up, it could have just been a lazy tech installing the Generic HP PCL6 driver or whatever.
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Apr 14, 2014 23:28
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:Well, I'm just building on your theory - that a disk in the array was responsible for the driver. If the technician thought "Eh, I'll just install these printers on the print server with the same driver to save time", as soon as the disk went, poof. DrAlexanderTobacco posted:Well, I'm just building on your theory - that a disk in the array was responsible for the driver. If the technician thought "Eh, I'll just install these printers on the print server with the same driver to save time", as soon as the disk went, poof. Ha no DrAlexanderTobacco posted:Well, I'm just building on your theory - that a disk in the array was responsible for the driver. If the technician thought "Eh, I'll just install these printers on the print server with the same driver to save time", as soon as the disk went, poof. Heh, no not at all, it's my fault I mis-read the generic driver part. I think my brain unconsciously thought 'surely no one is that dumb' I thought you meant using the appropriate PCL6 driver was bad and we should be using PCL5 or PS or something! My boss told me about a prank where he would remotely increase the double click delay to something massive so the user would click, see something not load, that's strange... Try again... Wtf... Click click click... 30 seconds later a load of program's appear. I never checked to see if that's possible or if it was just a story
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Apr 14, 2014 23:55
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I was working away from home for about 8 months, I had a lot of hire cars and they all got returned with the dashboard language set to Spanish where possible... I never got one back though 
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Apr 15, 2014 01:16
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Priss In Plate posted:A call came in. I get this almost every time I issue a laptop/vpn token, I always put an patch cable in the bag. Once I get them connected via copper I tell them I don't support their wifi and at least they have solution, often to complaints of the fact they are sat in the porch or some difficult location It's only really senior management who get laptops so I enjoy making fun of them because they can't connect to their own wifi.
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Apr 19, 2014 09:17
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Paladine_PSoT posted:This is why outlook has a decline button. I'd go for suggest new time in about a year and a half It gives me an idea for a stupid prank, next time someone sends out a meeting request to a large DL I wonder how many unattended unlocked computers end up suggesting new times
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Apr 24, 2014 21:58
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We have a system of several DVRs and half of them don't work. The manufacturer is Vigilant. They seem to keep all the secrets in house and refuse to help either me directly or my CCTV contractor. There is a weird credential problem where there appears to be a username for 3 of the DVRs and a different username for the other 2 so the matrix & viewing station can only connect to half the system at any one time You'd think resetting credentials would be simple but I've managed to break into just about every other part of the system apart from where I reset / create credentials. I did find what appears to be a ghost image on one partition I am tempted to see what happens if I image a DVR - If I can image all of my DVRs then at least they will all be the default password! Bit of a drastic last resort though. Speaking to Vigilant the only fix seems to be send the DVR back and they repair it - we did this with one and it took 2 months (you have to send it to Israel) they refuse to talk to my contractor over the phone and won't send an engineer to site Nearly there though
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Apr 25, 2014 19:59
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Comradephate posted:If this is accurate, I hope you sued them for lots and lots of money. For quitting?
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May 10, 2014 11:43
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:Are there any UK chaps here who've had experiences with drug testing? My understanding is that it's a lot more prevalent in the US, but I've only worked at 2 companies since leaving school so Yes and no... We have a drug testing machine where they rub a cloth over you and then put it in this weird machine. It then analyses the traces of any chemicals and tells you if you've been exposed to any drugs We don't usually use it to test staff but one day the guy responsible for it was telling me about it so I let him test me because I wanted to see how it worked (and I don't do drugs!) I also heard a story where a girl talked to a colleague about using drugs over the weekend so the colleague reported her... They got our occupational health to come and piss test her - she passed but she still got fired on the basis that she admitted it, she tried to claim that maybe she bought some fake drugs (or whatever) therefore she passed and therefore can she keep her job But the confession was enough for her to go apparently... Probably didn't help that she worked in a department that helped people recover from drug addictions! Saying all that... We don't operate any kind of routine testing procedure
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May 19, 2014 18:52
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Dirty Frank posted:You're in the UK? Yes sir? Edit: authentication chat - we are regularly pen tested by a variety of different companies and every time they report that although our complexity policy is good it could be stronger I think it's because they usually try 'Password1' which is technically compliant but still a rubbish password. I don't think you can block common words via a windows DC As it happens we use biometrics quite extensively. I notice some concern about stealing the info however if you can encrypt the data then it should be relatively useless to thieves Amusingly during our most recent pen test the consultants spent a notable amount of time trying to replicate their fingerprints using cello tape and... Wine gums! They failed! angry armadillo fucked around with this message at 20:45 on May 20, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 20:36
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:I was doing some work in a high vandalism lab yesterday, and noticed something looked off with the keyboards. The keys on three of them were all randomized, but they all said SLAYER right in the middle of homerow. The cleaner at my old job was a bit OCD, which I guess has the potential to be a positive quality however... She would literally come to your desk, pick up a pen, give it a scrub, put it back, pick up the next pen, give it a scrub... etc. She had been told off for getting up on desks and 'cleaning at height' - in fact she had also been told off for coming over to our building to clean because she wasn't meant to but she thought it was unfair that no one came over to do it (It was a prison, so prisoners cleaned it, it wasn't really an issue!) One day my boss, the facilities manager noticed that she would hoover keyboards if you weren't at your desk so he said one day he was going to pop all the keys out of the keyboard and just sit them on top so when she hoovers... you get the picture. I don't think he ever did it but it would have been hilarious if (more than) a little mean!
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May 25, 2014 20:27
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I have a weekly call in my diary that seems to be called a scrum, I didn't really get the buzzword relevance I just thought the project manager is a weirdo. The reality of it is the project manager organised a 1hr call for 9:30 every week but wanted to make it 2 hours by adding a scrum for 10:30 so we make a drink and then just carry on... Or in my case never come back!
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May 29, 2014 20:07
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ConfusedUs posted:I have three simple rules that I apply for electrical work. Yes! I keep asking for the electricians to pull cables for me for additional data points and the facilities manager keeps saying we don't do that The issue is before my company took over, everything IT (including infrastructure) was contracted out to HP so they never had to do anything with it Now my company runs the place we are obliged to maintain the infrastructure however the facilities manager just refuses to acknowledge this but then moans when his skilled tradesmen are too busy to do their trade... Pulling cat5 isn't too bad but I mainly don't want to set a precedent that I can do it never mind the untrained issue!
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Jun 4, 2014 22:47
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Zero VGS posted:Changing the SATA mode on the 780 won't alter the ghost image so not much point in that It's been a while since I used Ghost but I recall some kind of issue where I had to change the BIOS setting to IDE mode to take/deploy an image (I had a ghost boot CD by the way) Then once it was deployed I had to change the BIOS to ATA to get the image to boot to windows Not sure if that applies here
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Jun 10, 2014 22:58
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An out of hours ticket came in... A user basically said 'an entire system is down  'On the one hand, I recall a ticket from this site of a similar issue, so perhaps it happened again, it's not a site I work at so I figured I look it up on the helpdesk and see what's going on... On the other hand my spidey sense was tingling and I was pretty sure this user was exaggerating the problem to get help So I called back with every intention of refusing to help the user unless they did exactly as I asked to ascertain exactly what was wrong (bearing in mind this wasn't a network I could remote into a fix anything, the options were, I talk you through it or I call out a local guy which is £££ on a Sunday) Luckily for the user the problem had magically fixed itself (probably with a restart) I'm new to the on call rota, amusingly every 5 week (There are 5 of us on call) the same guy sends an email that someone somewhere isn't following the process and getting the Duty Manager to call us (they are supposed to) I figured seeing as every call I had this weekend didn't have the Duty Managers blessing I thought I'd send a group email too... I'm not usually one to complain but if that person had asked the Duty Manager to authorise the call I'm sure they would have said 'try turning it off' or 'just use another PC for now' But hey what do I care, that's some nice call out charges in my pocket.
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Jun 22, 2014 14:35
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guppy posted:My users walk to my office to see me. I'd rather they didn't, but even that aside, it's not a good use of their time, because I'm rarely there. They are allergic to the phone and to email. This week I came back to my desk to see that someone had left me a hand-written post-it. In my last job I used to deal with all the tickets and users generally wouldn't log things until I made them, my boss was happy enough with my "no ticket, no problem" mentality I liked walking around site because I got a feel for what was happening but obviously I was rarely at the end of a phone The one time it backfired was when a user went to my office and logged her ticket on my whiteboard erasing all my notes in the process!
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Jul 20, 2014 23:26
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I guess I take it for granted that I'm not allowed wifi so I don't have to deal with tablets at all Also luckily we can only issue blackberrys for remote email access and we lock them down to calls/texts/email only ... It's kind of crappy but oh so wonderful to support!
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Sep 18, 2014 00:41
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ConfusedUs posted:https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/ There is probably something to be said for the difference in going through all those SD cards, plugging them in, finding the right one etc and comparing it against 'save to c:\' if you are just downloading something I don't think that would make the internet quicker but I wonder how much more comparable it becomes if you really thought it through
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Sep 22, 2014 23:21
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pr0digal posted:So we've got a fiber run between two buildings out in our LA location, about 1200 feet. We're shutting down the LA office and the powers that be wanted to know if we could pull it and re-use it. My answer was no as we had no need for fiber in the MD office and it's structured cabling and should just be left. We delivered a project late because we were moving a cab and the facilities manager said the fibre runs past future location so you can just snip and re terminate We said no just give us a new fibre but they insisted When they went to do it for us they found the fibre didn't go the route they expected at all which hosed everything up... At least we had CYA emails...
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Oct 28, 2014 00:29
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Entropic posted:I'm guessing porn. It's always porn. nah I had one a few years ago when I found a copy of Cain & Abel on someones PC. He struggled to justify that one, given he was a nurse.
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Nov 25, 2014 22:20
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A ticket didn't come in... I do 1 week in 5 on call - I work in a prison so I can't have the mobile during the day Still got a call at 10:30am - the calls have to be placed by the duty manager who in theory should realise all IT staff across our prisons are currently inside the prisons and won't be answering the out of hours on call number... That would also include the IT staff the work at your prison (but I can't call you out because you realised before it said leave a message )
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Dec 9, 2014 19:39
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pr0digal posted:So my previous assistant is moving on to a different job which means I get to sift through resumes! 75% of which use the same template. That beats the 8 CVs I had to 'sift' through for my new assistant... HR are making me interview the 2 internal candidates (neither have any experience) and there is only 1 other applicant that looks likely One guy was telling me about his dreams to own a vineyard which was curious and 2 mentioned nothing in relation to IT I'm really hoping the 1 guy is good or Xmas is just a bad time of year for this
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Dec 15, 2014 23:58
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:We've got a guy like that, doing desktop support because retirement was boring. He knows his poo poo, doesn't stress about the job, and is great with users. The powers that be keep trying to promote him, but he just likes walking the halls and interacting with people. I would seriously do this if I won the lotto
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Dec 16, 2014 23:23
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:"I'm sorry, but this is outside the scope of what I'm employed to do. I can't complete this for you." If it's a small business then sometimes it can be like a family business where it's acceptable to ask for a favour like this as you are potentially the only tech person the boss even knows Naturally in the corporate world the answer is lol no but if I was m.hache I'd probably say something like ok but I'm adding a day onto my Xmas leave because you made me work on Xmas eve, I think it's not about saying no to the boss in this situation but if you are willing to be helpful then at least get a favour back which conveys the message of I'm not a doormat just as well
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Dec 25, 2014 00:00
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Potato Salad posted:A ticket just came in: Spell check? I had a user who sent subject emails such as 'can you call pls EOM' End of message apparently to indicate don't bother opening the mail... It would have been ok but no one really knew what it meant and no one liked her so no one asked! Today a ticket didn't come in when someone rang the out of hours emergency line at 2pm 3 times... Shame they didn't leave a voicemail because I'd love to know which retard that was and which one of our IT departments were hiding at that point!
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Feb 5, 2015 19:34
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