Angry IT Manager: Off Hiatus

So yeah, I guess I never officially announced one but I was on hiatus for a while.  Shortly after my last post, work got real busy and a whole lot less funny.  Long story short, things are different now.  Look for posting to resume shortly.

How-To: Turn A Broken Keyboard Into An Email Server Virus

I got a voice mail left on my work cel phone shortly before 5 on Friday afternoon (which is why I didn’t answer the call to begin with) from one of our more excitable district managers.  Here is the transcript:

Yeah, we have a virus on our email server.  Everytime I sign into our email through web access and try to reply to an email, something weird happens.  When I hit the space bar, the Global Address List pops up.  I have to close it everytime.  This is cutting company production WAY DOWN.  Also, everytime I sign in, there’s a pop up box asking if I want to proceed.  I have to click Yes everytime and that cuts our output way down as well.  Please fix the viruses on the email server and take care of the pop ups.

I love that because he is affected, that (without asking anyone else) he assumes the entire company is affected and states that company production is way down.  Not only that, but compains that clicking “yes” to the Internet Explorer pop up that asks if you’d like to display the secure items cuts into his work time as well.  Yeah, that one second is time consuming.  The best part though, is he claiming that we ave a virus on the server.  Nothing like sensationalism to grab the IT Manager’s attention.

Basically the guy’s keyboard had a few keys stuck and once we replaced it, it was fine.  It’s too bad he didn’t spread his paranoia further.  I’d love to be caled on the carpet by the owner because of a broken keyboard.

What Your (My) End-Users Hate About You (Me)

Network World has an article up enititled What Users Hate About IT Pros.  Often, we IT guys complain about the users we deal with but aren’t too willing to listen to the complaints about us.  So here are some points mentioned in the article, and my personal experiences and thoughts:

[It irks me] when an IT manager ‘fixes’ something on my computer and then says ‘It should work now’ and walks away,”

I personally am guilty of this.  Of course, when you know it’s going to work it’s an easy thing to say.  When someone breaks something by deleting it, and you restore it, often you say the above and just leave knowing that everything is fixed.  I can see how this could be frustrating and arrogant to an end user who perhaps doesn’t understand. 

However, I do this only under certain circumstances.  If I’m in a hurry, I’ll do it.  If I’m doing it as an unscheduled favor for someone, I’ll do it.  Usually though, it happens because I’m frustrated with the user and have to take my leave in order to calm myself down. 

For example, recently I received a very angry phone call from an end user complaining that his mouse was broken.  He was a new hire and we had just installed a brand new workstation and this was the first time he had tried to use it.  He made some sarcastic remark along the lines of is this the kind of thing he was to expect here from our department.  AfterI arrived at his desk, I noticed a unique PC/monitor configuration.  I asked if it had been that way when he first arrived.  He said that he didn’t like where the PC was, and so he moved it.  I looked at the back of it and asked if he was sure that he plugged everything back in correctly.  He said that he had, and then I showed him the unplugged mouse cord.  I plugged it in, said “It should work now” and walked away.  I figured that was better than staying and arguing since it was early on Monday morning and I hadn’t had any coffee yet.

“I don’t think [e-mail storage] should be unlimited, and I understand why the size needs to be monitored, but it doesn’t seem like the storage capacity has adjusted to the inflated use of e-mail,” he says.

I’ve gotten similar comments as well.  Of course, it only comes from individuals that are reaching, or have reached their limits.  I have no problems adjusting the limits for users who have a legitimate reason for needing that done.  I’ve just yet to find someone who does.  Most of the time it’s from people who never delete emails and whose inboxes are clogged with personal messages, pictures, etc.

Which brings up another common complaint: techno-jargon. The technical terms and shorthand that IT managers throw around create an air of mystery and superiority to those not in the know, some say. And that may be by design.

I usually try to follow up technical terms with an explanation of what I’m taking about, but let’s face it, some are just too stupid too understand or don’t want to.  This is a frequently heard complaint about IT pros, but all departments I’ve ever worked with, when discussing their jobs use their own jargon as well.

“While they make you feel stupid on the one hand, they also shroud solutions in mystery, which I believe is a job protection/justification strategy,” says Lisa, a partner with a financial services firm in the Boston area.

I guarantee you that I, and those who work with me, would LOVE for our users to understand how to fix their problems or what they could do to limit/avoid them.  In fact, we have training classes to try to accomplish just that.  Most that I deal with just aren’t interested in learning.   Trust me, I don’t like having to have someone yell at me because he didn’t plug his mouse in.

How-To: Lose A Webmaster Job Part 2

Our organization hasn’t had any kind of spam filter for our Exchange server since I started here almost a year ago.  Because of that, as you might imagine, we have problems with spam.  Well, let me rephrase that.  The people that throw their work email address out on the internet with reckless abandon, signing up for newsletters and forgetting the uncheck the “Can we share your email address” box have problems with spam.  One user comes in on Monday morning and has hundreds of spam emails in her inbox.  Of course, she also spends most of her day goofing off on the internet.  But I digress.

Anyway, I installed a Barracuda Spam Firewall 300 last week.  I spent a few hours configuring it and making sure that everything was setup correctly and waited for our MX records to update so that mail would be sent to it instead of our Exchange server.  Keep in mind, I sent an email to our webmaster/host the day before.  So I wait.  Nothing happens the first day, I write it off thinking maybe he didn’t get to it until later on and the MX records will take a bit to update.

The next day I come in and nothing is coming into the Barracuda.  I send an email and call to make sure the MX records have been updated.  I get an email back saying something along the lines of “yeah, I’ve been really busy and will do it now”.  I’m not happy about that, but as long as it gets done soon, I won’t be too angry. 

I come in the next morning, and shock of shocks, the records still haven’t been changed.  I try to contact the guy again.  I don’t hear anything from him until Friday afternoon apologizing again and he says that he is making the change now.  At this point, I really don’t care (it is Friday afternoon after all and the last thing on my mind is anything work related) and I figure it’ll all be fixed on Monday morning.  I’m sure at this point you’ve probably guessed, it wasn’t.

At this point we’ve had the box nearly a week and it’s just ben sitting there.  Couple that with the fact that it’s Monday morning and you have an Angrier IT Manager on your hands.  I call the guy as soon as I get to the office and tear into him.  He feeds me a few excuses (let’s get one thing straight, changing DNS/MX records takes one minute, tops) and then makes the change while I’m on phone. 

There’s many things that I regret that I didn’t bring up during my hiring negotiations.  I wish that I had negotiated an extra week of vacation, and I also wish that I had the authority to dump our webmaster without having to get approval from the owner.  By the way, yes, this is the same guy.

We Need Laptops!

When we hire a new mucky-muck, usually the first email I get is to order them a laptop. Here’s how the conversation usually goes:

HR: “…. so go ahead and set them up with a user name, email and order them a laptop. They start tomorrow.”

Me: “Okay, but can I ask why they need a laptop? I have a few workstations here that I can have built for them, that way we don’t have to wait to get the laptop in.”

HR: “They will be working from home.”

Me: “How so?”

HR: “They will need access to their email from home.”

Me: “They already have that. They can get to their email from any machine.”

HR: “Please just order them a laptop, docking station and monitor.”

My main problem is that, let’s be honest here, no work will be done from home. Checking email isn’t really work (considering most of it is personal anyway) and if they do take their laptop home (most just leave it in its docking station and never take it out) they use it to surf the net. Trust me, I’ve gotten their laptops in the shop and have seen the “work” that they use them for. If anything, ordering them a docking station and monitor encourages them to leave it at work.

So why do I care? Well, because I never get these kind of emails until the day before they start. I keep a few extra workstations on hand and one can be ready for them within a few hours. Laptops have to be ordered, we aren’t allowed to order extra because of the cost. It takes a few days to receive it, and in the meantime all I hear from HR, the new hire and the new hire’s boss is, “Do you have the laptop yet? I/They can’t start doing their work until you give it to them. When are you getting it?” Yes, most of that is coming from the people that didn’t see fit to tell me about the hire until the day before they start.

Another good point of this whole situation is that it starts off the new hire hating the IT department because we’re the ones that get them their laptops late. I mean, they’re going to eventually hate me/us eventually (because we are the computer people and so when something goes wrong with theirs, it’s automatically our fault) so the sooner the better I suppose.

Man, Monday posts are especially negative aren’t they?

Backup Follies or "How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Just Dust Off My Resume"

The way that we have our backups set up currently is the way that many larger companies have to back up their data.  We run a full backup every weekend and a differential (a backup of only the data that has changed since the last full backup) backup every weekday.  Well, have are currently using DAT drives and tapes, and while the differential backup (barely) fits on one tape, the full backup takes two.  What this means is that I (since I was told that the backups are so important that I have to personally handle it after others were confused with the tape changing process) have to change tapes on Monday. 

In order to make sure the backup completes in the most timely manner possible, I set the backup to start running on Sunday night.  When I get in on Monday morning, I take the finished tape out, put the second tape in and let it finish.  It then needs the first tape to verify, and then eventually the second.  The backup takes so long that I have to show up to work no later than 6:30am on Monday to insure that it will be finished by 7pm.  Needless to say, Monday is a long day for me and it’s frustrating knowing I’m only there that long because I’m a tape-slave.

When I was on vacation this week, there were many complaints about changing tapes on Monday that filtered to my boss.  We met about it, I described the problems that we currently have (as in, we need bigger, faster drives) and to my surprise, a brand new auto-loading tape drive was approved.  This would mean no more early/late Mondays and I’d only be changing tapes once a week.  I was ecstatic.  I came home and excitedly told my wife that I wouldn’t be having to get up early to change tapes on Mondays.  I even had a beer or two in celebration of this new development.

Then this afternoon I get a phone call saying that the new backup solution has been shot down by the owner of the company.

Don’t get me wrong, I know exactly how much this was going to cost and that is expensive to say the least.  However, a few weeks ago we had a meeting regarding a rather large project that we are going to be undertaking before the end of the year.  I informed everyone there, including the owner, that if they wanted to go through with it, a number of upgrades to our current infrastructure would be necessary.  One of the upgrades needed would be to the backup hardware.  The owner said, and I quote, “Well, I’d rather make sure that we have what we need for this to run smoothly than try to run it on what we have.  I know that it will be expensive, but it’s a necessary evil.  Do what you need to do.”  Of course, I would be a fool if I actually believed him and took him at his word.   (Note:  I’m a fool.)

In addition, I didn’t even hear this from him or my boss.  The person that called me to inform me was the company we ordered the parts from.  After calling my boss and asking him what the deal was he told me, “Yeah, (the owner) has had a bad week.  It’s not the right time.”  I enjoy knowing that the future of the company depends upon the owner’s mood swings.  Makes for a promising future.

Make Sure You Have Your 5 Year Old Email Me Back – Part 2

Well, if you had the opportunity to read Part 1 then you know that I have problems (and I’m sure you do too) with fellow employees emailing me in some strange language that is a step above baby talk, yet a few steps short of understandable, proper English. The same guy (He’s a manager at one of our locations. Yippee.) sent me an email this morning:

i am having an issue with my (program) it down as we speak for almost an hour i troubled shoot it!! it still down..and also i emailed u last time that my sales office and pt office computers both have virus..help please..thx bro

I’ll give one thing to him, he’s not using all caps in this email. Has his program been down for an hour and he has been troubleshooting it? Has his program been down and he’s been troubleshooting it for an hour? Does typing “u” instead of “you” really save all that much time? I mean, there’s only two other letters in the word, and the furthest one is two keys away. Although, how could I possibly be mad at someone who ends his email “thx bro”? I’m not sure what thx means, I’m assuming it’s an abbreviation of “thacks” or “thicks” but it’s hard to tell. At least he called me “bro”, which shows that he is somehow my friend despite the fact I’ve talked to him all of one time.

Perhaps I Should Clean My Office

Okay, in my defense I’m lucky to be in my office a full day out of the week. I’m usually on the road finding other places to be frustrated at. There’s another reason that my office is in its current state of disarray though. About three and a half months ago, on a Friday morning, the person I report to came into my office and told me I needed to move offices. At that very moment. Now, normally an office move is an annoyance at worst, except I keep all of our IT supplies in mine. Plus I had about 3 computers “in the shop” and had just (the morning before) received a shipment of 10 workstations. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy about it and it wasn’t exactly easy moving all my stuff by myself.

Since they gave me no advance warning and offered no assistance, I decided that I was just going to throw my stuff in the new office and deal with it later. Plus, I had a job to do offsite that day and had to leave right away. Three and a half months later my office still isn’t organized, for lack of time and motivation. Actually, if you think this is bad, there’s far less boxes than there used to be.

I keep the door to my office closed even when I’m there and usually people’s first response on seeing it is laughter. Confused, shocked laughter but laughter nonetheless.

5 Different Kinds of Users

At all the companies I’ve worked at, I’ve run into the same types of users. I thought it would be helpful to list them to remind myself how to deal with them. Hopefully this will help those thinking about a career in the IT field as well:

The Computer Virgin

Description: The Computer Virgin is someone who seems to have never even seen a computer before, let alone used one. They will ask you a ton of questions that will seem silly to you, and they will always either precede or end their questions with something along the lines of “I know this is stupid, but..” or “I’m really computer illiterate so…”

Pros: You probably won’t have to think too much while at their desk/on the phone with them. That will give you opportunity to daydream/surf the net/blog/make paper airplanes while talking to them. They usually appreciate your help and think you are really smart. Occasionally they bear gifts and may have your back in case you get into an email argument that they are privy to.

Cons: Once a question of theirs is answered, they will continuously bombard you with questions. Often they will slowly get more and more ludicrous. “Can I print to my printer at work from home? I have the same kind.” “Can I just speak into my computer to type? I’m not good at typing” “I think my mouse pad is broken, can you help me?”

How To Handle: Be friendly, but not too eager because that will give them an opening to ask you everything they’ve ever wanted to know about computers.

Little Mr/Mrs/Ms Junior Tech

Description: One of the more annoying users, Little Mr/Mrs/Ms Junior Tech believes he/she is his/her department’s official tech person. Sometimes this is because they have had a little training in the IT field before realizing that following a career in IT would cause them to die of alcohol poisoning and/or a heart attack at 32. However, sometimes they are just someone who has a computer at home and has done a few upgrades or installs for themselves or friends. They often get asked questions within their own departments and are more than happy to answer. This is dangerous as it only adds to the problem, whether this be their own egos or computer crashes due to an incorrect answer.

Pros: Occasionally will save you time if they know enough to answer small questions here and there. No one wants to take a walk in order to clean a mouse. Plus, they’re more than happy to tell their fellow employees to reboot.

Cons: Often will argue with you if they disagree. Are more than willing to throw around “technical” terms like CPU, CRT when either not appropriate or unnecessary. This breeds confusion in their respective departments. Example: They will refer to their computer/PC/tower as their “CPU”. When you ask someone in their department if they’re having problems with their computer, they say, “No, with my CPU”. They will often answer questions based upon 20% something they’ve heard or read (from a respected source or otherwise) and 80% something they make up on the fly. In case of a disagreement, their department with rally behind them. They are after all, the department’s official tech person.

How To Handle: Delicately. Don’t get into discussions about tech related topics with them. In the event of a disagreement, let the fixed/completed end result speak for itself. Or, if you’re not politely inclined, let them hang themselves. It’s certainly funnier.

The Most Important Person In The Company

Description: This person could hold any position in the company. I’ve run into this user anywhere from a low level part time employee to the CEO of the company. One thing they have in common though, is they absolutely, positively CANNOT be without their computer for FIVE MINUTES because they have VERY IMPORTANT web surfing, online shopping, myspacing, spyware/virus/adware downloading, WORK to do. Need to take their computer back to the data center? Well then WHAT ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO DO UNTIL YOU GET IT FIXED? And God help you if it dies and there is any file loss, because PEOPLE ARE DEPENDING UPON THIS VERY IMPORTANT personal pictures, mp3s, INFORMATION THAT WAS STORED ON THE COMPUTER.

Oh and they always have eBay auctions deadlines that coincidentally end on the very day the problem arises.

Pros: They give you things to cynically and sarcastically email/blog/tell your friends about. Puts more money in Mr. Jack Daniels’ pocket (a pro only if you happen to be Mr Daniels). Or, if you go a different way, you become an expert on beer in a week’s time. Allows for the creation of brand new curse words.

Cons: Liver problems. They will almost always involve their boss or supervisor to let them know that their Very Important Work will not be able to be done because the IT Guy says he has to fix their computer. You will receive an email from their supervisor inquiring as to when you will be finished. It will contain a hint of frustration at YOU for having the nerve to take the time to fix their computer. No matter how little or how long you take to get them up and running again, it will be unacceptable. Tests your self control and could cause dental problems from teeth grinding.

How To Handle: With good humor. They won’t appreciate it, but it will be absolutely necessary for you to keep your sanity and to refrain from taking a Cat 5 cable and strangling the user. For God’s sake, once you have enough information to determine their problem and solution, stop listening to them. Anything else that they say will be superfluous.

The Deleter

Description: Pretty self explanatory. Accidentally deletes files, emails, and anything else he has permissions to. Sends frantic emails to you requiring your help to restore the files and narrowly escape termination.

Pros: Sends absolutely HILARIOUS emails that make him/her seem both high on caffeine and inebriated at the same time. Will simultaneously beg you for help and threaten you. Fun to string along.

Cons: It depends. If you don’t have a backup solution or file restoration software, there is no con. If you do, you had better hope that it works because you’re going to have to restore whatever he deleted. If you don’t have good backups, then the fault switches to YOU and so do the consequences.

How To Handle: Again, it all depends on your backup policies. If you don’t have any, sit back and have some fun. If you do, then pray your backups work.

The Complainer

Description: This user is never happy. If his/her computer isn’t too slow, it’s too loud, too big or too small. If his/her screen isn’t too small, it’s too bright or it hurts their eyes and gives them a headache. The standard mouse isn’t good enough, they want a trackball/optical/wireless mouse. Their keyboard is noisy and stiff. It takes too long to boot up. Why are they getting spam? How come they aren’t allowed to change their wallpaper or listen to music? Why can’t they have an LCD instead of a CRT? Why can’t they have a CRT instead of an LCD? How come so and so’s department got brand new equipment and their’s didn’t? And so on.

Pros: Easily pads your completed trouble ticket totals. You can usually reply “it’s company policy” and it’s another issue closed.

Cons: They never stop no matter what your answer is to them and they always find something else to complain about. No answer is acceptable to them and they tend to sigh or grunt in response to you. The Complainer, more than any other user is contagious. You can literally watch them spread. You can stand at a Complainer’s cubicle while they are complaining about their messy wires and the person next to them will either join in or state a complaint of their very own, which then spreads to the next person and on until infinity. The Complainer is viral.

How To Handle: If possible, avoid or ignore them completely. They may go away on their own. However, this may cause the problem to intensify if they involve their supervisors. Remember, anyone that a Complainer comes into contact with becomes a Complainer themselves. You’re really better off just answering them and hoping against hope they don’t ask you anything further. You’re in a lose-lose situation.

Fox Joins Disney In The Little School Bus

So Fox is following Disney’s “bright” idea to offer movie downloads. Of course, by “bright” I mean greedy, idiotic and poorly thought out. What’s wrong with movie downloads for a fee? Nothing, I’m sure there’s a market out there. However, once again: THERE IS NO MARKET FOR EXPENSIVE MOVIE DOWNLOADS THAT YOU CAN’T PLAY ON YOUR DVD PLAYER.

Let’s break this down for a second. You can buy one of Fox’s movies from Direct2Drive at the low, low price of $20. Oh, and once again, as with Disney’s plan and most other movie download services, you can’t burn it to a DVD and play it in your standalone. But have no fear, you lucky consumer you. Here’s what you do get to do:

buy movies and television shows that they can download for computer playback and transfer to devices running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Media Player technology.

So why go down to Best Buy and pick up the DVD for relatively the same price and be able to play it wherever you want? No, instead pay the same price (or in some instances, even more) and be limited to watching it on either your laptop, or your Media Center PC. Which you could do also if you actually bought the DVD. How can this possibly fail?