a rant, as i haven't had one in a while

[roadrunner_0]

so, while i was day off from work yesterday, they decided to install a wireless network, which was nice of them. Except its only being left in till monday, as BBC radio cleveland (oh the suspense) are broadcasting from us tomorrow and the council needed to put a network in that they could access and this wireless network was meant to be working a year ago but our IT dept are shit. So, come this morning, i get the job of testing said network, as, perhaps understandably, my boss is skeptical of anything IT do or say, so didn't trust them when they said it was working.


So i get one of the laptops we were given, one of the 9 laptops we were given a year ago when the network was first meant to be installed. In a move of sheer ****ING genius they have ****ed IE so that the settings are wrong, not only that, but they have disabled the connections tab in the internet options... so i cant even ****ing fix it
So, i had to d/l firefox on another computer, burn it to disc and install it on the laptop, and then chance the settings in that. What a ****ing farce. This took me nearly an hour of my time this morning, time i didnt really have as im preparing for rather a lot of work tomorrow. (the reason it took me so long is that i had to try every other avenue first as im not really meant to install software on any of our comps - another genius directive from our IT department)


so, finished now, for now at least, i may rant more later about how shit IT are, but i feel a bit better for now at least

[Cannon_Fodder]

why don't you join IT and give em a few pointers?

edit: oh so it is

[roadrunner_0]

they fear my name and most of the current crop of helpdesk call people can identify me by my voice... which is nice


EDIT: how freaky is the edit feature now!

[s|k]

Originally Posted by roadrunner_0

they fear my name and most of the current crop of helpdesk call people can identify me by my voice... which is nice


EDIT: how freaky is the edit feature now!

It's called AJAX. Asynchronous Javascript extensible mark-up language. Or as some BOFH may say: LESS SERVER LOAD FOR ME AND MORE WORK/CRASH/SLOWNESS/ERRORS/BUGS FOR YOU.

[Tomkat]

I'm actually only posting here so I can edit my post.



EDIT: It isn't that weird.

[midge5]

Originally Posted by Tomkat

I'm actually only posting here so I can edit my post.



EDIT: It isn't that weird.

It's horrible

[SepH]

Originally Posted by Tomkat

I'm actually only posting here so I can edit my post.



EDIT: It IS weird.

[roadrunner_0]

empathise with my plight you bastards

[dda]

I feel your pain.

[midge5]

Originally Posted by roadrunner_0

empathise with my plight you bastards

Your plight pales into insignifance when compared to that which people who brave the horrors of editing.

[roadrunner_0]

i bet you anyone involved in editing gets paid shitloads (technical term) more than me though

[midge5]

I meant editing forum posts

unless we are being paid for that and I haven't been receiving my money in which case I may need to go on strike in protest.

[meglamaniac]

So what happens if you're using a browser without javascript / javascript disabled?

[edit] Having just tried, it does it the old way instead. Funky.

[meglamaniac]

Anyway on the original thread subject, IT departments seem to be increasingly getting into the habit of throwing red tape around in order to avoid doing actual work. It's incredibly frustrating.

[s|k]

Originally Posted by meglamaniac

Anyway on the original thread subject, IT departments seem to be increasingly getting into the habit of throwing red tape around in order to avoid doing actual work. It's incredibly frustrating.

Yeah, it's because idiots who need to have their hand held at every step while operating a computer call up and ask the dumbest questions imaginable because they still haven't realized that a computer is not something only technical people should know about. I honestly sometimes think computer ignorance should be grounds for firing. The red tape serves a good purpose, as many working in an IT department may appreciate.

[meglamaniac]

The only problem with such an approach is you piss off the few users who do know how to work well with a computer, and reduce the chances of any other users making it into that category to somewhere around zero.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by meglamaniac

Anyway on the original thread subject, IT departments seem to be increasingly getting into the habit of throwing red tape around in order to avoid doing actual work. It's incredibly frustrating.

Absolutley. At my work I recently asked the IT department for some space on one of our SQL Servers to transfer over an old access database I was using. The task will take them about 10 minutes to actually perform but so far I've had to write 4-5 emails justifying it, get authorisation from 2 senior managers and attend two meetings. I requested it in November, I'm still waiting...

[Ebany]

At the end of last year I was trying to get a new mailmerge document added to our system, as for reasons best known to themselves they don't have one which will pick out the clients fax number (I can edit the documents easily, but the actual fields you can choose are decided when the letter is made, and peons arent allowed to edit that). This was in order to send a fax to our clients confirming they are aware that there are Bank Holidays at christmas and temps will cost more. I requested it about a week and a half before christmas. I had to get the permission of a director of the company, and then ask the head of IT to make the letter, which I actually got done in about half a day. It then took a week for them to actually bother to do the work, by which time we had given up and done it one record at a time, typing in the info we needed (taking about 4 hours instead of 4 minutes).

I can understand they dont want everyone adding documents willy-nilly, but wouldnt it make sense to have one with pretty much every field option you could think of so we can customise it, rather than have to wait a week to send an urgent mailshot?

[roadrunner_0]

so, today happened, im now knackered, but thats what happens when you get 900+ people in when you usually get about 150/200 on a good day!

so, got to work this morning, to be told i needed to set up 3 laptops instead of 1, which was fair enough, what REALLY REALLY pissed me off though, is that i actually had to set up 6 laptops to find 3 that worked, as 2 of the others have actually had their wireless adaptor disabled ****ING DISABLED! YOU ONLY GAVE US THE ****ING THINGS TO USE ON A WIRELESS NETWORK YOU ****S. And the other one was locked down so that i couldn't install firefox on it.
So i'm officially pig sick of IT, and their boss is getting a formal letter of complaint, signed by me and my boss, on monday, and we are copying it to our director of services and their director of services.

[Ebany]

That does seem especially dumb that they cant do what they were intended for. At least the ones I work with do (mostly) what they are meant to, I just get frustrated with the level of 'cant let the idiots touch any of this'. Why cant they do a test or something to decide how much access a member of staff gets (though that might result in my boss being banned from a computer altogether....the only person I've ever known to accidentaly move ALL her emails to the recycle bin 3 times in one month - and then not have a clue where they have gone, and not recognise them when I look in the recycle bin and say 'Is this them?''!)

Just make sure you keep a record of your letter. Assuning post is paid for by the company send it recorded.

Point out that this important media event was only saved by the fact a tech-savvy member of staff was present, who could correct the errors made by IT.

[roadrunner_0]

yup, its going internal post, and will be delivered by hand by one of our drivers.