IT Tech-Guy office rant - server uprgade and impatient users

[ScoobMaster]

Grrrrrr!!

My co-worker and I are upgrading our mail server this morning (going to Novell GroupWise v6.5). We have sent out several memos for the past 2 weeks indicating that the server will be unavailabe today due to the upgrade. We have been into the project for a little over an hour now and we have had 6 people already ask when it will be done and back up (they have ULTRA IMPORTANT things that have to be done today and SOON!)

WTH(!) Do these people read the memos and plan accordingly? We even had a few express total shock and dismay ("what do you mean the mail server is down?!! I NEED to access my calendar!!!!!!! How long before it is back up???!!!")

I have to resist the temptation to tell them that the process would finish quicker and have less of a chance for mistakes if clueless users would quit interrupting us!!!!!!!!

end of rant!
(apologies to ATOTers - I had to blow off some steam here!)

 

[fumbduck]

kill them all

 

[loup garou]

I soooo know what you mean.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Not good enough. You should schedule big upgrades for the weekend, or build it then swap it in for less downtime.

A businesses email and calendar system out for a whole day IS weak.

 

[iamwiz82]

if i were doing something like that, i'd schedule it for the weekend. In my eyes, doing major upgrades like that costs the company more money than paying for you to work the weekend.

 

[loup garou]

If you're a consultant, many times companies don't want you in for the weekend (don't want to pay for weekend wages, don't want to have someone come in on the weekend to let you in, etc). At least, that's been my experience.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

"Sure we can get you online again fast, what's your login name? *CLICKETYCLICK*"

 

[mpitts]

Yeah, unless you have a good reason you shouldn't be doing anything to a server during normal working hours.

 

[ScoobMaster]

In regards to the weekend thing.

We are a K-12 school district. Since it is summer and there are no classes running, only administrators are in (and only some of them - many are out). It is not like we are a fortune 500 company losing business opportunities or clients with this outage.

 

[Placer14]

Originally posted by: Skyclad1uhm1
"Sure we can get you online again fast, what's your login name? *CLICKETYCLICK*"

lol

If you don't work for the company and you're outsourced by them, tell them to get lost.

 

[mpitts]

Originally posted by: ScoobMaster
In regards to the weekend thing.

We are a K-12 school district. Since it is summer and there are no classes running, only administrators are in (and only some of them - many are out). It is not like we are a fortune 500 company losing business opportunities or clients with this outage.

Ahh.. I figured there was probably a reason why you were doing it on a Friday morning.

 

[Chadder007]

Originally posted by: werk
I soooo know what you mean.

Indeed....upgraded some software yesterday and I had sent out a notice 3 times within the past two weeks, and then a reminder 30 minutes before the upgrade. Email tracking showed they had opened the mail but they stayed in the program anyway!!!....and went to lunch and locked their computer. Stupid f@*@#s!!

The upgrade was small and only took about 20 minutes and we decided to do it at lunch time when people were going to be out and when they come back, could test it out for the rest of the day.

 

[TJN23]

then why do some of those people have ULTRA IMPORTANT things to do heh

 

[rudder]

Thats what saturdays are for. Come in, upgrade, spend the next few hours playing lan games.

 

[NogginBoink]

Originally posted by: ScoobMaster
In regards to the weekend thing.

We are a K-12 school district. Since it is summer and there are no classes running, only administrators are in (and only some of them - many are out). It is not like we are a fortune 500 company losing business opportunities or clients with this outage.

I dunno, but in my opinion the job of IT is to serve the users, not the other way around.

My mom's school district IT guys decided to do server maintenance during finals week when students' final projects were due. Kids couldn't get to their files to deliver their presentations for finals.

You get points for at least warning the users, however, many of your users cannot schedule the work they have to do, and they rely on the tools you provide them to get their work done. No matter how many warnings you give your users, they are dependent upon you to get their jobs done, and it's your responsibility to do everything you can to not disrupt that.

(Wow... I didn't realize this post would be a soap box.)

 

[Rufio]

man u came to rant and people are ranting on you!

 

[TheCorm]

Tell them that if they don't go away and let you do your job you'll delete all their emails and their calender....or add random events into it.

Jamie

 

[djheater]

Originally posted by: ScoobMaster
Grrrrrr!!

My co-worker and I are upgrading our mail server this morning (going to Novell GroupWise v6.5). We have sent out several memos for the past 2 weeks indicating that the server will be unavailabe today due to the upgrade. We have been into the project for a little over an hour now and we have had 6 people already ask when it will be done and back up (they have ULTRA IMPORTANT things that have to be done today and SOON!)

We never do any changes to the production environment on Fridays, this is one reason. Also, we found that we often ended up working over the weekend to clear up problems.

 

[Fritzo]

Sorry, I'm usually all for rants, but many businesses run on email, and that long of an outage needs to be scheduled on off hours. Been there many times myself...any upgrades that take more than an hour should be done at night or on weekends.

 

[tigerwannabe]

i feel your pain...i'm an i/s guy, too

 

[djheater]

Regarding the "over the weekend" thing.

What we found (and I'm speaking for the management, I wasn't actually here when they institued this policy) is that production changes done when there is no load can't account for load.

Basically, too many times they'd switch something out on the weekend and get it up then come Monday-Wed, a bunch of problems would crop up they couldn't or had not anticipated. And it would fvck everyong up for the week.

 

[damiano]

Originally posted by: werk
I soooo know what you mean.

oh yeah

 

[rh71]

Definitely a weekend job. I'd be pissed too if I were a user... and I'm in IT.

 

[loup garou]

Email is not mission critical for every business. Some of you guys think too big.

 

[TJN23]

yeah, add random events to their calendar like "friday, august 1, walk outside blindfolded in traffic"