Rant - IT Woes

[Brovane]

Lately I have had several people commit to do things at my workplace. They then don't follow through on what they said they would do and don't say anything when they don't follow through which really pisses me off. If you are not going to do something you committed to do at least have the common F$%# courtesy to tell me. I swear sometimes I think children work here. This is the thing these are different teams within IT. Don't even get me started about the Linux Team and not telling me about servers and then acting shocked the warranty is expired on the server. If you don't tell me about a physical server you deploy how am I supposeed to track the F$@% warranty? I refuse to go play hide and seek with servers.

Example#1 - Earlier this year we had a Server with it's warranty expiring on 7/20 of this year. I asked the team that uses the software running on the server what they wanted to do. They told me they would be migrated off the server by 7/20 to a virtual machine and I didn't need to extend the warranty on the physical server. I was reviewing warranties yesterday and find out the original server is still in production. Contacted the team's manager and inquired about status. The manager told me, well we decided to go a different direction so the software is going to stay on the server. I politely asked why he didn't inform me of this change in plans because now the server warranty is expired and the company will have to pay to extend the warranty on the server plus a re-instatement fee to Dell. (Dell might wave the fee but I didn't tell him this. I get a blank stare back.

Example#2- Same team server #2- This server is a virtual machine on cluster of servers at a remote DataCenter. Management decided to eliminate the virtual machine cluster at this remote DC. I am in charge of the project to shut the virtual machine cluster down. I create sub-projects for each VM that needs to be migrated. The same team manager from example #1 tells me the VM needs to stay in the DataCenter and do not migrate to the Data Center 20 miles away. Ok we need to get approval to buy hardware since the cluster is going away. I get a hand wave from the manager, whatever that means. I get approval to buy the hardware. Get the server racked cable, powered up and OS loaded. Hand the server over to the manager for his team to migrate the software. The server sits for 3 months. I inquire as to what is going on. This VM is now the last VM that is on this virtual machine cluster at this DataCenter. Oh we decided to go a different direction and we don't want to migrate at this time. Can you just migrate the VM to the cluster at the other DataCenter.

Good thing I get paid by the hour. :\

 

[Ns1]

Good thing I get paid by the hour.

not seeing a problem then

 

[lxskllr]

not seeing a problem then

Job security. He should be buying his guys nice Xmas presents this year for keeping him in money :^D

 

[Brovane]

Job security. He should be buying his guys nice Xmas presents this year for keeping him in money :^D

Yeah true job security for me. :thumbsup:

 

[Wyndru]

I have yet to find a position in IT that isn't frustrating. Things change quickly, you just have to roll with it and be happy to be employed.

I've built 3 vms this summer that have yet to even be logged into. 2 of them requested 32gb memory, and the SQL server has already used 90% of that even though is not being used yet. A lot of hurry up and wait in this field.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I have yet to find a position in IT that isn't frustrating. Things change quickly, you just have to roll with it and be happy to be employed.

I've built 3 vms this summer that have yet to even be logged into. 2 of them requested 32gb memory, and the SQL server has already used 90% of that even though is not being used yet. A lot of hurry up and wait in this field.

I was called out of a training class one day to make an "URGENT!! URGENT!!" external-facing site for our President. He never logged into it. That's just one of many examples. People aren't held accountable for wasting IT's time and money.

 

[kranky]

I was called out of a training class one day to make an "URGENT!! URGENT!!" external-facing site for our President. He never logged into it. That's just one of many examples. People aren't held accountable for wasting IT's time and money.

That's outright ridiculous. You must have been shaking your head that there is such a thing as a site-building emergency worthy of being forced to abandon a training class.

 

[brianmanahan]

IT is frustrating, but imho it's worth it for the money

still, it is frustrating enough that my plan is to save as much as possible so i can get out in 15 years

 

[Bateluer]

Huh . . . .does the OP work for the same employer I do? We have teams that do dumb shit like that every week.

 

[slag]

Huh . . . .does the OP work for the same employer I do? We have teams that do dumb shit like that every week.

We all do. Same shit, different company

 

[ultimatebob]

Heh... things aren't much better on the software development side of the fence.

I just got a request for a complete functional spec and feature list for a (huge and overly complex) software product we wrote from one of our customers. Only two problems with this:

* No functional spec and feature list for this product currently exist. We've basically been adding features to an existing product for the past 5 years, and doing a really shitty job of documenting them along the way.

* The customer is currently building their own in-house version of our software. So, basically, they're asking us to help them reverse engineer our code for their product.

Maybe I should recommend sending them our source code and compilation instructions and make their job a bit easier for them

 

[Brovane]

Huh . . . .does the OP work for the same employer I do? We have teams that do dumb shit like that every week.

After 15 years in IT I have learned to always document (IE save e-mails). People wonder why I like to communicate via e-mail instead of face-to-face. At least with a e-mail I have a trail to show when somebody doesn't do something they committed to doing. It also helps me figure out what the hell happened. Especially with Example #2 because the original project to migrate the VM had been closed out because we gave them metal. I had to go back through my e-mail to try and figure out WTF happened. I was looking to see what was left on the Virtual machine cluster when I realized something went off the rails. Just like with the Linux Team I have saved e-mails telling them you don't tell me about servers you deploy I don't track the warranty on the server. Oh yeah we are currently in a big push to be more efficient and become IT as a service. Whatever the hell that means.

 

[Saulbadguy]

I have yet to find a position in IT that isn't frustrating. Things change quickly, you just have to roll with it and be happy to be employed.

I've built 3 vms this summer that have yet to even be logged into. 2 of them requested 32gb memory, and the SQL server has already used 90% of that even though is not being used yet. A lot of hurry up and wait in this field.

SQL server will always use around 90% of installed memory.

 

[Imp]

After 15 years in IT I have learned to always document (IE save e-mails). People wonder why I like to communicate via e-mail instead of face-to-face. At least with a e-mail I have a trail to show when somebody doesn't do something they committed to doing. It also helps me figure out what the hell happened.

Some old guy at work tried to eff me over once. He preferred that I call him for everything. I honestly thought it was a generational thing, but then he tried to fu*k me over and things looked differently. I still kept to email.

One time he asked me why I didn't call, I told him I didn't want to bother him. No, it was to cover my ass, have a written record, make things easier to understand, and so we wouldn't have to play phone tag. But we wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings...

 

[OVerLoRDI]

IT definitely has it bad. I feel some of your pain. Thanks to sites like anandtech and computer related hobbies the IT team loves me. I can mostly diagnose and fix my own stuff.

I am a technical overlay for an outside sales force. The requests I get from reps and management alike see unbelievable. Everything is #letsgo.

Example:
4pm "The customers old copiers had fax kits, the new machines we are proposing don't have them! We need a fax server for all their users! Proposal is tomorrow at 9am"

Now as you can imagine, fax servers aren't that commonly sold in 2014. I didn't have the pricing on hand, nor did I really have much in the way of collateral or enough info about the customers environment effectively quote a system (queue educated guessing and blank stares from sales reps)

Throw a solution together that is a reasonable price. Follow up after the proposal, "oh yeah the customer didn't actually use the fax function on the old copiers."

It's the sales people....

 

[RearAdmiral]

You have teams?? /jealous

 

[vi edit]

IT is horrible, especially if you have a "hard" and "soft" IT divisional split. By that I mean a traditional infrastructure team (networking, storage, server, ect) and then application teams that do more build/support/workflow stuff.

The true tech side are usually introverted, passive aggressive social rejects that have no clue how to deal with others and rarely have to deal with real end users. And they have no idea on the impact of various changes and how they relate to the app space. And then you have the flip side of the app people not really being technical at all and having no clue what they are really asking for and the technical demands or requirements in implementing a system/move/or change. They are the group that usually take the heat from the customers when shit goes boom.

And both teams loathe each other. It sucks. So much of my time is spent following some constantly changing and cryptic IT policy, navigating through blame storms, and sitting through meeting after meeting of people bitching about the same thing over and over and over again and never getting anything done.

People are so obsessed with covering their assess, and constructing these walls of policies to intentionally delay work intake...so much time is wasted within the confines of IT. I swear about 15% of my time is really spent helping/fixing/working for the customer. The rest of it is dealing with self inflicted IT bullshit.

 

[Genx87]

Lately I have had several people commit to do things at my workplace. They then don't follow through on what they said they would do and don't say anything when they don't follow through which really pisses me off. If you are not going to do something you committed to do at least have the common F$%# courtesy to tell me. I swear sometimes I think children work here. This is the thing these are different teams within IT. Don't even get me started about the Linux Team and not telling me about servers and then acting shocked the warranty is expired on the server. If you don't tell me about a physical server you deploy how am I supposeed to track the F$@% warranty? I refuse to go play hide and seek with servers.

Example#1 - Earlier this year we had a Server with it's warranty expiring on 7/20 of this year. I asked the team that uses the software running on the server what they wanted to do. They told me they would be migrated off the server by 7/20 to a virtual machine and I didn't need to extend the warranty on the physical server. I was reviewing warranties yesterday and find out the original server is still in production. Contacted the team's manager and inquired about status. The manager told me, well we decided to go a different direction so the software is going to stay on the server. I politely asked why he didn't inform me of this change in plans because now the server warranty is expired and the company will have to pay to extend the warranty on the server plus a re-instatement fee to Dell. (Dell might wave the fee but I didn't tell him this. I get a blank stare back.

Example#2- Same team server #2- This server is a virtual machine on cluster of servers at a remote DataCenter. Management decided to eliminate the virtual machine cluster at this remote DC. I am in charge of the project to shut the virtual machine cluster down. I create sub-projects for each VM that needs to be migrated. The same team manager from example #1 tells me the VM needs to stay in the DataCenter and do not migrate to the Data Center 20 miles away. Ok we need to get approval to buy hardware since the cluster is going away. I get a hand wave from the manager, whatever that means. I get approval to buy the hardware. Get the server racked cable, powered up and OS loaded. Hand the server over to the manager for his team to migrate the software. The server sits for 3 months. I inquire as to what is going on. This VM is now the last VM that is on this virtual machine cluster at this DataCenter. Oh we decided to go a different direction and we don't want to migrate at this time. Can you just migrate the VM to the cluster at the other DataCenter.

Good thing I get paid by the hour. :\

Take it in stride. I bought a couple servers to migrate our development group to virtual machines off old servers 3 years ago. They have moved to virtual machines over time when their physical servers finally died. I try to prod them to move forward. But don't spend much energy forcing them to do it.

 

[Cuular]

IT is horrible, especially if you have a "hard" and "soft" IT divisional split. By that I mean a traditional infrastructure team (networking, storage, server, ect) and then application teams that do more build/support/workflow stuff.

The true tech side are usually introverted, passive aggressive social rejects that have no clue how to deal with others and rarely have to deal with real end users. And they have no idea on the impact of various changes and how they relate to the app space. And then you have the flip side of the app people not really being technical at all and having no clue what they are really asking for and the technical demands or requirements in implementing a system/move/or change. They are the group that usually take the heat from the customers when shit goes boom.

And both teams loathe each other. It sucks. So much of my time is spent following some constantly changing and cryptic IT policy, navigating through blame storms, and sitting through meeting after meeting of people bitching about the same thing over and over and over again and never getting anything done.

People are so obsessed with covering their assess, and constructing these walls of policies to intentionally delay work intake...so much time is wasted within the confines of IT. I swear about 15% of my time is really spent helping/fixing/working for the customer. The rest of it is dealing with self inflicted IT bullshit.

You must work the same place I do.

But add in a few layers of political bullshit to help things run even better.

 

[Rage187]

We have a Help Desk at work. But they do not help, so we refer to them as Desk.

 

[xSauronx]

I have yet to find a position in IT that isn't frustrating. Things change quickly, you just have to roll with it and be happy to be employed.

I've built 3 vms this summer that have yet to even be logged into. 2 of them requested 32gb memory, and the SQL server has already used 90% of that even though is not being used yet. A lot of hurry up and wait in this field.

i have gotten really lucky lately. i interned in a hospital IT department, which...would have been an ok job with similar headaches to the OP, had i gotten hired.

i instead worked at a small IT consulting firm. My girlfriend manages a different, but similar IT consulting firm...that work sucks. rush rush rush, get pulled 3 ways from sunday to do things, too small to be paid decent, have benefits or act organized. nightmare job.

now: 1 of 4 IT people [i am a server admin/desktop support guy] for a textiles manufacturer. ~220 pcs, 20 servers, 5 plants. things move at a steady pace, I get a lot of freedom to try new things, test new things, make plans that will actually happen, our budget isnt heavily restricted, the company is healthy, the pay is good, the benefits are decent....great job. totally great job. exactly what i wanted: big enough to have money to spend and stay sort of up to date, small enough where everyone is approachable and i can get things done on my own timeline.

it has its own frustrations...but they are not common, and i am not stressed about going to work sort of ever.

 

[Kaido]

now: 1 of 4 IT people [i am a server admin/desktop support guy] for a textiles manufacturer. ~220 pcs, 20 servers, 5 plants. things move at a steady pace, I get a lot of freedom to try new things, test new things, make plans that will actually happen, our budget isnt heavily restricted, the company is healthy, the pay is good, the benefits are decent....great job. totally great job. exactly what i wanted: big enough to have money to spend and stay sort of up to date, small enough where everyone is approachable and i can get things done on my own timeline.

it has its own frustrations...but they are not common, and i am not stressed about going to work sort of ever.

I'm in the same boat, really great niche for my personal tastes. Never thought I'd find a job like this, so :thumbsup:

 

[MarkXIX]

I was called out of a training class one day to make an "URGENT!! URGENT!!" external-facing site for our President. He never logged into it. That's just one of many examples. People aren't held accountable for wasting IT's time and money.

When shit like this happens with senior management, the first thing I do is direct that the system/device/page be monitored closely. When (not if usually, when) the senior person fails to access or utilize that "gotta have it now" resource, I report it and make a stink of it.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

That's outright ridiculous. You must have been shaking your head that there is such a thing as a site-building emergency worthy of being forced to abandon a training class.

I knew he wouldn't use it either, because I had multiple cases of "URGENT!! URGENT!! NEEDS SITE NOW!" that he never used.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

When shit like this happens with senior management, the first thing I do is direct that the system/device/page be monitored closely. When (not if usually, when) the senior person fails to access or utilize that "gotta have it now" resource, I report it and make a stink of it.

That might work for VPs, but it won't work when you're talking about the President of an extremely well-known national sports organization. I really wonder if it was him needing it "urgently" or if it was a case of him mentioning it and his cadre of bootlickers trying to make themselves look good by "getting it done."