Work rant!

[Foo]

Argh, I'm in that lameass frame of mind where bullshit at work is stuck in my head. I'm just frustrated. The following is tip-of-the-iceberg stuff:

- We have a helpdesk system at work, but our particular IT sub-team doesn't work off the helpdesk. Oh no. We work from an Outlook Task List. No unique ID for each task, no integration with any other system. No way for the helpdesk guys to see where we are with a particular task. Frequent situations where we don't close a helpdesk call even though the Task itself has been completed and closed long, long ago. Gay as fuck.

- We're getting a whole new bells & whistles helpdesk system installed this month, HP Openview. The place I work isn't a small business, it's global and this is a major deployment. This afternoon my boss states 'When Openview rolls out, we're going to keep using the Task List'. No, really.

- Before myself and another person joined the team, there was a contractor brought in to fulfil the staff shortage and try to keep up with the constant influx of new tasks. Now, some months after we've joined, we've greatly (nay, massively) reduced the number of outstanding tasks on our list. In a month or so from now, we'll be absolutely on top of the incoming tasks to the point that we may have up to 50% time to work on development tasks instead of just fighting off new jobs all the time.
The contractor in question gets paid maybe double what a permanent staff member makes, and does very little in return. He shows up at 10 and leaves at 3, every day. Well, except the days when he calls in sick, which is perhaps 1 in 10. When he's here, he spends a couple of hours surfing online, or messing about with music playlists, which then get played on loudspeaker in our 'office' (I'll get to the 'office' later). My boss probably doesn't know this, because he works in the main office down the hall, and not in our office.
So what's the problem? That today I'm told that he's now having his contract extended. By the sounds of it, 'indefinitely'. Fuckssake.

There's other stuff, but my post's already long enough. Some of the stuff I could list wouldn't look out of place on thedailyWTF.

Anyone else find extreme bullshit like this where they work? Is it extreme bullshit, or am I just losing perspective?

[mrd]

I would call that extreme bullshit. The thing that pisses me off the most about this stuff is that half the time, if you voice your opinion you just get shit on, and if it pisses you off to the point of quitting, only then do they realize how stupid they were not to fix it heh. But usually by that point you're so fed up that you don't even wanna have anything to do with them.

[Foo]

Oh yeah that was one of the other things, your post has reminded me: when I took the job it was emphasised that they would appreciate constructive criticism to improve the role, yet:
- I can't bring up issues with my boss in general conversation because, as I said, he sits in the main office down the hall (we're in a windowless back room).
- My co-worker that joined at the same time as me (but came internally from the helpdesk itself) says the following whenever I bring up *any* of these issues with her "I just do whatever I'm told to do". Then the conversation is over. Great.

[dzjepp]

Don't have any internal IM system that would allow you to talk to teh boss?

[Foo]

Don't have any internal IM system that would allow you to talk to teh boss?

I was ready to click 'send' on a long email regarding the Openview/task list thing to him this evening before I left then I decided against it. it just doesn't seem appropriate

Also, my direct boss isn't technically my boss, his title is 'senior' team member. So there's the open issue of just going over his head to my real boss, but that's dangerous territory to navigate.

[mrd]

I'd do it. Just be careful of your words, don't be overbearing, make it articulate and polite, get your point across. If they can't handle constructive criticism then they're fags.

[Richard_guy]

That sounds kinda shitty man I work a job where my warehouse manager is only the manager because he is friends with the company owner and although he is a nice guy he has no idea what his job intails. He constantly puts his work on to the dispatcher of the delivery trucks and i am on these trucks. So because the guy organizing my day at work has to manage the warehouse also, my days are usually fucked with no organisation and deadlines that are impossable to meet. some days are just aggravating.

[plained]

i think yhat if you write it all into a musical and throw in some dance and a touch of showmanship

you can get that guy to hear what youre saying

[seremtan]

This afternoon my boss states 'When Openview rolls out, we're going to keep using the Task List'. No, really.

i hate that - when a new system is introduced, one's frightened superiors insist on keeping the old one as well "as a backstop". except that it's not a backstop, it's a giant timewasting pain in the arse that only creates confusion as people try to figure out which system is most up-to-date

grr

[seremtan]

btw, lol @ using outlook for logging IT problems. that's just fucking retarded. we just started a nifty new web-based system on the intranet, works a charm

[Foo]

btw, lol @ using outlook for logging IT problems. that's just fucking retarded. we just started a nifty new web-based system on the intranet, works a charm

Good, isn't it? Actually, the task list is used mostly for service requests (new machines, re-furbishments) and the rest of the troubleshooting stuff either gets handed to me on a post-it note (with a helpdesk call number on it) attached to the machine that needs attention, or word-of-mouth from the boss. Superb.

This comedy gold is compounded by our delivery mechanisms. We build machines for branches throughout the UK, so we send them down to the post room when they're done, addressed for wherever. We receive machines to work on back via the same mechanism. Often without any context, we get a machine back in a box, no label or note. We maybe get 2 of those per week.

Unfortunately, someone realised that we were receiving new TFT monitors from our supplier and then sending them out to their final destination without unpacking them (what's the point, the serial is on the box). So now, the supplier sends the monitors directly to the branch. And if its a laptop, the bag goes direct as well. No matter that we have no idea whether the branch actually received them, or whether they just plug the new machine into an old monitor, and put the laptop in an old bag. Plus, we know the system has no safety checks, because we've had numerous cases of the supplier sending us the bags and monitors, and sending the unconfigured PCs directly to the branch, where we get cryptic complaints about new machines that 'won't work right'.

The biggest frustration right now is that I could fix all of these problems in a matter of a few weeks, tops. And this isn't just the usual fresh graduate 'I can do it all better' kind of thing, because these aren't those kinds of issues, and I've already worked in a near-identical environment where all these things were handled correctly. Just goes to show you don't know what you've got till it's gone, because I didn't appreciate how well ran it all was until I see now how badly it can be mismanaged.

[bitWISE]

I've had a very stressful day at work today but I don't even feel like typing it all up. Been dealing with ZOMG database/code issues directly from the client and it just keeps stacking up.

If you've ever wondered, this is how you find out if a payment was received within the last day of the next month after the service was completed:
tpayment.datereceived <= dateadd(ms,-3,DATEADD(mm, DATEDIFF(m,0,dateadd(mm, 1, tworkorderevent.completeddate)+1)+1, 0))

God....I'm so sick of databases...

[xer0s]

Ungreatful bastards. There are unemployed, homeless people out there that would die to have your jobs. Think of the children.

[Grudge]

this kind of stuff makes me happy I'm in the creative business

[S@M]

Id send it to both your team manager and the boss - making sure its outcomes focused though. I have an IT team and ask them to give feedback on a range of questions, if they do that by problem solving and indicating the outcomes their ideas will achieve, I go with that 9 out of 10 times. When I dont, its usually a delay rather than a no.,

[Foo]

this kind of stuff makes me happy I'm in the creative business

I'm not the creating type, I'm the processing type. Wasted effort and illogical actions are the things I really can't stand because overcoming those are pretty much core to doing my jobs effectively. I'm creative within that context, but, you know, that's as far as my creative mind goes and my forte is in process.

We've got a RIS server which images new machines for us with a windows installations, programs and patches. Very useful and a major time saver compared to building from scratch. Better than ghosting machines, even.

However, all of our images are out of date. By about 30 windows updates, 5-10 programs and some other bits and pieces. About 1 hour per machine, at my guess. When they're up to date, the entire process for any given machine is... pffft... 30 mins tops. This is one of the few issues I managed to get across to my boss, his response being that we'll look at 'good to have' improvements once we've worked through the large bulk of jobs that have built up while we were understaffed.

So a fix that would triple productivity (at a conservative estimate) won't be put into place while we work through the core of stuff where the fix would pay off most of all. Amazing.

[Don Carlos]

Mate, once you have worked in a place for so long you realise what can and can't be done. Thats when you get smart and find aways around your bosses that push them onto your side.

I have had a day of meeting about shit that we need to do that the entire team know wont work but they wouldn't listen. After a bit in the meeting we could see what they want and we tailored what we wanted around there request and some fancy wording later and some "management speak" we got 80% of what we wanted.

Result if you ask me

[R00k]

You apparently work for the doppleganger of my boss.

Our processes were so disorganized when I got here, that after several months on the job I used my own time at home to develop a SQL-based VB application that would track all our hardware inventory, trouble calls, maintain an up-to-date phone list, and a searchable knowledge-base that can be reported against for everything we worked on during the day. I imported all our data from various and sundry spreadsheets and databases into it.

After getting enough of it written that I could demo it, I told him what I had. Know what he said?

"We can't use something like that. If you get hit by a bus or leave, then nobody will know how this was written and we'll never be able to fix it if it breaks."

I'm thinking - fine, then why don't you go out and buy a real product? That's what I've been saying the whole time anyway. But we won't spend the money on a real product.

So, several months later, corporate sends us a new VP of IT. She's bent on changing things, and my boss knows this. So what does my boss do?

He proposes that we all use a shared "Tasks" folder in the Public Folders on the Exchange server to keep track of everything we have to do. Fucking idiot.

So when we open it up, we've got a list of 100 things that need to be done, and even more things that have been checked off. But worse than that, all my server issues, vendor tickets, implementations, etc. all have to go in this same shit sandwich with the "My email toolbar has disappeared" calls, and no effective way to sort them out.

Now, a few months down the line, where are we?

We have decided to use some online helpdesk that a guy at another office in the company wrote himself - in FrontPage and Access.

And I'm the one who has to implement it.


I feel for you Foo - and I can't fucking wait for my new job.

[plained]

eh just get back in line and let the company tell you what to do

its ur job they pay you for and you applied for ey

[Foo]

eh just get back in line and let the company tell you what to do

its ur job they pay you for and you applied for ey

<Lol eranth and bote on a sandwich

[plained]

its nice you can take time to lol when you so frustrated

i suggest a healthy dose of self assurence in the mirror :icon19:

[Foo]

...and the mome raths outgrabe

[4days]

lol, the place foo's working in sounds like almost everywhere else.

Id send it to both your team manager and the boss - making sure its outcomes focused though. I have an IT team and ask them to give feedback on a range of questions, if they do that by problem solving and indicating the outcomes their ideas will achieve, I go with that 9 out of 10 times. When I dont, its usually a delay rather than a no.,

aye. if you're going to start mailing people then make sure you mail your line manager first, then them and your manager/director/hnic. basic protocol is important because some petty wanker will always be there to catch you out if you don't observe it (specifically the sort of person who uses an inadequate tool they're familiar with instead of the right one for the job).

and what DC said, disguise sensible ideas if you want to see them implemented.

[l0g1c]

chortled!

[l0g1c]

I wonder how much more productive the world would be if even 25% of shit like this disappeared. I bet we'd be terraforming nearby planets by now.