Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
FlapYoJacks
Feb 12, 2009
I get to write a network manager for handling routing and ip forwarding of 12+ cameras on a series of embedded devices! :suicide:

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Swink
Apr 18, 2006
Left Side <--- Many Whelps
Someone in one of these threads mentioned they use JIRA to log tickets, but they are the only one in thier business who uses it. He maintained it simply for his own benefit.

I want to do the same thing (JIRA seems cheap). Got any advice?

spiny
May 20, 2004

round and round and round

Swink posted:

Someone in one of these threads mentioned they use JIRA to log tickets, but they are the only one in thier business who uses it. He maintained it simply for his own benefit.

I want to do the same thing (JIRA seems cheap). Got any advice?

it's easy to install, I have it running on an old rack mounted pc running Vista - it sits there and does it's stuff. The 'up to ten users' licence is cheap, £10 with no expiry (as far as I remember) Basically, it just works well if you are a small company :)
Make sure you do backups though - my install used to 'lose' the database if the pc wasn't shutdown properly, and it locks the database at the drop of a hat.

dennyk
Jan 2, 2005

Cheese-Buyer's Remorse
JIRA really seems like overkill if all you're doing is tracking your own tickets, though for $10 I suppose the price is good, and if this is something you want to set up as a demo of sorts to try to convince your company to officially use it, it would definitely be scalable. I haven't used JIRA for a couple of years, but one thing to keep in mind is that it is more of a project-tracking tool than a help-desk tool out of the box. We used ours to track incident tickets as well as projects, but it took a lot of tweaking and building custom workflows to get it working the way we needed.

I don't know what sort of terrible database backend JIRA ships with these days, but you should consider using a MySQL or Postgres back-end even for a small install. You can run either on Windows if you just want to throw the whole setup on a PC somewhere, though if you have the resources available, putting it all on a Linux VM might be better for future growth.

Helushune
Oct 5, 2011

Soylent Heliotrope posted:

Pissing me off: the network guy (higher-up but not my boss, not at the same site as me, organizationally unrelated to me) is forwarding me his voicemails asking me to call someone back for him. The original calls were about a printer/copier that he ordered... which I'm not involved with in any way. It is entirely unclear why he wants me to be the one in contact with them.

Make your own drat phone calls. :argh:

I'm pretty sure this is just a thing that people do now. My boss makes me do every phone call for him because he doesn't like talking to people on it. Also, our department head will make my boss do most of his phone calls which gets trickled down on to me. In fact, when I came in this morning, there's an email waiting for me to call a company on my boss' behalf about a problem I didn't know we had with a piece of software I didn't know we supported.

slightpirate
Dec 26, 2006
i am the dance commander
things not pissing me off - my new mechanical switch keyboard just came in. so now when i'm typing up a storm it sounds like one of those rain sticks.

Feral Bueller
Apr 23, 2004

Fun is important.
Nap Ghost

Swink posted:

Someone in one of these threads mentioned they use JIRA to log tickets, but they are the only one in thier business who uses it. He maintained it simply for his own benefit.

I want to do the same thing (JIRA seems cheap). Got any advice?

JIRA is complete overkill for what you're describing.

Spiceworks http://www.spiceworks.com/ is free and great for hardware and license management, if you care about that.

Zendesk http://www.zendesk.com/product/pricing is $12/year for single user, and is probably also overkill for what you're describing, but it's got a lot of stuff integrated that you'd have to purchase separate licenses for with Atlassian.

I'd go with both of those first, unless you want some experience setting up and administering JIRA Download (you probably don't -- all 3/4 Atlassian shops I worked in had OnDemand and 4/4 of those shops had dedicated administrators).

CitizenKain
May 27, 2001

That was Gary Cooper, asshole.

Nap Ghost

MC Fruit Stripe posted:

Alright let's assume this twitter talk isn't a prank. Who I should be following?

Search on twitter for things or people you think are interesting. Adjust from there.

Dilbert As FUCK
Sep 8, 2007

by Cowcaster
Pillbug
I really don't remember having this much of a headache when I've used Vm Orchestrator in the past.....

poo poo's being annoying today

Soylent Heliotrope
Jan 27, 2009

A brand new InFocus projector decided to poo poo the bed by overheating ten minutes after it was turned on for the first time. Now it won't power on at all. We needed it for an event tomorrow. Now I have to ceiling-mount one of the many decade-old projectors we have in storage, none of which have lamps you can actually see with the lights on.

To be fair, though, it might be my fault for not giving the bottom vents on this one enough space. :saddowns:

Inspector_666
Oct 7, 2003

benny with the good hair
I'm going to just change my title to "Runs Windows Easy Transfer" since it's more accurate than my current one and is apparently all I am asked to do these days.

Then I will dig a hole, climb in and pull all of the dirt down after me. I can't loving do this anymore.

Today I not only got to do that, I then got to have the following conversation:

"What is this?"
"That's Windows Media Player, it comes with Windows."
"Ok but what is it?"
"It's a media player."
"But what does it do?"
"...plays media?"

Like, that's English. Non-technical English. Maybe just tell me if you'd like to talked to like a loving Pre-K student.

And of course, that was followed up by 10+ minutes of "Do I need this?" while we go through My Documents. HOW THE gently caress SHOULD I KNOW THEY'RE YOUR loving FILES.

Inspector_666 fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Apr 10, 2014

Lum
Aug 13, 2003

edit: ^^^ Should have just said "plays videos and music" rather than "media".

A company car came in...

So our new corporate overlords are apparently more generous on company cars than the old lot. Under the old lot I could only get a poverty-spec Ford Focus hatchback.

Under the new owners I've managed to order myself a Focus estate (wagon) 1.6 Econetic Titanium in ink blue, with all the important toys like cruise control, AC and climate control, and because the CO2 is lower I pay less company car tax too, which should gain me £30 a month. Being a wagon means I can throw my partner's wheelchair in the back without disassembling it, which is a huge plus for me.

Actually quite happy with the new company at the moment, even if they did gently caress up the car ordering portal for 2 weeks meaning I could only choose 1 litre 3 cyl microcars.

Ok I realise this post is a bit more AI than SH/SC but it's related to my job and I'm actually happy for once.

It should look similar to this one, same colour and everything, and this pic shows why I'm so happy about being able to get the estate instead of the hatchback. According to the book it does 75mpg. Real world testing puts that at more like 55. I'm happy with that since the only costs I have to worry about is company car tax and fuel for personal use.

Lum fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Apr 10, 2014

Gunjin
Apr 27, 2004

Om nom nom

Soylent Heliotrope posted:

A brand new InFocus projector decided to poo poo the bed by overheating ten minutes after it was turned on for the first time. Now it won't power on at all. We needed it for an event tomorrow. Now I have to ceiling-mount one of the many decade-old projectors we have in storage, none of which have lamps you can actually see with the lights on.

To be fair, though, it might be my fault for not giving the bottom vents on this one enough space. :saddowns:

I think the bigger lesson should be don't buy InFocus, their stuff is cheap for a reason.

stubblyhead
Sep 13, 2007

That is treason, Johnny!

Fun Shoe

Dilbert As gently caress posted:

I really don't remember having this much of a headache when I've used Vm Orchestrator in the past.....

poo poo's being annoying today

I've only played around with vco a little bit. Just about every step in the tutorials I read made me think, "Wow, what a tremendous pain in the rear end, I could do this 100x faster with Operations Orchestration." It's a young product, and hopefully it will be getting refined, but I really don't see a strong use case for it when there are other much better tools available.

HalloKitty
Sep 30, 2005

Adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast

Lum posted:

edit: ^^^ Should have just said "plays videos and music" rather than "media".

A company car came in...

So our new corporate overlords are apparently more generous on company cars than the old lot. Under the old lot I could only get a poverty-spec Ford Focus hatchback.

Under the new owners I've managed to order myself a Focus estate (wagon) 1.6 Econetic Titanium in ink blue, with all the important toys like cruise control, AC and climate control, and because the CO2 is lower I pay less company car tax too, which should gain me £30 a month. Being a wagon means I can throw my partner's wheelchair in the back without disassembling it, which is a huge plus for me.

Actually quite happy with the new company at the moment, even if they did gently caress up the car ordering portal for 2 weeks meaning I could only choose 1 litre 3 cyl microcars.

Ok I realise this post is a bit more AI than SH/SC but it's related to my job and I'm actually happy for once.

It should look similar to this one, same colour and everything, and this pic shows why I'm so happy about being able to get the estate instead of the hatchback. According to the book it does 75mpg. Real world testing puts that at more like 55. I'm happy with that since the only costs I have to worry about is company car tax and fuel for personal use.

Nice estate. Always think they look better the saloon or hatches to be honest, and you gain all that space! (Have an Astra H estate myself).

the spyder
Feb 18, 2011
In three months six people have either left or been fired... in a 40 person company. A seventh put in his notice today :( and I can't imagine morale being any lower then it is right now. I'm going to treat this as a life lesson- startups past their prime are unstable at best. I can't wait to get my clearance and CCNP, then I can get out of here.

Ryokurin
Jul 14, 2001

Wanna Die?
Our lead forwards an email that was a notification for a past meeting where they discussed a change that's happening this weekend. He only added the words "Read over the notes so you are aware of what's expected of us" Problem is, there's no notes. There's a link to a spreadsheet of ip addresses, and another link that none of us have access to. So I reply back "There's no notes, just ip addresses"

My boss then replys "Well I don't see what the problem is. What's missing" So I point out a list of what's wrong and basically say "you just told us something is happening, at some point Saturday, if you see it, email this person" to which he replies, "well your first response was rather curt." He still didn't really answer the question, but he still gave us a hell of a lot more info on what's going on than the lead.

I have a meeting, that was already established with him tomorrow, and I'm sure he's going to pull the same poo poo he always does when I ask him to provide better information. "Well we can't hold your hand through all of it, you just have to figure it out!" All i'm asking for is more than a sentence of information about a project. It makes the entire department look like idiots, because everyone expects us to know everything about a project, which he chews us out for when someone complains, and it usually is determined by us, there was more info available but we were never advised.

Daylen Drazzi
Mar 10, 2007

Why do I root for Notre Dame? Because I like pain, and disappointment, and anguish. Notre Dame Football has destroyed more dreams than the Irish Potato Famine, and that is the kind of suffering I can get behind.

Ryokurin posted:

Our lead forwards an email that was a notification for a past meeting where they discussed a change that's happening this weekend. He only added the words "Read over the notes so you are aware of what's expected of us" Problem is, there's no notes. There's a link to a spreadsheet of ip addresses, and another link that none of us have access to. So I reply back "There's no notes, just ip addresses"

My boss then replys "Well I don't see what the problem is. What's missing" So I point out a list of what's wrong and basically say "you just told us something is happening, at some point Saturday, if you see it, email this person" to which he replies, "well your first response was rather curt." He still didn't really answer the question, but he still gave us a hell of a lot more info on what's going on than the lead.

I have a meeting, that was already established with him tomorrow, and I'm sure he's going to pull the same poo poo he always does when I ask him to provide better information. "Well we can't hold your hand through all of it, you just have to figure it out!" All i'm asking for is more than a sentence of information about a project. It makes the entire department look like idiots, because everyone expects us to know everything about a project, which he chews us out for when someone complains, and it usually is determined by us, there was more info available but we were never advised.

That seems to be a big problem with higher-ups in a lot of organizations - of course, if I had to choose between benign neglect and micro-managing, I'd take the benign neglect, but without the snark and snide commentary that normally follows.

On Monday my team lead emailed the entire team about needing to have PMI done on the server farm. He asks yesterday when PMI is going to be done, and I answer that since no one else has stepped up I'd take care of it, to which he replies "this is a team effort, so you don't have to take responsibility for everything."

I take this to mean I should just sit back and wait for the other guys to step up, but at 10am this morning there has yet to be a taker, so I get bitched at by the team lead because the PMI isn't done. I swear, the other two guys on this team make mushrooms look energetic and crazy-full of initiative. One guy is in his late 20's, and to be fair he's pretty good about doing things if it is explicitly asked of him to do it, but the other guy is around 47 or so, and all he does all day is watch Youtube videos about guns and visit gun webpages. He should be spending his time with his nose buried in a Security+ book, but I don't think I've seen him spend more than a couple hours all total even looking at the material. Hope he has another job lined up soon, because his 6 months are almost up, and if he hits the deadline without his cert they will toss him on the street and there will be no second-chance given.

Swink
Apr 18, 2006
Left Side <--- Many Whelps

Sarcasmatron posted:

JIRA is complete overkill for what you're describing.


The reason I liked JIRA was for the experience of using a good service desk program. Really the one I choose isn't important. I've never worked somewhere with a formal ticketing system before and I want the experience so I don't get boned at a job interview or something.

Plus it's just good practice to log tickets.

TWBalls
Apr 16, 2003
My medication never lies

Daylen Drazzi posted:

On Monday my team lead emailed the entire team about needing to have PMI done on the server farm. He asks yesterday when PMI is going to be done, and I answer that since no one else has stepped up I'd take care of it, to which he replies "this is a team effort, so you don't have to take responsibility for everything."

I take this to mean I should just sit back and wait for the other guys to step up, but at 10am this morning there has yet to be a taker, so I get bitched at by the team lead because the PMI isn't done.

Was your reply: "this is a team effort, so you don't have to take responsibility for everything."?

Humphreys
Jan 26, 2013

We conceived a way to use my mother as a porn mule


the spyder posted:

In three months six people have either left or been fired... in a 40 person company. A seventh put in his notice today :( and I can't imagine morale being any lower then it is right now. I'm going to treat this as a life lesson- startups past their prime are unstable at best. I can't wait to get my clearance and CCNP, then I can get out of here.

My department went from 10 to me over the space of a year. I was in denial for quite some time, hoping and wishing for some replacements. The realization that it would not be the case and 'Freelancer.com' became the bosses favourite way to save money made me finally catch that train that everyone else did.

Comradephate
Feb 28, 2009

College Slice
poo poo that pisses me off: the other day I got an offer from an engineering team (internally) for a job that would require ~2 weeks of on-call/month, (currently I do 0) would be much more challenging than my current job, would require working with new (and therefore often poorly documented) technology, and... would come with a pay cut and require me to finance my move to a new city out of pocket.

Spent 3 weeks in the interview process including a relatively complex "homework" project. Attempted to negotiate more than once for nothing.

Daylen Drazzi
Mar 10, 2007

Why do I root for Notre Dame? Because I like pain, and disappointment, and anguish. Notre Dame Football has destroyed more dreams than the Irish Potato Famine, and that is the kind of suffering I can get behind.

TWBalls posted:

Was your reply: "this is a team effort, so you don't have to take responsibility for everything."?

When he gets in the mood, even talking to him is a bad idea. I've learned to just shut up and not object to the utter inanity of things and get whatever task he wants done over with.

stubblyhead
Sep 13, 2007

That is treason, Johnny!

Fun Shoe

Daylen Drazzi posted:

When he gets in the mood, even talking to him is a bad idea. I've learned to just shut up and not object to the utter inanity of things and get whatever task he wants done over with.

Now you have an idea what battered women feel like.

Swink
Apr 18, 2006
Left Side <--- Many Whelps
I just want to say that I'm still chuckling at the new thread title.

Che Delilas
Nov 23, 2009
FREE TIBET WEED

Daylen Drazzi posted:

When he gets in the mood, even talking to him is a bad idea. I've learned to just shut up and not object to the utter inanity of things and get whatever task he wants done over with.

I refuse to be treated this way, and I've called a boss out for lesser bullshit than this. Once I was handed a form to fill out in accordance with ITIL, which included things like ROI estimates and stakeholders and poo poo that I had no way of knowing, because I was handed a project to complete with certain requirements and deadlines. He was foisting his own duties off on me. So whatever, I filled out what I could, and then told him what I couldn't fill out and that I needed this, that and the other piece of other info before I could get it done, or I could hand it back to him to complete.

He told me "I need you to step out of your comfort zone and put forth an effort to complete this to the best of your ability." He included some other Manager's Handbook phrases, but that was the one that got under my skin.

Yeah, rear end in a top hat, stepping out of my comfort zone includes coalescing information directly from the atmosphere. I'll get right on that. I wrote him back and told that I took exception to his phrasing and that this had nothing to do with a "comfort zone" and everything to do with me not having the information which was why I was requesting it or giving him the option to complete the parts of the form I couldn't. I informed him that if he would like ME to fill out the whole form, than I would need to be provided with the information I needed.

He gave me the loving information and the form got loving filled out and it would have been so much more pleasant if he hadn't felt the urge to flex his managerial dick. He didn't apologize of course, because he's a narcissist, but he also didn't try that tack again with me either.

It's really amazing schoolyard-level poo poo: bullies are very nearly as spineless as their victims. Often all you have to do is show them that you can stand up for yourself at all.

dogstile
May 1, 2012

fucking clocks
how do they work?
On that note, ever since I sat down and told both my managers that the way they were handling things was awful and that they need to stop being so loving hostile over everything, they've backed way off and let me get on with my work.

Never take poo poo, always speak up.

peter banana
Sep 2, 2008

Feminism is a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.
Definitely don't, that's how you get fired. If these people are so fragile you can't even speak to them, they'll have no compunction about telling you to pack your poo poo.

the spyder posted:

In three months six people have either left or been fired... in a 40 person company. A seventh put in his notice today :( and I can't imagine morale being any lower then it is right now. I'm going to treat this as a life lesson- startups past their prime are unstable at best. I can't wait to get my clearance and CCNP, then I can get out of here.
Yeah, there's probably a reason they've haven't gotten more investment and made the transition to a "real" company past the start-up phase/

GOOCHY
Sep 17, 2003

In an interstellar burst I'm back to save the universe!
They'll back off until the guy who is replacing you is up to speed. Also, politically, you're dead at this organization now if you already weren't. I tried that route in my younger days.

Paladine_PSoT
Jan 2, 2010

If you have a problem Yo, I'll solve it

the spyder posted:

In three months six people have either left or been fired... in a 40 person company. A seventh put in his notice today :( and I can't imagine morale being any lower then it is right now. I'm going to treat this as a life lesson- startups past their prime are unstable at best. I can't wait to get my clearance and CCNP, then I can get out of here.

Seattle is rife with this crap. "We work in an emerging marketplace that requires strategic agility" translation: "We waste entirely too much of our VC money on nice offices to impress clients who never come here, wag our dicks around, and not expand properly"

dogstile
May 1, 2012

fucking clocks
how do they work?
Disclaimer: Don't try that poo poo if you don't work in the UK.

On a related note, I told a manager to stop trying to manage me personally and ask my manager to speak to me if he's not happy with how I do my job (This guy has been phoning me every day for the past week asking why this ticket is set to waiting, why its not sorted, etc).

End result? Dudes been told that he shouldn't be phoning me and i've got a meeting to discuss my wording ("Do you think i've been sat here doing nothing all day"). I assume he didn't like it when I challenged his assumption that I was sat doing nothing . Why its so hard for managers to check the stats is mind boggling.

dogstile fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Apr 11, 2014

Vulture Culture
Jul 14, 2003

I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.
I had an issue with a micromanaging team lead that was resolved by calmly and directly explaining how I work best, why I function that way, and how we can improve the productivity of the whole team if we communicate our expectations better to one another. For lots of managers, especially ones who are less emotionally intuitive but generally good people, this is plenty, and you don't always need to take the tough-guy "what you're doing is unacceptable" approach.

TehRedWheelbarrow
Mar 16, 2011



Fan of Britches
Apparently 40 TB of archive, irreplaceable data needs to be given Read/write access to the entire company. "The data integrity must be maintained" however. Backups? No... Too expensive.

gently caress users.

Vulture Culture
Jul 14, 2003

I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

nthalp posted:

Apparently 40 TB of archive, irreplaceable data needs to be given Read/write access to the entire company. "The data integrity must be maintained" however. Backups? No... Too expensive.

gently caress users.
Clearly the solution is to spend all day, every day, lobbying executive management to make each department a wholly-owned subsidiary

dogstile
May 1, 2012

fucking clocks
how do they work?

Misogynist posted:

I had an issue with a micromanaging team lead that was resolved by calmly and directly explaining how I work best, why I function that way, and how we can improve the productivity of the whole team if we communicate our expectations better to one another. For lots of managers, especially ones who are less emotionally intuitive but generally good people, this is plenty, and you don't always need to take the tough-guy "what you're doing is unacceptable" approach.

The manager who's micromanaging is widely known as a dick. His response to a guy who has no experience other than basic computer use (he's first line and its his first it job) asking how to save a file as a html document was "you shouldn't be working in IT".

I'm not an abrasive dick to everyone I talk to if I can help it. Its actually kind of annoying having to step up and tell this guy to back the gently caress off.

skipdogg
Nov 29, 2004
Resident SRT-4 Expert

Gunjin posted:

I think the bigger lesson should be don't buy InFocus, their stuff is cheap for a reason.

I stopped buying InFocus and Dell projectors, they just weren't worth a poo poo. Spent a little more and bought some Epson's and haven't thought about them since.

Sickening
Jul 16, 2007

Black summer was the best summer.

skipdogg posted:

I stopped buying InFocus and Dell projectors, they just weren't worth a poo poo. Spent a little more and bought some Epson's and haven't thought about them since.

Projectors have always made me nervous. They just aren't something you buy often enough to really know what is good and what is bad. The pricetag is also one of those things that makes buying a lemon scary as gently caress.

skipdogg
Nov 29, 2004
Resident SRT-4 Expert

Sickening posted:

Projectors have always made me nervous. They just aren't something you buy often enough to really know what is good and what is bad. The pricetag is also one of those things that makes buying a lemon scary as gently caress.

We're really hard on projectors. We have 2 call centers where they run 24/7 displaying stats on the wall. The Dell projectors we buy last about 9 months or so before they die. We bought the 5 year warranty on them, so Dell just keeps replacing them. If you're buying a projector, get the best extended warranty you can, and check what replacement bulbs cost ahead of time.

We don't need anything fancy from them, just a bright output (current ones are 3500 lumens).

I put together the equipment for some new conference rooms in a different office though and splurged on the Epson units and they've been problem free. They don't get used as much though.

Paladine_PSoT
Jan 2, 2010

If you have a problem Yo, I'll solve it

dogstile posted:

The manager who's micromanaging is widely known as a dick. His response to a guy who has no experience other than basic computer use (he's first line and its his first it job) asking how to save a file as a html document was "you shouldn't be working in IT".

I'm not an abrasive dick to everyone I talk to if I can help it. Its actually kind of annoying having to step up and tell this guy to back the gently caress off.

No, he's right and you probably should pay attention when your manager talks to you about your wording. The fact of the matter is yes, bosses (or people who are higher on the chain but not your direct boss) can be dicks. This should be dealt with, but properly. Being abrasive, rude, or otherwise insubordinate is a fast track to getting canned with cause.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Moey
Oct 22, 2010

I LIKE TO MOVE IT

skipdogg posted:

Spent a little more and bought some Epson's and haven't thought about them since.

We are slowly switching to Epson for all of our ceiling mounted poo poo. So far no complaints.

I am at a pretty high elevation (over 9600ft), so poo poo projectors like to overheat real fast due to the thinness of the air.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply