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FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams
So, I'm an anti-social autist myself, so I realize I'm not an accurate representation of an "average" person. But for me, personally, if I'm a user and I have some kind of issue, I'd rather the issue get resolved quickly than getting lots of "yes we're working on this" type stuff without any actual resolution.

However my managers are much more focused on giving the illusion of providing support than actually providing support. I have an open ticket, and I asked the user a simple question and she gave a simple answer, and my manager says I should have gone upstairs and talked to her in person, which would just be a waste of both our time.

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Gucci Loafers
May 20, 2006

Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?


I sort of understand the shellshock bug but what perplexes me is how long it took to figure out. It doesn't seem that wildly complex of a exploit, I have a hard to time believing no one had figured this out before.

Dark Helmut
Jul 24, 2004

All growns up

FISHMANPET posted:

So, I'm an anti-social autist myself, so I realize I'm not an accurate representation of an "average" person. But for me, personally, if I'm a user and I have some kind of issue, I'd rather the issue get resolved quickly than getting lots of "yes we're working on this" type stuff without any actual resolution.

However my managers are much more focused on giving the illusion of providing support than actually providing support. I have an open ticket, and I asked the user a simple question and she gave a simple answer, and my manager says I should have gone upstairs and talked to her in person, which would just be a waste of both our time.

Having come from the support world, I've always maintained that IT support is 50% technical and 50% people skills. A key part of the latter is managing expectations. There are a lot of ways to do this, but the fact is, people want to know what's going on and why they can't work. If I'm an end user, let me know what the deal is. Give me an update and maybe an ETA, and if that deadline isn't going to be met, maybe a brief explanation as to why, so I can explain to my manager or other people it affects. Face to face may not always be feasible, but it's always appreciated whenever possible.

To put on my recruiting hat, imagine I have you submitted for a role. Should I just keep my head down as weeks go by without any word from the client, or do you want updates every week? Don't you at least want the "perception" that I'm doing something, even if I'm just waiting on word from a client (or in your case, escalated to T3 or something).

Gaining customer trust is really the most important thing in my eyes. Building that rapport will give you a nice cushion when the poo poo hits the fan and you have something that can't be fixed in a timely fashion. If your customer knows (or has the perception that) "FISHMANPET is a great tech, and as long as he is on the job, it's getting handled", then it makes your job much easier. Another example: I would teach my techs that the first thing they should do in showing up at a client site is pull up the run box (with Windows+R, not the mouse) and run an ipconfig followed by a renew or ping /t depending on the results. Sure, sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn't, but 9 out of 10 users will be like "woah, this guy knows his stuff" and rather than look over your shoulder they would go on about their business, knowing that their problem was being handled by a pro.

Anyway, my two cents. Hope it helps.

vvvv that's pretty much the tl;dr for my post vvvv

Dark Helmut fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Oct 2, 2014

Proud Christian Mom
Dec 20, 2006
READING COMPREHENSION IS HARD
People enjoy the illusion of being kept 'in the loop' and managers are more than happy to play that stupid game so uh get used to wasting time keeping people up to date on trivial things

Gucci Loafers
May 20, 2006

Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?


go3 posted:

People enjoy the illusion of being kept 'in the loop' and managers are more than happy to play that stupid game so uh get used to wasting time keeping people up to date on trivial things

Illusion or not, it's important the customers feel that they're being attended too.

There's difference between creating a support ticket, not receiving any acknowledgment or some vague "Ticket 353453 has been dispatched" vs "Hi tab8715, this is Tom with engineering and I'm working on ticket 4533 regarding database corruption. I'll give you an update in a hour. If you have any questions feel free to email back or call me".

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams
In general I agree that keeping people in the loop is good. But I can do that by sending an email, and take 1-2 minutes of my day. My managers think I should take 10-15 minutes to go upstairs, interrupt whatever the user is doing, and talk to her in person.

At my org we've got an policy that says that within 48 hours of submitting a ticket, you'll get a response from a human that says we've received the ticket (note, we have an auto response, and we don't have to start working on it in 2 days, we just have acknolwedge it exists). I remember a case where a ticket came in at night (we're a University, and we have students work the actual help desk, and they work until 10). The issue was fairly simple and could be fixed by most full time staff in the morning, but the big boss wanted the student to send a message that night saying someone would look at it soon. Responding to the ticket with a resolution first thing in the morning would be well within our defined policy, but we had to give the user useless information first.

Looking at it another way, if I need to make a warranty claim, I chat with Dell rather than calling, because it's easier for me and gets a resolution faster. I could call and get that personal contact but it would be a longer process for me and it would interrupt the rest of my work. And I would think that when choosing between a fast resolution and human contact, most people would choose fast resolution, but maybe not.

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

Tab8715 posted:

Illusion or not, it's important the customers feel that they're being attended too.

There's difference between creating a support ticket, not receiving any acknowledgment or some vague "Ticket 353453 has been dispatched" vs "Hi tab8715, this is Tom with engineering and I'm working on ticket 4533 regarding database corruption. I'll give you an update in a hour. If you have any questions feel free to email back or call me".

There's a subtle difference between "Tom's" message, and a message that says "Hi tab8715, someone has received this and will work on it soon." The first gives an actual update with new information, the second just restates the auto-reponse, but sends it from a person (but when someone copy pastes the same "human" response to a bunch of tickets I'm not sure how that's any better than an auto-response).

Also in the interest of "full disclosure" working help desk is far below my current stature but everything is terrible so I got stuck here while I also try to rebuild their infrastructure (which I can't do when I'm busy dealing with loving tickets!)

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Tab8715 posted:

I sort of understand the shellshock bug but what perplexes me is how long it took to figure out. It doesn't seem that wildly complex of a exploit, I have a hard to time believing no one had figured this out before.

Well that's simple, a lot of things get exploited but the malicious dude trying to use the exploit is smart enough to limit his usage so other people don't notice. When used judiciously, it's easy for an exploit to be independently discovered and rediscovered and used by multiple people before someone actually tells the world about it.

Additionally, a lot of stuff tends to focus on attacking very widespread targets (like Windows) or very easy targets (browsers, javascript, flash, java), so it's easy for stuff like this to be overlooked.

Vulture Culture
Jul 14, 2003

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

FISHMANPET posted:

Looking at it another way, if I need to make a warranty claim, I chat with Dell rather than calling, because it's easier for me and gets a resolution faster. I could call and get that personal contact but it would be a longer process for me and it would interrupt the rest of my work. And I would think that when choosing between a fast resolution and human contact, most people would choose fast resolution, but maybe not.
Regardless of technical acumen, the person on the other end of the issue doesn't see or doesn't internalize the relationship between the human contact and the time to resolution. They see that someone appears to be working on their issue, or that nobody appears to be working on their issue.

Dark Helmut
Jul 24, 2004

All growns up

Misogynist posted:

Regardless of technical acumen, the person on the other end of the issue doesn't see or doesn't internalize the relationship between the human contact and the time to resolution. They see that someone appears to be working on their issue, or that nobody appears to be working on their issue.

Right, and as we see so often in this thread you have to step outside of your personal vantage point and try and see things through another person's eyes, in this case the end user. Even if that person's eyes are illogical and inefficient. It really is a skill as important as being technically sound.

Dark Helmut fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Oct 2, 2014

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams
But in that case I'm the one on the other end of the issue. I'm the "user." I choose the route that gets me the fastest resolution, and I'd think everybody would want the fastest resolution.

And in a lot of cases, it's not like we're leaving people out in the cold. I'm sending then an email to keep them updated, which makes perfect sense to me since email is the medium through which they contacted me. Even if they won't see how me physically visiting them effects how long it takes to resolve their issue (though they may see how it interrupts them), may managers should be able to see that. I'm not keeping them in the dark, I'm just corresponding with them via email.

In Tab1875's example, it's as if instead of sending an email that Tim is working on the issue, Tim should go up and visit the user and tell them he's working on the issue. A user may not see how that wastes Tim's time, but Tim's manager should be able to.

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.

FISHMANPET posted:

In general I agree that keeping people in the loop is good. But I can do that by sending an email, and take 1-2 minutes of my day. My managers think I should take 10-15 minutes to go upstairs, interrupt whatever the user is doing, and talk to her in person.

Here's the lazy person in me response - if my manager is expecting me to waste upwards of a quarter of an hour just to tell a user "Hey, we're working on your poo poo. We'll let you know when it's done", then by God, I am going to do exactly what they want. If they then want to come to me and bitch about not being so productive I can point them back at their stated expectations and ask them exactly how I should reconcile their mutually-contradictory expectations. It's their job to decide how they want things, and if they want you to get some face-time with the user then they can't expect you to be 100% productive.

stuxracer
May 4, 2006

FISHMANPET posted:

But in that case I'm the one on the other end of the issue. I'm the "user." I choose the route that gets me the fastest resolution, and I'd think everybody would want the fastest resolution.
It's weird to understand or believe - I know I struggled with it myself. Same for thinking everyone would want to least expensive product. The service part of it means a lot more to people than how quickly or cheaply things are done.

Dark Helmut
Jul 24, 2004

All growns up

FISHMANPET posted:

But in that case I'm the one on the other end of the issue. I'm the "user." I choose the route that gets me the fastest resolution, and I'd think everybody would want the fastest resolution.

And in a lot of cases, it's not like we're leaving people out in the cold. I'm sending then an email to keep them updated, which makes perfect sense to me since email is the medium through which they contacted me. Even if they won't see how me physically visiting them effects how long it takes to resolve their issue (though they may see how it interrupts them), may managers should be able to see that. I'm not keeping them in the dark, I'm just corresponding with them via email.

In Tab1875's example, it's as if instead of sending an email that Tim is working on the issue, Tim should go up and visit the user and tell them he's working on the issue. A user may not see how that wastes Tim's time, but Tim's manager should be able to.

I'm not disagreeing with you that it's less efficient, but trying to play devil's advocate. Have you had a talk with your manager about why he needs you to go there? The conversations he is having at his level (with your end users' managers and/or his boss) are likely driving that mandate. Maybe you work in a company where he needs you to be visible to justify the cost of having you on board. A good boss tries to shield you from the BS he deals with and there could be a bunch of reasons you may not see, so I would just have a conversation. If your boss isn't open to hearing your thoughts/concerns, that's a red flag to me, so just ask and see what comes of it.

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams
My organization is so completely dysfunctional who even knows what drives anything. One of many reasons why I'm looking to get out. And if it was just that one thing I'd be like "eh that's dumb but whatever" except it's just piles and piles of these weird decisions that make no sense.

But specifically the political situation is usually laid out fairly well, especially since group is feeling all butthurt about stuff (and this person is in a group that is in fact very happy with us).

EoRaptor
Sep 13, 2003



Tab8715 posted:

I sort of understand the shellshock bug but what perplexes me is how long it took to figure out. It doesn't seem that wildly complex of a exploit, I have a hard to time believing no one had figured this out before.

Parsing regular expressions is a huge issue. How do you make something that is human readable and flexible yet also machine readable and 100% determinative in intent?

As long as we pass commands AND data as text in the same string, there will be bugs like this (SQL injection is just another flavour of this bug, for instance). I'm not sure there is a global fix, and that we just need to rank code auditing as a much more valuable part of our day to day expenses than it is now.

skipdogg
Nov 29, 2004
Resident SRT-4 Expert

FISHMANPET posted:

But in that case I'm the one on the other end of the issue. I'm the "user." I choose the route that gets me the fastest resolution, and I'd think everybody would want the fastest resolution.

And in a lot of cases, it's not like we're leaving people out in the cold. I'm sending then an email to keep them updated, which makes perfect sense to me since email is the medium through which they contacted me. Even if they won't see how me physically visiting them effects how long it takes to resolve their issue (though they may see how it interrupts them), may managers should be able to see that. I'm not keeping them in the dark, I'm just corresponding with them via email.

In Tab1875's example, it's as if instead of sending an email that Tim is working on the issue, Tim should go up and visit the user and tell them he's working on the issue. A user may not see how that wastes Tim's time, but Tim's manager should be able to.

There is a lot to be said about positive face time in the corporate world. I know it's hard for some people to wrap their head around, but it is important and does have it's place.

A co-worker of mine, a very smart and capable person was asked by his manager to take some time every morning and just walk around the building and see how people were doing. He's a great employee but he sits in the office with his door closed and does his work. He had a perception of being very standoffish and unfriendly to many folks in the building. The fact is he is not standoffish or unfriendly, he just likes to get his work done in quiet without interruption when possible.

Every morning when he gets his second cup of coffee he 'makes his rounds' and checks in with folks. Hey, how are you this morning? Everything going OK? Probably takes him 15 to 45 minutes depending if he runs into any issues or not.

Now I know you're thinking what a complete waste of time....but the perception of the IT support in that building really improved once he started 'making his rounds'. Now people see him as friendly and approachable and have a higher overall opinion of IT support than before. His technical work didn't change, in fact one could say he's wasting up to 5 hours a week on non technical work, but the SOFT SKILLS are just as important as the technical work.

You've mentioned 'fastest resolution' several times. People in general are very patient as long as they know whats going on. For example imagine you're at a busy restaurant eating dinner. Generally it takes 15 to 18 minutes to cook and serve an entree. It's now been 40 minutes since you've placed your order and you still don't have your food. You're probably a little pissed off right now... no one has said anything, no one has kept you in the loop, and 5 minutes later your food finally arrives. 45 minutes after ordering, and 25 minutes after you would have expected the food to arrive. You complain to your waiter, and they apologize after the fact and offer you free desert.

Now imagine that at the 20 minute mark, when you're expecting your food to be delivered your waiter comes up and says "I'm really sorry but the kitchen is short staffed tonight and we're super busy, you're food is not ready yet but I'm going to go see how much longer it's going to be".... then the server comes back 5 minutes later and says "I talked to the chef and he says its going to be another 10 to 15 minutes on your entrees.... I'm really sorry about this I'd like to offer you a free desert after your meal to make it up to you".

At this point you know whats going on, you feel kept in the loop... you're not really pissed off that your food is late. You can understand kitchens get short staffed. Your experience in this scenario while not perfect is definitely less lovely than 45 minutes of no information and no contact.

Soft skills are important in the workplace. I don't do much end user support anymore, but I still follow up with folks I do things for. It doesn't even have to be in person, if you have some kind of chat system, you can use that. Hey Jim did that password reset take care of your problem?


When you get a ticket it would take 20 seconds to send the following IM

"Hey Betty, just wanted to let you know I got your ticket... I have a few in front of yours but I should get to it in the next couple of hours"

Yes they'll get the automated helpdesk email saying "YOUR TICKET HAS BEEN ASSIGNED TO FISHMANPET" but that's not the same experience as a quick little IM.

Another reason work soft skills are important. Say it's promotion time, and there are 2 of you going after a senior position. Let's say you actually are more technically qualified and do better work, but you come across as standoffish and unfriendly. The other guy does good work but is more friendly and well liked. 95% of the time he's getting that job and not you.


TL;DR - you may think soft skills are stupid and a waste of time but they're actually important in the real world. It would be wise to understand their importance and try to work on them even if you don't like it.

Inspector_666
Oct 7, 2003

benny with the good hair
Ok but Fishman specifically said he was in contact with the user via e-mail, so I don't know why people keep telling him he should do that.

Dark Helmut
Jul 24, 2004

All growns up
Skipdogg, thank you for articulating that 100x better than I did.

Proud Christian Mom
Dec 20, 2006
READING COMPREHENSION IS HARD
There's soft skills and there's hand holding and we wonder why things are falling apart

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams
Yeah, again, I'm not talking about ignoring the users. And we get plenty of face time with them and they all love us and everything's peaches and roses. And I think sending an email to ask a question is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and there's no reason I need to "go up and talk to her" to ask her what version of InDesign she's using (a question I know she knows how to answer).

Che Delilas
Nov 23, 2009
FREE TIBET WEED

Inspector_666 posted:

Ok but Fishman specifically said he was in contact with the user via e-mail, so I don't know why people keep telling him he should do that.

Yeah, Fish's situation sounds more like there's some manager who's a technophobe or read a management blog and now he's got this neurosis about "face time" and being physically present in the room with every user who has a problem.

gently caress me, half the users probably don't even want to talk face-to-face with anyone from IT.

Vulture Culture
Jul 14, 2003

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

skipdogg posted:

There is a lot to be said about positive face time in the corporate world. I know it's hard for some people to wrap their head around, but it is important and does have it's place.

A co-worker of mine, a very smart and capable person was asked by his manager to take some time every morning and just walk around the building and see how people were doing. He's a great employee but he sits in the office with his door closed and does his work. He had a perception of being very standoffish and unfriendly to many folks in the building. The fact is he is not standoffish or unfriendly, he just likes to get his work done in quiet without interruption when possible.
This book really needs to be on the mandatory reading list for the American business world.

jaegerx
Sep 10, 2012

Maybe this post will get me on your ignore list!


Anyone have any experience with on ramp?

dogstile
May 1, 2012

fucking clocks
how do they work?

go3 posted:

People enjoy the illusion of being kept 'in the loop' and managers are more than happy to play that stupid game so uh get used to wasting time keeping people up to date on trivial things

Honestly, since I started physically walking between development, the other IT room and my one regularly, my manager's opinion of me has gone up loads. He just assumes i'm doing things. Before I had to justify my time, now I don't.

Granted, i'm not doing as much work because i'm walking around, but it feels nice to walk and get out of the chair for a bit, plus my tickets only take an extra couple minutes to resolve. I'm willing to trade that for my boss not making me justify literally everything I do.

angry armadillo
Jul 26, 2010
There is something about IT departments- yes fixing problems immediately is the best and quickest way to fix it but if you don't tell users why they've lost their system in a way that is meaningful to them, their next step is to say that the companies systems don't work or aren't fit for purpose which is ultimately going to give the IT manager a headache which in turn gives the techs a headache because manager is left wondering why he has angry users!!


This week I've been spending most of my time arguing with people who are matrix managed and forget where their loyalties should lie.

I've had a particular department manager try to ditch our companies official system for a homemade spreadsheet on the basis that the companies official system doesn't work (to be fair it doesn't at the moment until we get some additional feature licensed)

His mistake was when he told me to butt out because it's not a systems issue but a political issue

Not sure how he is going to get his spreadsheet on my network now but ok!

Che Delilas
Nov 23, 2009
FREE TIBET WEED

angry armadillo posted:

There is something about IT departments- yes fixing problems immediately is the best and quickest way to fix it but if you don't tell users why they've lost their system in a way that is meaningful to them,

Sigh.

SSH IT ZOMBIE
Apr 19, 2003
No more blinkies! Yay!
College Slice

GOOCHY posted:

For all you guys who are going through merger growing pains - bail out, please, for your own sanity. Update your resume and move on. You'll be so much happier, I promise. I went through what you're all describing back in '06 and stuck around for far, far too long. It's not worth the frustration and pains of mixing company cultures. It really isn't. Start fresh.

Hehe.
Our ex-director is mashing the ordering system's approve button, they haven't pulled her access, and several layers above her have left, or shuffled around, and new-co doesn't know how to run our business.
So it's kind of like Christmas right now. New Cisco UCS, new Datadomains, probably some Power8 hardware, more Netscalers. All stuff we need, doubly so to support the merged infrastructure, but, would be harder to approve normally.

My direct manager also just put his two weeks in. He's got a new sweet pre-sales technical representative gig for a vendor. I am jealous, and more than a bit uneasy, but he is well connected with various VARs and deserves it.

I meet my new manager next week.
Rumor also has it the CIO that came in and hosed everything up is leaving, both CEOs are leaving.

Various people on my team are mumbling about finding new work.
Updating my resume, and I'm half looking at federal job postings, I hear good things, and I'd sort of like to live in some other country for a while and it seems like fed jobs present a good opportunity for that. It's been something I've been wanting to do for a while.

I hear also good things about my new manager, though, and someone on the team knows him personally.


Our director, though, I thought it was just me...she is actually very qualified to do what she does, holds at least a couple masters. She's acted as the companies interim CIO several times in the past, and also was considered for the position once but lost it to another person. When she was moved out of her role, our new CIO presented her to the unified organization. The first thing out of his mouth was that she is a nice person, and because she is personable she has been placed as director of technical support. Prior to all this she was infrastructure, network, and support. Anyway, it seems sexist. Everyone else that was introduced was a man, and they went over their technical qualifications and past experience. I thought it was sort of just me, but I mentioned it in passing to a few people, and a lot of people feel the same way.

Legally, could she do anything? Can you prove something is sexist? No one interviewed for the position she was in, just someone else was slid into it.


I do want to stick it out, for as long as I can. Things can get better. The work isn't bad either, it's busy, but I'm also feeling productive.

SSH IT ZOMBIE fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Oct 3, 2014

Vulture Culture
Jul 14, 2003

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

SSH IT ZOMBIE posted:

Our director, though, I thought it was just me...she is actually very qualified to do what she does, holds at least a couple masters. She's acted as the companies interim CIO several times in the past, and also was considered for the position once but lost it to another person. When she was moved out of her role, our new CIO presented her to the unified organization. The first thing out of his mouth was that she is a nice person, and because she is personable she has been placed as director of technical support. Prior to all this she was infrastructure, network, and support. Anyway, it seems sexist. Everyone else that was introduced was a man, and they went over their technical qualifications and past experience. I thought it was sort of just me, but I mentioned it in passing to a few people, and a lot of people feel the same way.
This is frighteningly common in the business world. Men receive critical feedback about the presence or absence of certain skills, while women are reprimanded for "personality flaws". Then, 92% of people Ashe Dryden surveyed who reported sexual harassment or assault in the workplace were fired within 90 days.

Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Oct 3, 2014

Gucci Loafers
May 20, 2006

Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?


This proves, if anything that your "unified organization" isn't not necessarily sexist but of poor judgement.

Alfajor
Jun 10, 2005

The delicious snack cake.

skipdogg posted:

You've mentioned 'fastest resolution' several times. People in general are very patient as long as they know whats going on. For example imagine you're at a busy restaurant eating dinner. Generally it takes 15 to 18 minutes to cook and serve an entree. It's now been 40 minutes since you've placed your order and you still don't have your food. You're probably a little pissed off right now... no one has said anything, no one has kept you in the loop, and 5 minutes later your food finally arrives. 45 minutes after ordering, and 25 minutes after you would have expected the food to arrive. You complain to your waiter, and they apologize after the fact and offer you free desert.

Now imagine that at the 20 minute mark, when you're expecting your food to be delivered your waiter comes up and says "I'm really sorry but the kitchen is short staffed tonight and we're super busy, you're food is not ready yet but I'm going to go see how much longer it's going to be".... then the server comes back 5 minutes later and says "I talked to the chef and he says its going to be another 10 to 15 minutes on your entrees.... I'm really sorry about this I'd like to offer you a free desert after your meal to make it up to you".

At this point you know whats going on, you feel kept in the loop... you're not really pissed off that your food is late. You can understand kitchens get short staffed. Your experience in this scenario while not perfect is definitely less lovely than 45 minutes of no information and no contact.

This is a great analogy. I think I'll borrow it. Thanks!

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

Alfajor posted:

This is a great analogy. I think I'll borrow it. Thanks!

Now imagine the chef comes out and tells you this instead.

adorai
Nov 2, 2002

10/27/04 Never forget
Grimey Drawer

FISHMANPET posted:

Now imagine the chef comes out and tells you this instead.
And he stops at every other table to tell them as well.

YOLOsubmarine
Oct 19, 2004

When asked which Pokemon he evolved into, Kamara pauses.

"Motherfucking, what's that big dragon shit? That orange motherfucker. Charizard."

FISHMANPET posted:

Now imagine the chef comes out and tells you this instead.

I think most people would think that was pretty cool, and a nice gesture.

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams
I have no doubt they would love it. They'd also love it if their meal was free, but that doesn't mean they should do it. That doesn't mean it's a good idea. And I'm sure at least one person would say "hey why aren't you cooking my meal instead of telling me it's going to take longer?"

YOLOsubmarine
Oct 19, 2004

When asked which Pokemon he evolved into, Kamara pauses.

"Motherfucking, what's that big dragon shit? That orange motherfucker. Charizard."

FISHMANPET posted:

I have no doubt they would love it. They'd also love it if their meal was free, but that doesn't mean they should do it. That doesn't mean it's a good idea. And I'm sure at least one person would say "hey why aren't you cooking my meal instead of telling me it's going to take longer?"

Making your customers happy is quite often more important than being as efficient as possible, this is not a strange or foreign concept. Get away from work that requires customer interaction if you don't want to deal with the oft required social aspects.

Japanese Dating Sim
Nov 12, 2003

hehe
Lipstick Apathy

dox posted:

Love to hear this. Bit worried about that reference image you're using... but if it's working for you for now then roll with it.

Sorry, I meant to keep tabs on the thread yesterday (and today) but got stuck on something.

But - what's worrying about the image? I'm wondering if it was that I wasn't clear - I was originally using one from a physical box, drivers and all (in which case I fully understand the concern), but I'm now using one from a virtual machine that's pristine and driver-free. Going the hybrid image route with the typical suite of programs pre-installed and using MDT to inject drivers based on the model. Is there something I could improve on? I say this without having watched that video you linked yet, though I will.

Vulture Culture
Jul 14, 2003

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

FISHMANPET posted:

I have no doubt they would love it. They'd also love it if their meal was free, but that doesn't mean they should do it. That doesn't mean it's a good idea. And I'm sure at least one person would say "hey why aren't you cooking my meal instead of telling me it's going to take longer?"
It's quite likely a political play. This is a great thing to do when you're trying to jockey for more headcount. It makes your department look good, builds rapport across the organization and slows things down just enough to justify bringing more people in the door.

FISHMANPET
Mar 3, 2007

Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams
Yeah I'm not even supposed to be doing user support, I built everything from scratch in that department 5 years ago (while on help desk, everything is stupid) and now my replacement is on a 2 month vacation so they've slotted me back in. I'm less than thrilled. After that I get to "run" (nobody knows what that means yet) another help desk while the person that "runs" it now goes on maternity leave.

Hopefully I'll be able to :yotg: before even this 2 month sentence is up.

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DrAlexanderTobacco
Jun 11, 2012

Help me find my true dharma

FISHMANPET posted:

I have no doubt they would love it. They'd also love it if their meal was free, but that doesn't mean they should do it. That doesn't mean it's a good idea. And I'm sure at least one person would say "hey why aren't you cooking my meal instead of telling me it's going to take longer?"

My god, just suck it up! Do it a few times, make your boss happy. Smile and nod. Break out of the stereotype.

Make sure to wash first

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