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I was actually surprised that our director and leadership actually realized things were dire for our development infrastructure. We'd been scrimping and scrounging so successfully for all the years that what few tidbits they would dole out would allow us to scratch out another 3-6 months of service. It finally came to a head when my (former) team lead threatened to quit after being in the job for 6 months or so. And then our building lost power and hosed everything up and reinforced his points with almost prescient accuracy. I only know he didn't do it because he was standing in my office when everything went to poo poo and told me he'd submitted his 2 week notice. That week there was a meeting involving all the project manager and leadership and the hammer was dropped on PMs who re-assigned infrastructure personnel (i.e. myself and my co-worker) without actually informing our supervisor. This affected my co-worker most of all because he is young and, while super-experienced and knowledgeable, didn't know how to push back when confronted with an impossible timeline and diametrically opposing tasking and goals. And it was sending him into a really deep funk. So that got a lot of pressure off him, but then the director basically dropped all responsibility for our development infrastructure on me and told me to run with it. I spoke with our Sr Engineer and he gave me some things he wanted to implement but never could because of time, and now he has zero time due to a big project he's trying to pull out of a nosedive. Made me realize once again that I really do work for a rather good company. They believe firmly in work-life balance, hire some really smart people, listen to them, and don't have the attitude that "we did it differently before". And with leadership's backing, we're finally getting the chance to fix a number of lingering issues and replacing old equipment long past it's EOL. I'm getting to learn some new tricks and technologies that I've been interested in but never had the time to learn, and I'm putting things into place that I think will be good for my record when advancement comes available.
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Oct 6, 2019 23:58
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Vulture Culture posted:I've done the turnaround artist thing a few times over my career, and it can be really rewarding to fix a really good company/division/team that's fallen into a rut, but it sounds like you aren't happy at your job. Will turning this environment around make you happy at your job? Actually I'm happier than I ever have been, but no I am not satisfied. I'm just no longer miserable. I've given up on trying to fix things myself because it's clear that my input isn't valued and ultimately I'm not responsible for the broken things anyway. But that's besides the point. I work for a small govt entity and I believe in the mission of serving the public that pays their taxes for our services. I want to do a good job for the rest of the org and the citizens we serve, and I really would rather avoid a Baltimore level fiasco. https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-ci-data-lost-20190911-i6feniyk5nd3pereznpdxwsf7a-story.html Turning things around could very well make me much less happy, as my boss would have more free time to stop worrying about his potential demise and go right back to being a big swinging dick handing out free mushroom tattoos. But again, my goal in this scenario is to get back to a stable infrastructure so we can continue our work without stepping on a nuclear landmine.
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Oct 7, 2019 00:13
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GnarlyCharlie4u posted:Actually I'm happier than I ever have been, but no I am not satisfied. I'm just no longer miserable. I've given up on trying to fix things myself because it's clear that my input isn't valued and ultimately I'm not responsible for the broken things anyway. It's not going to get better until/unless you get new management that are invested in turning the place around. Do you want to wait for that to happen?
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Oct 7, 2019 00:48
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As has been stated in pretty much every post above this; without a change in management there wont be any great strides in fixing anything. It's a lovely place to be in, but from what I've heard of some gov't jobs the only way to change those above you is for them to retire. I'd consider if you're willing to wait for said change or not. No longer being miserable is absolutely a step in the right direction, but being bored/ignored and just feeling like you're showing up to collect a paycheck until something breaks and they invite you to succeed elsewhere feels like a stressful game.
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Oct 7, 2019 14:46
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I can't remember if it was posted in this or one of the other IT threads, but I'm searching for the post someone made about helpdesk regarding not trusting the user. It was something like Rule 1: There is a problem but it's not what the user is saying it probably is and Rule 2: Use your own brain. But it was phrased better. We just got a bunch of T1
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Oct 7, 2019 15:02
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CLAM DOWN posted:Hey all, I would like to survey the thread about something, would really appreciate your help. I'm trying to gather info outside of my own job history and experience, and I would like to use the results I expect from this as ammo at my current job. A bit late but I was away in rome this weekend. Just read this message. So if you still have some use for this, here goes; 1) Does your org allow working from home and/or remote work? Yes 2) If yes to (1), how often/how much is allowed? Not often. Only for special occasions. Like waiting on a plumber. Kids are sick. Car broke down, not feeling well 3) If yes to (1), are there any documented requirements for it to be allowed? no 4) If no to (1), are there any reasons given why not? N/A 5) Would you consider working for an org that does not permit working from home/remote work? unless the salary is super amazing, no 6) What country are you in? Netherlands 7) Public or private sector? private 8) Union or non-union? Non-union
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Oct 7, 2019 15:07
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Man, I love being a snarky in e-mail when a managed service fails horribly. I asked a MSP to provide the OSPF area ID of a site we're bringing up and the /30 that connects our hardware to theirs. They provide the router ID of their device and the public IP and asked if they could be of any more help. I just simply responded "I don't see anything I asked for in that response"
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Oct 7, 2019 15:25
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CLAM DOWN posted:Hey all, I would like to survey the thread about something, would really appreciate your help. I'm trying to gather info outside of my own job history and experience, and I would like to use the results I expect from this as ammo at my current job.
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Oct 7, 2019 15:42
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Sepist posted:Man, I love being a snarky in e-mail when a managed service fails horribly. I asked a MSP to provide the OSPF area ID of a site we're bringing up and the /30 that connects our hardware to theirs. They provide the router ID of their device and the public IP and asked if they could be of any more help. I just simply responded "I don't see anything I asked for in that response" Ah yes the "network" guys at MSPs.
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Oct 7, 2019 16:27
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Vulture Culture posted:Can we post a Google Form the next time we decide to do this 1) no
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Oct 7, 2019 17:02
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ChubbyThePhat posted:Ah yes the "network" guys at MSPs. To be fair, they're probably still recovering from their weekend bender.
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Oct 7, 2019 17:23
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Sepist posted:Man, I love being a snarky in e-mail when a managed service fails horribly. I asked a MSP to provide the OSPF area ID of a site we're bringing up and the /30 that connects our hardware to theirs. They provide the router ID of their device and the public IP and asked if they could be of any more help. I just simply responded "I don't see anything I asked for in that response" there's someone re-watching an OSPF video somewhere to try to figure out what an area is
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Oct 7, 2019 17:24
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ChubbyThePhat posted:As has been stated in pretty much every post above this; without a change in management there wont be any great strides in fixing anything. It's a lovely place to be in, but from what I've heard of some gov't jobs the only way to change those above you is for them to retire. I'm certainly not bored, lol. I've just moved on up enough to focus on my own priorities. There's enough broken poo poo here to keep me in craft beer until I retire. It's actually nice knowing exactly what I will be working on with 100% of my day and filling the gaps with the tickets I choose. I'm definitely sticking around for another few months until I get my pension, then we will see how things go. The problem is that I'm deeply invested in this place and I really don't want them to become a victim of their own mismanagement. As much as I wish I could solely blame my boss for this lovely situation, I know he's not 100% at fault. The problem goes further up above his head, as well as right beneath his feet. He isn't getting the buy in from other directors that we require in order to focus on fixing this rotten mess. Instead he's getting sucked into infighting and the blame game with the other departments. Nobody likes him as a person, so nobody is willing to work with him or back off and stop pointing fingers long enough for us to do the needful. Meanwhile, we can't seem to even keep 2 system engineers when we should have 5 to be fully staffed. The reasons for this are 1) the position doesn't pay as well as it should and 2) my boss is drat near impossible to work for so being underpaid AND having to deal with his poo poo is a non-starter, and 3) the final nail in everyone's coffin; you can't be trusted to do your job. Yeah you are expected to know more than anyone else in your field, but the boss will always know more than you (despite not having touched a computer since windows xp) and you are expected to defer to him on every single decision for his wisdom, except in the event when it is inconvenient to him, in which case you will still be wrong no matter which decision you make. That being said, he has made huge strides in the area of interpersonal relationships and communication, to the point where I am no longer 100% convinced that he's got Asperger's. He's able to hold normal conversations now, talk through decisions rationally, and has stopped having hours-long shouting matches with his subordinates (mostly because all of them have quit.) Yes the situation would be greatly improved if he weren't such a shitlord, but that wouldn't resolve the underlying problems of lack of support from above, blame from all sides, and a lack of resources to assemble a full team. Anywho, I'm setting my sights a little lower for the time being. I'm gonna finish up a couple of huge concurrent projects and take whatever days I can between now and January off. Hopefully the place won't have burned to the ground when I get back. I'm DEFINITELY making sure that I won't be around when we spin up the other half of our NetApp because WHOO boy that is gonna be messy. That thing is in such a state and hasn't been used in well over a year and probably doesn't even have the right configuration to be able to replicate properly.
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Oct 7, 2019 17:32
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Sometimes you have to make the environment better and not ask permission to do it. I have found times in my career that when I asked for permission change things for the better, I got slapped down. I found myself a lot more successful when I simply changed what I could change myself and didn't talk about it before hand. Things only got tricky when you needed to purchase something, but those times can often be disguised into purchases of things your leaders would approve.
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Oct 7, 2019 17:42
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Sickening posted:Sometimes you have to make the environment better and not ask permission to do it. It's government. Depending on the people involved, stepping outside your zone of responsibility could just get you fired. When I worked in govt (county level) I just made my own little network part of the world work as well as possible and stopped fretting over the piece of poo poo server infra falling over, or the DOJ garbage going offline or whatever else. The network may have been a cobbled together Frakenstein's monster of technology ranging from modern to 20 years old, but it worked once it was no longer a collection of horrible flat bridged messes.
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Oct 7, 2019 18:02
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I'm sure I'm not alone, but I have like a pathological need to make things better. Doesn't matter what I need to do to get it done, if it's on the technical side, if it's on the management side, if it's changing the culture of the entire place. If I don't feel like I'm making progress it makes me absolutely miserable and I start looking for the door. That's probably the main reason I avoid giant companies, avoid government agencies, and don't really like consulting/MSPs. Also probably why after 3-4 years I am starting to think about jumping ship, as by that time I've probably fixed everything I can and everything else is road blocks that aren't surmountable. I guess what I'm saying is, watch out for your mental health, but at the same time watch out for your skills. Don't repeatedly bash your head against the wall if you're not making progress. Don't take the entire world on your shoulders. If you can tell yourself "I'll just coast for a bit" and not lose your mind, there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but watch out for your skills degrading. And lastly, I think it's inevitable that we inherit bad practices from the environments we are in. My concern with sticking around in a lovely place for too long as that you start to inherit the mindsets that make that place lovely.
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Oct 7, 2019 18:07
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Vulture Culture posted:Can we post a Google Form the next time we decide to do this I genuinely didn't expect that level of response and I'm very appreciative of you all. Yes, a proper survey next time would be better! also Paul ReiserFS posted:1) no
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Oct 7, 2019 18:20
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Internet Explorer posted:I'm sure I'm not alone, but I have like a pathological need to make things better. Doesn't matter what I need to do to get it done, if it's on the technical side, if it's on the management side, if it's changing the culture of the entire place. If I don't feel like I'm making progress it makes me absolutely miserable and I start looking for the door. That's probably the main reason I avoid giant companies, avoid government agencies, and don't really like consulting/MSPs. Also probably why after 3-4 years I am starting to think about jumping ship, as by that time I've probably fixed everything I can and everything else is road blocks that aren't surmountable. This sounds familiar. In my current job, I know for a fact I'm going to leave, not today and not tomorrow, but soon enough. What I am aiming for, however, is to leave it in a better state than it was in when I inherited a number of things from former coworkers. I'm getting to the point where the technical side is slowly getting there, but unfortunately, the culture/management-side is developing in the opposite direction of what I would like, so that ship is currenctly sailing. That means for me: finish infrastructure, wrap up two projects, and then off I go, hopefully in spring next year.
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Oct 7, 2019 19:15
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Vulture Culture posted:Can we post a Google Form the next time we decide to do this Sirs I put it in Teams under the Daily Chat. Kindly see the form for instructions and ping me for questions.
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Oct 7, 2019 20:24
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Woof Blitzer posted:Sirs I put it in Teams under the Daily Chat. Kindly do the needful the form for instructions and revert me for doubts. Ftfy
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Oct 7, 2019 21:27
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I think I just had a stroke
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Oct 7, 2019 21:29
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The Fool posted:I think I just had a stroke
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Oct 7, 2019 21:41
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First non-IT user in my test group signed in with their face using Windows Hello for Business Hybrid today. There were a lot of pieces that needed to get put together for this to work and I'm quite happy with the results now.
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Oct 7, 2019 21:47
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Hot take: Indian business English is more straight to the point and I’ve started trending my email towards it
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Oct 7, 2019 22:00
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BRB, hacking into The Fool's CEO's laptop.
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Oct 7, 2019 22:41
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The Fool posted:First non-IT user in my test group signed in with their face using Windows Hello for Business Hybrid today. There were a lot of pieces that needed to get put together for this to work and I'm quite happy with the results now. Do they remember their pin and do they remember their password? I assume you're going to break the login on them (or another test subject) to see how they respond to it?
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Oct 8, 2019 01:16
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Internet Explorer posted:That's probably the main reason I avoid giant companies, avoid government agencies, and don't really like consulting/MSPs. Also probably why after 3-4 years I am starting to think about jumping ship, as by that time I've probably fixed everything I can and everything else is road blocks that aren't surmountable. I was just talking about this with my wife tonight, and I'm in the same boat except that I LOVE working for a massive government burecracy (huge public research institution) because I've been here long enough and I'm in the right position where I can effect massive change. But honestly I'd be board at some small agile org that did the right thing or could easily move. I love trying to steer this massive ship.
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Oct 8, 2019 03:21
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klosterdev posted:Performed final testing and deployment of our new prod W10 GPOs First day back tomorrow Haven't heard a peep about it, not sure what I'm gonna walk into But I got the bandwidth to take care of any issues now, take your vacations people
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Oct 8, 2019 05:24
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I've repeatedly taken weeks off on trips in the last few weeks. They aren't doing anything good for my productivity whatsoever.
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Oct 8, 2019 05:34
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Methanar posted:I've repeatedly taken weeks off on trips in the last few weeks. They aren't doing anything good for my productivity whatsoever. Your posts sound increasingly unhappy. It’s totally ok to admit that a new position just isn’t working out and look for something else. Though I get that interviewing and job hunting also loving sucks.
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Oct 8, 2019 06:35
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Just got back from my honeymoon Sunday, supposed to be asleep for work, gently caress I'm not ready to go back for a lot of reasons; need a vacation from my vacation. Also, shoutout to Sefal, thanks for meeting up when we were in Amsterdam, had a good time.
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Oct 8, 2019 07:33
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Sickening posted:Sometimes you have to make the environment better and not ask permission to do it. Our IT admin and desktop team complain constantly about the spreadsheets they have for tracking ~6000 devices. Got sick of hearing about it, so I put SnipeIT up on a container. The admin lead really liked it, said I'd help her get everything imported, told her she probably shouldn't tell our boss about it, because I knew what he'd say. Yesterday, my boss came round to tell me how good it looks. today she came round to tell me he said she can't have it, he wants it on the servicedesk we use instead. Which doesn't have any asset tracking features, at all. The company even sell another product for that, which he won't pay for. I don't understand where he wants it to go.  he doesn't even really have any input on that side of the service. If they'd started using it and said nothing, he wouldn't have known about it at all.Another notch off the old morale post.
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Oct 8, 2019 15:01
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CLAM DOWN posted:Hey all, I would like to survey the thread about something, would really appreciate your help. I'm trying to gather info outside of my own job history and experience, and I would like to use the results I expect from this as ammo at my current job. I know I'm a week or so behind in the thread, so hopefully you're still interested in responses here. 1) Does your org allow working from home and/or remote work? yes 2) If yes to (1), how often/how much is allowed? We have some full remote workers. If you live in a city where we have an office, they like you to show up relatively often, but if you have circumstances that prevent being in the office like child care responsibilities or live outside the city but in the metro area where the commute is terrible, they're flexible. Some co-workers live pretty close and are only in the office one or two days a week. 3) If yes to (1), are there any documented requirements for it to be allowed? Nothing specific or documented afaik. Full remote workers probably have different contracts that I'm not privy to, otherwise it's generally left up to individual team leads to determine, but I don't think senior leadership would be happy with a team lead who dictated no WFH no matter what. 4) If no to (1), are there any reasons given why not? 5) Would you consider working for an org that does not permit working from home/remote work? If everything else about the job seemed good, I probably wouldn't let a lack of WFH stop me from taking it, especially if they had a generous sick day allowance. Right now I'll just WFH if I'm feeling a bit sniffly and only take a sick day if I'm really feeling terrible but if that's not allowed I'll happily just take more sick days. 6) What country are you in?  7) Public or private sector? Private. Startup. 8) Union or non-union? lmao
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Oct 8, 2019 15:51
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KillHour posted:BRB, hacking into The Fool's CEO's laptop.  incoherent posted:Do they remember their pin and do they remember their password? I assume you're going to break the login on them (or another test subject) to see how they respond to it? The test group is a handful of our more generally competent users, so I don't see them forgetting their passwords/pins but I could be surprised. That being said, we have a list of scenarios that each tester is supposed to evaluate for face and fingerprint auth. in-office/out-of-offfice, no internet, public internet, unauthorized auth attempts, switching auth types, etc
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Oct 8, 2019 16:50
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My job needs to buy an EMC rated server for an industrial area. It's a "normal" server for a 19" rack. Are there any of big IT companies like Dell that sells EMC rated stuff? I'm looking at Siemens and other automation companies, but they're kinda pricey. We need to have it rated for IEC610006, heavy industry immunity, and light industry emmisions.
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Oct 8, 2019 18:13
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So, I'm trying to get a position filled for a place out in the southeast US to support a couple sites (mostly basic networking, some tier 2 infra type stuff) and I finally got what I felt like was a good candidate after the interview and technical appraisal so I sent em over to HR to do HR things. They had him do a Hogan assessment, an Advanced Numerical Reasoning Appraisal and a Critical Thinking Appraisal, which came back as Bad. After looking at these things I'm thinking that the Hogan assessment in particular looks like another one of those dumbass HR self justification phrenology things and I don't care about it at all. Do any of you who are more involved in the management/personnel side of things put much stock in these? Would I be off base if I try to challenge HR on this?
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Oct 8, 2019 18:24
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Selklubber posted:My job needs to buy an EMC rated server for an industrial area. It's a "normal" server for a 19" rack. Are there any of big IT companies like Dell that sells EMC rated stuff? I'm looking at Siemens and other automation companies, but they're kinda pricey. Can't you just put stuff in an EMC rated enclosure? I have some of those Siemens things and I hate them.
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Oct 8, 2019 18:27
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Honestly all those tests are full of poo poo and only used to justify HR's existence beyond people who are a sounding board for personel complaints. What you do with that information is up to you my dude. I dont know how or if you can tell HR to pound sand and do the hiring paper work.
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Oct 8, 2019 18:27
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Defenestrategy posted:Honestly all those tests are full of poo poo and only used to justify HR's existence beyond people who are a sounding board for personel complaints. What you do with that information is up to you my dude. I dont know how or if you can tell HR to pound sand and do the hiring paper work. I have a meeting with them this afternoon and my current plan is to just tell them to hire the loving guy and if he sucks I'll get rid of him before the 6mo probationary period is up.
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Oct 8, 2019 18:29
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Finally had the revelation that its way the gently caress better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
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Oct 8, 2019 18:35
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