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Maybe i'm being dumb, but what does YOTJ mean? IT chat, I got a job in my first real IT position (meaning this one isn't just volunteer). Its a helpdesk, but we close 90% of calls at first level and i've been closing the stuff that usually gets assigned to advanced support if I can (gunning for that position). It pays well enough, more than any of my friends fresh into the workforce make and the hours aren't bad (8 to 4:30 or 10-6:30). Downside? They hired so many new people that I don't really get many calls anymore. I did at first, because I was the first of the new hires, but they want to assign more tickets to the new guys rather than me because they want them to get more experience (as they've seen me work and they're not worried about my knowledge). That's all well and good, but I want to work dammit. I've had so much free time that i've read this entire thread in about a week.
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# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 10:53 |
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# ¿ Mar 29, 2024 06:06 |
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Lum posted:You could always start on the old thread? It had a few thousand pages IIRC I've moved over to "a ticket came in". I'll get to the old thread in a few days. KennyTheFish posted:There is no free time, only documentation and study time. Yeah I made the mistake of opening up a powershell book in front of the manager and he responded by throwing five tickets in my name. Looks like i'm doing that study thing another time. Edit: Plus side, I now do it every time i'm bored and want something to do. Just asking for a ticket gets me a "help, my program isn't refreshing" which is just a service restart on the server. Opening up that book gets me meaty tickets.
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# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 14:10 |
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To sum up my day. "Hey Dan! Do some testing for us!" "Sure, i'll do it, just give me a few hours". A few hours later I handed it in, only to be told that they'd just finished the new build and that the testing I had done was for nothing and i'd have to start from scratch. I mean hey, I got to stay off the phones all day, but I like it when the work I do is actually needed. Fixing peoples problems makes me fairly happy. Wasting 3 hours does not.
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# ¿ Dec 12, 2013 16:46 |
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Well, at least I know my manager won't question me being ill. I mentioned I was feeling a bit ill (When I got up in the morning I thought it was just the usual morning grogginess) and he sent me home on the spot. He actually took three steps back. That's nice. Downside, i'm working the weekend before christmas and the project meeting was that day, so i've missed it. I'm going to be playing catchup, which is not ideal when preparing for a trip to Wales. Especially Wales on Christmas. Going to be a nightmare.
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# ¿ Dec 15, 2013 18:31 |
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Things that are slightly IT related (although not sure if it belongs here), getting to work is going to be a bit harder, since the guy who gives me a lift to work (I can't legally drive yet) managed to swipe a truck this morning. With me in the car. We got lucky with how little damage it did to the car, but its still going to need some time to repair, making it harder for me to get in. I'll probably post a picture when I get back. I wish they could just give me a work phone so I can take calls at home. That'd be nice. All I ever do is note down the details and dial into the clients PC as it is, its not like I need to be in the office for such a task. Also pissing me off. Helpdesk colleagues who turn off their phones every time they get a call. They do it so they can sort out that one call and not get disturbed while doing so. That would be great if we had enough workers to do that, as it stands, the three or four calls that skip them get passed over to the rest of the team or admin. If admin get a call, they pass it to me, as i'm the only one they really like talking to. I just want those guys to so we can get some decent guys in to fill the position. We could even function at roughly the same level without them, as they do so little.
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# ¿ Dec 16, 2013 19:07 |
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Shuntly posted:And I would say that if over 50% of your typical day is spent busting a queue, and you're not going to Not Available to properly finish your last call, then you're doing it wrong. The constant stress of rushing is not worth cutting a minute off the next guy's hold time. Relax, slow down. Non-IT clients never remember how quickly you helped them, only how (un)pleasant your help was. Mainly IT clients. It also takes roughly 30 seconds to log a call (if you're going slowly). What annoys me is that we're not rushing a lot of the time, its quite leisurely. With all the new guys i'll have three or four tickets open at once and a lot of the time i'll be waiting for a response. What annoys me is that a simple "log call, dial into clients PC, configure label printer alignment" takes these guys an hour at least. If they didn't use every call as an excuse to do nothing for an hour, we'd have a way faster response time. To give you an idea of how simple it is for the job that the guy is currently on not available for, he has to write down the first few letters of the location and select it from the drop down list. The form will then be filled out with everything except customer name and who its assigned to. You then write down what the problem is and click save. This literally takes 30 seconds. The he should dial into the PC (using the list we have up at all times). If its a particular customer this can take five minutes, but for the other 95% of sites, it takes another 30 seconds. Then all he has to do is go into devices and printers and change the printer alignment. At current time of typing he has been on not available for 45 minutes. This isn't a case of "he needs to rush all the time". This is a case of "do your loving job". If you actually get on and do the work, you even have time to mess about on forums (See, me, who currently has closed all his (and this other guys) calls and is waiting for another). Its not really that rushed here, i'm just tired of taking calls that should be going to his cell as his one gets all the printer calls and they're not interesting in the slightest. I dunno, maybe i'm getting far to annoyed over this, but I know this guy earns way more than me and he doesn't do half as much, while somehow still being cosy with the manager. Doesn't really sit right. Sorry for venting so much. That was a bit longer than I thought it'd be. Edit: Ok, I take it back, i'm not getting far to annoyed over this. Somehow its gone from "printer down" to "site down" and the guy decided to go home rather than sort it, without telling any of us. I found out via angry phone call from customer. He could at least tell us that it'd gone horribly wrong so we could prioritize it. dogstile fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Dec 17, 2013 |
# ¿ Dec 17, 2013 12:17 |
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Caged posted:Haha you just reminded me that Windows Update was handled in a browser in XP. What the gently caress caused someone to think that was a good idea. Try doing it nowadays, it takes forever. Its finicky too, sometimes it'll only trigger if you download some of the updates manually, otherwise it gets stuck. We had an issue when we were setting up our PC's (our customers get decent stuff, we get whatever is laying around, even in a support company they still think us running on xp is a good idea) where we needed to download the updates to comply with "protocol" but it wouldn't do any updates until we downloaded adobe. I don't know what the hell it was, but before adobe is downloaded, it doesn't work. After? Well it doesn't go fast but it moves. On note of things getting stuck. No, co-worker, I do not give a poo poo that its not working. Repeated shouting of "its not working", bugging us all about it and walking off in a huff only to do it again in five minutes is not how you should fix things. Its also not good for my health, as I want to jump out of a loving window after an hour of it. How legal is it to record someones voice in the office? I was thinking of showing you guys so you could . I'm in the UK if it helps.
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# ¿ Dec 18, 2013 02:53 |
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seadweller posted:Your on tricky ground, recently had to record lectures for a student missing classes because of extenuating circumstances. We had to get permission of all the students in the room. Have a look at this: That's a shame, i'll leave it for now, that's legally shady and i'd rather not risk it. Not that I could even record today, he's quite literally shouted himself hoarse.
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# ¿ Dec 18, 2013 12:59 |
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poo poo that's pissing me off. Printers installed with the wrong drivers that were crashing the PC whenever they attempted to use them. I spent 10 hours remotely reinstalling the printers over a lovely connection as they live in the middle of nowhere. Just as I get done, they have a power cut, which has apparently fried everything and i'll have to set it up again next week.
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# ¿ Dec 19, 2013 15:48 |
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Sirotan posted:We're getting a pizza party for Christmas! I just went out for pizza with all my new colleagues. On the plus side it was fun. On the downside the people who are younger than me, are less qualified and less experienced get paid significantly more than me, according to drunk conversation. Looks like i'm pushing for a big raise when my salary review comes up E: Also were hired after me. VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV drat, why is that? Edit: Oh hey, I may bitch about this company and its employees, but they did just give me a sweet new 1920 x 1080 screen dogstile fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Dec 20, 2013 |
# ¿ Dec 20, 2013 01:44 |
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Motherfucker. Last day in the office for a week, the guy I was talking to is annoyed that no, I don't know SQL as well as the data guys and that yes, i'm going to have to pass him to the data guys who designed the database to find his poo poo. So annoyed in fact, that he asked me to dial in to his machine to spellcheck his email complaining about me (he was sending it to the company CEO). I mean, i'm not worried because my managers were both listening to that call as they knew it was a funny customer and I know I didn't gently caress up, but that poo poo just pisses me off.
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# ¿ Dec 21, 2013 00:12 |
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Paladine_PSoT posted:Ladies and gentlemen, we have a solid second place for this year's chud monkey award! First is still blacksword's Sr. tech. Just to clarify, I didn't actually spellcheck anything except my name, which I proudly gave out. That way the next time he calls up and I answer he'll just ask for another tech. Also no, I couldn't have to much fun, as I said, my managers were listening in. This means they were right behind me.
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# ¿ Dec 21, 2013 01:52 |
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Paladine_PSoT posted:Your managers did nothing about the overly elaborate insult the guy was throwing at you? He's a client, all clients are "correct" in the CEO's eyes. The guy's request will probably just be thrown down to the bottom of the list. On a brighter note, I set up an animal hospital today (and yesterday), got to meet all the dogs and cats. Even saw one that was almost completely paralysed when I went in walk past me on my way out (with help).
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# ¿ Dec 22, 2013 19:33 |
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Sure boss, have a meeting to discuss our poor communication skills with clients because we didn't call them back right away when given a note to call them "at some point" despite it being an urgent matter. Don't yell at the guy who wrote the note and omitted that we needed to drop what we were doing to sort it. That makes sense. Ugh, why did I think IT was a cool, stress free job as a kid?
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# ¿ Dec 30, 2013 16:40 |
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poo poo that isn't pissing me off, almost made it through my probation period (3 months) and i'm getting a raise! Expect me back in a week complaining that the raise is an extra £100 over the course of a year, in the spirit of the thread of course.
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# ¿ Jan 2, 2014 15:57 |
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Ok, my raise isn't in a week, its in a month, no biggie, i'm not losing out on any money. What is pissing me off? Everyone in admin is passing tickets in my name because i'm helpful and my manager just gave me an extra two on top of what I had before. Usually I wouldn't mind if I had nothing to do but there are 2 guys with a single ticket to their name, why not pass them one of the 6 i've gotten in the past half an hour? I'm swamped as it is and its just crushed my motivation VVVVVVVVVVVV I did after I posted. He pulled the really lovely one out of my name and gave it to another chap and said that since I have the most tickets, I can take a break and just install a new monitor before we leave instead of trying to work on calls. Plugging that thing in was actually really satisfying, i'm quite surprised and a fair bit happier. Weird. dogstile fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Jan 3, 2014 |
# ¿ Jan 3, 2014 17:07 |
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Lucky gits, since Christmas my workplace is surrounded by flooded roads and you have to either wade up or go down with a pretty drat strong current, depending on which way you want to come in. I haven't had a dry day for so long
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# ¿ Jan 6, 2014 10:05 |
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Starhawk64 posted:Not really a computer related thing but since I work in a call center for TV and internet services have to get this off my chest: Can't you just like, program the stick remotely? What you mean I have to be in the same room as my TV box?
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# ¿ Jan 6, 2014 16:27 |
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Thats it, gently caress it, i'm mentioning something about admin again. I have 7 tickets already, let me loving clear them and stop assigning me calls because you don't want to introduce yourself to other members of the team Clearly the other guys have more free time because they're always taking smoke breaks anyway. All today has been is me trying (and failing) to fix existing problems because i keep getting phoned up and told to take a call for someone who's on hold and waiting and they can't possibly wait any longer which means I get halfway through finishing a ticket, get taken away from it and then I have to spend more time finding out where the hell i was before.
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# ¿ Jan 7, 2014 14:07 |
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:I was in the same boat as you until I switched jobs/got my poo poo together, I believe I posted a thread in E/N about it. The people there gave me some really great tips which might help you as well. First and foremost is there a ticketing system in place? If so why aren't admin using the ticketing system properly? Yeah, we have a ticketing system. In fact, its a fairly decent one, it shows how many tickets a person has, work logs, etc. Much better than the volunteer places I worked (pretty much a spreadsheet with a "done" box). They do have access to it. I just don't think they're realizing that they should use it before passing it through. I'm getting better at saying "no, i'm busy, give it to someone else" but when i'm on a call, I have to help them there and then, I can't just take a message and get around to it because its not "high priority". I can do it to internal staff, but the majority of work is external users with issues. I guess i'm just going to have to keep mentioning it and refusing to take calls until i've got some breathing room until they get there, like you said.
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# ¿ Jan 7, 2014 17:54 |
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Well, i'm going to be bitched out today. Got dressed in the dark and didn't realise until I sat at my desk that i'm wearing jeans. We're meant to be wearing smart clothes and they don't count. Why we have to dress smart for customers that never see us i'll never know Yes, I am feeling dumb right now, why do you ask? VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV See, that's where its weird, here if we do work that will get our clothes dirty, we're allowed to wear jeans. Said work is always performed in front of customers because it'll be at their sites. I feel for you though, getting your smart clothes dirty is annoying as hell because it really shows. Edit: I feel like its worth mentioning that when I said customers never see us, I mean its not like they have a video feed to the helpdesk room. Said work done in front of customers is always weekend and out of our office. The clothes rules only seem to apply in the office. dogstile fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Jan 8, 2014 |
# ¿ Jan 8, 2014 09:31 |
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mewse posted:This is nuts. I can see casual friday as a good idea because it can feel burdensome to dress up every day, so you get 1 day as a reprieve. It doesn't make logical sense why management would tolerate their workers looking like slobs on 1 day of the week but none of the others, but whatever. I can see it as good for morale. The worst part is that there's no way to refuse without looking like a selfish rear end in a top hat or playing the sympathy card and saying you have no money to give. Its why I hate people on the street who ask you to save the kids. It bothered me because at the time I was working for charities. I wasn't getting paid to do it. People still looked at me like I was scum for refusing. Putting that sort of judgement on you at work is kinda lovely.
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# ¿ Jan 8, 2014 16:44 |
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Things that are pissing me off, people who take time off for sick days and don't realise you're still contagious for a day or so after it goes away in most cases. I'm ok if you can't stay home and work because you have important things to do but if you can afford to stay off, stay off until you're not contagious please, drat. The entire support office is infected, i'm watching the lights on the wallboard drop off one by one. And thus, we end with not a bang, but with a whimper. Edit: And i'm one of them, it hurts to loving breathe, what hellspawn is this thing? I'm going home. dogstile fucked around with this message at 12:54 on Jan 9, 2014 |
# ¿ Jan 9, 2014 12:17 |
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Crowley posted:Here in Denmark we don't have a limit either, but if you exceed 120 sick days per year the company can use that as a reason to fire you. If you're sick for more than 3 days the employer can ask for a note from your doctor (or other health facility - like a psychologist, dentist or hospital or such). so, you get to take a full third of your year off to be ill? I can't imagine why anyone would go in if they even had a suspicion that they're contagious. I bet that gets abused like hell.
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# ¿ Jan 9, 2014 17:03 |
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rolleyes posted:It's very similar in the UK (except I don't even think they can use it as an excuse to fire you) and actually, no, it doesn't. Funnily enough if you treat people decently and as adults, most of them will give you respect back and not abuse the system. Its probably where I grew up (it wasn't a nice neighbourhood) but everyone abuses every system they can so they can either get away with doing no work, or so they can do a cash in hand job while on "sick leave" for the other job. I didn't know about the Bradford score though. That's pretty interesting.
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# ¿ Jan 9, 2014 19:08 |
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I take back everything I ever said about coming in sick if you absolutely have to. I'm dizzy as hell, i'm shaking, i feel cold and I have no balance whatsoever. gently caress the guy who gave this to me, its awful.
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# ¿ Jan 12, 2014 01:46 |
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Well poo poo, my review is next week. I've taken roughly four days off sick recently and its just hit me again. I really don't want to take more time off just before my review but I don't want to give it to anyone else. Bit of a pickle and its making me really angry. Two weeks from now and I wouldn't care.
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# ¿ Jan 14, 2014 23:33 |
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Yeah, I really don't want to put this on anyone else. I think i'll offer to work from home, I can remote in and use my mobile to call customers back (better than the work phone lines right now anyway) and I won't give it to people. Just gotta see if my boss would be ok with me doing that.
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# ¿ Jan 15, 2014 00:19 |
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Users who open tickets, ask you to contact them via mobile because they won't be in the office and then won't pick up the phone because they don't recognise the number are both dumb and annoying.
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# ¿ Jan 16, 2014 10:17 |
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Glad I decided to pop into work even though i'm ill. My manager saw me, told me to go back to the doctor and that i'll still get paid and it won't affect my salary review next week. That illness isn't pissing me off so much anymore VVVVVVVVVVVVV I think a lot of the hate of Java is because so many places try to teach you it via oracle. dogstile fucked around with this message at 18:41 on Jan 16, 2014 |
# ¿ Jan 16, 2014 18:12 |
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mllaneza posted:Speaking of Java, Java 7 R51 won't run an app that doesn't have it's permissions set right. That's gonna break a whole bunch of infrastructure, including probably our Cisco GUI clients. What bothers me about Java isn't Java, its the devs. My company supports a program that needs a certain version of Java to run. They're bringing out a newer version that won't run on the old version and the old version isn't going to be updated. That's going to be fun to support when clients end up getting both.
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# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 12:17 |
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QuiteEasilyDone posted:Which is also why plenty of techs that I see are content to remain uncertified, don't build out a lab to learn new things, or seek meaningful improvements in how they do things. Stagnate in a helpdesk or support position and do the bare minimum necessary to scrape by. I'm new to the field. See it constantly. And it is absolutely the poo poo that pisses me off constantly/daily/hourly. Some of us apparently aren't allowed to improve. I was reading a powershell book in my lunch break and got told I should be eating or relaxing, not studying so I can get to work with a refreshed brain. I mean, its not like he can legally stop me but he mentions it every time I read the bloody thing. Being uncertified is fine though, i've realised that with the majority of certs people take them, ace the poo poo out of them (like I did with my Cisco) and then immediately forget them because it takes them ages to find a job that uses said certs (again, like I did). I mean, it helps you learn a lot faster on the job, but most certified people i've seen are either guys my age who have just graduated and know nothing or are older techies who know the stuff anyway and get certified because their job is paying for it.
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# ¿ Jan 20, 2014 15:31 |
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Che Delilas posted:He doesn't want you to improve because if you do, eventually you'll be worth more than they're willing to pay (or at least, the difference will be too much for you to swallow) and you'll find a better job at a better company. Of course he can't stop you, so passive-aggressive manipulations are the preferred recourse. My review is in three days at least, so we'll see if he bumps my pay up another grand or two. I'd be willing to settle for an extra £110 or so a month, which is me being loving nice because i'm literally the lowest paid person at the company and still would be if I swallowed that down.
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# ¿ Jan 20, 2014 19:11 |
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Che Delilas posted:When you say, "we'll see if he bumps my pay up," what you mean is, "I expect a positive review and when I get it, I'm going to ask for a pay bump," right? I mean, he could offer but most of the time that's not how it works. That's what I mean, i'm going to go ahead and ask. If not i'll just look for a job closer to home. No point sticking around if a job closer to home doing the same thing for the same pay crops up, it'll cost me less in both time and money.
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# ¿ Jan 20, 2014 19:43 |
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My rooms manager can go gently caress himself. Its perfectly ok for him to sit around and talk about battlefield four when he wants but when i'm actually talking about work he's been telling me to shut up and get back to work lately. Yes sir, sorry sir, i'll just work on this without finding out what the previous techie did sir, that'll totally help and we won't step over eachother sir. gently caress you. You're not even my real manager!
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# ¿ Jan 22, 2014 11:31 |
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Literally as I type this I am listening to the manager I was complaining about yesterday tell a guy that if he needs to go to the loo to tell him. Oh dear, this isn't making me want to stay. That's toxic as gently caress. Plus side, salary review in 40 minutes. Lets hope they give me that raise I want so i'm not the lowest paid person in the company, otherwise i'm going to
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# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 11:21 |
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rolleyes posted:Is she actually a real manager or just someone in a similar position with a bit more seniority? I'm asking as even the most elementary management training tells you that micromanagement (especially to that degree) destroys trust and morale. You shouldn't even need training for that since it's pretty much common sense, but here we are. He's just a knob when he's in a bad mood and the guy is his target. They're a real manager, they manage advanced support while we're just the peons working first line (unless its a database issue, its our job to fix it). So yeah, power drunk. Verizian posted:"Hey boss, gonna go take a massive poo poo now. May be a while as there's been blood and weird green chunks in it for a few weeks but my doc says I just need to use softer TP and stop eating so many sugar-free lime gummi bears." A variant of this was said 10 minutes after he was told he needed to let him know. I told him to keep at it, being passive aggressive to the point of them getting tired of it is satisfying and you're not gonna get chewed out because you're doing exactly what they said.
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# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 12:37 |
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Well, didn't get the raise, the closest thing is a £40 bonus that I don't even get now that can be taken away each month if i'm late/sick. I'm 8 months away from getting an actual raise. When I took the job I was told I got a salary review every 3 months and that each time it would go up, which is why it started out low pay, which I was originally suspicious of. Should have gone with my gut feeling, but i'd been out of a job for 7 months and was kind of desperate. gently caress today. VVVVV Exactly, he should have just said no. I have a feeling I would have handled a no far better than a "here you go peon, have some scraps". dogstile fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Jan 23, 2014 |
# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 13:46 |
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rolleyes posted:Could've sworn you said it was a she before, pity my terrible memory. Ah well, being a knob is gender neutral, despite the term. Don't worry about it, you had a 50/50 chance and got it wrong, its not like you had any real way to check But yes, being a knob is indeed gender neutral, unfortunately. If it was restricted to one gender I could at least have an easier time verifying potential knobs!
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# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 16:06 |
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# ¿ Mar 29, 2024 06:06 |
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So where's a good start for SQL that isn't loving oracle? I tried oracle before and it was loving horrible.
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# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 23:31 |