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Neddy Seagoon
Oct 12, 2012

"Hi Everybody!"

sfwarlock posted:

9/16 (Wed)
Team: "Hey we have a serious problem, the 1st and 15th reports are coming back wildly inaccurate."
IT: "How do you know the numbers are inaccurate, do you have a crosscheck?"
Team: "If you managed a bar, and your numbers said you sold ten dollars worth of booze on a Friday night, you'd get suspicious, yeah?"
IT: "Okay, good point. [sfwarlock] wrote the documentation on setting up that process, let's have him dig into it."
Team: "Please have him hurry, there's serious financial implications here."

9/17 (Thurs)
I pull overtime.

9/18 (Fri)
I pull overtime.

9/19 (Sat)
Me: "Okay, I have this replicated. If 'Step 6: Reboot and wait 15 minutes' is skipped, everything will look right on the client end, but the updates won't get made on the server."
Team: "There's no such step. Step 6 is (something else)"
Me: "Yes there is, I wrote this... mys...."
Me: "Yeah, it looks like Ben Fakename from your team modified the server copy of the documentation and removed that step. Along with five others."
Team: "..."

9/21 (Mon)
Team: "Let's jump on a call and discuss this procedural problem."
Me: "Yes please, I'd love to know what your boy is doing rewriting setup instructions."

(the call never happened, but later email thread went a little something like this:)

Team: "We're working on streamlining our procedures."
Me: "Well, unstreamline this one, you done broke it."
Ben: "I did it right! I spent a whole week testing after everything I removed and seeing if the client still worked!"
Me: "Do you think I sat here, and, what, came up with extra steps to waste your time? Everything in that procedure is necessary."
Ben: "We don't have time to follow it, it extends setup time unacceptably."

At this point, someone four paygrades up stepped in. We'll call him Laidback Larry.

Larry: "Gentlemen, gentlemen, let's just agree to disagree on this difference of opinion. Now, can we think outside the box and reimagine this setup process so it's faster and more efficient?"
Me: "Trust me, I've tried, we're working with a third-party client and an external provider. I didn't just sit down and whip out this procedure, I worked it down already until it was the best that could be done."
Larry: "Well, [sfwarlock], don't you agree that a second set of eyes and hands is always helpful? Have you tried reaching out to the provider for assistance, maybe for their best practices? It seems like Ben is the go-to guy for trimming the fat out of procedures, so let's have you two do some 'Pair Programming' on this and see what you can come up with to lighten the load?"

I can see the next week of my life, and it's going to be a repeat of this chucklefuck going "can I skip THIS step? what about THIS one? oh c'mon you have to let me skip SOMETHING... what about THIS one?"

I think Laidback Larry is a dumbass who thinks he sees an easy opportunity to look good all round by "assisting" in streamlining old procedures into shiny new efficient ones AND mitigate two disagreeing team members. When anyone smart would've taken two seconds to see the procedures exist as-is for a reason and be having words with Ben about not playing with procedures that relate to presumably-stupid amounts of money.

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Wibla
Feb 16, 2011

I'm so happy I don't work in IT. It's bad enough in industrial automation :smith:

Renegret
May 26, 2007

THANK YOU FOR CALLING HELP DOG, INC.

YOUR POSITION IN THE QUEUE IS *pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbt*


Cat Army Sworn Enemy

Agrikk posted:

gently caress this loving motherfucker for loving making you so irritated that you posted this story and triggering me.


I once was in charge of a hardware refresh for an IVR so I deciphered how the existing one was set up with the help of the IVR team and built a new IVR in a lab on the new hardware. For various reasons the lab environment couldn’t be “turned into new prod” but had to be formatted and rebuilt from scratch.

My step by step instructions were something like twenty pages but they were bombproof. I literally gave them to an intern who was able to build an IVR from scratch using only my document.

So I ship the servers and the document to the site and they start building and when it’s done everything is hosed. Nothing works, database won’t initialize, no dialtones, poo poo won’t boot properly, nothing.

After getting yelled at for my bullshit doc (but the intern came to my defense!) by the site manager, it turns out the first two pages about installing the Sun One directory server on a pair of machines that handled service auth between all the different boxes were skipped by the order of the site manager “because we use windows here”.

No, he hadn’t tried setting up the Genesis software to use AD. He literally just skipped two pages of install instructions all the while talking bullshit about my abilities.

What a piece of poo poo.

I want to dropkick this dude

Dirt Road Junglist
Oct 8, 2010

We will be cruel
And through our cruelty
They will know who we are
I'd be writing a strongly worded email to Laidback Larry's boss, asking why he's second guessing my expertise.

Also, having flashbacks to the team we acquired in Tel Aviv who flat out, in so many words, refused to do any troubleshooting steps we asked of them. They literally, "NO TROUBLESHOOT, ONLY FIX"ed us. I eventually had to tell the acquisitions manager that they were on their own for any future issues if they refused to follow basic instructions.

The one blessing to COVID is that we don't have managers thinking every site needs provisioning services, regardless of their actual infrastructure or the training of their dependent teams (or, god forbid, contractors).

dragonshardz
May 2, 2017

Dirt Road Junglist posted:

I'd be writing a strongly worded email to Laidback Larry's boss, asking why he's second guessing my expertise.

Also, having flashbacks to the team we acquired in Tel Aviv who flat out, in so many words, refused to do any troubleshooting steps we asked of them. They literally, "NO TROUBLESHOOT, ONLY FIX"ed us. I eventually had to tell the acquisitions manager that they were on their own for any future issues if they refused to follow basic instructions.

The one blessing to COVID is that we don't have managers thinking every site needs provisioning services, regardless of their actual infrastructure or the training of their dependent teams (or, god forbid, contractors).

Ugh, expecting you to fix something without troubleshooting it is the worst.

Second worst is being asked why $randomemail got stuck in the spam filter, and then being disagreed with when you say probably because it looked like spam.

:byodame: "But we've corresponded with this person for YEARS!"

Doesn't matter, the spam filter is a pattern matching machine that doesn't take personal relationships into account.

Kazinsal
Dec 13, 2011



dragonshardz posted:

Ugh, expecting you to fix something without troubleshooting it is the worst.

Second worst is being asked why $randomemail got stuck in the spam filter, and then being disagreed with when you say probably because it looked like spam.

:byodame: "But we've corresponded with this person for YEARS!"

Doesn't matter, the spam filter is a pattern matching machine that doesn't take personal relationships into account.

"Isn't Office 365 supposed to have some kind of AI thing that helps with that?" is one I've heard at least twice in the past few months.

Sure, it has "AI". The "AI" thinks your correspondence is poo poo, too.

Moo the cow
Apr 30, 2020

I don't think it's too unreasonable for a spam filter to look at an email and think 'hmm, these two addresses have been emailing back and forth happily every day for the last 700 days, perhaps I won't suddenly junk this reply because it isn't long enough'

Runcible Cat
May 28, 2007

Ignoring this post

klosterdev posted:

Do I need to start writing "or else and this is why" next to every step that could potentially be ignored out of laziness?

I do.

I still have to deal Catalina Macbooks out in the wild that I can't get remote access to because the single goddamn tick they need to give me remote access hasn't been ticked.

Anything else they need that's missed I can sort out IF REMOTE ACCESS loving WORKS. I say that in the document. And yet.

:sad trombone:

orange sky
May 7, 2007

dragonshardz posted:

Ugh, expecting you to fix something without troubleshooting it is the worst.

Second worst is being asked why $randomemail got stuck in the spam filter, and then being disagreed with when you say probably because it looked like spam.

:byodame: "But we've corresponded with this person for YEARS!"

Doesn't matter, the spam filter is a pattern matching machine that doesn't take personal relationships into account.

Yeah this is bullshit in any case and spam filters are bad at filtering spam

Soylent Pudding
Jun 22, 2007

We've got people!


Makes sense to me to have spam filtering look at longstanding communications. The majority of the successful spam based infections I've seen haven't been random emails from Nigerian royalty but from a company with bad security that got popped. Bob's Artisanal Dildorium gets infected and then the virus propagates by emailing all contacts. Then someone at WidgetCorp says "oh, it's the monthly company branded dildo invoice, better open this email even though the writing is nothing like Bob's and the attachment is named funny."

Raerlynn
Oct 28, 2007

Sorry I'm late, I'm afraid I got lost on the path of life.

Dirt Road Junglist posted:

I'd be writing a strongly worded email to Laidback Larry's boss, asking why he's second guessing my expertise.

This. I'd ask why you're even in the conversation then - either they don't trust your work, in which case they're wasting your time since your input is not valued or they do trust your work, in which case they're needlessly second guessing you.

And that's before you point out you had to pull overtime to fix a completely avoidable issue that only emerged because Bob went off script and hosed it up.

Lack of accountability in IT triggers me something fierce these days man.

Thanks Ants
May 21, 2004

#essereFerrari


Is there any cloud storage that actually works with people's 400MB Indesign files, or do I have to teach a creative department how to check folders in/out using git?

Methanar
Sep 26, 2013

by the sex ghost
Don't store large binaries in git.

They don't diff or deduplicate. And they're near impossible to remove once committed

Dirt Road Junglist
Oct 8, 2010

We will be cruel
And through our cruelty
They will know who we are

Methanar posted:

Don't store large binaries in git.

They don't diff or deduplicate. And they're near impossible to remove once committed

This. There’s a blob option, but no one uses it because it sucks and is terrible.

Google Backup and Sync with the file sync whatever option, if you’re a GApps house?

Methanar
Sep 26, 2013

by the sex ghost
comedy option

S3 bucket with versioning mounted as an NFS drive
https://github.com/s3fs-fuse/s3fs-fuse

Methanar fucked around with this message at 18:45 on Sep 22, 2020

Powered Descent
Jul 13, 2008

We haven't had that spirit here since 1969.

Thanks Ants posted:

Is there any cloud storage that actually works with people's 400MB Indesign files, or do I have to teach a creative department how to check folders in/out using git?

mega.nz works great with large files. It's a common place to host multi-gig pirated movies, for example. But for that exact reason, some people do consider it a bit shady -- it was founded by Kim Dotcom as a successor to Megaupload, but with paranoid client-side encryption everywhere to make it a lot harder for the feds to do to it what they did to Megaupload. Carefully consider what eyebrows might be raised before you consider proposing it to the corporate powers that be.

dragonshardz
May 2, 2017

Moo the cow posted:

I don't think it's too unreasonable for a spam filter to look at an email and think 'hmm, these two addresses have been emailing back and forth happily every day for the last 700 days, perhaps I won't suddenly junk this reply because it isn't long enough'

It's not an unreasonable expectation, however, spam filters are dumb pattern matchers and care not.

Agrikk
Oct 17, 2003

Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.

Methanar posted:

comedy option

S3 bucket with versioning mounted as an NFS drive
https://github.com/s3fs-fuse/s3fs-fuse

I'll see your NFS drive and raise you Windows mapped drives!

https://tntdrive.com/

TITTIEKISSER69
Mar 19, 2005

SAVE THE BEES
PLANT MORE TREES
CLEAN THE SEAS
KISS TITTIESS




Kazinsal posted:

"Isn't Office 365 supposed to have some kind of AI thing that helps with that?" is one I've heard at least twice in the past few months.

Sure, it has "AI". The "AI" thinks your correspondence is poo poo, too.

klosterdev
Oct 10, 2006

Na na na na na na na na Batman!
That feeling when a flood of calls and tickets about the new system makes you happy because they're actually using the new system instead of waiting until the old one is gone and suddenly we learn a bunch of specific use-cases need to be addressed.

I mean that's basically what happened but I let word permeate that I'm about to axe the old way and nature ran its course.

ssb
Feb 16, 2006

WOULD YOU ACCOMPANY ME ON A BRISK WALK? I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK WITH YOU!!


I'm not inherently against having someone else review procedures. I've found plenty of procedures that were supposedly as efficient as they could be that could actually be reduced down to running a single shell script or outright omit a huge portion of the document because it either was redundant or addressed something that hadn't existed for years.

However - I don't just blindly change procedures, I either talk to whoever wrote the procedure (or at least knows anything about it if that person left years ago) before starting and/or when complete.

There are some procedures that anyone involved with writing left years ago but they're just stuff about "how linux works" that's changed and nothing that isn't inherently obvious.

So far I haven't broken anything and I've been doing it for a decade. Reviewing and streamlining poo poo is critical.

The actual problem here is their complete dismissal of everything that sfwarlock is telling them without even any specifics of why he's mistaken on something that could either be "oh yeah i guess that would work" or "no that won't work because XYZ" discussion. It's just some sort of hosed up concept that EVERYTHING can and should be streamlined and shortened. That's horeseshit. Review everything periodically - yes. Shorten everything - no, especially when given a laundry list of reasons why it can't be.

duz
Jul 11, 2005

Come on Ilhan, lets go bag us a shitpost


Also crucially, if you removed a step that looked like it wasn't needed and everything broke, you put the step back in.

Dr. Arbitrary
Mar 15, 2006

Bleak Gremlin

duz posted:

Also crucially, if you removed a step that looked like it wasn't needed and everything broke, you put the step back in.

Can't you just make it so that removing the step doesn't break things, tia

GreenNight
Feb 19, 2006
Turning the light on the darkest places, you and I know we got to face this now. We got to face this now.

Like if you drive your car but forget the step to close your door, how stupid are you? It's the same thing.

Is how I relate to our users.

RFC2324
Jun 7, 2012

http 418

Processes do need to be reviewed occasionally to catch steps that have become obsolete, but review is not "blindly yank steps and claim you were right when it breaks poo poo"

E: to use the above analogy, you can likely eliminate the "close door" step when technology advances to self closing doors, or we go Mad Max and doors get in the way during your water raids

Dr. Arbitrary
Mar 15, 2006

Bleak Gremlin

GreenNight posted:

Like if you drive your car but forget the step to close your door, how stupid are you? It's the same thing.

Is how I relate to our users.

I've opened a car door while the vehicle was in very slow motion and it raised a holy racket of alarms. But I'm also realizing that there's probably a lot of people who don't know and will never know that there's an alarm for that. It's also making me wonder what stupid stuff there's alarms for that are so dumb that it didn't even occur to me that you could do them.

bobmarleysghost
Mar 7, 2006



GreenNight posted:

Like if you drive your car but forget the step to close your door, how stupid are you? It's the same thing.

Is how I relate to our users.

I don't think using a car door analogy would work here because they can just say "but when I start driving it would just close itself, make your steps automatic too".

Gotta use something like "the step you want to remove is putting the gear into drive"

RFC2324
Jun 7, 2012

http 418

Dr. Arbitrary posted:

I've opened a car door while the vehicle was in very slow motion and it raised a holy racket of alarms. But I'm also realizing that there's probably a lot of people who don't know and will never know that there's an alarm for that. It's also making me wonder what stupid stuff there's alarms for that are so dumb that it didn't even occur to me that you could do them.

I open my car door while in motion all the time(like once every year or two) because of the door ajar light on the dash, never got any extra alarm.

GreenNight
Feb 19, 2006
Turning the light on the darkest places, you and I know we got to face this now. We got to face this now.

Some cars are more stupid proof than others. My dads new car will beep at you if you cross the center line without a turn signal.

RFC2324
Jun 7, 2012

http 418

GreenNight posted:

Some cars are more stupid proof than others. My dads new car will beep at you if you cross the center line without a turn signal.

One day I'll pay for the antistupid features

Weedle
May 31, 2006




GreenNight posted:

Some cars are more stupid proof than others. My dads new car will beep at you if you cross the center line without a turn signal.

bmws should have this feature except it electrocutes the driver

Jaded Burnout
Jul 10, 2004


RFC2324 posted:

I open my car door while in motion all the time(like once every year or two) because of the door ajar light on the dash, never got any extra alarm.

I learned quickly to stop doing this as a kid, because I used to lock the door in my dad's car and muck around with the internal handle, until I tried it once in a relative's car which had the safety innovation that if you pull the handle from the inside it doesn't give a drat if it's locked or not, and we happened to be doing 80mph.

RFC2324
Jun 7, 2012

http 418

Jaded Burnout posted:

I learned quickly to stop doing this as a kid, because I used to lock the door in my dad's car and muck around with the internal handle, until I tried it once in a relative's car which had the safety innovation that if you pull the handle from the inside it doesn't give a drat if it's locked or not, and we happened to be doing 80mph.

I only do this as the driver at <20mph and am hardcore about seatbelts. I always assumed the wind would force it shut at high speeds :ohdear:

Jaded Burnout
Jul 10, 2004


RFC2324 posted:

I only do this as the driver at <20mph and am hardcore about seatbelts. I always assumed the wind would force it shut at high speeds :ohdear:

Well, I was wearing a seatbelt, and maybe the wind would have, but as it goes an adult reached over and slammed it shut.

The Fool
Oct 16, 2003


Those drat adults

duz
Jul 11, 2005

Come on Ilhan, lets go bag us a shitpost


GreenNight posted:

Some cars are more stupid proof than others. My dads new car will beep at you if you cross the center line without a turn signal.

Mine rumbles the steering wheel when that happens. Sometimes the self steering functionality will cause it to touch the paint and that triggers the warning rumble as well so in essence the car is yelling at itself.

sfwarlock
Aug 11, 2007

duz posted:

Also crucially, if you removed a step that looked like it wasn't needed and everything broke, you put the step back in.

The insidious thing with modification he made to the process is that the external thing will talk to the computer and the computer will talk to the server and everything looks okay.

Except the data from the external thing is being rejected by the server but nothing in the middle of the chain knows that.

wolrah
May 8, 2006
what?

sfwarlock posted:

The insidious thing with modification he made to the process is that the external thing will talk to the computer and the computer will talk to the server and everything looks okay.

Except the data from the external thing is being rejected by the server but nothing in the middle of the chain knows that.
That sounds like something that should be considered a top priority client bug, if it just ignores server rejections.

Of course because this sounds like "enterprise" type software I'm sure any suggestion that this is a problem will be met with negative care while they continue to make pointless changes to the UI instead.

RFC2324
Jun 7, 2012

http 418

wolrah posted:

That sounds like something that should be considered a top priority client bug, if it just ignores server rejections.

Of course because this sounds like "enterprise" type software I'm sure any suggestion that this is a problem will be met with negative care while they continue to make pointless changes to the UI instead.

It only ignores the rejection if the document isn't followed so that it gets registered correctly!

So yeah, its a "works for me" bug

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Thanks Ants
May 21, 2004

#essereFerrari


Is anybody using OpenVPN Cloud? I set up a test and linked the auth to our Azure AD really easily, and the performance looks as good as the OpenVPN access server we were hosting locally before.

I quite like the idea that the authentication side of things is managed entirely by OpenVPN so that if something goes horribly wrong that breaks RADIUS I can still get in without having to have a local account configured somewhere. Also the way you can choose to connect individual servers to the VPN cloud, or deploy the connectors to route/NAT traffic onto the rest of your LAN, it's quite good if there's only a few hosts behind the VPN that people need access to. The way that the connectors make outbound connections to the OpenVPN service also means I can remove a couple more inbound firewall rules which is nice, and if a site fails over to 4G where there isn't a public IP I can still get to things via VPN.

The pricing is per-connection and each OpenVPN connector for routing to a LAN or a service counts as one connection so the costs can grow fairly quickly. It looks a little bit on the expensive side but for lower connection counts it could be decent.

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