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So we had a lunch meeting yesterday afternoon with Me, my boss and the contractor that kind of works for us. We talked about projects coming up, and general issues and one of our clients intermittent issues came up. Their computers are "slow". Boss and Contractor:"We need to install more RAM!" Me: "I've looked into this. Peak RAM usage is around 76%.. i don't think it'll make a diff..." Boss and Contractor: "MORE RAM!" So I get to go to the site today and install more RAM. To be honest, I'm surprised they didn't make me install a bunch of 128GB SSDs as well.
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Jan 12, 2018 17:35
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Data Graham posted:And you know they'll all just magically get faster afterwards, for an unrelated reason. Systems have 8GB RAM and 500gb WD blues in there already. If the RAM usage is maxing out at maybe 50%, why throw another 8GB in? Will the SSDs improve the performance of their local system? Yes. Will the SSDs fix the 'speed' issues they are having? I dont think so. I was onsite swapping out the DB9->Ethernet adapters the use on site and sat down with the receptionist and hammered out the issues. Most of the office has issues with the practice management app which is hosted on the server. The only PC showing non server based app issues is one of the doctors, but he has chrome with over 25 tabs open. The SSD may help him, but also a "why do you need 50 tabs open" conversation may also fix the issue.
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Jan 16, 2018 01:08
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Proteus Jones posted:Wait. What? They have a 15 or 20 year old sterilizer. Boss ran a dedicated Ethernet cable with two DB9->Ethernet adapters to manage the log dump.
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Jan 16, 2018 01:18
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Proteus Jones posted:Oh, OK. It worked for three months and died... two years ago and nobody noticed. So I replaced the ones on site and its still broken, we think it is a dead serial board in the sterilizer now so the doc has to figure out if its worth fixing or just repalce it. blackswordca fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Jan 16, 2018 |
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Jan 16, 2018 01:21
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So a phone call came in. "Hey, you guys sold us a printer in September. We decided we aren't going to use it anymore and want to return it for a refund" Yeah.. good luck with that.
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Jan 25, 2018 20:11
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Judge Schnoopy posted:That's not how buying things work! I'm pretty sure the conversation with the owner will involve the words: "But we're a struggling small business" It seems to be the standard response when trying to do something that doesn't makes sense. Renegret posted:What do we look like? Costco? I just told my boss and this is literally what he said. blackswordca fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Jan 25, 2018 |
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Jan 25, 2018 20:19
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Welp, Boss is giving a full refund plus a discount on labor for the initial setup. I just.... I dont know.
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Jan 25, 2018 23:41
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Renegret posted:Mind if I swing by to pick up my 1/4 pound hot dog and drink (with free refill)? ok, but FYI the ice cream machine is broken
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Jan 25, 2018 23:51
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Thanks Ants posted:I'm gonna swing by and drop off the lunch I ate yesterday. Can I get a refund? Yes, and a $25 gift card as well apparently. edit: Got a call for an interview with a new place, so  ?
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Jan 26, 2018 00:00
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Thanks Ants posted:I'm more amazed at discounting the labour on the original install to be honest - that time can never be spent on another customer whereas at least a printer can. The constant fear of losing a client that may break you so you give more than you should and it escalates. For my boss, on a personal level, the guy is nice and will bend over backwards for you. On a professional level, hes late paying me all the time, he shorts me hours, and constantly contradicts what his expectations are depending on what the situation is. I can have a beer with the guy, wont be able to work with him again.
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Jan 26, 2018 00:50
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So the returned printers came in.. three of them. One of them is the one that we sold them. Two of them are here as well and I have no idea why. I assume we are recycling them. No boxes, no cables, nothing just printers. Looking forward to seeing the bosses reaction when he gets into the office
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Jan 26, 2018 22:58
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So a major project came in. This is the first project I've done onsite with the boss/owner of the company I work for. So last night I work a full day, then drive to the client site to deploy a completely new environment. New servers, workstations, network equipment domain and an onsite exchange server. We get some bad weather, roads are slippery and terrible. Takes me over an hour to do what is normally a 20 minute trip. Get to the site, boss shows me around and the client leaves. Boss: "Ok, get going with the server setup and data transfer, I'm going to a concert. See you tomorrow" and he leaves. So I start the server to server data transfer, setup some basic things up and go home because I can do most of this remotely. I don't need to be there until the data transfer is actually completed sometime the next day. Later that night I get a text. "Hey, sorry for bailing on you, meet me at *restaurant by client site* at 9:30, ill buy you breakfast. So I think, OK, sounds good. This morning rolls around. I'm half way to the client site. I get a text from the boss "Hey, swing by the office and grab 3 red 2" patch cables and a wireless mouse and keyboard set." Its literally on the opposite end of the city from where I am. Plows have only been on a few of the major arteries and almost no sand or salt has been put out so roads are still slick and slow going. Takes me about an hour to get there. Pull into the parking lot, get into the office and I get another text. "Hey, I'm leaving the restaurant, see you at the client site" I really hope the interview I went to on Thursday pans out... blackswordca fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Feb 3, 2018 |
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Feb 3, 2018 18:33
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Collateral Damage posted:2" patch cables seems like they're not very useful. Oops, meant 2' Just got home after a 14 hour day. Have to go back tomorrow with a bunch of SSDs because the boss forgot to tell me that all the workstations were getting HDD upgrades. Plus I have to "fix" a licensing issue with a decades old dictation program not releasing the license back to the USB fob..
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Feb 4, 2018 07:07
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Proteus Jones posted:2 foot cables? The only *possible* way I can see those working is to connect a VOIP phone in a cubicle where the network ports are desk height. But even then it seems to be a poor choice in length as it really limits phone placement based on personal preference. He uses them to go from the patch panel to the switch mostly.
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Feb 4, 2018 07:20
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Coming up to hour 48 on client site and this has been a total poo poo show. Server is still hosed and not working. Copying data from two different sources at the same time crashes it. Exchange isn't properly configured and not syncing with AD so email cant be setup. The SSD imaging method the boss wanted me to use doesn't work with the clients new desktops. I had to go back to the office, make a bootable USB key for a different tool, because the three USB keys we brought on site are all dead. I'm giving the shop a once over before I leave to make sure that I don't have to come back again today. Then I get to be onsite tomorrow most of the day to "resolve issues". At this rate I wouldn't be surprised if the server had to be fully rebuilt. Again. Because we had to rebuild it last week for reasons I wasn't told.
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Feb 4, 2018 22:47
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So a phone call came in... ... with a job offer working with a large bank. Its not helpdesk so no more fixing printers or crap like that. Plus the 50% pay raise is nice too! Ill be supporting one or two internal apps. By supporting them I mean calling the vendor when it breaks.
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Feb 8, 2018 16:37
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Antioch posted:Congratulations man, that's excellent! Servus. Have a close friend who recommended me for the position.
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Feb 9, 2018 19:06
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Antioch posted:Oh poo poo you're coming to work with meeeeeee! Should be by end of month. I have to get bonded, background check and all that.
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Feb 9, 2018 19:43
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So an email came in... Staples now does MSP support in Canada.. my boss is very unhappy about this
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Feb 16, 2018 18:37
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Avenging_Mikon posted:AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAaaaaaaaaaaaaa The country is filled with terrible MSPs, what's one more?
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Feb 16, 2018 19:00
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Thanks Ants posted:Is your boss unhappy because he doesn't see how he's meant to be able to compete with the shower of poo poo that will be Staples IT Support Inc? Hes worried they'll pull a Walmart. Undercut all the small MSPs and drive them out .
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Feb 16, 2018 19:08
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Avenging_Mikon posted:I don't think you quite grasp that magnitude of how lovely Staples tech people are. Also, how few there are. In all of Edmonton, there were 2 competent technicians that could do on-site repairs for customers who wanted to pay for in-home services. And that was stuff that took an hour or two. Getting enough people to have multiple people capable of multiple hours at multiple clients per day is ludicrous. They're going to lose businesses the first time they say "I'm sorry, no one can be there today or tomorrow, does Thursday work for you?" Years ago I applied at Staples to be a tech.. they told me I had to sit on a till for 1 year before I could do it.
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Feb 16, 2018 19:13
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Looks like the Staples MSP is just a re-branded MSP out of Toronto called Jolera. I haven't found customer reviews of them, but employee reviews are bog standard MSP. Either "This is the worst place on Earth!" or "Im from HR and was told to give us a 5* rating"
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Feb 16, 2018 22:50
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suuma posted:People use the brackets? Half the IT guys here just let the thing hang in the case my boss double sided tapes them to the side of the case.
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Feb 22, 2018 18:06
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TITTIEKISSER69 posted:This ain't a desktop computer, it's gotta connect to a backplane. In any case, I ended up doing this: I never said it was a good idea. He just uses double sided tape and velcro for everything.
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Feb 22, 2018 18:50
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Welp, looks like all the I's dotted and T's crossed. Giving notice Monday and starting at the new job two weeks later.
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Feb 24, 2018 00:26
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Antioch posted:My working theory is every executive is a total asshat, and the ones that aren't are just faking it. Ive always found that the executives that are good tend to bounce around companies a lot. The bad ones, the ones that have hit peak upwards failing, are the ones that stay because they have nowhere else to go.
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Feb 27, 2018 04:24
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If you get the ultimate boot cd, boot to it you should be able to activate the built in admin account and set a password. You'll have to launch Parted then reset windows password in the GUI. This will start the chntpw app. You should be able to activate from there. I've never tried it with Win 10, but works fine with Win 7.
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Mar 8, 2018 00:48
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Went to the desk of the guy training me to learn about the apps I support. Came back to.my desk and the laptop and monitors had white paint all over them. Seems a contractor was in painting and didn't bother with a drop cloth. Side note he didn't do a good job. There are air bubbles in the paint the size.of my finger blackswordca fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Mar 20, 2018 |
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Mar 20, 2018 17:55
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GreenNight posted:Now complain your equipment keeps crashing and you need a new laptop. I do have to say going from "admin access to everything" to "need a manager signed request to install chrome" is a bit of a challenge.
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Mar 20, 2018 18:46
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Methanar posted:It's disappointing how barren Edmonton is. If I ever need to get a real job again I'm screwed. Lots of crappy msp work you want it
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Mar 20, 2018 21:40
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Methanar posted:I said real job Yeah.. But unless you know someone at an educational facility or in the government, msp is your option
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Mar 20, 2018 22:34
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Thanks Ants posted:Actually Windows admins install a load of poo poo like LogMeIn or TeamViewer on domain controllers because VPN is Doubly for MSP's. PowerShell and CLI in general is heavily locked down because phone drones aren't trusted with it. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of rdp/remote control software windows admins started as phone support..
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Mar 26, 2018 21:20
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The Fool posted:I know that when I was at an MSP, we ran GoToAssist on everything. No-one wanted to spend the time to setup a management vpn unless you could bill the customer for it, and the customers never had an interest in paying for something that wasn't a direct and immediate benefit. To be fair most MSP clients don't want to pay for anything that gives a direct and immediate benefit either. Most just want to pay the minimum possible to keep what fires they do have mostly under control.
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Mar 26, 2018 21:30
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GWBBQ posted:A ticket came in: If it's windows 10 it may be a bad update. Kb4074588 if memory serves occasionally doesn't install right. All USB stops working on the pc when it messes up. If you have remote control access or the pc has ps2 support you can uninstall the patch and reboot. USB should work. If you reinstall the patch it seems to go through fine the second time. Edit: I've tried doing system restores but they always seem to be corrupted with these messed up ms patches. Worst case is a reimage sadly blackswordca fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Apr 4, 2018 |
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Apr 4, 2018 20:18
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gently caress it, just reimage the computer after class
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Judge Schnoopy posted:My new job will have nothing to do with internal IT. I can't wait to no longer be flooded with emails when a thing is down. It's fantastic. At the new job and I'm only responsible for a handful of internal apps. Internet access just died here. Glad it's a not my problem event.
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Apr 4, 2018 20:53
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Renegret posted:Client doesn't know what a VLAN is either I'm guessing? That's assuming that vlans are used. My old boss never used them because the contractor at the company said they didn't work well. I think it's because he didn't know how to use them but I'm just guessing.
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Apr 5, 2018 15:56
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Judge Schnoopy posted:"This Netgear switch doesn't route between VLANs and figuring out security zones on my firewall is too hard. Of course we don't have a dedicated router why would we. A flat network works just fine!" Replace 'dont have a dedicated router' with 'Cheapest fortigate possible' and you are right.
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Apr 5, 2018 16:10
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It's nice to see that vendor support is the same for any size company. One of the programs I admin had to renew licensing for the dev environment. I emailed tye vendor got the new license and applied it. Everything worked except for one module. It was throwing a licensing error. I emailed back saying that the license was missing for the module and asked for an updated license file. I was told that wasn't the problem and I had to go through support. A week passes and they can't find any issues from my emails so I webex the support tech onto the dev server. He looks around for two minutes and says " you are missing the license for that module, get licensing to generate you a new one. "
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Apr 6, 2018 19:01
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So the new job is great but it seems they don't have proper policies for user pc setup. I was given a blank pc with office on it. None of the tools I need to administrate the applications im supposed to admin. It's now been a month and I've managed to get one app installed that lets me do most of my job On Friday I found out I had to admin a new app, not a big deal as my workload isn't too bad right now and the app has gotten two or three tickets in the last month. I submit a request to get the admin app installed and one of the other managers gives me poo poo for not following process. I followed up with my manager and yes, I followed process. My manager then rolled her eyes and started emailing people. The joys of working for a large corp. It's surprising how much I'm not frustrated by this. blackswordca fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Apr 23, 2018 |
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Apr 23, 2018 16:02
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