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A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
Time to christen the new thread with more bullshit from my bullshit life.

I am truly in hell. I am floundering, drowning, over-stressed, overworked, and walk in each day dreading that I will be fired for things beyond my immediate control.

A few things to have come up since last we met:

- There are no plans to rehire my employee position. I remain a one-man shop for technically an entire school district.

- When I first started this job two years ago, I was tasked with disposing of a large amount of obsolete equipment. I scheduled pickup of the equipment to be carted off and recycled and my employee, the inventory coordinator, and myself witnessed it being carted off. State inventory audit was last month, and all of that disposed equipment was still on my inventory list. This has spiraled out of control as the inventory coordinator insists the pickup never happened, despite there being paperwork proving it did. She just neglected to remove it from the system OR file the disposal with the state. Currently, this is under investigation and either she or I will be fired for it. I have recently discovered that this exact same situation is why the previous TC quit. They tried to stick him with $20k worth of "missing" equipment that was erroneously left on inventory after disposal.

- We received a sizable grant to purchase new computers for all of our academic buildings/labs. I told the grant supplier 6 months ago that my safe estimate of one year before everything is fully in place and operational. I was told two weeks ago I have until February 1st. Part of this involves upgrading our windows licensing for new versions of server and to include Windows 10. This process has been locked in stasis for over a month because Microsoft assigned the volume licensing account to a dead person and the vendor won't grant anyone access until he verifies himself that he is actually dead.

- Our web filter expired the first of the year. Well, that was the scheduled date. It actually got cut off halfway through December, which gave me about 12 hours to configure, deploy, and activate a new web filter. This has still not fully been set up, as we are a BYOD campus, all personal devices must manually install a certificate for SSL decryption. No one wants to do this because then I can see their traffic. In addition to the certificate, users are now required to log into the new web filter with their network credentials every 8 hours. No one can ever remember their usernames (first initial, last name, gently caress you), so they just ignore the login screen and then send in 20 tickets about how they can't access the internet. Students have resorted to just using personal hotspots instead of school wi-fi, because the new web filter is actually blocking things. Emails complaining about the new web filter come in daily to my boss, with a majority of students claiming that "no one likes or trusts Mr. Larchesdanrew." My confidence and feeling of self-worth has never been higher.

- Two weeks ago I was tasked with converting a conference room into a WEB conference room, which involved installing a computer, mic, and webcam. I took the opportunity to renovate the room, tech-wise. I drilled a hole through the conference table so cables could be run through, instead of over the side, and all cabling was properly routed under the floorboards and secured to the walls with new conduit. Everything looks pretty spiffy. The director now wants to take the conference phone on a trip with him, which will involve me undoing everything I just did. Why does he want a conference phone? So three people can call in and give five minute updates on their departments to our advisory board, instead of the advisory board just reading the updates like adults.

- An employee was fired for hosting almost a terabyte of pirated movies on her network drive. Can't remember if I posted this one yet.

- Our security camera system is 8 years old. It consists of 3 NVRs with four non-RAID 500GB HDDs each. They run XP embedded and lock up or just go down completely several times a day. Director yells at me constantly because the camera system doesn't work when we need it and I need to get us a new one, but director will also not approve spending money on a new camera system. "150 cameras in 8 buildings around the city? That shouldn't cost more than $5k, and that's all I'll budget for it."

- I put out 60 iPads for math faculty to use. Purchasing apps must be done via Apple's volume licensing, but they only allow you to use a credit card. The comptroller has that card and insists that only she be able to physically purchase the apps. She forgets her login every single time and resets her password, which negates the tokens assigned to the MDM, which disables all apps on all iPads until a new token is installed. Director will also not approve spending money on an MDM so I can only manage one device at a time through Mosyle.

On top of all of these things, I've got tech support, infrastructure upkeep, and administrative duties. It's all too much to handle on my own, but there's no end in sight. Meanwhile, the director just spent as much as my employee would have made in a year to take all the administration on a completely unnecessary trip to Chicago for a conference that offered no classes of use to 80% of them.

My old job at the television station is available again and it's actually looking appealing. That place was not good, but this job is soul draining and there are no other positions in driving distance.

I am a buffalo nas, and I'm almost full.

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A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
Basically.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.

Judge Schnoopy posted:

I'm starting to get a better picture of the CEs origin story.

This is my biggest revelation. I mean, the guy is undeniably the worlds biggest rear end in a top hat and a horrible mockery of a human being, but the way he interacted with coworkers is becoming more and more understandable; not defensible, just understandable.

A bunch of personal ranting because I've needed to vent for a while:

My issue is that I know exactly how to address the pitfalls and lovely projects. If I was given the opportunity to focus on one and only one at a time until it gets done, this would be a dream. And that's how it went when I had an employee. I could focus entirely on one thing and felt confident that the little things were being handled by the tech. Now I sit down to work on something and within 10 minutes a ticket will come in and I can either stop what I'm doing and address their issue or put it off and get hammered later because I made them wait. Every single situation that comes up is a catch-22. And so much comes up that I literally cannot address all of it. So many issues and requests have just fallen through the cracks because I honestly can't be in three different places at the same time. The result of that is that even coworkers and fellow administrators who had my back are now turning on me and filing complaints because their computer has been slow for a few weeks or I still haven't figured out how to install Cura in multi-user mode on a Mac or that darn VGA cable that needs to be re-run through the ceiling because the teacher's desktop monitor is green hued. All of these things that should be handled by a tech while I figure out the proper way to configure FOG so I can deploy images to all these new computers (which, by the way, I have to assemble one by one in an auditorium that constantly has classes being taught in it) or be able to sift through endless logs of web traffic to pick out sites that need to be whitelisted or any other number of things.

It's just. gently caress me; I'm only one person who can't even put in extra hours because I'm a single parent and I don't get paid enough for babysitters.

Also, the position at the television station has been filled. How loving sad that that was the light at the end of the tunnel I've been aiming for :smithicide:

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.

Judge Schnoopy posted:

Maybe you dictate your work schedule to everybody else and blame them if they don't like it. "Due to lack of manpower because the IT employee position has been cut, I will be addressing tickets on Monday Wednesday and Friday from 9 AM to 2 PM. Please wait for one of these time frames if you submit an issue."

At least then you get the point across that you cant do everything at once and are too busy to constantly keep up.

I actually tried this. Part of the computer replacement grant is that 70% of my time is to be spent on the grant. I thought that was wonderful since now I have an officially sanctioned time period to work on it and the director signed off on it so he can't bitch. So I set my office hours as 3-5 every day, the rest of the time was working on the grant.

That lasted all of three days I think before I got reported for being unhelpful because a teacher spent an entire day completely unable to teach a single thing because the batteries in her mouse ran out. After that I started running triage where I'd work on the grant but if something REALLY important came up I'd take a break to take care of it. The only problem is, according to my superior, anything that affects the faculty is priority number one, so every time one of them so much as sneezes I'm expected to drop everything to bring them a tissue, and they'll send in a ticket over the dumbest poo poo and if I don't jump high enough they apparently have a "complain about larches" template all ready to go in their email.

I wish I was in a position to tell them to gently caress themselves but this is a right to work state and I can be let go at any time for any reason and I kinda need to be employed.

ratbert90 posted:

I had 2 stepchildren at the time, and now I also have a foster daughter. I had to move my wife, my children, and my dog 1,800 miles away from my immediate family to make a better life for ourselves. It was an incredibly hard decision for me to make, but in the end, it worked out.

It was either that or go insane, and for my children's sake, I would rather not go insane.

I'd move in a heartbeat if I could take my kids with me. But mom is primary caregiver with the primary address for them. If I move, I leave them behind. I lose my children. I become "summer dad" and that's unacceptable to me. My kids are honestly the only thing I have going for me anymore, so I'm keeping them no matter what it costs me.

A Frosty Witch fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Jan 21, 2018

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.

ilkhan posted:

Why does his ex want to stay in shitsville, though?

Because she has no greater aspirations. She has everything she wants right here. Also she and her new husband just bought a restaurant so they aren't planning on going anywhere anytime soon.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
Honestly, just talking about it here has helped tremendously. I've been up since about 3:00 this morning and literally every second of this entire day I have been thinking about work and dreading going in tomorrow. 7 anonymous reports came in from students this afternoon and every one of them complained about the web filter and how it has prevented them from doing work and one student who was unable to contact her parents after her phone broke. This is nothing new, as the students in the dorms will get together and basically class action a particular issue by slamming the reporting tool with the same messages. I understand their frustration and I really hate that they're having to deal with it, but I'm doing absolutely everything in my power to get things functioning correctly. The director gets these reports so I'm 100% going to get a text from him around midnight saying I need to come see him first thing in the morning about this, and I'm going to reiterate what I've told him a hundred times that I'm overworked and have far too many projects being dumped on me.

The danger with this excuse is that it makes me appear incompetent. The line of thinking isn't "maybe he IS overworked" but more "I hired the wrong person and I need to find someone who can handle this much work." And I'm sure there's someone out there who can handle this much work. But right now I have to walk a precarious line between "I'm being worked too hard" and "I'm working too hard"

Anyways, the thing about doing what's best for my kids is complicated. I hate being stressed dad and it has resulted in my being distant or losing my poo poo way more than I'm comfortable with. But the other side of the coin is that I move off and they see me for a few months out of the year and the majority of the time they're with their narcissist mother and alcoholic step-father and I refuse to abandon them like that. I'm actually slowly building my case to seek full custody, but it just takes time. As soon as I can make that a reality, I'm out of here and they're coming with me. Honestly, I'm more likely to off myself without them than over a stressful job.

BUT, I will leave you with some CE levels of incompetency by my director. When I asked if we could consider hiring an employee for me and he said no, he revealed his master plan to me. See, the secretary for the principal just retired and they are hiring another secretary. Director wants to hire a secretary that can also assist with IT. Apparently, you can just will magical skillsets into existence if you want them hard enough and also this employee will be chomping at the bit to fill two full-time roles for $20k a year. The hilarious part is they have gone through four rounds of interviews and haven't found one person that can even do basic secretarial work, much less some sort of savant who has tech certs as well :rolleyes:

Our Advancement director just announced she is leaving as well, so his master plan for her is to move our Public Relations Coordinator into the Advancement Director position and have her also do PR. She isn't be asked to do this; he's just going to make her do it. If she doesn't agree, she loses her job and he looks for someone who is willing to do it.

He is by far the worst person I have ever had the displeasure of meeting, and people are jumping ship like crazy because of him. But since he's the equivalent of the superintendent and we only answer to the state board of education, filing complaints against him is nearly impossible.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
A network outage came in.

Our server room was basically an oven after the AC went out. I spent the whole morning attempting to get some sort of ventilation going with box fans while attempting to bring everything back up.

Also, almost all students are having issues with the web filter because they're all trying to use VPNs to circumvent the loving thing. Once the VPNs are gone, everything works like magic. loving interesting, that.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
I just found out that despite the recent budget cuts we have received, director sought a pay increase from the state. This request was denied and suddenly he's all about combining, cutting, and downgrading positions.

HMMM

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
It’s all coming to a head. Literally everyone in administration is jumping ship after the announcement that we are axing the art program so director won’t have to hire a new art teacher after the current one retires this year.

Everyone is just emailing each other potential jobs at a neighboring college at this point. I’ve got three applications in now.

:getin:

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
To clear things up, we're a public residential school for 11th and 12th graders. We aren't a charter school, but it's the closest thing you could compare it to. We receive state funding and rely on donations from businesses and alumni to cover the rest. We are technically our own school district so we have creative titles for what normal districts would have, so, for example, our principal is the Director of Student Affairs and our superintendent is the Executive Director. It's all horseshit and

Judge Schnoopy posted:

My guess is that attendance will plummet over the next four years as new student intake dives, the director panics over his continued lack of a raise, budgets are slashed due to lack of attendance, and the school closes in 4.5 years.

is a pretty accurate account of what will happen :shrug:

Anyways, I'm finding that there are several jobs located about 30 minutes away that I am either way overqualified for that don't pay nearly enough for me to survive, or they pay just what I'm making now but have insane requirements like "must have a master's degree in data architecture and 10+ years experience managing data in a university setting and also no substitutions." The jobs that pay more than what I'm making are director and coordinator positions, but none in my field.

Also I really need to start familiarizing myself with Oracle.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.

totalnewbie posted:

Agreed.

My buddy with a master's and no experience got a job requiring a phd and 10 years of experience /shrug

You apply and they, what, don't give you a job? What have you lost?

Oh, I'm blasting out applications for every conceivable position. I've got enough high profile connections related to the college to get a very solid foot in the door. The biggest thing is a majority of the jobs are either for network analysts or database programmers, both of which are my weakest areas. I know what a database is and I know how to finagle some ugly code to get the data I want out of it, but that's about it. But considering some of the stories I've heard of guys going in for interviews for heavy network jobs without knowing what VPN or subnets are, I feel alright about it. Nothing a bit of googling, self-teaching, and fiddling can't solve in the long run.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
We had performance appraisals today. I went in already pissed and annoyed at this place, but with the added confidence that I don't actually NEED this job anymore. I have the experience and connections to get work. I'm leaving this place no doubt, but my remaining time here will be spent on my own terms.

On my self-appraisal, I put that over the next year, I plan on finding a proper balance between my coordinator duties and my newfound technician duties. When he asked me to list what percentage of my time is spent on each area of my job description, I listed that 70% of my time is spent offering tech support, 20% is towards maintenance of technology, and 10% for administrative duties. I told him that 70% and 20% need to switch but it's impossible with just me working. His advice was "just spend less time doing tech support. You need to manage your time better."

Deal. Here's how the next year is going:

- Tech support is down to two days a week. If it breaks on an off-day, you'd better have a contingency in place because "mouse died" doesn't grind teaching to a halt.

- No new projects that aren't specifically proposed by myself. I don't care that random math teacher wants to start using some bullshit LMS no one else has heard of that requires I spin up its own VM to host it. I don't care that such and such school uses virtual reality to teach foreign languages. I don't care that you want to be able to play 30 year old VHSs on the projector in the auditorium. Find a way to make what you have work for you for the next year.

- This next year is solely to be spent on stabilizing our infrastructure. It's old, it's poorly maintained, and we are in desperate need of upgrades. I've worked out deals with schools all over the state to donate actually nice equipment that will result in an entirely new network infrastructure for absolutely zero dollars and I refuse to let some bullshit pie in the sky idea from entitled faculty take up a second of my precious time until we've got a modern network in place.

- I will be saying "no" a lot more. People can deal with it.

- Moving from analog lines to a VOIP system will save us $20k a year. That money is to go directly into my budget and is not to be touched by anyone and will be specifically set aside to hire a skilled employee for at least $40k a year. (that's honestly a lot of money around here)

- Fridays I will be working from home and am not to be disturbed unless something is on fire.

This is all in writing and was signed by both myself and the director. It's amazing how quickly he backs down when someone shows even the slightest bit of backbone.

I got an interview for a Database III Programmer.

It's a good day, guys :unsmith:

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
The best graffiti came in.

Last night, someone drew a photo-realistic Ronald Reagan on the whiteboard in the student lounge with the text, "Mr. [larchesdanrew], tear down this Smoothwall."

I want to get it framed.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
Sadly, I didn't think to get a picture while I was in there and on my way back through, my work service student had already erased everything.

Good news, I found out who did it and she's going to draw me a personal one so I can hang it in my office.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
Reagan is back, albeit in a far more cartoonish fashion from a guest artist.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.

Ugato posted:

I’m the presidentist

*Presidentish

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
Student backlash over the new web filter is hitting a fever pitch. Whiteboards around campus are consistently emblazoned with "DOWN WITH SMOOTHWALL" and "FIGHT THE MAN."

Since we're a BYOD campus, SSL decryption involves a certificate installation on all personal devices. Rabblerousers are starting a grassroots movement to spread misinformation whereas I am Big Brother and I am collecting all of their data. Nevermind that I don't necessarily need the certificate, nor the web filter, to see what they're doing on my network, nor do I really even care. I just want to remain CIPA compliant so I can stay out of jail.

Anyways, I flipped the switch earlier to begin SSL decryption. Up to this point, I just turned off all filtering for SSL and HTTPS, and gave the students a week to install the cert. If they don't install it, oh well.

Mere minutes after I flipped the switch, emails started pouring in.

My favorite was:

quote:

Hello,

It might seem like a redundant question to ask, but is there any real reason for all these sites and services to be blocked without the web certificate besides coercing everyone into installing it? Thanks.

Sent by a junior with



as his profile picture. After responding and explaining what the cert is and why it's needed for the millionth time, he responds

quote:

For what it is worth, I am conceding and installing it for now.

This is very obviously his way of warning me that he will be looking for workarounds, much like the failed VPNs and proxies everyone is attempting to use to circumvent it.

Teenagers are fun :rolleyes:

PS. Yes, I know about banking and medical sites. This has been anticipated and whitelisted.

A Frosty Witch fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Jan 29, 2018

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
The fact that, like, 90% of web pages use encryption and I’d prefer actual content filtering to babysitting a blacklist of six thousand URLs/IPs that are subject to change at any point?

The old web filter couldn’t do SSL inspection and everything that needed to be viewed had to be whitelisted by IP, which meant that every time something got erroneously blocked, it was a 20+ minute process of going over traffic logs trying to pinpoint which IP address needed to be exempted.

Expecting a web filter to do anything when it can’t tell what traffic is going through it is a laugh and when it comes to services like Gmail and Skype who have a nearly endless list of IP addresses they cycle through nearly daily, it gets to be far too much work and hassle, especially for a single person to manage.

So, if someone has to install a cert so I don’t have to spend a majority of my day manually filtering out web traffic then so be it.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
Nope, without inspection dns means precisely dick to the filter. You can whitelist domains all day but IP addresses get blocked for bullshit reasons like “weapons” and “porn” because the filter doesn’t know what it’s looking at, so you have to figure out the IP associated with the domain and whitelist them both.

I’d love to just throw on the filter and let it go without inspection but it barely functions without it and while I’ve got students pissing about the filter blocking too much, I’ll have Do-gooders tattle if it’s not blocking enough either.

It’s a fight I can’t win so don’t lecture me on this.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
Bossman just spent two solid days literally screaming at me every ten minutes about how the new copy management company I chose last year has ended up costing us twice our allotted budget for copiers and we're only halfway through our budget year. He's demanded a meeting with our sales rep and the regional manager so they can go over what they've been charging us. He's chewed me out in multiple closed door meetings for not keeping an eye on our copy usage. He's lambasted me for my poor planning and inability to make good decisions.

No matter how many times I run the numbers, it doesn't add up. There's no way. I've run copy reports and print reports. I've organized everyone's printing history and graphed it all. I've compared average prints per month for the last five years. Nothing is out of the ordinary. The company is charging us too much and I didn't catch it. I'm a fuckup.

That is, I would be had the executive assistant not hosed up her excel document that is now counting charges from this company three times per line instead of just, I don't know, once?

I'm expecting a bigly public apology tomorrow or I'm walking.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
Apology never came, the new drama is that our state re-accreditation is here; well, it was here weeks ago but they haven't finished the paperwork yet. They apparently do this every ~5 years, I think, and there's an "accountability committee" that meets weekly to discuss and prepare everything for this accreditation. Of the 200+ reports that are included in this, one is apparently a technology plan. In the 2.5 years I've been working here, this has never once been mentioned to me. This report is being submitted this weekend.

Boss comes blasting into my office this morning ranting about how we're going to take a huge hit because I haven't submitted a technology plan, and demanding that I go back through all the documents that my predecessors left to see if any of them have a technology plan on file since 2011. All I can find is paperwork to start a technology plan committee in 2013 that never got completed.

So, now I'm apparently responsible for a plan that none of the three previous TCs did any work on and that was not mentioned to me until it was the day before they're submitting it.

Seriously, gently caress this place right to death. I can't wait to get out of here.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.

I'm TRYING. I've sent off a ton of applications to various places, but haven't heard back from anywhere yet.

Morale is low.

Alcohol intake is rising.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
The director called me into his office this afternoon and simply handed me a pile of papers. Each one was an email he has received from faculty, staff, and guests that compliment me in some way. There were something like 30 of them.

One of them said something along the lines of “if we expect the technology in this place to be held together with glue, we can’t complain every time our fingers get sticky.”

He then went on to tell me how much he appreciates my work and how much better this place is running under my supervision than the previous three tech coordinators. He said he’s been unfairly judging me based on their performance and he’s let his preconceived notions get the better of him. He said I’m doing an outstanding job and apologized for all the times he’s lost his temper. He revealed that his major focus this next year is to secure funding to reopen my assistant position.

Now I get a four day weekend for Easter.

It was a pretty good day I guess.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
Oh, I'm not stupid enough to get all starry eyed and start thinking this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. This place is toxic and he's a toxic man. This is some bizarre hybrid of the abusive boss patting you on the head just enough to keep you from going postal and covering his own rear end.

Part of this came from the fact that we were up for state accreditation. I think I mentioned this but I was given like three days notice that we needed a tech plan and was told to find an updated tech plan from one of my predecessors, but none exist. Accreditation comes and the day of, he emails the team a tech plan he's been sitting on and CC's me on it (thanks for sharing that with me in a timely fashion, rear end in a top hat), informing the accreditation team that we don't have an updated one and that they can call me in for an interview if they have any questions. It was a really blatant attempt at throwing me under the bus and absolving him of any responsibility for there not being a technology plan.

However, they called me in for the interview and I explained that I started two years ago and have spent the entirety of the last two years playing catch-up after the previous TC left without leaving any documentation, which has become even more difficult with the termination of my assistant position. I explained that we don't have a tech plan because we haven't gotten to the point that we are looking to improve things. The plan right now is to get things stable and maintainable with our current budget before planning upgrades and replacement plans. I was able to adequately explain our tech status as well as future goals to both improve our infrastructure while also saving tens of thousands of dollars a year. The team leader told me later, off the record, that my patience is impressive and that they all noticed how demanding and short tempered the director was, especially with me.

My department was the only one with no marks against it. Their only comment was that my positive outlook was impressive considering the stressful job and lack of assistance.

So, what the director had intended to be the nail in my coffin actually ended up being a huge feather in my cap and he actually got points docked for his method of leadership.

Either that was a big wake-up call for him, or I don't know. But I do know that whatever that was yesterday afternoon was most likely all for show. But out of it, I got a pretty big confidence boost seeing how appreciative my coworkers are. I also emailed him (as I do after every solo meeting with him) to verify what we had discussed, so I have his written confirmation that we met to discuss 30+ instances of accolades and testaments to my work ethic.

I'd say that will be a pretty big bullet for a wrongful termination suit if he does get a bug up his rear end about something before I find something else :shrug:

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
Larchesdanrew update:

Our PR guy had a nervous breakdown and specifically cites the director as the cause.

After nearly 3 years I have finally completed the card access project.

:siren:The Director is about two weeks away from accepting a position as superintendent in another city:siren:

He has become unbearable and his most likely replacement is the nicest guy I have ever met.

I have been offered a job as technology director for the engineering school at a college. It pays $20k more than I make here with regular raises and bonuses. Word is that it’s extremely laid back and they have more money than they know how to spend. I’ll also have employees again :allears:

Things are shaping up nicely.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.

22 Eargesplitten posted:

Especially considering his job at the station was making $30k, that’s a ridiculous raise for Mississippi.

This job pays three times that.

That's rich man money around here.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.

22 Eargesplitten posted:

Are you paying alimony or just child support? IIRC she made as much money as you. Not sure if MS is an at-fault State, but she was cheating on you so if so I would guess that hurts the alimony chances. $90k is drat good in Colorado, you could be absolutely rolling in it right now.

Time to buy a red Porsche and some gaudy jewelry to get back on the market.

Just child support, but she owns a restaurant now and they've gotten pretty creative with her reported income. But they're also not looking to stick me for more than I'm already paying. She doesn't even spend it. It's all still sitting in the account and they're using it for college funds.


Proteus Jones posted:

And you have a written offer? What's holding you back? Would you need to move?

It's a 30 minute drive and the schedule for my kids' daycare means I'd have to organize someone to take them in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon. So I'm weighing the financial and logistical aspects of it.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
An mass email came in at 6:45pm from a disgruntled student who was expelled. This email put on blast every single student who has drugs in their rooms, secret places they sex, all the dirty laundry in the student world.

The principal texted me in a panic telling me to revoke email access and retract the email.

I was sort of panicking as well, as this has happened before where I have neglected to revoke email access in time and I’m just loving the idea of the shitstorm waiting for me in the morning. I revoked the access, but not a lot I can do about retracting it short of changing everyone’s password and deleting them out of each inbox one by one.

Then I went through all student withdrawal paperwork to see where exactly I hosed up, but couldn’t find where I had been notified by anyone.

Turns out, this student was slated for expulsion at 6:30pm, and no one felt the need to inform me ahead of time.

For once I’m completely in the clear on a tech related fuckup.

This day just gets better and better.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
Nah, we’re on gmail. They’re moving over to 365 over the summer, but it’s not going to do them a whole lot of good right now.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.

Nerdrock posted:

if it's a google apps for education situation, GAM can do this.

https://wpsit.blogspot.com/2016/06/delete-specific-email-using-gam.html

Whaaaaaat this is amazing. I didn't know GAM was capable of this. I've been using it for about a year or so now and it's completely changed how I deal with Gmail and Drive. Thanks for the link!

Also, director was surprisingly chill about it. Upset, but he said mistakes happen. I'm completely in the clear as I was not made aware of it, but now he expects me to be on call 24/7 for emergency account suspension. Ok, yeah, good luck with that, pal.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
Let the not giving a gently caress commence.

Director stormed into my office holding an email he printed out instead of forwarding to me like a human being in the year of our lord 2018. The email was from the comptroller of the college stating that they are moving to VOIP and they need a list of all of our phone numbers. This came to me because one of my responsibilities is monitoring billing for phones, cable, internet, etc... every month to make sure there aren't any discrepancies and to also make sure we aren't paying for things we no longer use, such as phone lines in empty offices.

:mad: They need an updated list of phone numbers by the end of the day. You should already have this information on hand, RIGHT?

Clearly planning on my not having done this task for some reason, he was just itching to find something to bitch at me today over. Without breaking eye contact, I snagged the phone directory off my bulletin board, scanned it, and emailed it to the comptroller's office.

:smug: Done.

He then proceeded to rave about how that was unacceptable and lazy and I needed to write up a list in an excel sheet to send over. As he was lecturing, an email came from the comptroller stating simply "This is perfect. Thanks!"

I turned my monitor around to him and said "I think they're fine with it."

Then I stood up and told him I was going to be late for a meeting with our advancement director, so if he didn't have anything else I was going to head out.

The meeting took place in a bar downtown for about three hours. Incidentally, the advancement director is pretty cool.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
A ticket came in:

quote:

Do you calibrate the scan trons machine? It needs it and I have never been asked that before.

I went to check it out and they just had a machine sitting on a table. I have 100% never seen a scantron machine before, so I asked how they usually configure it.

:v: I dunno. We've been using the same tests on it for years, but now we have new tests. Here's the answer keys. We need this done by lunch.

[Note: it is 11:00]

Ticket closed: scantron device seems to be operating normally. This appears to be a Layer 8 issue, so faculty-wide training on this device is recommended.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
For a while, I’ve been planning to move the school over to VOIP. I wrote up a proposal with requirements, costs, equipment necessities, etc.. and submitted it to the director. He told me to “discuss it at the next team meeting”

Today was our meeting, I started by outlining the pros and cons of VOIP and what we’d have to put into the project.

:v: So it will be $7 per line and $1-3 per phone we lease, depending on features. Some people may want cordless options or digital directories so the cost will increase based on features.

:mad: Wait. Hold on. We have to buy new phones??

:v: Well, we can purchase new phones or we can lease them for a small price.

:mad: I wasn’t made aware of this.

:v: It was in the proposal I submitted?

:mad: Why do we have to buy new phones?

:v: Because our analog handsets aren’t compatible? I explained it fully in the proposal.

:mad: Whatever, carry on.

:v: The other thing we’ll have to look into is a backup option in case of a network or power outage. If either of those goes out, we won’t be able to make calls. I sugge-

:mad: HOLD ON. I wasn’t made aware of any of this crap. How much is this going to cost us?

:v: It’s in the proposal that I just passed out. I also just talked about it: $7 per line and $1-3 per handset. We pay $12.87 per line now so it will end up being slightly cheaper per year.

:mad: I don’t want to hear any more. This was poorly planned and I wasn’t adequately informed of the requirements.

:v: It’s in the proposal under “cost comparison.”

:mad: I wasn’t made aware it was in the proposal.

:suicide:

I’m so glad this is going to be someone else’s problem soon.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.

Sormus posted:

Clearly, the solution here is to propose a new assistant position

He has two full time executive assistants. But I’m sure his ego could justify hiring another one at the expense of some other position in campus.

Tailored Sauce posted:

Lol larch stop proposing things.

I bitch about him but I love this school, man. It’s been such a huge influence on my life, especially growing up. It changes lives and I want to see it continue succeeding. I’m not going to let my hatred of this guy stop me from trying to make this place the best it can be. If I can set some plans in motion before I leave that the next guy can pick up, then that’s what I’ll do :shrug:

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
I have evolved. The last 8 tickets in a row have resolved themselves with my mere proximity to the affected devices.

Bow, peons.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
:siren: I'm finally a real IT man :siren:

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
I submitted a simple form to be filled out by the director two months ago so it could be submitted it to the Department of Education. Literally all he had to do was sign, print, date, and write his job title.

I asked him if he had finished it so I could submit it to the DoE.

:v: Yes, I've finished it, and [PA] has already submitted it.

Easy.

I got an email today from a very angry DoE member that I have not submitted this form and the deadline was the first of the month. I informed him that it should have been submitted months ago and he verified that it had not been that thing. They told me I've got until the end of the day to get it submitted. I took another copy of the form to the director and told him the last one got lost somewhere along the line and we have to have this one finished and submitted by the end of the day. I told him to just fill out the part that says "Authorized Person Signature" and I'd take care of the rest.

An hour later that form was sitting in my department mailbox, unfilled, with a post-it note that simply asks "Contact person same or different from authorized person?"

By then he was already gone and out of town until Monday.

I work three doors down from him and I was in my office the entire time.

Also, new job fell through after I accepted it. But I had an interview last week for a senior desktop service position at a college that I feel I have a very good shot at. There's always a light.

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
:mad: My Surface's screen went out. We need to get it fixed.
:v: Well, it's apparently out of warranty, so it'll be $600 for a device replacement.
:mad: $600?? How long do warranties last?
:v: You wouldn't approve the extended warranty when we purchased it because you said "warranties don't make sense" so there was only a one-year warranty with the device. You've had this almost two years. So we can get a $600 replacement or buy a Surface Pro 4 for $900.
:mad: *SIGH* Just get the new one then. This is ridiculous.
:v: Do you want to get the extended warranty this time?
:mad: No, warranties don't make sense.

:suicide:

A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.

Judge Schnoopy posted:

And this is why you don't ask anybody else if they want the warranty. It's an IT asset, IT is your department, you decide if the warranty is necessary. Which it absolutely is for a business device.

Your mistake was saying "The new surface pro 4 is $900". It's way better to say "The new Surface Pro 4 is $1300" and buy the warranty anyway.

Yeah, but every single purchase on has to be approved by him. The req has to have his signature and he investigates every single one with a fine tooth comb and any time I've tried to sneak a warranty in there, he throws a gigantic fit about it. No one anywhere gets a warranty on anything because of this.

Except for the new whole-building generator I got a quote for. That one had a one-year included warranty and he refused to approve it because it needs at least a 10 year warranty.

He's probably insane.

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A Frosty Witch
Apr 21, 2005

I was just looking at it and I suddenly got this urge to get inside. No, not just an urge - more than that. It was my destiny to be here; in the box.
A magic copier came in.

I was making rounds when a user flagged me down.

:j: Our copier doesn't have any toner in it.
:v: I'll have work service come change it out this afternoon.
:j: No, it literally doesn't have any toner in it but it's still printing.
:v: What.

Sure enough, it has no toner cartridge in it and it's been printing away. I tracked the removal down to OVER A MONTH AGO where the student worker I tasked with changing it forgot to put a new one in.

I checked the usage and they've printed over 1,200 pages since then.

I feel like this is the IT version of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer and the car salesman drive as far as they can on empty and I'm curious how long this thing will continue printing with no toner.

Forever? Is a blessed copier really a thing?

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