IT bod rant (again)

Well, our two IT lads (the competent ones) and myself had a little
confab at the firm's Xmas party about their boss, the incompetent one.

What's he done lately? Oh yes, he was asked to take the high-res images
I took of a conference we ran, and put low-res images up on the web,
with the option of downloading the high-res images if anyone wanted them
for print work.

He put up the low-res images and no download option. So we've been
fielding people who want the high-res ones.

And then I'm looking for the high-res images, because we need them for
the brochure for next year's conference. And he's binned them. Wiped.
Deleted. Gone.

OK, so we have a back-up tape for October. And he's lost it.

Long story short, one of the lads managed to sort it out.

Oh, and I asked for a copy of Dropstuff (Mac's stuffing/compression
utility) because we need to compress files before sending them by ftp to
the printer, and he has only authorised one other copy, which is on
someone else's machine.... and recently that someone else was busy
chunking through a massive pdf file at the time, and couldn't access it.

No, I can't have a copy because I don't need it. Just send the files
unstuffed.

"But the Quark files come out strange at the other end of the ftp..."
quoth I. As they do.

"No they don't."

"Yes, they do."

"I'll ask one of the lads to show you how to do it properly."

Said lad discovers that what I've been saying is the truth, and reports
back, and then relays to me the info that this dork, his boss, doesn't
know the difference between Dropstuff and ftp. Thought they were the
same thing.

God give me fucking strength before I lamp him.

 

[snip IT woes]

we've just had SAP (some standard package that replaces your paper
processes and makes life wonderful) go live for all our Human Resources
stuff. Months of E Mails saying "please do your training". We dutifully
do it because you don't get a log on without it. A week after go live no
log ons have been sent to anyone on my team. Within two days the whole
system had keeled over, we got an apologetic E Mail asking us to be
patient during "the teething troubles". The E Mail then went on to make
clear that the set up for certain users had almost certainly breached
the Data Protection Act by allowing them access to information that they
were not authorised or entitled to see.

I wonder if we will actually get paid on Wednesday?!

we're sorry but God has run out of fucking strength.
We recommend the physical violence option.

 

Paul Corfield wrote

If you don't a lot of people won't mind.

I have just had a flying visit from Firstborn and her ginga donkey. To
say; these Snaresbrooke residents are not very impressed with the public
transport infrastructure in London would be putting it mildly. They are
giving in, next year they are buying a car.

LOL.

 

Paul Corfield wrote:

you (or rather your IT bods) are clearly misinformed about SAP.

All very much pointing towards a very badly run installation project.

Fingers x'd eh?

 

<shock>

Where's our fluffy cuddly BCB? Bring him back, you imposter.

 

Why not pray for strength and THEN lamp him? much better end result if
God does listen.

 

<snip tale of IT woe>

I rang our IT department to get a new toner for our printer and the
conversation went something like this:

<it gimp> What model is it
<me> Its a 2400
<ig> Nah it can't be, theres no such model.
<me>That whats written on it
<ig>Are you sure its not a 4000.
<me>Not unless they write that as "2400"
<ig>Could you just check again.<background noise, heavy footsteps>
<ig>Hello
<ig>Hello are you still there?

<fx IT department door crashes open and I appear carrying a printer that has
"2400" written on it in large numbers. I dump printer on ig's desk and give
him paddington bear type hard stare>

<ig> Oh.

 

Bwahahahahaa!

SAP is none of those things. Also no implementations of it are
"standard", ever.

 

Well... We went to a "web expenses" system in March. Prior to this it
worked like this:

- Book travel, order currency.
- Return with receipts and unspent currency (if any).
- Fill in form, enclose cheque if I owe, get payment if they owe. All
sorted within 1 week.

Now...

- Realise there isn't a category for "cash advance" in the system. Give
up on cash advances and spend my own money.
- Fill in form on website.
- send receipts to finance
- Hassle boss to log on and approve.
- Hassle finance to pay... "We haven't got receipts"
- Fax copy of receipts "It'll have to wait until the next cheque run"
End result? The fuckers owe me 1250- at the moment. Grrr.

Aint progress great?

 

SAP stands for "Shutup and Pay".


--
SimonB - South Wales. BOF#32
email simonb@zapikdotcodotuk
Triumph Sprint ST,
ZXR750L2 Wazimbaki.
Kawasaki Z1R For Sale

 

We used to get loads of that in IT. Some plonker purchases a non
supported printer and then comes running to IT to get it fixed. We used
to tell them to piss off, use the supported kit, pay extra for non
standard items or fix it themselves as they where so clever to buy it in
the first place.

BUFH...


--
SimonB - South Wales. BOF#32
email simonb@zapikdotcodotuk
Triumph Sprint ST,
ZXR750L2 Wazimbaki.
Kawasaki Z1R For Sale

 

"whatever" - I'm just one of the thousands of poor sods who has to try
and use it. I'm not at all impressed with it to date and can see so many
problems appearing in future because there is no flexibility in the
system to deal with that peculiar concept called "real life".

 

[snip telcon]

LOL! - I like your style.

 

This all sounds depressingly similar. I can see huge problems arising
with annual leave requests not being processed in a timely fashion and
people panicking if they are allowed to be absent or not.

Well it would be if it was progress!

 

I'm sorry but he's had the stuffing knocked out of him. You just get
this grumpy horrible version for the present.

 

You are a typical IT support person AICMF 50 unreturned phonecalls.

 

<snip>

Thats what you get for living down south.
:=)

 

Swat I fort.

 

What is really at fault is the programmers/designers.

 

Who/what by? I have some leaky pillows, any use?