I love my Job - System Engineer Rants

djbeenie

We had this customer on our @ss for the last few weeks because of an issue they were having. Found it in the log files that THEY were the ones causing the issue by rebooting their SQL box during the day. SMART! I highly doubt they give an apology. HA! Love proving them wrong! lol

Another issue I love proving users wrong is email flow. I sent this email and the end user never got it! WAAA WAAA WAAA OUR Exchange is broke FIX IT NOW!! Umm the message log shows the email was handed off to the receiving mail server. Sorry the issue is not on our end. Oh and it's fun explaining that to the user.

camgfs

I love those customers! They make my day, when I'm working. I "volunteered" at a resource center last summer. One of their 'users' used to bring her craft hobbies to work, so that when she messed up her login for Exchange, she could get caught up on her crafts until the issue was resolved. Everyone else in the building could check their email except her.......
So one morning I sent her an email to ask her if her email was working, and she replied "No, and you know where I'll be and what I'll be doing until you fix it again", in a reply email of course.....The boss nearly p!ssed himself laughing when I showed him the reply!

djbeenie

camgfs:

I love those customers! They make my day, when I'm working. I "volunteered" at a resource center last summer. One of their 'users' used to bring her craft hobbies to work, so that when she messed up her login for Exchange, she could get caught up on her crafts until the issue was resolved. Everyone else in the building could check their email except her.......
So one morning I sent her an email to ask her if her email was working, and she replied "No, and you know where I'll be and what I'll be doing until you fix it again", in a reply email of course.....The boss nearly p!ssed himself laughing when I showed him the reply!

Nice! lol

clearlysuspect

LOL... that's pretty good. Unfortunately, in my line of work, it's usually us user's that end up finding too many problems with the engineering. We had a huge modification that we performed to an aircraft here a couple months ago that upgraded their Flight Management System and Navigation systems to the same systems the space shuttle used. Unfortunately, there were so many flaws in the drawings it set the entire project back about 2 weeks! It was one of those situations like "OH NO! YOU DID EXACTLY WHAT WE TOLD YOU TO DO!"

james40

I know your pain fellas. I'm a network engineer and constantly have to troubleshoot applications. People forget basic troubleshooting techniques.....

djbeenie

james40:

I know your pain fellas. I'm a network engineer and constantly have to troubleshoot applications. People forget basic troubleshooting techniques.....

Like reboot? lol Heck my little sister that is 10 years old knows how to reboot a computer.

beatnic

Hey guys. Easy on the users. Can you do their job? Most people don't need, or want, to have to learn this stuff. That's why they hire you. Think of it this way.....they are paying you.
Don't ridicule them, oh, and don't teach them either.

djbeenie

beatnic:

Hey guys. Easy on the users. Can you do their job? Most people don't need, or want, to have to learn this stuff. That's why they hire you. Think of it this way.....they are paying you.
Don't ridicule them, oh, and don't teach them either.

You are absolutely right! I am not picking on users. What I am saying don't call me up screaming and hollering about your issue (these are IT guys and referring too) about an issue and its them that caused it.

james40

I'm not picking on users either. I'm picking on other IT folks who should know better, those who just punt stuff without even attempting to look into the issue. I don't expect the end user to know how the network side works, so we do explain some of it to those we feel can grasp it and those who ask about it. Add to that people who have no business in IT but who magically get managerial spots...on your an English major, *** yeah, come be our "name IT team" manager.

I fully support the business side of house because they are the money makers.

camgfs

So here I sit, completely flabergasted at why my program won't work. All it needs to do is call up a list of customers from a database table, allow the user to select a single name from the drop-down list of names, identify the customer ID, perform a few inner joins on the database to produce a DataList of anything it finds according to the SQL parameters......but it doesn't work!
So my wife sees my frustrations, sits down and has me explain the programming to her....and guess what? ... within minutes she says to me "Honney, you forgot to put that little line of code in your DAL file for the datareader that tells the loop to ADD the results so they can be displayed" ......and then she proudly walks away.

Well, she was right, and she barely knows how to reboot a computer!

Without the users, we wouldn't have jobs....without wives, we wouldn't have anything.

Krieg

Only thing I have to add to this is this, what's worse than a user? A developer.

djbeenie

Krieg:

Only thing I have to add to this is this, what's worse than a user? A developer.

Oh man! Developers! haha!

The Sniper

(best Ogre voice) ...nerds ..... NERDSSSSS!!!!!

If you're too young to get the reference, GOOGLE IT!

clearlysuspect

The Sniper:

(best Ogre voice) ...nerds ..... NERDSSSSS!!!!!

If you're too young to get the reference, GOOGLE IT!

That's funny. I had a supervisor in Maryland that looked just like him!

camgfs

so I used to work for a company (worked there many years) and I wouldn't move south and take a huge pay cut to keep my job. They "let me go" stating that they were no longer supporting the work I was doing for them.
Now it's 3 years later, I'm doing my second year of college and they EMAIL me. They want to know how to implement some functionality into the programming that I WAS doing...the same programing they say they "no longer support", but has been working all this time and is still in use!

Half of me wants to tell them where to go, the other half says that I should be nice to them....who knows, when I graduate I might need a good reference from them, right? Anyway, that's my rant....3 years after they claim not to support the work I was doing, they want me to "Fix it so more people can access the database and programs". They have balls asking me to do this for them, that's all I can say about it. I could go on all day, but you get the point.

/rant

jgibv

camgfs:

so I used to work for a company (worked there many years) and I wouldn't move south and take a huge pay cut to keep my job. They "let me go" stating that they were no longer supporting the work I was doing for them.
Now it's 3 years later, I'm doing my second year of college and they EMAIL me. They want to know how to implement some functionality into the programming that I WAS doing...the same programing they say they "no longer support", but has been working all this time and is still in use!

Half of me wants to tell them where to go, the other half says that I should be nice to them....who knows, when I graduate I might need a good reference from them, right? Anyway, that's my rant....3 years after they claim not to support the work I was doing, they want me to "Fix it so more people can access the database and programs". They have balls asking me to do this for them, that's all I can say about it. I could go on all day, but you get the point.

/rant

Wow....that's a real d!ck move on their part. But kudos to you for implementing something that worked for 3 years without them being able to break it.

If it were me though, I'd offer to help but charge a premium price for your time. Set it up as an independent contractor job, that way you can still be a good guy by helping but in some ways get back at them by charging $$. Just my $.02

beatnic

jgibv:

camgfs:

so I used to work for a company (worked there many years) and I wouldn't move south and take a huge pay cut to keep my job. They "let me go" stating that they were no longer supporting the work I was doing for them.
Now it's 3 years later, I'm doing my second year of college and they EMAIL me. They want to know how to implement some functionality into the programming that I WAS doing...the same programing they say they "no longer support", but has been working all this time and is still in use!

Half of me wants to tell them where to go, the other half says that I should be nice to them....who knows, when I graduate I might need a good reference from them, right? Anyway, that's my rant....3 years after they claim not to support the work I was doing, they want me to "Fix it so more people can access the database and programs". They have balls asking me to do this for them, that's all I can say about it. I could go on all day, but you get the point.

/rant

Wow....that's a real d!ck move on their part. But kudos to you for implementing something that worked for 3 years without them being able to break it.

If it were me though, I'd offer to help but charge a premium price for your time. Set it up as an independent contractor job, that way you can still be a good guy by helping but in some ways get back at them by charging $$. Just my $.02

You got them by the balls now. Just tell them that you will do this work for them on a consultant basis, and you bill them consultant prices, do the work on your own consultant time, and from here going forward you are now a consultant.

djbeenie

GRRR got this jack ass CEO now whining about streaming Pandora to his iPad (lol) saying we are blocking it, when we don't even handle their web filtering. Literately screaming at me saying this needs to be fixed ASAP! I hate @ss Holes! Why are you gong to kick and scream when I am trying to finging help you!! I don't understand the whole scream at support attitude. Makes me MORE of want to help you.

james40

djbeenie:

GRRR got this jack ass CEO now whining about streaming Pandora to his iPad (lol) saying we are blocking it, when we don't even handle their web filtering. Literately screaming at me saying this needs to be fixed ASAP! I hate @ss Holes! Why are you gong to kick and scream when I am trying to finging help you!! I don't understand the whole scream at support attitude. Makes me MORE of want to help you.

Definitely sounds business related, lol... /eye roll

djbeenie

Oh he just let me know that I was interrupting his business party! WTF!

camgfs

beatnic:

jgibv:

camgfs:

so I used to work for a company (worked there many years) and I wouldn't move south and take a huge pay cut to keep my job. They "let me go" stating that they were no longer supporting the work I was doing for them.
Now it's 3 years later, I'm doing my second year of college and they EMAIL me. They want to know how to implement some functionality into the programming that I WAS doing...the same programing they say they "no longer support", but has been working all this time and is still in use!

Half of me wants to tell them where to go, the other half says that I should be nice to them....who knows, when I graduate I might need a good reference from them, right? Anyway, that's my rant....3 years after they claim not to support the work I was doing, they want me to "Fix it so more people can access the database and programs". They have balls asking me to do this for them, that's all I can say about it. I could go on all day, but you get the point.

/rant

Wow....that's a real d!ck move on their part. But kudos to you for implementing something that worked for 3 years without them being able to break it.

If it were me though, I'd offer to help but charge a premium price for your time. Set it up as an independent contractor job, that way you can still be a good guy by helping but in some ways get back at them by charging $$. Just my $.02

You got them by the balls now. Just tell them that you will do this work for them on a consultant basis, and you bill them consultant prices, do the work on your own consultant time, and from here going forward you are now a consultant.

Thank you both for the great advice. Here's the kicker; I have a sponsor that is paying my education and expenses (due to circumstances of the company letting me go). Every dime I earn (independent contractor or not) is taken off my school support. It might sound weird, but I earn less money if I work than I do if I just go to school and take weekends off.
I will wait for the "phone call later this week" and see what they want exactly. I will be a good boy and reserve judgement until after I hear what they want. It would be ironic if after getting a free education, they hire me back with a raise, lol.

djbeenie

Sweet, I literately got ripped a new @ hole this morning from a customer having an issue. And guess what the issue was? He (not something we did) had a group policy pushing down to all of his servers causing this service account to get over written. Guess who's the blame? MEEEEE lol Sigh. Pointed it out and fixed the issue. Do I get some praise? Nope, I guess IT will always be the bad guys. my job! HAHA!