Re: Confession of IT nightmare employee

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Al Dunbar wrote:
I find this thread somewhat amusing, in that it reflects numerous common
misperceptions about what "the IT department" is all about - or should be
all about.

First, I think it will be in your best interest to take Brian's warnings
to
heart. Regardless of the (apparently) bad attitude of your IT department,
two wrongs don't make a right, and your "wrong" *is* of the nature of
something with potentially serious disciplinary ramifications for you. His
suggestion that you come clean to management may be the best approach in
protecting your position.

Now, I said "apparently" in the above because, well, we have so far heard
only your description of the details. Not knowing the complete facts I
won't
attempt to defend your particular IT department, but I should point out
that
the way they *should* operate is in the interest of the employer. That
doesn't mean they need to jump whenever a user has a problem - if they
did,
they would likely be up in the air all of the time and therefore unable to
accomplish anything.

One thing some IT departments get wrong is the attitude the "IT rules" are
their rules. They are not, they are the rules of the company. Likely they
were developed with input from those with expertise in the IT area (this
is,
indeed, one of the raisons d'etre for the IT department), but they do not
become "the rules" on that basis alone without senior management
ratification.

There are reasons for rules. Unfortunately these are often not well
explained by IT, or well understood by the users. That is one reason they
are put into the form of rules, as, without rules, users (and even the
users
in the IT department) are likely to make serious errors of judgment
without
realizing what they are doing.

I agree with you and Brian, however, with OP waiting 9 months and IT still
has not addressed the issue, I understand how the OP feels. I had a working
W2K machine that needed Adobe Illustrator installed. Since minimum OS
requirement is XP, IT did an upgrade over W2K. After making me wait a few
months to install XP, the machine seemed to work for about a day and then
went haywire. I have waited for 15 minutes several times for the database to
open just so I could enter my work data (approx. 20 characters max.).

I reported the many issues it now has to my supervisor as well as thru the
IT ticket system twice over the past few months. Two IT techs, the XP
installer and his supervisor, have looked at it but can not figure out what
the problem is. I even asked to have the HD wiped and reinstalled from
scratch but was told there was nothing more they could do.

I can certainly agree IT is a busy department but they must remember they
are pure overhead. Direct producers of a company's product and should not be
forced to work with bogus OS installations or wait months for simple
software reinstallations. I have installed XP on several machines and the
productive time lost has already exceeded the amount of time it would take
to wipe and reinstall just once.

I considered bringing in my personal laptop to perform my offline chores
while waiting on a resolution but decided if the company really felt it was
important for their employees to be productive, then it would provide it's
employees with working equipment.

To OP, hang in there. Your office manager may not be afraid of IT but rather
powerless to control their workload. 9 months is excessive and therefore
warrants stepping over the chain of command (your office manager and IT
dept.) to complain to their bosses. Good luck and happy scripting.

--
Todd Vargo
(Post questions to group only. Remove "z" to email personal messages)

.

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