As a rule, I admire the information technology technician. Anyone who can take apart a box of bolts and boards and chips and assemble it into a working computer has my utmost respect. I for one am lucky I can turn my computer on and use Word to type up these little vignettes into some semblance of order; anything out of the norm is completely my fault and nothing to do with the workings of, say, Windows 10. That being said, my experience at the office today with said IT staff has me wanting to pin them all on the nearest dart board and skewer them with sharpened microprocessor chips.
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| Will this goddamned thing just...work...CORRECTLY... |
Today started a new venture in my office. As part of a consolidating/streamlining
government effort (translated as, “Let’s shuffle everyone around until they’re
completely miserable and see how many of them retire in protest”), my little
team got moved into another office. Now
the way the office works is that each office has its own group network
drive. So if you move from Office A to
another office (Office B, natch), your profile needs to be moved to the Office
B network…so when you get to work on the first Monday of the new pay period,
you open your computer and see the new Office B network. Tada!
*cymbal crash* You happily continue working, while coffee steams gently
at your elbow and birds chirp happily outside of your window. Right?
Wrong. Welcome to
governmental IT contracts, where two dreaded words dominate the landscape: “Lowest Bidder.”
Now, I would not be a IT customer support rep for any amount
of money. I would never be able to deal
with people who think the CD tray is a drink holder. I really do take my hat off to them. But today it was hard to be grateful for
their services. Last week, Office B
informed our Customer Support Center that our little team was going to be
coming in from Office A. Could they
please transfer our limited access folder on the Office A group drive to a
prepared folder to Office B, and give us access to Office B’s network? Effective June 27. And thank you very much.
Now, how many tickets do you think that request
constitutes? I’d say 1 ticket, wouldn’t
you? Nope. That would be 3 tickets. I don’t know why there’s three IT tickets in
that request. I found that out when I
got to work this morning and found that we were still part of Office A’s
network. Better yet, our limited access
folder, with all of our work, was gone, presumably transferred to Office B, but
since we were still on Office A’s network, we couldn’t see the goddamned
thing. It’s Monday, my coffee is now
cold, and the bird on the windowsill has shit all over my desk.
This is no big surprise to us at my office. We are stunned into silence when something IT-related
is done correctly on the day it’s supposed to be done. Nevertheless, I dutifully forwarded the email
to the CSC, asking what happened, and that we were still on Office A’s network,
and that the limited access folder was gone.
This generated 2 more tickets, with the vague description, “Network
connectivity.” Now how on earth are you
supposed to figure out what the problem is by that description? Christ.
I finally called and got a guy who sounded like he had just
gotten out of bed. I explained the
problem and told him for God’s sake do NOT open yet another ticket on this
subject. The response: “Wha?”
I explained again, slower this time.
His response: “Didja try
rebooting?” Of course, I replied through clenched teeth. I then had to explain what “network
connectivity” meant – and added that it was their description, not mine, so
maybe he should update it. He said someone would call me back and – you guessed
it – he filed another ticket.
The remainder of the day provided gems like this:
- “Um…okay…hm. Someone will have to call you back on that.” (This was the guy who called me back from the previous “someone will call you back.” That constitutes another ticket.)
- “Where are you in the complex?” (I’ve been in the same position for 10 years, people.)
- “Are you working from home?” (Did I say I was working from home, jackass? No.)
- “Wait, you wanted to move? You need to generate a move ticket.” (Already did that, 2 weeks ago!)
- “If that ticket was a request to move networks, you need to update it to make it a move ticket.” (Which generated another ticket requesting that the first ticket be updated to a move ticket.)
- “Did you try rebooting?” (Yep, they asked this more than once.)
I left at quitting time and came home and stared at the
wall. Tomorrow I’ll have the strength to
continue. Right now, I just want to read
a book and fall asleep. Hopefully I
myself will reboot. Without a trouble ticket.
Happy surfing, guys.
- Rebecca
