Trouble Ticket Woes

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.

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