viking fridays – the ignorant man.
June 27, 2008
Who travels widely needs his wits about him
The stupid should stay at home
The ignorant man is often laughed at
When he sits at meat with the sage.
- The Hávamál
So I have this friend who works for this company, and my friend was telling me a story yesterday about his computer troubles at work. Yet another straw, perhaps…
Anyway, my friend has a laptop, and about three weeks ago today, the battery died the death. My friend unplugged the laptop (which showed a fully charged battery, according to the light), and it shut off without warning.
ARGGGHHH!!!
First thing Monday morning of that week, my friend called the help desk. Let me set the stage a bit here – the company where my friend works is about 100 times larger than the next largest company he’s ever worked for in the past. Full IT department, help desk 24/7, you name it.
Good thing, right? *bzzzzt*
After calling every single day for two and a half weeks, my friend wandered over to the building where they do the repair work. The very helpful tech determined what my friend already knew, that yes, the battery was dead and the laptop was fine.
(My friend is very good with computers.)
Does this company, with thousands of employees have spare batteries? No. Of course not.
My friend was sent a quotation for a battery. Which he has to enter himself, into the user-unfriendly purchase requisition system (that’s another story…)
My friend was telling another co-worker about this, and the co-worker said, “well, that’s just the way IT departments work.” The co-worker, by the way, has never worked for another company in his life, only this one. My friend, meanwhile, has worked in the REAL WORLD.
The story continues – you see, the last company where my friend worked (with 1/100th the employees) had a service agreement with a computer company. One day, the LCD on my friend’s laptop died the death.
TWENTY MINUTES later a tech was in my friend’s office, with a spare LCD – swapped it out on the spot, and bid my friend farewell.
My friend has been asked why HE doesn’t work for the IT department, because he seems quite knowledgeable about these things. The simple honest truth is that my friend would probably make most of the managers in the IT department look like ignorant men, and he would have a hard time not laughing at them.
Really, though, could my friend expect anything less from a company that can’t even fix the stairs?
So what is the point of this, what are our Viking friends saying today?
The way I see it is this – if you’re looking for sound advice on something, ask a person who has worked in many different fields, many different places, who has experience.
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This rant is dedicated to the Friar, lest he think I only write about positive stuff, like that time Timmy fell down the well 
PS – the picture I intended to attach, is not available due to the draconian policies of my friend’s work firewall… it will be attached when it becomes available… I will comment on the picture when I put it up, so please come back to enjoy
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UPDATE! This is how the Viking IT Department would handle my problem…
That’s almost as bad as the IT department at the law firm I worked for for 6 years. One of the top ten firms internationally, and yet getting a new keyboard took hours. There was a process to go through which involved a trouble ticket — that was after leaving voice mail messages through the proper channels of IT personnel.. call the wrong one and you’re toast. Eventually I started bribing my friend Mike to get me new keyboards. Then they fired him (for being too smart) and eventually I had to learn to stop spilling coffee into my keyboard lest I have to start buying my own (it was faster) and put in for reimbursement (took five months). So I feel your friend’s pain.
Amy’s last blog post..Dear Mr. Schnickelfritz
This timebomb is ticking faster these days. I hope your friend has his resume all over the place. I am thinking very good thoughts for his future.
Wendi Kelly’s last blog post..Saving Summer
I think many IT departments have taken Microsoft as their role model – deliver late and poorly…
Alex Fayle’s last blog post..Manifesto for World Domination
@Amy,
Exactly – it would have been faster for my friend to get the replacement himself. Or, make a virtual machine image of his work laptop and bring his personal laptop to work… (love your new post, I’ll be over tonight to say hi!)
@Wendi,
It is ticking for sure. My friend will have an update for you tomorrow, as he (I?) am not going away tonight and will have internet service
@Alex,
Agreed – the sad thing being, the techs really want to solve the problems. The budgets and managers have their hands tied, unfortunately…
HAHAHAH!
I forgot all about this picture.
They should hire MORE Vikings in the work place.
At least things would get done..!!
Friar’s last blog post..Watercolors: Fresh Tracks
Oh my God, that picture is priceless!!! Ahahahaha!
But seriously, I’m so sorry your friend is having all these frustrations. I hear about this kind of thing daily from my husband and I really wish I could do something about it. So many people are so frustrated at work!
One day your friend, who I know will someday be a successful writer working from his lovely dream home by the ocean, will look back on these days and say — [and this is where your friend decides now what he will say later]…
Know what I mean?
steph’s last blog post..To English Degree Students Everywhere (and to those who make fun of them)
@Friar,
I love that picture you drew and I knew I had to use it someday – it has a special meaning for us, too…
@steph,
Luckily, my friend has learned to laugh his way through the frustrations – but I needed a Viking topic to write about today, so it seemed appropriate!
I hear you – and my friend thanks you. You, too, will also see your dreams become reality.
I’ll have to ask my friend what he’ll say. Though I imagine he’ll just be content to watch the sun set every night and enjoy a quiet glass of wine with his family
The IT department at one of the last few places I worked installed an online ticket generation queue for IT requests. So where I used to just pick up the phone and say, “Scott, my monitor just died and I’m in the middle of a report that’s due in an hour. Help?” (Then I had to wait two hours for help, but that’s not the point.) Now his response went more like this:
“Did you create a ticket?”
“No I just called you.”
“Make a ticket.”
“But this report is for ‘Head Honcho Guy’.”
“Make a ticket and mark it High Priority.”
“And that puts me in a faster queue?”
“Yes.”
“The same queue John just submitted a ticket for a new mouse pad? Scott, EVERYTHING is high priority if you give these people the option! Mine really IS high priority, so I called instead. Can you help me out.”
“Make a ticket.”
I’m pretty sure John would have gotten his mouse pad before I got my new monitor if I hadn’t called to let Head Honcho Guy know his report was going to be late because my monitor was dead. Somehow IT arrived pretty quickly after that… and I didn’t have to create any damn ticket either.
Nicole’s last blog post..New Addictions and Getting Organized
Nicole,
I also have a monitor story. The short version is that the monitor stopped working, and it took IT so long to even come over and pick it up, that it was out of warranty. A 1-year warranty, and it broke about 7 months into it. Ouch.
I’m sure Friar has a few stories also…
LOL That’s terrible. Darn IT people. (I’m going to ignore the fact that I was once one of them.)
Nicole’s last blog post..Just Writing
Nicole,
I should have quantified the monitor story – in defense of the IT folks where we work – the actual techs would love to provide good service. Their hands are tied by policy and procedure. The people themselves are actually very capable.
Isn’t that always the case, though…
I think that sometimes the hands of IT folks are “tied by policy and procedure” (Brett)…other times I think they get a death grip on policy and procedure and use it like a shield/club/bludgeon to deny you what you want.
April, the reformed passivist’s last blog post..Ego Imprisons the Passivist
April,
True enough – I have a good friend who is a wizard with Linux and all things open source. Recently, a new manager took over his group – and the new policy is “it has to be from Microsoft”. So all of his work has been sidelined due to policy…
Oh, I have been there. Worked for both those companies, plus a few others. Now I am my own IT department. And I have a backup computer. A whole one. Hahehee.
Melissa Donovan’s last blog post..Lewd, Loud, and Proud: Dudes Who Slam Poetry
Melissa – that’s the best way to be, you know. I’ve heard of some more progressive companies starting to just give employees an “IT budget” if they so desire – you get $3,000 per year to spend as you wish – equipment, support, repairs.
Sounds good to me!
Man oh man, did I just wander into the IT bashing Convention?
As an IT Manager (I have to be the manager… I am the only IT guy here) I have to say that I hate IT guys. Think AV club in high school, with power.
I decided long ago that I would not be the BOFH. I would be “user-centric”. I would do everything in my power to help the end users be more productive. I am a service providor, emphasis on the service.
Monitors get replaced in minutes, I have backup equipment on hand and if you call, I answer, no tickets. That, and when I fix it, I fix it once.
Now if I could only get to run a real department with a real budget, then we would see whose model works best.
Anyway, I am waiting for your friend to start a business, watch it take off so he can hire me full time. I’ll bet he won’t mind if I was 15 minutes late for work because my kids didn’t want to eat breakfast this morning…..
Francis,
I have no doubt if you ran the show here that things would be Swiss watch quality. The techs here know what they are doing – but their bosses get bonuses for saving money (of course), and so by the shoestring it is…
My friend is steadily working along (and will give you an update when things really get moving – if it goes as planned, he will need the help…)
Since it will be a 21st century business, you won’t have to “show up” for work…
6 weeks? How about 3 words.
Sign me up!
Done! You can be VP of Mayhem…