Seems that unless exceptions are somehow made at the last minute, the week of sept 9 is back in office week.  2 days out out 3 days in.  We get to share desks. Or sit on the floor, or something. i donno. we dont have the room.  Tho with the staff that we will lose from them quitting, who knows.  

So i lose ~2 hours a day, and a pay cut of at least 2k a year, due to travel expenses ( gas, oil, tires, wear and tear on the jeep, etc )

"Remote work request denied. "

Time to take as much V time as i can, and i'm out come January.  F- these people.  Im sick and tired of going the extra mile, just to be peed on. ( and not just over this, just the last straw. )  I'd leave today, but i need the insurance and $ so have to have a place to go..  and i dont want to to lose some $70k in vacation time.  Gotta try to get rid of as much as i can.

Some of us think that is part of the long term plan. Piss us off and get people to quit ( with luck before they are vested ) and replace their positions with contractors.  While its true upfront costs of contractors are higher, when you factor in benefits, including retirement funds, and the overhead of having actual employees it comes out as a 'savings' as far as they are concerned.  "just throw money at it"

Just like moving IT resources to 'the cloud', they want to move staff there too, in effect.   Already contact out most of the road construction work from what i hear.  And a number of other areas are mostly contract now.  

Tue Aug 13 2024 09:05:42 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Ooooh. They're gonna lose a ton of people that way. It is the current year.

Heard yet again today:      "I really wish the users would quit calling and bothering me i'm trying to get work done. They just need to go away"

"um dude, you do realize without them you don't have any work to do, or a job at all, right"

• "Im getting a login error, says xyz "
• "ok its fixed, try again "
• "i still get the same thing"
• "well, actually it now says abc, not "login error xyz, and that is now fixed too, try again"
• *crickets for days*
• "hello, just checking in from last week" ( and sent daily reminders.. )
• "ok i got in just now, does that mean its working now?"

I will not miss doing this level of admin support when i move on to only managing AI and reports ( well i do reports now.. but still i will be out of the general admin scene.. )

Could be wrong on motive but i think due to cost we are puling java off everything everywhere unless you can justify a need.  ( and of course our oracle people are freaking out )

And seems 2 more of our BUs are starting the move out of our data-center and to Azure, under their own control.   The exodus has begun. We suck. Everyone knows it.

For us, money is not a concern. We need more, we will just take more. its not like we have to compete or something.  And if we hire more contractors, they dont 'count' as 'headcount' the same way on the books.

But for our BUs if they can move it to cloud and get away from us, its a procedural win.

Thu Aug 29 2024 09:29:11 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar

Cloud never saves money, complexity, or head count,

Sigh.

"Tonight we are changing your MFA/SSO process. you must register with new system or you cant access xyz, pretty much everything!"   "if you have troubles just contact the HD using the system that will also be broken" ( ok they didn't say the last part but suggested they use a system that also relies on MFA/SSO.... )

Much like the PMs we have who are mostly IT illiterate, they are ok people, nothing against them personally but i really wish we would NOT hire non-IT people that need to interact with IT stuff.  Just makes things harder than it needs to be ( projects ) or makes us look stupid ( communications )

I guess the actual wording was "As of Tomorrow, bla bla bla" and was sent after hours.  Did not actually say 'In the morning bla bla bla" . But it didn't happen.... So everyone is going around this morning asking what is going on...  Turns out its 6 *PM* that it takes effect today.  

Geesh.. 

*insert image of drunk ducks not in a row here*

"it will be a transparent change"

This morning " bla bla emergency outage meeting" . And instead of using our process of creating an outage teams channel via the escalation manger, it was put in outlook, and invited EVERYONE to it.. 

Also seems no one tested AWS clients..     Android: ( for chromeos ) No longer "authorized". Linux: No longer "authorized".    Grr   I don't think we were allowed anyway, but Web client: dead unless Amazon updates authentication someday.. ( try to authorize "wont work  bla bla support of bla bla install a client if you wish to connect"  )  Trying to track down someone with OSX to try as well. 

If i have to power up a windows vm/machine to get to windows vdi going forward.. why bother.

Grrr

VDI client, for Linux, web, android, ios are all permanently dead due to this change.  "We really don't care, so we never even tested it. Don't bother us again". 

I wont miss this place one bit when I leave next year.  Yes, i have made the decision. I'm gone.  Wont be Jan 1, But mid-year after i get rid of more PTO, and find some place else to be for a couple of years for insurance needs. So over this freaking industry too.  Wonder if i can find something outside of IT when i leave next year.

*insert XKCD cloud comic here*

Thu Sep 19 2024 13:18:02 EDT from darknetuser

. I guess somebody stepped on it or whatever 

its not always about the deed, its about the outcome. 

Thu Sep 19 2024 13:20:01 EDT from darknetuser

Also, it feels like I am a bit stagnant when my heroic deed of the week is replacing cable.

Previous job was sort of like that.  Spent the first 6 months cleaning up the mess from my predecessor.   I still remember the CFO calling me in one afternoon. "you know, since you got here, stuff just works, and we have forgot what it was like before.  Thank You"

It wasn't 100% smooth sailing after the cleanup, as i really didn't have much of a budget to work with. But it was clearly not panic smoldering fire mode anymore, and i got to help out more with the engineers out on the plant floor, which i like doing.

I miss that place, and 95% of the people. Long story .. When the partnership was formed the plan was to slowly run it into bankruptcy on purpose, to push out the other and claim the technology they brought in. Around 15 years in, it was successful and they managed to do it, but it was so far in the hole when the tech partner did finally call it quits it wasn't recoverable.  The building, which is in a 'manufacturing area', still sits empty, nearly 25 years later.

Yeah, I get it.  I have a big heart, a big brain, and a big mouth.  And just like Big Orange, I've earned a lot of fans and a lot of detractors. When I get frustrated, I get sarcastic.

Like most helpful hackers, the absolute worst way to make me upset is to waste my time.  So after wasting my time for two years on a project that should have taken a week, Those People have decided to waste even more of it by changing all of the specs that they already signed off on and demanding a third redesign.

And during a frustrated teleconference I unfortunately let out the words "at some point, someone has to do their job."

Y'all have not read our employee handbook because you don't work where I work.  But please take a guess as to what the HR recommendation says.  When you are put off by someone's conduct, do you:

1) If you can do so safely, take it up directly with them; most of the time you can work it out without further issue

-or-

2) Launch a smear campaign against them that goes three levels up the org chart

If you guessed "it says (1) but they did (2)" then congratulations!  You're smarter than they are, but don't feel too proud about it because the bar was set really low. 

I can be your friendliest and most useful resource, or I can be the person who automates your job away.  Choose carefully.