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Neat. The office removed my VPN client. Now the upgrade wont install. That means i get a free day off, right? :)
On a conference call today I was chastised by a self-important middle manager for "speaking out of turn."
Considering that my only involvement here is as an SME, I don't work for them, and I'm only there because I have skills they don't and they'll totally fail without my help ... I was immediately reminded of Harvey Keitel as Winston Wolf in "Pulp Fiction" (1994).
I got onto a chat with the implementation lead for that department (who is friendly) and I told him that this guy has placed himself on my shit list.
"I'm here to help. If my help is not appreciated then good luck, gentlemen."
I guess I now need a tuxedo and a moustache. I already have a love for coffee.
i get that all the time. Other managers think they know more about a subject than i, when i live it, they just work on ways to try to avoid it.
2nd shoe is about to drop. meeting this week: "well, our team will do all the scripting and you can interface with us "
first they restricted any 'coding' by all the groups but one, now its going to be scripting too. as i suspected. guy over that stuff is power hungry
Here soon every exe will be monitored, as well as file access. Admin rights are going away, and to run an unapproved exe you have to use a new tool to log the request to execute, which sends a report to security team. that is IF you are even authorized .. else it just reports you in violation )
It wont be too hard to enforce. "you come thru us next time, or you wont be working here any more"
All right, time to rant.
While sleepily poking through my email this morning I found that I had received a message on LinkedIn the previous evening. It was from someone who had been one of the higher-ups at ${employer} but left us about six years ago. Never heard from him since then, until now. And when I checked the message, I was expecting news or greetings or maybe some interesting thing that made him think of me.
But no ... he was looking for tech support for his freaking laptop.
And it was an "emergency" so I needed to either give up the rest of my Sunday evening with my family to help him, or otherwise reach out to him first thing in the morning. WTF? Apparently he was issued this machine while he still worked for us, and believed that I could help him. Maybe he locked himself out of it and thought I knew the admin password or the bios password or somethng.
As if I would have ever lowered myself to touching a Surface laptop.
I don't do tech support for anyone except my immediate family.
At least the LinkedIn message had enough detail to warn me that he was looking to be an open-ended time sink, so I knew enough to steer clear of him for the rest of the day. He called my cell three times, tried to reach me through the reception desk two times, sent an email, and tried to get to me through other contacts he still had at the company.
It's someone who under other conditions I might have talked to. But to just come out of nowhere after six years and then demand that I become his personal tech support department? For a machine that he should have surrendered when he left the company? I don't know what his time-sensitive issue was, but the world does not have pixels small enough to draw the tiny violin I am playing for him.
If you are going to steal company property, at least reload it. Geesh..
And ya, i would have done the same thing, tho i might have made up an excuse " i might get fired for helping with that laptop, sorry " that way if we ever met again in life ( if i changed jobs or they came back ) less chance of hard feelings and having to find another place to work, again.
"Hey there. Sorry I missed your message over the weekend. I checked in on this and it turns out I would get into pretty big trouble for assisting a former employee in unlocking a company-owned computer. Please call Internal IT at XXX-XXX-XXXX or email help@xxxxxxxxx.com to surrender the machine."
hehehe
2022-10-04 06:56 from Nurb432
If you are going to steal company property, at least reload it.
Geesh..
And ya, i would have done the same thing, tho i might have made up an
excuse " i might get fired for helping with that laptop, sorry "
that way if we ever met again in life ( if i changed jobs or they
came back ) less chance of hard feelings and having to find another
place to work, again.
I think disappearing is so much better than sending an answer back, because sending an answer back is possitive feedback regarding your availability.
2022-10-04 18:52 from IGnatius T Foobar
Excellent point. I replied to him on LinkedIn.
"Hey there. Sorry I missed your message over the weekend. I checked
in on this and it turns out I would get into pretty big trouble for
assisting a former employee in unlocking a company-owned computer.
Please call Internal IT at XXX-XXX-XXXX or email help@xxxxxxxxx.com to
surrender the machine."
hehehe
I think you are a true master at making friends with people and therefore I should learn a lot from you.
Not a sarcastic comment at all. No sir.
Only concern i would have ( like i was mentioning ) was making an enemy, even if you simply ghosted him. Sure, may never see the person again, but i have noticed its a small world.
Wed Oct 12 2022 06:18:41 AM EDT from darknetuserI think disappearing is so much better than sending an answer back, because sending an answer back is possitive feedback regarding your availability.
I think you are a true master at making friends with people and
therefore I should learn a lot from you.
Tune in next week for another episode of "How to piss off IG and live to tell the tale" :)
I'm normally quite generous with my time and resources, but he did two things wrong:
1. Popping up out of nowhere after years of silence and then passively demanding my help
2. Asking for tech support at all. I don't do tech support. At all. Ever.
I could have verbally assaulted him, and he would have deserved it, but he *does* work in my industry, and it's entirely possible that I could run into him again. I probably annoyed him by telling him he needs to surrender the machine instead of helping him out, but it could be argued that I did what I needed to do to avoid violating my own employer's security policy.
Not great news, but at least he bothered to tell me.
Ouch. yes. its good he cared enough about his people to warn you all. Could he assist in the search? i'm sure he has built up contacts in your industry...
Mon Oct 24 2022 02:14:36 PM EDT from darknetuserSo, the boss pulled me appart last morning and told me there is a good chance we are closing shop within the next couple of years, because he is so damn pissed off by customers and tax collection, and he does not really need the money. I can't say I can blame him. He told me it is not imminent but also told me to "start looking for another job actively".
Not great news, but at least he bothered to tell me.