Very Appreciative End User? Perhaps Not

Posted on by Baba

An email foward from a friend:

——————————————-

:-p go me!

From: Very Appreciative End User [mailto:somename@some-name.com]
Sent: Friday, February 11, 2011 3:27 PM
To: Awesome Computer Tech
Cc: Awesome Computer Tech’s Manager
Subject: Email Spam

Awesome Computer Tech–

I just wanted to thank you for helping me figure out that someone had, in fact, hacked into an old personal email account of mine.  I would have never figured it out without your help.  I appreciate you dropping everything to help me fix the problem and check my computer to make sure nothing else was wrong.

/Very Appreciative End User

______________________

My response

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But if you read between the lines… (See below)


From: Awesome Computer Tech
Sent: Friday, February 11, 2011 3:31 PM
To: Brandon
Subject: FW: Email Spam

:-p go me!

From: Very Appreciative End User [mailto:somename@some-name.com]
Sent: Friday, February 11, 2011 3:27 PM
To: Awesome Computer Tech
Cc: Awesome Computer Tech’s Manager
Subject: Email Spam

Awesome Computer Guy–

I just wanted to thank you for helping me figure out that someone had, in fact, hacked into an old personal email account of mine.  I would have never figured it out without your help.  I appreciate you dropping everything to help me fix the problem and check my computer to make sure nothing else was wrong.

/Very Appreciative End User

Not is It Appears

Posted on by Baba

After looking at the firewall configuration for an hour, and then a meeting with our network consultant to discuss:

“Hello, this is Elvira. (The name has been changed.  Why change to Elvira?  Answer me this.  If I had chosen Jane, would you have asked me why I used Jane?  No, you wouldn’t have.  So, in choosing Elvira, I made you think a bit more than you would have today.  In doing so, I’ve helped you grow your mind.  In expanding your mind, I’ve aided the growth of the hivemind that is humankind.  And by doing that, I’ve done my small part to end world hunger, cure diseases, and ensure that fewer restaurants give you straws too short for their drinks.)

“Elvira, this is Brandon in IT.  I’m calling regarding the ticket you sent us for modifying the firewall configuration for the upcoming web service change.”

“Oh. Yeah, Peach (another fake name.  Queue Mario theme music.) and I fixed that already.”

“Oh, I thought it was about changes that don’t happen until tonight.”

“I’d have to look at my emails…”

“Nevermind.  As long as it is fixed.  Either way, when the service changes tonight you should be good from our standpoint.”

Moral of the story?  None.  Just a statement that I don’t have a clue what her original problem was.  :-)

Frisky Tech Support

Posted on by Baba

Hmmm…  Okay, I’ll open up a remote session for you to look at the problem even though you’ve asked me no questions about it.  I do tech support.  I understand sometimes you want to see the problem for yourself to make sure that I’m not an idiot.  Oh, you’ve got control of my screen?  Okay, that’s cool, you can take a look at the configuration, click around the settings yourself, I’ll be patient even though I could easily click the Apply button and show you the error.  Um, why did you just click on my open Notepad.  No, I wasn’t typing up a letter detailing a proposed takeover of a small African nation, but I didn’t really want you looking at my notes anyway, so please don’t do that.  Wait, did you just click on my Network Connections?  Why are you doing that?  No, you don’t need to change my computer to a static IP.  No, I’m quite sure you…  Okay, now just stop clicking.  Period.  Don’t do anything on my PC without telling me first.  No, you don’t need to do that.  It won’t do what you want it to do because that device is on a separate VLAN and I won’t be able to connect over that IP.  Now how do I end this remote session?

Yep, the conversation went about like that, although some of it was in my head.  Makes me want to be a bit more conscientious when providing remote support.

That’s Not What I Was Wanting

Posted on by Baba

It’s difficult to mess up a meeting when no one shows up.  That’s one of the positives that I pulled out of tonight’s “meeting” for Financial Peace University.  Was it discouraging?  Yep.  Embarrassing?  Not quite so much as if only 1 had showed up. :-)  But, it was also humbling.  I found myself going back to Sunday’s message of “Not my will, but Yours be done.”  I sat there thinking that I’d like to have more people there, but then I started thinking that maybe God didn’t want anyone else there.  Maybe or maybe not, but I needed to allow for the possibility.  My will is often not the same as his will.  I want to go left to his right.  Down to his up.  Cracker Barrel to his O’Charley’s.  Whatever the case, if things don’t turn out how I planned, maybe it’s just that life was being directed by a different, and infinitely better, hand.

Programmer I is Not

Posted on by Baba

I volunteered.  It sounded like such a great idea.  An adventure of new and exciting coding exploits as I figure out how to let individuals change their own passwords via a website.  But, I’m not a programmer.  I spent the majority of today working on this little gem of a project, and actually made some headway, but as I sit here blogging and reading, I realized something.  It’s irresponsible of me to take on a project that will require significant investment of my time when it doesn’t fall with my job responsibilities.  If I had time to blow, that’d be great, but I don’t.  I inherited a mess of an infrastructure, and my company would be better served by putting my time toward administering my systems than it would be playing with resource intensive pet projects.  Now I’m going to try and unvolunteer. :-)

SysAdmin is I

Posted on by Baba

I’ve begun reading the blog The Lone SysAdmin from the oldest posts on Systems Administration forward.  There are 34 pages of posts and I’m on 30.  Why am I doing this?  Well, I need a mentor.  I’m a sysadmin, but I’ve never once worked with another sysadmin for more than a project or two.  I’m expected to know it all, but as much as I read and research there are a ton of gaps in my knowledge.  So, Bob Plankers, you are officially my mentor until I finish your blog.