The IT Aura

Have you ever noticed that the IT department seems to be immune to omputer problems? They still happen, rarely, but the majority of the time IT department computers work as intended. Now, is this because they are properly maintained (backups, updates, etc.)? Not likely. I, for one, am lousy at practicing what I preach. Instead I have another theory: Playing Diablo III the other day I toyed around with a Paladin character who has the ability to use Auras. These Auras provide and area of effect to increase protection, cause damage and sometimes even to heal. That got me thinking of O'Brien's Law of Quantum Observation as it Relates to IT Issues. I had said in tha post that perhaps IT techs have the ability to cure computers through the laying of hands. Since then I have realized that I supposedly have resolved issues simply by answering the phone or entering the room where the offending piece of equipment is located. This leads me to two conclusions - 1) The healing ability is more of an area of effect and 2) This effect can operate over a phone line. The reduced number of incidents with IT-operated computers seems to support the theory that the IT Aura is in operation. It has been further suggested by one of my users, that stationing IT technicians throughout the building would enable all users to take advantage of this aura and thus reduce the number of incidents throughout the company. Food for thought.

Here, Have a Clue

When you work for a company that has a ticketing system for making requests of IT, you should never have to ask "how do I get _____". The answer is very simple, open a ticket. How do you get access to a certain folder? Open a ticket How do you get a new computer? Open a ticket How do you report a problem? Open a ticket Do you see the trend yet?

Lazy Questions

How long does it take to type in an email address or a phone number? Not that long. Even less if you copy/paste. So why is it that a simple request to add an email address does not include that information in the body of the email? Why would you expect the person doing the work to hunt through your email thread to find the address you asked them to add? How lazy do you have to be? Would you like it if I responded with something along the lines of "the answer to your question is somewhere in this email". Or better yet, "Here's a word search. Find all the words, then take the unused letters and unscramble them to find your answer."

New Sport: IT Streaking

This is an idea in the making. I will edit this post as ideas come into focus.

This morning I was working with a user at their desk. Once I had finished, I looked for possible routes out of the area that would result in the least amount of "oh, since you're here"-type questions. That is when it hit me, this would make a good sport. I present to you -  IT Streaking.

It's simple and safe for work (assuming you set a speed limit)

Goal:
Complete a circuit in the most amount of time without being stopped for help.

Rules:
1. You keep your clothes on as well as any identification that you would normally wear as part of your job.
2. Disguises are not allowed
3. Set a speed limit for safety. I suggest nothing above a brisk walk.
4. Determine a course - start/finish lines, path, etc.

Scoring:
The challenge in IT Streaking is completing the course in the slowest time without being stopped to help someone, but at the same time, the ability to help someone quickly should also factor in. With that in mind, count each stop as a fault (same as missing a gate in slalom) and subtract 1 minute from the total course time. Another option would be to subtract the time spent helping from the total course time.

Score= Total course time - (number of faults * 1 minute)  OR
             Total course time - amount of time spent helping people

Computer upgrades will not cure stupidity

Recent tickets coming in for Excel not autocalculating. The Cliff Clavin caller knows that this is an indication that we should upgrade him to the latest version of Office.

Turned on Automatic calculation in Tools > Options. So much for the upgrade.

I think we need all email application designers to sign-on to this idea: Prevent users from typing their whole message in the subject line. I'm picturing something like the dreaded Clippy popping up to say something like, "You appear to be typing an awful lot of words into the subject line. Would you like me to copy this to the body of the email instead?" The help system could then further explain that the subject line is a brief summary of what the email is about while the meat of the message is contained in the body. Perhaps it could also point out that people that put more words in the subject line than there are in the body of the message are more likely to annoy those on the other end.

Or maybe I'm just crazy.

What happened to "the customer is always right"

In my time on this planet I have dealt with a few different companies and a couple governments looking for customer support. Among that group who would you guess has the worst customer support? You'd think the government, wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong!

Several years ago my company signed on with a mid-sized partner to provide us with phone services. At the time we thought it would be better to be a big fish in a small pond because we would be the most important customer in their roster and would reap the benefits. Looking back through the egg on our faces I'm sure we wish we could hop in the old DeLorean and go slap ourselves upside the head.

It turns out that, not only were we the big fish in their little pond, we were like Otto in A Fish Out of Water - we just kept growing and growing until we were too big for them to handle. Now most companies, you'd think, would take one of two paths; 1) Admit that they had bitten off more than they could chew and bow out gracefully or 2) Step up to the plate and use some of the profits we paid them to improve - better infrastructure, more knowledgeable staff, etc. Turns out that this company was not like the others.They chose option 3) Take the money and run the contract into the ground no matter what.

As things started going south with calls dropping, bad quality, people not being able to hear each other, etc. our support desk found itself escalating more and more issues to our partner's support desk. At least that is what they called it. In the 3 years of the contract they had gone through 4 or 5 support desk managers ranging from the fairly knowledgeable and helpful to the downright ignorant and rude. At one point they practically auto-replied to us with "not it" whenever we pushed a ticket their way.

For example, one day, the 5th day of outages which they ignored the first day, blamed on us the second, finally located the problem on their end on the third, blamed us again on the fourth and then, with their admission of guilt still hanging out there, stopped troubleshooting altogether. The issue had happened before several times and always had the same solution. Instead of taking the road well-traveled, however, they wanted us to, once again, prove that water is wet and step through a series of extra troubleshooting steps. This after 4 days of no phone service and horrible customer support.

Now, I'm no businessman, but I fail to see the logic of treating your biggest customer like a stray dog that just crapped on your manicured lawn. According to their press we made them profitable where they weren't before. They even listed us as 5 different clients on their otherwise paltry customer list. Which means that when we dropped their services they lost over half their customer list.

We have since moved to another provider who has not once blamed us for their own failures and has, on several occasions, informed us of outages before we learned of them from our end-users. Our old partner still has the claims on their website that so amused me back then. I find particular humour in the sentence which reads "we provide exemplary customer support" and even more in the promise of 24-hour coverage. I never once was able to reach anyone outside of normal business hours on their "24-hour support line." It reminds me of Steven Wright's joke about going to the 7-11 to find the owner locking up. "What are you doing? Your sign says you're opened 24 hours" "Yes, but not in a row."

Maybe things have changed and they are finally living up to their claims, but I somehow doubt it.

UPDATE: I found this posting in my drafts folder recently and decided to see what the old company was doing. They went bankrupt in 2015, meaning they lasted longer than I expected, but came to the same end.