Why the sysadmin ignores you...

denverpilot

denverpilot

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DenverPilot
Just another fun story from the land of IT for you this week...

Same day.

President of one of multiple companies we handle the IT for sends email... Paraphrased to protect the innocent....

"I'm getting too much spam and one popped up during a visit to a customer that was embarrassing. We need a better spam solution, as soon as possible."

An hour later...

Multiple people from his staff in an email CCed and passed around through seven people before it made it's way to me...

"Too many customer emails are ending up in my Junk mail folder. Yeah, me too! Yeah, me three!" Ad nauseaum.

If we tell the spam fighting software to be more aggressive, President is happy. If we do that staff loses their minds.

Conversely... Well, you get the idea.

It's not a technical problem. It's a social problem. There's a technical solution that would stop spam almost completely overnight. No one wants to implement it and require it.

This is why sysadmins drink heavily on weekends. Or just stop paying attention altogether and just make up some objective measurements to toss back at both groups...

We've blocked #X spam from you ever seeing it, sorry one got through. Please learn to use Presentation Mode when at a customer site.

We can turn off having a Junk folder altogether and anything you've retrieved from it that was real will simply be gone. The small customers who email from spammer infested servers will never get an email to your inbox ever again.

:) :) :)

Such fun.
 
Better off just shutting down el presidente's pop up notifications, no?
 
I love when sysadmins call for help cuz they mangled their network;

"I'm getting complaints about Outlook running slow."

"Where's the storage located, and what kind?"

"We have it in our main datacenter, plus our dark site xx miles away."

"Ah, that's good, so you do understand the physics of round trip latency?"

"Yeah, but it shouldn't be an issue because we are running SRDF(Global Mirror, PPRC, etc)."

"OK, how is it configured?"

"Well, we setup the highest security when we installed it and also used recovery tools."

"The two sites are nodes on the vplex?"

"Uh-huh, it's been working fine, but now we are getting journal log full issues."

"Hmmm, let's think about this for a few seconds...."

Most of them think that throwing more money is going to make physics disappear, and the R/T latency of keeping two sync copies updated is a rounding error. Oops.
 
Yeah right. When was the last time you saw anyone think they needed computer training to know how to use one? Or was willing to pay for basic OS level training for staff? ROFLMAO.
 
docmirror said:
I love when sysadmins call for help cuz they mangled their network;



"I'm getting complaints about Outlook running slow."



"Where's the storage located, and what kind?"



"We have it in our main datacenter, plus our dark site xx miles away."



"Ah, that's good, so you do understand the physics of round trip latency?"



"Yeah, but it shouldn't be an issue because we are running SRDF(Global Mirror, PPRC, etc)."



"OK, how is it configured?"



"Well, we setup the highest security when we installed it and also used recovery tools."



"The two sites are nodes on the vplex?"



"Uh-huh, it's been working fine, but now we are getting journal log full issues."



"Hmmm, let's think about this for a few seconds...."



Most of them think that throwing more money is going to make physics disappear, and the R/T latency of keeping two sync copies updated is a rounding error. Oops.
Click to expand...


That's pretty dumb. Where'd they find those admins?

Of course, they set up Exchange. That's strike one against them right there... Heh... Everything after that just makes it worse. :)

But seriously. How'd you find admins that don't know how a network works? Is that getting more common with specialization? Are they one-hit wonders that only know Exchange?
 
This is why I started drinking.. Then got tired of drinking an bought an airplane instead...

The generational issue is described above. The younger ones look at a feature in word or excel and say that it should be easy to add to the custom software being used. Should be "cheap" and we need to have it done by next week.

65gallons at about 10 GPH... Call me in six hours to discuss ...
 
denverpilot said:
Yeah right. When was the last time you saw anyone think they needed computer training to know how to use one? Or was willing to pay for basic OS level training for staff? ROFLMAO.
Click to expand...

So you don't proactively update your customers on changes to their computing environment; laugh at the idea of informing them of background changes that affect their job even after an incident that could have been prevented by letting them know of said relevant changes; and get ****y when they expect stuff- not relevant to their core business and which they've paid others to manage- to just work?

Yeah, SO glad you don't manage my IT.
 
warthog1984 said:
So you don't proactively update your customers on changes to their computing environment; laugh at the idea of informing them of background changes that affect their job even after an incident that could have been prevented by letting them know of said relevant changes; and get ****y when they expect stuff- not relevant to their core business and which they've paid others to manage- to just work?

Yeah, SO glad you don't manage my IT.
Click to expand...


You're delusional with no idea what you're talking about.

There's two IT people for approximately 100 staff and I'm hoping to properly make the business case for a third person just to maintain what they have and make a small amount of progress on larger projects. Budget or time to teach basic OS skills? YGBFKM.

They never set a standard for OS and when I arrived, they said they wanted to keep it that way and expand it. People use whatever they like.

If they don't know how to use it, and ask, we'll certainly show them. But part of my agreement to that requirement was that we can't be OS experts on every OS made. Between the two of us we can usually figure it out.

I suspect you've never done IT at a small shop before. I have. That's why I'm there. They'll have some significant cultural shift necessary in order to scale, and that assumes they do all the other necessary business moves to even need to scale. I can scale the "department" pretty rapidly if needed. Done it before, can do it again. No big deal. If they don't grow the business, it won't matter.

If you haven't done it, consider this. Two people to operate, maintain, design, upgrade, patch, secure and budget/plan for servers, data center, onsite servers, networks at two sites, telecom, desktops, laptops, and even the building security system and fire alarm. If someone needs "the network guy" that's you. The "desktop computer/laptop guy", you. Build a new server farm? You. Redesign the network? You. Even a customer having trouble running our code? You. And the list goes on. I'm pretty sure if someone pops a circuit breaker with a space heater, we're the most qualified people in the building to explain it.

It's fun. But training? Sure. Right. Hire a trainer and we'll schedule classes. He'll need to cover at least four OSs at a minimum. No one will make it to a week of class, they have work to do.

I think I'll recommend they use their Capital elsewhere.

Come grab the job if you want it and think they're better off doing OS training rather than redesign to lower their server expenses and fix some core network performance issues, and standardize the server environment first. We'll see if they agree with your proposal for what to spend time and money on first. Ha.

The troll was good for a chuckle though.
 
gkainz said:
BOFH - SysAdmin training guide
Click to expand...


Heh. You know it. The PFY is pretty damn sharp. It's fun to show him new stuff when he thinks he's found something "new".

He wants to learn and wants a bigger paycheck and I think he'll have the skillset and the patience to make it. Got lucky there, since I "inherited" him.

The pervious BOFH was a little too much B and not enough O. Showing up two days a week to work wasn't cutting it.
 
denverpilot said:
That's pretty dumb. Where'd they find those admins?

Of course, they set up Exchange. That's strike one against them right there... Heh... Everything after that just makes it worse. :)

But seriously. How'd you find admins that don't know how a network works? Is that getting more common with specialization? Are they one-hit wonders that only know Exchange?
Click to expand...

You find them in Fortune 100 companies all the time. What's worse, is many fortune 50 companies are outsourcing their IT to 'professional' data mgrs (ADP, etc) who hire anyone able to spell 'eunuchs' (yes, that is a joke, I say - a joke son). The biggest financial groups are often the worse.
 
Typical response ,shut down your computer and reboot it,then give me a call.
 
denverpilot said:
You're delusional with no idea what you're talking about.

There's two IT people for approximately 100 staff and I'm hoping to properly make the business case for a third person just to maintain what they have and make a small amount of progress on larger projects.
Click to expand...

Being 1 of 2 IT people for 100 staff? Big whoop. BTDT, still had a better attitude.

I work for a company that had 3 IT people for 500 folks on 3 separate computer types. Then we merged with another org that promised better IT because they had 12 IT people for 400 users on 1 system. Within 8 months we told them to keep "their" IT folks in their legacy spaces because our IT folks were getting ****ed off and it took a month to get the smallest computer admin task done. We're still getting things done better, faster, and generally happier than them.

Unhelpful sysadmin is unhelpful.
 
Good thing I had popcorn on hand!
 
warthog1984 said:
Being 1 of 2 IT people for 100 staff? Big whoop. BTDT, still had a better attitude.

I work for a company that had 3 IT people for 500 folks on 3 separate computer types. Then we merged with another org that promised better IT because they had 12 IT people for 400 users on 1 system. Within 8 months we told them to keep "their" IT folks in their legacy spaces because our IT folks were getting ****ed off and it took a month to get the smallest computer admin task done. We're still getting things done better, faster, and generally happier than them.

Unhelpful sysadmin is unhelpful.
Click to expand...


You're right. Where in my story were we unhelpful? Or are you just trolling? Nevermind. I already know the answer to that.
 
frfly172 said:
Typical response ,shut down your computer and reboot it,then give me a call.
Click to expand...

I would say 90% of the time this is the fix and 90% of the time, people don't try it before calling. It is typical, because it is often the best advice.
 
John221us said:
I would say 90% of the time this is the fix and 90% of the time, people don't try it before calling. It is typical, because it is often the best advice.
Click to expand...


A fix actually keeps something from happening again. OS manufacturers haven't been in the business of root cause fixes for decades.

What you've described is a workaround to a bug.
 
It used to bother me that companies would come out with new software versions that had the same bugs as the old versions. I guess I've gotten somewhat resigned to it nowadays.
 
Training makes a huge difference in customer satisfaction and actually reducing support requirements. There are lots of app level contract trainers out there that work inexpensively and will even provide materials. I am on a project now where, after the first site deployment, we went from training being optional to 100% training participation being required and customer adoption and satisfaction has skyrocketed. Yes, it can be more important than upgrading servers at times.
 
denverpilot said:
A fix actually keeps something from happening again. OS manufacturers haven't been in the business of root cause fixes for decades.

What you've described is a workaround to a bug.
Click to expand...

Well, for instance, we have an application that doesn't support concurrent logins. Yes, we have since pushed a GPO the prevents fast user switching, but a reboot is the quickest way to get the user back in business. Sometimes the user just clicked on something they shouldn't have and it needs a reboot to clear it out. You may never know what caused it unless your user base is more truthful about what they have been doing than I am used to seeing.
 
denverpilot said:
A fix actually keeps something from happening again. OS manufacturers haven't been in the business of root cause fixes for decades.

What you've described is a workaround to a bug.
Click to expand...

Agree sir. I don't work on small stuff but it's amazing the number and type of memory leaks out there in non-comm stuff. A reboot often releases a bunch of bound up memory from leaky code. Java seems hell-bent on promoting leaks. :cheerswine:
 
docmirror said:
Agree sir. I don't work on small stuff but it's amazing the number and type of memory leaks out there in non-comm stuff. A reboot often releases a bunch of bound up memory from leaky code. Java seems hell-bent on promoting leaks. :cheerswine:
Click to expand...


Java should have been shot in the head long ago. Agree. :-) It never met the stated goals of the language and created far more problems than it ever solved.

That said, how the underlying OS handles Java eating resources is a big deal. If you have to restart an OS to gain control of it because an application like Java hung it, the choice of OS to pair with Java was wrong.
 
John221us said:
Training makes a huge difference in customer satisfaction and actually reducing support requirements. There are lots of app level contract trainers out there that work inexpensively and will even provide materials. I am on a project now where, after the first site deployment, we went from training being optional to 100% training participation being required and customer adoption and satisfaction has skyrocketed. Yes, it can be more important than upgrading servers at times.
Click to expand...


At times. Yes. Not sure it's going to be necessary when "learn to close your email client during presentations" was the fix. Haha.
 
I work on whatever the customer pays me to work on. It usually isn't small, but if we are tracking down a recurrent issue or it is a high profile user, it can be. Sometimes work arounds are required, since work has to continue and permanent fixes can take a while. Also, with all the spyware and c**pware out there that people click on now days (oh, let's watch that cute kitten video) sometimes tracking down the root cause isn't worth it, if a reboot fixes it. If it keeps coming back, than yes, someone needs to figure out what's causing it.
 
John221us said:
I work on whatever the customer pays me to work on. It usually isn't small, but if we are tracking down a recurrent issue or it is a high profile user, it can be. Sometimes work arounds are required, since work has to continue and permanent fixes can take a while. Also, with all the spyware and c**pware out there that people click on now days (oh, let's watch that cute kitten video) sometimes tracking down the root cause isn't worth it, if a reboot fixes it. If it keeps coming back, than yes, someone needs to figure out what's causing it.
Click to expand...


You kissed the point. All that stuff is fixable at the OS level. No one demands it and keeps sending money to the OS vendors. Of course it's not worth your time at the front lines. It'll never be worth the money spent on creating workarounds over the decades for bad OS design.
 
denverpilot said:
Java should have been shot in the head long ago. Agree. :-) It never met the stated goals of the language and created far more problems than it ever solved.

That said, how the underlying OS handles Java eating resources is a big deal. If you have to restart an OS to gain control of it because an application like Java hung it, the choice of OS to pair with Java was wrong.
Click to expand...



I have an issue with this very problem right now.. Our production oracle app server's JVMs run themselves over their heap size regularly and crash the OS.. yet no one wants to upgrade to 64 bit java.... "it's too much work".

:mad2::mad2:
 
warthog1984 said:
It would help if the sysadmin told people Presentation Mode existed, seeing as most probably learned XP or earlier and then just poked around until they found out where the 'upgrade' moved all the buttons to.
Click to expand...

It's not the sysadmin's job to train end-users the fundamentals of how to use a PC.
 
sferguson524 said:
I have an issue with this very problem right now.. Our production oracle app server's JVMs run themselves over their heap size regularly and crash the OS.. yet no one wants to upgrade to 64 bit java.... "it's too much work".

:mad2::mad2:
Click to expand...

I fought that battle a couple years ago too, but when the app vendor required a new version of Fusion Middleware/Weblogic for the new upgrade to their financials app, I chose that time to demand moving off Windows Server to 64-bit Oracle Linux and JRockit instead of normal java on the app server. The result was 4 times faster performance than before, and uptimes that are phenomenal. Just checked my FM/WL app server and it's been up 24x7 for 466 days solid without a reboot.
 
Neal Howard said:
I fought that battle a couple years ago too, but when the app vendor required a new version of Fusion Middleware/Weblogic for the new upgrade to their financials app, I chose that time to demand moving off Windows Server to 64-bit Oracle Linux and JRockit instead of normal java on the app server. The result was 4 times faster performance than before, and uptimes that are phenomenal. Just checked my FM/WL app server and it's been up 24x7 for 466 days solid without a reboot.
Click to expand...

Sadly, this is govt work.
 
evapilotaz said:
you IT cry babies are off playing doom all day and you wonder where your bandwidth has gone. Posted in humor.
Click to expand...


LOL. Today was the overview meeting in front of two company Presidents to discuss what the business plan is for the ever-increasing spam and replacing the phone system.

Also finished up moving connectivity to the datacenter over to the 100 Mb/s metro Ethernet pipe and getting it off of the temporary VPN over the 100 Mb/s public Internet pipe.

Also started coordinating the reconfig visit from one telecom vendor to turn down 3/4 of their circuits and recover their customer premise gear, and checked to see if the last group of twenty or so phone numbers ported from one trunk to another.

Registered a new SSL cert for a customer website and built the virtual host in Apache, and sent the customer contact a note it was all set up except their forward DNS and once that's done, they're live.

Reconfigured the host firewalls on a few boxes to drop traffic from APNIC addresses. Stupid Chinese script kiddies.

Upgrades to the mail server last night were monitored.

The PFY worked on fixing the blown up Windows server backups, all the desktop support fun including someone who definitely did something weird with FileZilla and moved stuff to very odd places, and drew the short straw on calling the nicest but chattiest user in the company who never has had a less than 30 minute support call about anything.

Plan is to have at least one more pricy telecom circuit turned down by next week for meetings with the owner. (Saving $$$$$.). And a new product on all new servers launches in two weeks. Lots of load testing going on today all around and nothing broke or even looked like it was working hard. Yay. Added 2 CPUs and another 8GB of RAM to the mail server during patches last night. Smokin' fast now. Gotta love virtualization!

I haven't had time to play Doom since before Y2K. :)

Got a chuckle out of the data center guy's obvious confusion when I asked him to change a setting on a switch there. "What switch?" "Top of our cabinet." "That's not on my docs!" (And I knew he was making a new network diagram for us... Chuckle. Guess that diagram you're almost finished with is missing a device, huh? Didn't say it out loud...) "Well, it's there and that's where ticket numbers X and Y were working on to remove the metro eye rent from carrier A and replace with the one from the new cabinet you guys installed Carrier B in... You know the one held up by the building permit for six months?"

It's good to have friends in low places. :)
 
Denver but you find time to surf POA. :yes::rofl:

Are you familiar with the century link data center in Highlands Ranch?
We use them as a Colo site for 4 racks and I get out there at least twice a year.

What are you using for virtual servers? We have been using HyperV since beta and 80% of our 70 Windows are Virtual.
 
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