Wild, wild tech

Published under Uncategorized.

I was chastised by IT today. 

A little bit of background.  My old job, computers and software were all strictly controlled.  Seriously.  Everything was under restricted access and configuration management.  Even your use of the alphabet was monitored.  Have you ever tried estimating the number of ‘E’s you’ll need for a week?  Do you know how frustrating it is when you run out of ‘T’s or ‘S’s on a _hur_day?  _uddenly, you find your_elf filling ou_ you’re ac_ivi_y repor___ and _igning your _ime_hee_, and __nding _mail _o your bo__ _o g__ mor_ i_ a pain in _h_ a__.  ((apparently, I ran out of e’s towards the end, too).

I digress.

So, comparitively, the IT world here has been likened to the wild, wild west.  You bring in what you want, and take responsibility for it.  You try to fix your own problems first before you call someone else.  If you call someone, make it someone in your department.  Almost no problem is big enough for IT. 

Consequently, I have become the goto man for our department.  I fix problems.  I feel the need, somehow, to compare this to a sheriff.  IT would be the wondering judge that only rolls through town once a season. 

So, today, a coworker lost her minimized programs.  I have never seen this problem before.  When you minimize a program, it disappeared.  There were no little nice boxes on the taskbar to help you.  The programs were still running, and you could alt-tab to them, but the taskbar ate their boxes.  This happened while I was out, and after asking everyone around, the coworker resulted to calling IT. 

So, when I got back, they called me over, and I spent several minutes researching online and found a solution in the form of a VBS script of unknown origin, on a strange website, which claimed to solve the problem.  Being no dummy, I did not recommend the coworker run the strange VBS script before IT show up, since they had already been called, anyway. 

IT woman showed up, played with the computer, and declared they would have to delete the account and reinstall it onto that computer.  I suggested that since she had to delete the acct, anyway, why not try the script.  She did.  It worked.  And she actually asked me why I didn’t run the script before she got there and cancel the IT call so that she didn’t have to come all the way to our building. 

Indeed. 

Then she made me email her the script.

Moral of this story:  I think I’m now empowered to run very strange vbs scripts on "company" computers.  That, and I still know more about computers than US Government IT people. 

2 Comments to Wild, wild tech

  1. NightKat,

    sounds liek a problem for you….

  2. manda,

    so… wait… you’re being sarcastic about the alphabet, right? i couldn’t concentrate on the rest of the story because i was too busy trying to figure out what on earth i’d do if i had to use my letters on a budget.