Building up a tolerance

Yesterday seemed like a slow day at the Helpdesk but when I looked at the numbers I saw that I took 76 calls. Not slow at all. In fact, looking over the past couple of months, my average call volume is 73 for a day.

And what is a worse commentary on the skewing of my perceptions was a look back at one of my earliest blog posts from 2004:

As of noon I have taken 42 calls, which is about the number I get on a normal day. 3.5 hours to go.

In four years, the call volume that I consider "normal" has nearly doubled.

New Year. Old Patterns.

The first day of work after New Years has consistently been the busiest at the Help Desk. Mondays' are the busiest of any weekday because people can't remember their passwords over a weekend, so multiply that by two weeks and you can get an idea of how the new year starts off.

And it was even better because Management somehow thought that with New Years Day in the middle of the week (as if Tuesday is the middle of the week) that people weren't really going to be coming back to work until the following week. I've been here for eight years and that's never happened. January 2nd is the big day.

So, we were understaffed and got pounded. It wasn't as bad as some days, say, when branch systems go down, but it was pretty heavy. My call volume went to 109 calls for the day. The next highest analysts were in the mid to low 80s.

And this happens pretty much with every holiday. There was the "part-time people can earn some extra hours the day after a holiday" policy. Then the "everyone must work overtime the day after a holiday" policy. The "please volunteer to work overtime the day after a holiday" policy. This is the "Holy shit, we didn't think it was going to be like this the day after a holiday so please, oh please, work overtime" policy. One might think that after 8 years someone would have noticed something of a pattern developing as to what sort of call volume we get the days after a holiday.

But it is, of course, systemic. The "just in time" manufacturing model applied to service. Just enough people be paid to manage the standard, average service levels but, should something actually go wrong, we get completely pounded. Way to cut those corners, guys. Way to set that bottom line.

Treated like dirt.

I received a call from a user that was reporting their system slow. I asked about whether it was everything or just when she was connecting to network resources. She said it was network resources and when I pinged her workstation I indeed saw some network slowness. Nothing spectacular but it was there. I asked if it was just her or if other people were having problems as well. She asked a coworker and they were slow as well.

I opened a ticket with the following text:

GEIS
NETWORK SLOWNESS/SOMEWHERE
MULTIPLE USERS AT LOCATION REPORTS SYSTEMS SLOW
APPEARS TO BE NETWORK RELATED, NO TIMEOUTS THOUGH

PINGING WORKSTATIONID.BANKDOMAIN.COM [XX.XXX.XXX.XX]
REPLY FROM XX.XXX.XXX.XX: BYTES=32 TIME=113MS
REPLY FROM XX.XXX.XXX.XX: BYTES=32 TIME=150MS
REPLY FROM XX.XXX.XXX.XX: BYTES=32 TIME=274MS
REPLY FROM XX.XXX.XXX.XX: BYTES=32 TIME=60MS

The ticket went up to support and was set back to the Help Desk with the following comments from the tech:

SENDING BACK TO HELPDESK. NOT SURE WHO
MADE THE CALL AS STATED ABOVE "APPEARS TO BE
NETWORK RELATED". WHO DETERMINED THIS? WHAT
ARE THE SYMPTOMS? WHOLE SITE OR JUST ONE USER?
WHO RESEARCHED PROBLEM TO DETERMINE NETWORK
PROBLEM?

You asked "who made the call"? It was me. My name is right there at the top. See?

"Who determined this?" It was ME and I used a ping. See? The ping shows that the network is slow.

"What are the symptoms?" There it is right there; the systems are slow. Slow performance with a higher ping time are symptoms that tend to indicate something to do with the network.

"Whole site or just one user?" First line says "multiple users." Can't you fucking read?

"Who researched this to determine it was a network problem?" It was ME, you frelling halfwit! It's all right there! Arrogant moron, open your eyes!

This support person was so upset that someone at the Help Desk would DARE to come to some sort of troubleshooting conclusion that they completely forgot what they had just read. And they put this ignorance into the ticket for everyone to see.

So, I took it up the the Site Manager for him to see what sort of idiots they take us for. I told him that I don't have to stand for this sort of childish, belittling and bullying treatment. I'm a professional and I deserve to be treated as one.

We'll see if anything comes of that.

Too late

A user calls with a remote access issue. He had had a problem last week and on Thursday support installed the latest remote access client on his machine. Tested it OK at the office and sent him on his way. Well, it didn't work for him at home and he's calling back. I worked on some troubleshooting and, based on what I saw in the previous ticket I thought that his real problem was that he was using a slow dialup connection. I didn't think support was going to be able to do anything about that but I'd open a ticket to try.

Now, here's the kicker. . . he MUST have this resolved by noon.

Considering that it was 11:54, I told him I would escalate the issue's severity but pretty much assured him that his issue was not going to be addressed, let alone resolved, in the next six minutes.

That apparently wasn't acceptable because what he needed to do was so terribly important. He demanded to be put in contact with the Command Center. I called the Command Center and before conferencing in the user explained to the person there that he demanded to be put in touch with them. Because what he needed to do was server related, I thought that perhaps he wanted the Command Center (who's responsibility is to the servers themselves) to do something on his behalf because his remote access was down but I also explained that I thought that he just wanted his issue resolved and thought the Command Center had power proportionate to it's name that could make it happen. The tech at the Command Center thought the user was going to be disappointed.

Sure enough, when the user spoke to the Command Center and told his story, the Command Center had to say that it wasn't their responsibility to resolve remote access issues. It was the Help Desk's job.

That sorted itself with surprising rapidity and his ticket was actually submitted with four minutes left before his deadline.

So, let me get this straight. . . you had seven days, (over ten thousand minutes) available since the problem you had was supposedly resolved and waited until the 10 minutes before your vital deadline to actually test to see whether that was actually true? And then you expect support to resolve the issue, not just quickly, but instantaneously! Are you stupid or just lazy?

Well, his high severity ticket was reduced to a more normal severity level when support got around to it an hour later. In lowering the severity they indicated that he didn't deserve the high severity because he wasn't executive staff.

An hour after they support contacted him and confirmed that his problem was that he was using a crappy connection from a slow internet service provider.

Proxy snark

Last week, I received a password call. Normally a simple enough thing but in this case the user was part of the Audit Department. Being Audit, these users have a higher security level than we do and so we cannot access their profiles to verify their identities or change certain passwords. The procedure is for us to call Data Security and have them address the issue.

On this call, the person at Data Security said "You know you can do these, right?" and directed me towards something labeled as an Emergency Password Reset Procedure. This was for off-hours and weekends when the Data Security Department wasn't staffed and was a back door around security.

I countered that the first page of the documentation indicated that during business hours we were to direct calls to Data Security. She resisted, saying that the workaround was available anytime but did the password reset anyway.

Afterwards, I sent a message to the Site Manager:

"Even though she did the password reset, she indicated that we can user the "emergency" procedures any time. I suspect that Data Security simply doesn't want to be bothered with these calls. (That, and they always take at least half a dozen rings and one rollover for anyone at Data Security to answer the phone.)

If Data Security wants the Emergency Reset Procedures to be standard
procedure, they should contact the Help Desk and authorize that change. If that is the case and they are authorizing us to bypass the access levels for audit all the time then it makes sense that we shouldn't be a lower access level than audit. Pointing that out to them will probably have them change their minds about making the Emergency Reset Procedures the new standard."

To my surprise, the Site Manager forwarded my comments in the entirety, snarkiness and all, to the head of the Data Security Department.

I wonder ho well that's going to go over.

When someone asks if you are a god. . .

I received a call from a user today who was having problem after problem with her passwords. The short explanation after half an hour of troubleshooting is that she is part of a pilot program that has Call Center employees working from home with a special version of remote access running. This somehow links ther logins in such a way that if their Windows and Remote Access password do not match, then the login will fail. Here problems had been that she would have a problem with her Windows password, the Help Desk would reset that but she'd call back a few minutes later with a Remote Access password issue. The Help Desk would reset that but then her Windows password wouldn't work.

As I said, I spent half an hour working out a procedure that ultimately involved the Help Desk setting her Windows password to what she told the Help Desk she wanted it to be and then having her synch up her Remote Access password.

She was overjoyed that her weeks of problems on and off had (at lest, we think so) had been solved by me. She had called previously and I had worked with her on an issue on the same day she had been working with the personal issues of a death in the family. She was so grateful then and was so grateful now that she called me "a Help Desk god."

If I played by the rules and never went over the recommended 7 minute talk time, these issues would never be solved. It is my independence and refusal to conform to arbitrary rules that allow me to solve real problems. And in this issue, there are three:

1) There are only about a dozen people in this pilot program so if they call the Help Desk do not make it known to the analyst that they are Call Center Remote Access users, their password reset will fail because the analyst will assume they need the same sort of passwords that the thousands of other users need.

2) The analysts need to be informed of this procedure. If they don't do it correctly, the reset will fail.

3) Support needs to get on the ball and fix the application. This procedure has the inherently insecure procedure of the Help Desk knowing what password the user has chosen. While we really don't care and probably couldn't do anything with it anyway, it is still a security issue that must be resolved.

Severe Policies

Earlier this month, Management instituted a policy that Severity 1 tickets (issues of the highest importance) were no longer to be opened. Analysts were to open lower severity tickets and then notify the Function Desk. Why? Because too many analysts were opening high severity tickets incorrectly. So, instead of TRAINING people to do it right, they create a more convoluted procedure that is even MORE likely to be done incorrectly.

And so, today I had to pick up the pieces. A user called to report that all the phones for an entire building were down. A ticket was opened that should have been a Severity 1 issue. It was opened at the lower severity, as directed, but a bunch of other things were screwed up.

Fifteen minutes later, a Senior Vice President calls and asks me what's going on.

Nothing.

The ticket had not been assigned. It had not been updated. The severity had not been raised. Nothing. This is an entire building down. People with deadline. People have to communicate with the Federal Trade Commission. People who need to move money. So, I updated the ticket and went up to the Function Desk to find out what was going on. The excuse was that they couldn't get into the ticket because I had been in it.

"Not for the past 15 minutes!"

In the end it took a full half an hour for the ticket to be assigned.

When the Site Manager came back on the floor, I took a few minutes to rant at him. "I know why you took away Sev 1 tickets. It's because people were screwing it up. But you don't solve that problem with another procedure they're going to screw up, you do it by training people how to do it right. Now, I know you don't want me as a trainer anymore but you have to find someone to do this shit."

He had a look on his face like he was surprised to find out that I wasn't wanted as a trainer. Apparently, the Service Delivery Manager hadn't passed on the contents of our last conversation.

"In any case, there is no reason for it to take half an hour for a ticket like this to be assigned. This procedure has failed on EVERY level and I'm getting sick of cleaning up this sort of crap because of sucky training. If you find someone who can do training better than me, fine. Do it. But get someone training people how to do this right or we're going to get burned."

Apparently, I ruffled some feathers because latter the Problem Manager, the guy who covers the Function Desk, came over to tell me I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes. That they were on the phone trying to contact people while I was in the ticket.

"I didn't know what was going on because there wasn't anything in the ticket. That's what the ticket is for. To keep track of what's going on so that when Executive Staff calls asking what the hell is going on we don't have to say, 'Nothing' or 'I don't know.'"

He tried grilling me about the specifics of why it was a Severity 1 issue and when I said "communicating with the Federal Trade Commission isn't enough?" he chided me for not stating that in the ticket.

"I didn't open the ticket. Someone else screwed that up and I'm just trying to clean up the mess while Executive Staff is asking why nothing's been done with her issue."

Help Desk Quote of the Day

Executive: "Someone who's paid as much as I am shouldn't have to put up with these problems."

Don't bother calling

The Bank has been encouraging employees that need to access systems from home to get the VPN software installed on their home PCs. Using remote desktop, they can then access their PC at work and do all the things they need to do.

For The Bank, it saves them the expense of buying these user's laptops. It also keeps them from spending any money on support. Note the document below that they are required to sign when they choose to use remote access:

In consideration of The Bank’s grant of access to the Remote Access System, you agree to the following:

1. The Bank will provide you with (i) software that will enable your use of the Remote Access System and (ii) documentation explaining how to install such software. The software and documentation are provided to you 'as is,' without any warranties, express or implied.

2. You are solely responsible for the acquisition of all equipment necessary to run the software and use the Remote Access System. The Bank will not be responsible if the software does not run properly on your equipment.

3. You are solely responsible for the acquisition of any services necessary to connect to the Remote Access System, including, without limitation, internet access or telephone dial-up services. The Bank will not provide such services.

4. You are solely responsible for the installation of the software. The Bank will not provide support in the event you have problems with the installation.

5. Your use of the software and the Remote Access System is at your own risk. The Bank will not be responsible if the software or Remote Access System directly or indirectly cause any damage to your equipment or to any other software installed on your equipment. You agree not to file a suit or make any claim against The Bank or otherwise seek damages from The Bank in the event any such damages occur.

6. You agree that you will not use the software or the Remote Access System in a manner that is inconsistent with any provisions of The Bank’s Electronic Media Policy, as set forth in the The Bank's Code of Ethics. This obligation applies whether or not you are an employee of The Bank. You agree to review The Bank’s Electronic Media Policy before using the software or the Remote Access System. The Bank's Electronic Media Policy is accessible via The Bank’s intranet. If you cannot access The Bank’s intranet, it is your responsibility to request a printed copy.

7. You agree that you will not use or install other unlicensed Bank software. Standard desktop products which licensed by The Bank and are also allowed to be installed on a home PC without an additional license are limited to: Lotus Notes, Sametime, and Symantic AntiVirus.

8. In the event any portion of these Terms and Conditions of Use is deemed to be unenforceable in its current form, such portion shall be enforced to the maximum extent permitted by law, and the remainder of these Terms and Conditions of Use shall remain in full force and effect.

So, to sum it up. . . use this software, use only this software but we're not going to help you use it, make sure it works, take any responsibility if it doesn't work or otherwise help you in any way.

Good luck. . . suckers.

Home to roost

Our Bank bought another Bank and the integration is beginning. I received a call from a Tech who wanted a password reset for a user. He did not have the user on the line so I could not verify the user's identity (mother's maiden name and such like that). When I asked him to put the user on the line so that I could verify that information, he launched into a story that "he always does this." What he's always been doing is calling a conference line specifically set up for this sort of thing but, due to a scheduling mistake, the conference line was occupied by an unrelated meeting and he just wanted it taken care of and so called the Help Desk.

I refused to violate identity verification procedures and after some
dancing around with Team Leads and the Function Desk, I transferred him to the Function Desk who said that they would do it, which made me look like a complete moron.

I immediately went to the Tactical Manager to complain about these "exceptions" that we never hear about and are somehow expected to just do.

I learned that these calls should be going to the Function Desk, where they "just take care of it", but if they're busy, the calls roll out to the general queue. I commented that I always seem to get these calls.

Not two minutes later, the same tech calling for the same nonsense got through to me again. I immediately transferred him back to the Function Desk.

And just after that, we received a message that "If anyone gets a call from Tech_A or Tech_B to reset a password, you may perform the reset without security verification. This applies to today only!"

Geis: "Would it not be appropriate to verify the identities of Tech_A or Tech_B?"

Team Lead: "In most cases I would say yes - but this a pre-authorized process that falls under the Conversion."

Geis: So let me get this straight. . . the only way we will know that the person claiming to be Tech_A calling for a password reset is really Tech_A is that he will say that he's Tech_A. And Data Security's OK with that? And if it turns out that the person calling isn't who he claims to be, what then? Really, if we abandon the security procedures just because the techs are too busy to follow them, why do we have them at all?"

Team Lead: "What can I say? I see your point. I also see that Management made a decision on how to proceed."

Geis: There will come a day, hopefully not today, that these "exceptions of convenience" will burn us very badly. And on that day, as the people who made that decision are clearing out their desks, my only comfort will be in saying that I tried to warn you."

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette are vandals.

I have already blogged previously about the Post-Gazette's unethical subscription marketing practices, today I get to complain about their website.

On Wednesday, we began getting calls from users at that could not access the internet. They could access The Bank's internal intraweb sites but any attempt to get outside was met with a "Page cannot be displayed" message, as if something were wrong with the proxy server. Except that if the user's rebooted, they could again access the Internet. That is, for a single website. then, the Internet was blocked again. Clearly, something was going on with these individuals machines because it was not everyone (if it were the proxy) and it only seemed to be affecting Pittsburgh users.

It wasn't until Thursday that we were able to connect this behavior to the Post-Gazette's website. People who would visit the PG website would have their systems hang and then, *crunch*, no more Internet. Something in the PG's scripting is wonky.

Today, I got a new PC and accidentally clicked on a Post-Gazette link. Too late. The Forcastfox weather bar on my Firefox blanked out. Firefox couldn't get to the Internet. IE couldn't get to the Internet. When I rebooted I received a Java scripting error. Once my PC came back up, everything seemed fine, so I had apparently avoided permanent damage to my system, or at least a reinstall of Java.

Hey, Post-Gazette webmasters! Is this some effort to slip malicious code into my machine or are you simply incompetent? In any case, I'm AdBlocking the Post-Gazette because I simply can't trust them anymore.

Signifying nothing

For a while, The Bank had been making a big deal about Leadership Statements being attached to the e-mail signatures of managers. That seems to have dropped off some but there are a few still out there:

"My Leadership promotes a SOLUTION not a sale"

"My Leadership Causes People to Smile and to Reach Their Goals Wholeheartedly!"

"My leadership is the catalyst for inspiring compassion, integrity and excellence in others."

Does any of this really mean anything? Really. Do people honestly believe that their leadership causes people to smile? Do they think that including a statement in their email saying that their leadership inspires excellence actually inspires excellence?

Engrish

Reported error for an Xerox Fiery printer:

"Exchange time of fixing cleaning unit"

Move it on over

Today was the big move from our one office space to the new location. Most everything was packed and ready to go by the end of my shift at 4:30 so it took less than half an hour for me to break down the workstation, label everything and have it ready to go. Then it was an hour waiting for the movers to arrive, exacerbated by the fact that some moron turned off the air conditioning at lunch time. Normally my cube is a chilly 60 degrees but the temperature climbed all afternoon into the 70s.

Once the movers arrived and starting loading stuff up, it was a walk over to the new building and then another hour wait for the equipment to actually arrive. At least the temperature was reasonable. While I was waiting in the cube with my iPod filling the time, the Operations Manager came by and asked what I thought.

"It looks like a call center, and even more so once they get the lights on."

"I think it looks like a professional Help Desk."

"I've seen professional Help Desks and every one I've seen has subdued lighting and full cubes. It's going to be too bright in here and I don't like the glass-walls on the half-cubes." She gave me a pained look. "If you didn't want to hear my opinion, you shouldn't have come over here to ask."

"No. We want your opinion."

"For all the good it will do."



In addition, I was told that the building had lockers and a shower. This sounded like a good thing but I found that to use the lockers I had to go to the front desk and leave some sort of collateral for a key. Then go downstairs to use the facilities, back up to exit the building or retrieve my collateral. I suppose for someone taking a break once in a while to jog during lunch this is not an onerous requirement but for me commuting every day to have to beg for a key twice a day, every day, it's inconvenient to the point of uselessness.

I'm sure I'll have all sorts of more detailed comments to make once I actually start working in the environment but, for now, I'm under-impressed.

And I have tomorrow off so I can go get my root canal.

Sharing the pain

There was a series of staff meetings wherein, among other things, we learned the actual reason behind the latest stupid policy of not actually troubleshooting remote access issues. Since late last year, the Help Desk has experienced a three-fold increase in remote access calls. Most of those calls have been because some flaw in the latest version of the software has cause password violations to occur even when the user is not being prompted for a password. Fully 5% of all are calls are to address this issue.

Well, in taking this increase to The Bank to try to get second level support to do something about it, say, fix the software flaw, the Help Desk is met with shrugging shoulders. They don't see an increase in their workload (because we're doing all the work) and so refuse to believe there is any issue.

"So", I said at the meeting, "what were doing is offloading all this work we've been doing for them onto second level so that they will have to recognize that there is actually a problem rather than burying their collective heads in the sand."

The Tactical Manager said, "Yea. Pretty much."

"Good. Because if you had justified it any other way, you and I would have been having a private meeting after this one."

We've played this political game several times before but this is the first time Management has come out early in the process and admitted that this is what they were doing. It's nonsense, to be sure, but it is nonsense I can understand.

When another analyst asked what we were to say to users who called and wondered why we couldn't help them anymore I jumped in before Management had a chance to make something up.

"We tell them the truth, or at least the root part of it. We say that Second Level Support is investigating a number of root causes for these ongoing problems and we need to direct these issue directly to them so they can figure out what's going wrong and fix it rather than the band-aids we've been applying up to this point."

The Managers immediately nodded their heads in agreement and said they would send out an email to that effect to the entire Help Desk so that there will be a consistent message.

Again, it's nonsense, but understandable nonsense. Just because I have a degree in political science, doesn't mean I like politics.

Align and Receive

Mail Support sent out an email message to users this morning informing them that they would be performing maintenance on a number of servers this weekend and for a time while that was going on, mail would not be available. It's a fairly common thing to do and messages like this go out all the time.

But apparently this was new to some users.

I get emails from this dept all the time. I am not with this group. Thank you!

The same goes for me too.

And me too

And we were off and running. Each server supports a few thousand users. Three servers were going to be taken down so six or seven thousand users were receiving the support email. Some people were using "Reply to All" in an attempt to get the messages to stop.

Please Stop "Replying to All"

Please do not reply to all !!

Assuming 7,000 emails sent by support, each "Reply to All" sent out another 7,000 emails to people who didn't want to receive them.

Please don't reply to all when you get these system admin e-mails. We are all receiving this e-mail because we are users on one of the servers listed below. Not because you are or are not part of some group.

OK, it's July 10, 2007 and everyone should know by now how to respond to the sender of a note rather than to "everyone". REGARD, please, email protocol!

Of course, even with these attempts to stop the flood, a number of users weren't paying attention.

Why am I getting all of these emails? I have nothing to do with this.

Everytime someone says take me off or stop the emails I GET AN EMAIL!

Yes please stop this has to do with your e-mail server...not what group your in...look up your profile!

Eventually, one of the Team Leads at the Help Desk attempted to explain:

The group list that used to send the communication is comprised of hundreds of members on several servers. Yes, you are a part of the group. The message is informing you that your email server will be taken down and will not be available during the listed time frame. When you 'reply to all' you are replying to hundreds, possibly thousands of people.

But, tragically, this attempt was ignored and merely added thousands more emails to the queue.

I am not with this group either. please take me off the list while you are at it.

Please, everyone, STOP! replying to all!!

QUIT REPLYING TO ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey! Using "Reply to All" in an attempt to get people to stop using "Reply to All" is sort of self-defeating, don't you think?

This is funny...Thanks for making my day.

Please do not REPLY TO ALL about how funny this is.

Resistance is futile.

And why are you all sending this to me???? As if I don't have enough to do, but delete 100 e-mails!!!

I have nothing to do with these emails, I think you may of chose the wrong person.

UNSUBSCRIBE

CAN YOU ALL PLEASE STOP SENDING ME EMAILS!!!!!! I DO NOT KNOW ANY OF YOU AND I REALLY DON'T CARE ABOUT ANY GROUPS SO PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE AND STOP SENDING ME MESSAGES.

This has to stop!!! This is highly frustrating as well as unprofessional!!!

Here is a Senior VP who hasn't been paying attention:

I just got 45 other peoples e-mails. Does anyone know who is doing all of this ??? We must have a security breach. Not very good for a bank, is it?

No, it's not a security breach, it's morons like you using "Reply to All."

Okay you guys enough is enough. Do you not realize that we all WORK for a Bank. This is a courtesy from our Mail Support Team to let ALL OF US know when the system will be down. Just read it and Delete It!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We all have to be aligned and receive!!!!!!!! Let's all be professional in our emails being sent.

We all have to be aligned and receive! What the hell does that mean? It's some sort of corporate doublespeak that sounds vaguely obscene. Instead of "straighten up and fly right" it's "bend over and take it like the bitch you are."

It was about this time that Support pulled the plug on the routers, lest the tens of thousands of emails crash the server. Of course, the Help Desk's call queue spiked as users complaining about all the "take me off your list" emails gave way to scores of "I can't get in my email" calls.

Security Issues

I lost my building access card last week. The issue was assigned to Team Lead D. to resolve but I guess he was too busy looking at pr0n to do anything about. Once it was reassigned this week to someone else, it was taken care of in two days.

It says that it is due to expire in 2010. Damn, I hope I'm not still here for that.

On another security related note, we have a new procedure.

There is an occasional issue in the branches wherein something will go wrong and the user's Windows profiles will become corrupted. The solution is reasonably simple; someone remote accesses their machine, deletes the folder and then the user signs on.

But we got a message saying that we were no longer to do this simple procedure. We were to open a ticket. This means that this goes to a support group and, instead of the user's problem being resolved in a few minutes, it now takes several hours. When the IM went out informing us of this new procedure, I couldn't resist asking:

Geis: Is there a reason the support groups want to do all this extra work rather than allowing us to do it for them?

Team Lead R.: No.

So, here we are again with Management treating us like children and not sharing the reason's why. I've gone to them before with this when they wonder why morale is so low. It's a stupid policy or procedure. If you tell us why it is that way, we are smart enough to understand it and are more likely to accept it's stupidity as professionals. I suspect the reason for this latest nonsense is the same reason we have always had access issues. Some support group feels that they need to keep access limited for security reasons. Perhaps they want to secure the network from contractors. Perhaps they want to secure their jobs from outsourcing. In either case, it becomes a political struggle to get the access we need to do our jobs.

Later, Team Lead R. came to my desk and let me in on the big secret. Well, it wasn't a secret because it was exactly as I said. And so, to pressure support into granting access to all of us, we are sending all of the tickets to them so that eventually they'll get tired of being paged to do a simple folder deletion and allow us to do it.

Why keep it a secret? It's because Knowledge is Power and to keep us weak and subservient, the Official Management Handbook directs that we lowly employees be kept as powerless as possible. I'm sure it doesn't say that in those terms, but I've studied realpolitik too long to be deceived. Hell, even the Managers probably don't realize that is the reason they are being asked not to treat us like part of the team. The last conversation I had with the Site Manager included him using the phrase "That's the way it is." He doesn't even realize what a pawn he is in all this and probably never even wonders what secrets Corporate is keeping from him.

Such as the new online Employee Comment Form that Corporate has put up. I found out about that a week ago (ironically on the same day that the e-mail scandal went down) on one of the financial discussion groups and we here in the boonies have yet to be included in that. Clearly our opinion isn't even to be considered. Or how about the news that our company's 1st quarter profits are just about equal to the decrease in base pay for our overly-compensated CEO. Interesting way to cook the books. And what about the recent news that the CFO just got a big-ass raise. I wonder if he's going to kick that back to the CEO to cook the books further.

Ignorance is Bliss.

Stupid Procedure #387

A month ago, The Bank instituted new password complexity rules, requiring that certain passwords include special characters in addition to the standard letters and numbers. This has meant a 40% increase in password calls as people try to adapt.

There have been emails sent out to employees concerning this change since as far back as November. The actual implementation of this change was delayed three times and each time included additional e-mails. We at the Help Desk have been directed to send out even more emails. Each time we change someone's password, we are required to send out an email reminding them of the new rules.

If they didn't read the first 5 email instructions that were sent to them, why do we think they are going to pay attention to number 6?

The day before yesterday, Analyst J was directed by a Team Lead to go around to everyone and visually confirm that everyone had this email ready in the draft folder ready to go. It's terribly insulting to be treated like children in this way. Then today, one of the Team Leads sent out an email again asking for confirmation that the email was in the draft folder. Insulting AND a case of management not knowing what managers are actually doing.

Something of an aside related to previous issues. . . I have heard, over my cubicle wall, Analyst J complaining about his having been talked to about using abbreviations. Apparently, he would abbreviate things in his tickets in such a way that the Function Desk would not understand what he meant. His hyperbolic response was to verbally stink about it, saying that he would writ out everything, even threatening to spell out International Business Machines.

So, when he came to my cube to check on the password email, I gave him a look that reflected my disbelief at the way were being treated. He commented that he had the same expression when he was told by FD Analyst T about using abbreviations.

"I was going to get her a gift of heavy flow tampons but was told I
shouldn't."

That's an understatement! Remember the comment I made last week about "sexual harassment" and "a lawsuit waiting to happen"? Well, that would have been it right there.

Tech Support Gets Medieval

Still springing

The stats compiled from yesterday show that the helpdesk took some 1,500 calls, 37% of which were Daylight Savings Time related. Again, we were all thankful that the worst of it was that the DST patches needed to be installed manually.

There is a definition of insanity variously attributed to Albert Einstein that says it is "the belief that one can get different results by doing the same thing." There were plenty of calls today from people who spent all of yesterday repeatedly setting their clocks ahead only to have the server set them back. These are the same people that reboot their machine over and over again hoping that the error they are having will mystically disappear or that the password that they just know is right will suddenly start working on the 5th or 6th try.