Initial Rant
- From: Ed Heagle <eheagle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2005 00:07:26 -0500
I bow before you, fellow sysadmins and clued members of IT and perpare
to tell my tale. I have read articles from this group for a while,
finding recovery in the postings of fellow sysadmins. I figure it is my
time to finally post something here.
I work part-time as a network administrator/sysadmin/tech guru(1) for a
K12 school district in a rather small city in wi.us. I have had this gig
for a bit over 5 years now and most recently I have worked more hours
than usual, even doing some overtime.
In the past, the user community that I support seemed reasonable with
several people who are better than others. A few had some sort of clue
on what they were doing and it seemed to be only a small group of rather
incompent people. I thought that most of my users (excluding students)
were not all that bad. Damn, that point of view was wrong.
This school year was a bit different than the last few years. During the
summer, the district went in to a new technology lease with a company
that is named after a fruit and has computers running OSes named after
large furry felines. With in this deal we got a new file server, a new
library server, some software upgrades for some existing servers and
workstations, some new laptops, and various other shiny stuff.
All of our existing machines were to be upgraded to a newer version of
the OS, solving problems caused by running at least 3 different client
OSes. Several windoze machines that are littered around the district
were going to be replaced or upgraded. And one of the most biggest
changes was authentication of the students through the new server. All
of that alone sounds just great but here were it starts to go down hill.
Of course the equipment would be delayed by both the administration (2)
and by ordering/shipping. When nearly everything arrived, it was in the
middle of July. Not much time until school starts in early September to
get work that needs to be done in three buildings by a small team of 5
part-time/contract people.
When school started, we were behind on our work. Here are some of the
main issues:
1. Teacher machines were mostly done except for some laptop users and
the entire Elementary school. (3)
2. New and some used student machines were not anywhere close to ready.
3. The library server is nowhere close to ready (4)
4. The two Xserves (one new and shiny, one old and shiny) were ready but
the user population wasn't "introduced properly" and wasn't ready for it.
These four main issues plus a huge mess of details. Now fast forward to
present day and the main four issues have become less major, partly
solved but not completely gone. The various user problems recently have
been the bane of my existance the last few weeks.
After spending more time at work lately, I realize that the users are
much more annoying then they ever seemed before. Here is some of the
recent "top hits" from the front lines:
1. Problems with the network printers. I recently watched a user, while
doing something else at the time, walk over to a older color printer and
"fix the printer." The printer in question is also having problems when
students print with Cubgbfubc Ryrzragf the "wrong way"(5) even when the
teacher in charge is suppose to make sure that they don't do that. This
time the printer had paper jam. Most normal people in the past would
open the tray and look or just not touch the printer and let someone
know. This time the user just shuts the printer off and tells me "I just
shut it off because it has a problem." and waddles off. So I got to sit
there for 5 minutes, waiting for the printer to finish its startup
routine so I can remove the paper jam.
2. Teacher complains that she has classes of 20 to 25 students and that
the two carts of laptops she has been using (18 machines total when you
add them up) don't have enough machines. Also added to that complaint
that there are some broken but she doesn't say which ones.
3. A user gets a dialog box after logging in that says that "Abegba
NagvIvehf NhgbCebgrpg(6) failed to start correctly, please reinstall and
reboot your computer." Instead of just clicking ok and disregarding it
in the meantime while reporting it later, the user reboots in the vain
attempt "that it will just go away". Gee, if you would have read and
followed the message, it wanted to be reinstalled. Rebooting until you
have a mental breakdown isn't going to fix it, damn it.
After dealing with these people more and more, I see what I was missing
when I wasn't there. Somedays I makes me wonder if I should take up
drinking(7).
---
(1). I am sometimes refered to as part being just part of "tech support"
by my PHB and other non-knowing people.
(2) Part of this blame goes to my boss who took a little too long to get
things rolling. He really isn't like my previous boss at all (who was
very good at what she did). But he at least got it done faster than it
went three years ago.
(3) The upgrade isn't done yet at the Elementary school, but they are
still better off than the other buildings use to be.
(4)Still not going yet, but not my problem.
(5) I will rant about this and the program some other time. Trust me on
this.
(6) abegba nagvivehf isn't a high priority on the Macs especialy this one
(7) Suprisingly enough, I do not partake in drinking. I just never got
into it.
--
Ed Heagle
Trapped in a small and boring town in central Wisconsin.
"You know the job was dangerous when you took it"
.
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