More tales for the New Year

I really, REALLY hate this time of year.

Work gets slow.

And when work gets slow, managers tend to have extra time on their hands..

Restless managers are NOT good. They get into things, they "tinker", and they just get to be a MAJOR pain in my butt.

Let me ask you something..

Just because you don't have something to do, do you go out and start taking parts and pieces off of your car because you think it'll run better?

Do you give the licensed mechanic advice about how to do his job because you read somewhere that doing this one job will save time and money?

What? You don't?

Then explain to me why so many folks assume that since they own a computer and can operate a couple of programs, that they can tell me what needs to be on their computer, what needs to be removed, and how I can effectively "speed up" the networking lines and communication?

Simple fact is that if I were to bring any of these folks into my office, they'd be floored at what was in there, and no clue where to begin.

When it comes to major installations like mine for computer stuff, please let the folks who know what they're doing get their jobs done.

I mean, if you want to get your job done, that's fine..

But please.. PLEASE let me do my job as well, and don't screw around with things you know NOTHING about!

Let me give you this example:

Today I came into work with two computer towers sitting on my workbench. This was news to me, because when I'd left on Friday everything was cleared, and all was good in IT-land. Upon further inspection, I find a Post-It note on the side of one of the machines.

It read: "Removed some unnecessary programs from the desktop, and now it won't work" *manager's initials here*

I sigh, and fire up my workstation computer. After slaving the "dead" tower to my workstation, I go over the programs that were uninstalled before the comp went dead.

Here's a list of the "unnecessary" programs that were removed by this helpful manager:

Microsoft Word.
Microsoft Excel.
Powerpoint.
Microsoft Office suite 7.9
Outlook Express
Lotus Notes
and finally:
System Comp Manager.

This last was the one to kill it.

The System Comp Manager is the script written by MY network manager for all computers linked to the network. Without this script in place, the network then will delete all company hardware from the machine attempting access to the network, effectively shutting it down.

Was dipweed manager to know this?

No.

All he needed to do was leave the machine alone, and let the computer do the job it was designed for.

All in all, he removed the basis for the paperwork templates he uses for reviews (Word), the templates he uses for production reports (excel), the templte he uses for weekly updates (powerpoint), the email program he uses for inter-office and personal mail (Outlook Express), and the corporate email system (lotus notes).

Let's just say that I came a bit unglued this morning, and I used my best judgement in allowing someone else to talk with this specific manager...

I put a call into my supervisor's office, and sent them the entire details of what happened.

This was about 2 hours ago, and I still haven't seen or heard from him since the call was put out that he was needed for a phone conference in the front office.

I hope he learns his lesson!

More next week on things you really shouldn't do to the office computers!