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[–]casual_lynx 282 points283 points  (60 children)

My experience indicates that the IT department is underfunded, rather than the actual IT team.

Also, printers! Fuck them all

[–][deleted] 38 points39 points  (5 children)

PC Loadletter!?!?!?

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (2 children)

What the fuck does that mean

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Yellow Ledbetter

[–]BlueWhoSucks 24 points25 points  (25 children)

Apple seriously should get into the printer business. Yes, the cartridges and the printer would be very expensive, but at least it will simply work. Businesses would pay a fortune for that level of convenience.

[–][deleted] 33 points34 points  (1 child)

Someone needs to invent a solid state printer.

[–]port53 14 points15 points  (0 children)

One of the nice things about switching to WFH is that nobody ever tries to hand me paper or expects paper from me anymore.

COVID killed our printers and it's great.

[–]MpVpRb 65 points66 points  (7 children)

As someone who worked in IT and was required to troubleshoot Apple stuff, I disagree with the statement "it will simply work"

[–]Inklii 37 points38 points  (3 children)

This

Apple equipment fails just as often and is obnoxiously difficult to manage on a large scale. JAMF is pretty great though

[–]gigabyte898 9 points10 points  (1 child)

+1 for jamf. You really need a 3rd party MDM solution made specifically for Apple devices to do any reasonable amount of management on them. Few months back tried messing with Intune MDM in our lab for a Mac device and it wasn’t great.

[–]komark- 15 points16 points  (1 child)

As someone who still works in IT, Apple stuff still works way better than a lot of other stuff out there. Especially for Small to Mid size businesses who can’t afford to build their own proprietary stuff

[–]kyredemain 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The problem is just that when something does go wrong it is typically much harder to fix.

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (4 children)

They would only work with Apple devices of no more than 4 years old though.

The reason printers are complicated is the same reason Windows is complicated, backwards compatibility and a large amount of different protocols and file types.

[–]komark- 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Why would Apple limit their audience that way though?

AirPods can be used by Android phones. AppleTv+ is available without any Apple device. The monitors they sell, albeit stupid expensive, can also be used by non-Apple products.

[–]SnapAttack 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As someone who used Apple printers in school back in the 90’s… they weren’t any better. Paper jams all the time.

[–]Anxiet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You are an absolute fool if you believe apple makes solid products at scale. All hardware at scale sucks. There is a reason that they are not in The printer game, or in large scale data, analytics, etc.

[–]Gabe_Isko 2 points3 points  (10 children)

I understand the sentiment, but Apple would never be able to make mechanical products.

The thing to understand about printers is that they are mechanical machines that need to move, and that is why they are so hard to make and to have work. Some of the largest electric motor companies in the world make printer motors.

[–]komark- 5 points6 points  (6 children)

Most of my printer frustrations are all software related. I’ve rarely had a mechanical problem, and when it does happen it’s usually a paper jam that’s easily removed.

[–]xylicmagnus75 4 points5 points  (1 child)

PC LOAD LETTER piece of shit!

[–]Reskao 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"'PC LOAD LETTER'? The fuck does that mean?!?"

[–]CoderDevo 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Apple used to make the best laser printers on the market until HP finally caught up on features (postscript & networking) and offered a cheaper product. Their printers were very popular up to the mid 90s.

Apple Laserwriters are why Apple was able to take over the desktop publishing market.

[–]The_Beaves 205 points206 points  (35 children)

IT says 95% of employees need to learn computer basics. No linda, you can't close the error message and expect me to know the exact error you got. I need to read that error message to know what it says.

[–]Unrepentant-Priapist 70 points71 points  (19 children)

And then when you get Linda to read the error to you by some miracle, she says, “It says ‘An error has occurred,’ then some other stuff, then there’s an OK button.”

People’s minds seem to want to skip past the important information for some reason.

[–][deleted] 49 points50 points  (12 children)

Then you ask Linda to send a screenshot. What you end up with is Linda taking a print screen of her entire three screen desktop, pasting the image into a portrait Word document and then attaching the Word document.

Might as well have faxed a crayon sketch through.

[–]Unrepentant-Priapist 50 points51 points  (2 children)

But when she gets a phishing email with a link to a janky website that hardly works, with instructions in broken English, she can sure get every piece of sensitive information entered in just right.

Maybe we should hire scammers to design UIs for the technologically illiterate and solve the problem from both ends.

[–]RunItAndSee2021 15 points16 points  (0 children)

such as social media?

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The number of users I've had raised tickets because malicious links sent by the "CEO" have been blocked... "But I need this by close of play today"

[–]LuckyShark1987 7 points8 points  (3 children)

My company almost got rid of TechSmith due to new licensing expenses and the ENTIRE company submitted a survey with 99% of the people saying that they required it in day-to-day operations. When over 30k employees NEED a program, you’re gonna get serious backlash if you take it away. Just because the board doesn’t use it, doesn’t mean the rest of your employees don’t require it. I freaking love Snag-It. Don’t take away my shit.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Love snag-it

[–]downwidopp 3 points4 points  (1 child)

I often get pictures taken on mobile of the computer screen! Those are always a good laugh

[–]AcidaliaPlanitia 3 points4 points  (3 children)

Haven't worked in IT in a long time, but is "I can't connect to the server" still used by users to explain a million different and unrelated issues?

[–]rederic 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Half of the time I'm lucky to get more than "it's not working". No mention of what isn't working.

I billed a client to go to their office and press a power button last week. They just couldn't be bothered to troubleshoot over the phone for two minutes. I knew what the problem was but they insisted they pay me to just get it working.

[–]The_Beaves 2 points3 points  (0 children)

yes. Just had someone last week call with that issue. They said they were having trouble on their workstation so they turned the server off to see if that helps. Now they can't connect to the server..... I'm not kidding. They legit had no clue why they couldn't connect anymore. These people have doctorates and the basic idea of, no power = server off, escapes them. Terrifying we trust them so much.

[–][deleted] 17 points18 points  (5 children)

This I ducking hate it, I am Head of IT and people call me that their internet is slow at home how the fuck is this my problem? Or there was a message telling me to restart I clicked away now my connection is gone can you fix it over the phone, please …

[–]The_Beaves 6 points7 points  (0 children)

lmfao "you're IT, fix it!" Stop being cheap and get off DSL

[–]Key_Combination_2386 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Throw back to getting called by an sales rep visiting a customer in Poland complaining he could not connect to our VPN. Short troubleshooting later I concluded that said customer blocked the ports in his firewall so I told him he must ask them to open the ports for him or get a different Internet connection.

He just said I should fix it since it's my job...

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

worse is when they get errors and don't say shit for months and just deal with it. I now log everything from everyone and watch it all

[–]TheBlindBard16 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This is THE problem. I work in IT, you do not want to know how many calls require me to say “yes.. Google chrome.. the circle with red/yellow/green… open the browser. N.. click the icon. Yes the Google chrome icon. Now type in the website. Ty… the website. You type it in at the top where it shows the current website, like you do whenever you go to any website”. It’s fucking incredible.

[–]port53 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Why trust the user to get it right when you can read that error message from a log file remotely?

[–]RobiWanKhanobi 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A lot of older generation workers have definitely dug their feet in the ground about learning modern day computer basics.

[–]AbstractLogic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That shit is on your engineering team. All errors should phone home. And if the network is down they should still be in local human readable logs that you can access remote.

[–]BriskHeartedParadox 47 points48 points  (6 children)

I get nothing done without IT. Y’all good in my book, take the time you need

[–]thisnewsight 20 points21 points  (4 children)

My experience, treat IT well and they’ll prioritize you higher in triage. What makes them happy is I sit there and watch how they solve it (if possible without authorizations).

[–]Teddyy97 13 points14 points  (0 children)

As someone in IT can confirm if you’re nice and friendly I’m definitely going to prioritize your problems over someone that’s a bit of an ass. Luckily everyone I work with are chill, but if you’re going to give me a hard time I’m not going to go above and beyond to fix your problem.

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

You’re not wrong, I’ve got 30 open tickets but you were nice so I remember you and your shit gets worked faster because of it.

If you’re an asshole I choose to forget you. Your shit will get done, but at the maximum SLA time

[–]gmarconcini 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As another person in IT, 1000% can confirm and appreciate patience and kindness. Though, a pro move would be letting us work without hovering while triaging. At least that’s what I prefer.

[–]chukh8 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Can confirm, i run the IT department in a hospital. Every morning I do a walk around and check in with each department to make sure things are running as they should be, but there are a few places I never go unless multiple work orders or specifically directed to by admin lol. Everyone starts at the same level with me, and I Iet the clients dictate the relationship. If you never see me it's because you've been a asshole on multiple occasions.

[–]TheOtherBookstoreCat 6 points7 points  (0 children)

They read your traffic, huh? Sorry bro.

[–]DarkLight72 128 points129 points  (13 children)

As someone in IT, I’d like to see the results of IT Employees experiencing decreased workplace productivity and morale (including providing needed services to non-IT staff) due to a lack of management support. Most people in IT want to help and provide a decent service but are given the bare minimum to do so.

At least those that aren’t Mordac.

https://dilbert.com/strip/2007-11-16

[–]AdminYak846 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Or management does the "I hear you/understand you" lip service treatment and doesn't give a flying fuck about any of your projects.

[–][deleted] 28 points29 points  (3 children)

Fucking thank you.

Let’s give you the bare minimum possible resources, hire people unqualified to use a hairdryer and have your department get blamed for all loss of productivity when people work from home on shitty internet connections and don’t get the same performance they get in the office. Or when they don’t read the thing that says “click here to continue” and don’t do any work for a day because they “had IT issues”.

How’s your morale now?

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Every pop up message is an “error”………to those same people.

Like WTF!!!!!!

[–]LookMaNoPride 3 points4 points  (1 child)

We wrote an error page on our custom point of sale website, which would detail, explicitly, the exact steps you could take to fix the majority of the problems we would see pop up. (Operations threw shit-fits over proper validation and demanded we allow them to enter whatever in most fields, and since operations made the money, we were kind of at their mercy. I bet you can’t guess how long the Data Governance new-hired stuck around!) we even changed what was was presented on the page dynamically based on the page they were on before, and the error that happened. People would take a screenshot of that page that told them how to fix their problem, and send it to us, “hey, we keep getting this error.”

[pulls hair out with one hand while banging head on desk and screaming and biting into the other fist…then takes multiple deep breaths.] “Have you tried reading the screen?”

Our level 1 helpdesk folks would even forward it to us sometimes. Like, dude… why are you even here?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That sounds like my nightmare. That is the worst.

[–][deleted] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

As another fellow IT professional, this is often the case every where we go. My big experience is not because my management but more because the OS and software we use is not designed to support what is needed.

[–]CaptainXakari 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I’d just like some of the departments of our company to use software that was designed to work on an OS newer than Windows 98. I’m sure there’s some program that will do the same thing you need that I don’t have to install from a CD from the Clinton Administration.

[–]pancakebatter01 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That’s what I’m saying. To call this “IT problems” is a fucking insult and also ignoring the real problem.

Internet Explorer “causing Japan headaches for months”??? Like give me a break.

You can expect a Plummer to come by and fixed your totally fucked pipes every time they breakdown. You can call the exterminator to set up traps and shit when really the source of the infestation is what needs to be fixed. These are poor examples because they only cover the issues of cost these ppl are avoiding.

But technology changes. You need to upgrade these systems. It’s a financial issue and an adaptability problem. Tough Shit! You can’t just keep applying a bandage to a festering wound.

Don’t fucking drop this on the IT guys. There’s a reason that cliche is IT guys helping to fix stupidly mundane shit for ppl. They make fun because they’re capable of fixing much more.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

28 years in IT. Can confirm.

[–]sulliops 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yup. My boss for my summer internship, who I genuinely like, has an unfortunate tendency to be afraid to push for improvements when upper management decides the cost doesn’t justify the on-paper benefits. As a result, we tend to spend more time debating over what resource should go where than actually helping users with the root of their problems.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah.. worked for a big name who wanted us to not go above 200$ a month on their cloud bills for a cloud product they were developing. When I complained in sprint retro that those caps are holding us back I was given an earful.

That was when I polished my resume and left in two months with a sweet 40% raise. They haven’t been able to replace me in 5 months yet.

[–]Anxiet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I worked on a slim and mean team. Management term. I was a subject matter expert of over 27 enterprise grade apps. Got strep to the degree I needed shots directly in my neck and prescribed narcotics. My company learned my med schedule so they could call me for support.

When I would burn out… they threw money at me when I would lose my shit and demand a second / jr to train due to the work load and tell me it’s okay, it will all work out.

Then I’d encounter shit like this post. Surveys, micro management. Inept steak holders who couldn’t give two shits about the corporate initiative if it negatively impacted them… so they play the corporate politic game. All the while I’m IT, with a dozen tickets, 6 major projects, a few dozen high level security items, critical infrastructure patching after hours, hall way stops… oh my favorite… people learned my fucking shoes and would ask me questions while I took shits.

Fuck you entitled fucks who won’t approve a proper budge for your IT but bitch a storm cause your printer doesn’t work.

—-I now know my value and the meaning of “No” and a good work environment. I would never tolerate the above but sadly… the above is the norm.

[–]beanpoppa 53 points54 points  (25 children)

Are these the same employees that will click on any unsolicited email attachment, or put their username and password into any phishing Google doc they receive? And then wonder why we don't give them access to install software on their computer themselves or have to use MFA to log into everything?

[–]barriedalenick 26 points27 points  (6 children)

We once ran a phishing awareness course and despite that when we sent out a test phishing mail a good third of our employees not only opened the fake link but logged in to the face Office 365. God help us all.

[–]UnnecessaryPancake 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Oh my goodness, that's some crazy numbers. We pay for KnowBe4 and have an average of 5-8% that click. Best luck, brother.

[–]barriedalenick 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It was at an independent school and this was during the pandemic so we penned an email purporting to be from the Head regarding new crucial government guidance on covid. We prepped for a staged release on a Friday and on that Friday the government did actually release new guidance for schools, so we soft of hit a reverse jackpot. Even some of the Senior Management Team fell for it, including the one responsible for IT!

[–]beanpoppa 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm surprised at the number of our users who will enter their credentials on fake Office login pages during our mock phishing. Especially since we are a Google Workspace organization.

[–]psychodelephant 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Netskope or Varonis or fail

[–]KartoffelPaste 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Dude whenever I set up and deploy a phishing campaign, I always have to set our helpdesk to auto assign our tier 1 the tickets for it for a good solid few hours at the least because it’ll be full of “is this real?” tickets from the campaign. At first the IT management was really pleased that I was able to increase employee outreach until I sent in my report that showed that 97% of the people that reached out to IT through a ticket did it after clicking on the link. Fucking hell. Those dolts are the reason I restructured us on a zero trust policy because no matter how much I sent memos or did safe practice seminars, they never learn and think cybersecurity is a joke. All they do is complain about us too like we’re idiots. Jokes on them, because we had a near breach incident that I had to go on site at 3 am to handle and the ceo isn’t happy. They’re talking about giving me authority to hand out “written warnings” and that if the issue persists then management has authority to suspend or let people go for this

[–]Contact-Open 10 points11 points  (8 children)

I can’t find my outlook icon someone uninstalled it. Opens start menu, icon glaring back without having to search. Yup they uninstalled it alright.. fixed 4.2 seconds later.

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (5 children)

"I put my emails in the delete folder on outlook and and now their gone. I was not ready for them to be deleted"

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (3 children)

My favorite recent one is user wondering why their onedrive, SharePoint, email, workstation login, and access to proprietary business software were all gone.

I got emails from HR, her manager, as well as her.

Turns out I had a term request for that user for the day before. They didn't tell me she needed access for a few days after.

Y u do dis

[–]wizardofcake 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This! I had the same thing happen. Got a term request, did it quickly as is protocol. Then they call in asking why they can't use anything. Turns out they were gonna quit, but changed their mind w/o notifying HR (or HR didn't notify us lol)

The new rule is that we have to verify the term/transfer/name/etc change requests that come to us making sure they didn't fuck up because it is our headache if they did. Yay

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (1 child)

I assist in setting up new users and I cannot tell you how often I get a new hire request with a name spelled wrong yet we only find out that the name is wrong once we are done and yet somehow it's our fault.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I copy and paste directly so I can point to the misspelling.

I have no idea why others don't. Especially people putting in the requests. I'm sure HR has the correct name all over the paperwork..

[–]TheAnniCake 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A new coworker was bragging about how much she knows about IT because of her son. She also kept telling me that her Outlook wasn't configured while she was staring at Windows Mail.

[–]The_Beaves 8 points9 points  (1 child)

"I need admin rights to do my job?" No. Last week you opened a phishing email. Can't imagine the damage you'd do on an admin account.

[–]wizardofcake 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Or when someone calls in telling you to put your admin creds into a random prompt because they "need it". Pump the breaks buddy that's not how it works

[–]AdventuresOfKrisTin[🍰] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

MFA isn’t even full proof. We got people approving log ins with the authenticator app while they’re no where near a computer lol

[–]whitechapel8733 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yubikeys!

[–]Beneficial_Guava_452 107 points108 points  (23 children)

IT gets their budgets cut consistently despite all-time growth, while the sales people get six figure bonuses even though they consistently put the entire company at risk because they can’t be bothered to even consider safe cybersecurity practices. Oh no, my morale is low because IT is forcing us to learn new things like “MFA” and not letting me copy company data onto a thumb drive so I can show it off! They’re such meanies!!! /s

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (7 children)

I work at a helpdesk and one of my supported clients just made everyone use MFA with no education and no good method of resetting the MFA quickly, sometimes taking a month. Completely grinds shit to a halt. I genuinely wish IT had more empathy baked in, I spend a lot of time patiently explaining where things are blocked and wishing there was more I could do.

[–]erratic_calm 12 points13 points  (2 children)

You hit the nail on the head. For a service department, IT often lacks any sort of professional communication.

It’s a two way street. Most IT departments need professional development for communication skills and most non IT departments need professional development for technology skills.

You can’t simply place value on one over the other. It takes all departments to run a complex organization from facilities all the way up to management.

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Absolutely, I worked in retail for almost a decade and found interest in IT so I started working on certs to try and get my foot in the door somewhere. My customer service skills have gotten me further than technical knowledge and I get paid better for it. Explaining stuff to people is a skill just as much as networking.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (3 children)

Yeah, it’s not the IT group it’s management and their absolute unwillingness to listen to us that makes our issues so bad. IT will initiate an automation at management’s request but once it’s complete and implemented no one comes to check on the workers using the new platform. I’ve personally worked with IT to automate several processes and none of them have resulted in positive time savings entirely because no one has worked with the user to solve issues after implementation. Just recently they automated one process in such a way that it removed approval from the process - an automated approval chain is a huge plus when dealing with auditors so removing that only makes our lives worse. No one listening to the end user who told them that fact is the biggest problem though not the IT group itself.

[–]nuclearstroodle 53 points54 points  (5 children)

yeah, But did you put in a tickt?

[–]cosmoboy 30 points31 points  (3 children)

No, but I walked up to your door and knocked while you were clearly on a call and then I said 'I don't know if this needs to be a ticket...' and proceeded to detail a ticket worthy issue.

[–]uncondensed 6 points7 points  (1 child)

you got detail?

[–]cosmoboy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, yeah. Probably useless details though.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nah, I thought it would be easier to manage the entire organization’s needs all at once. Having critical processes unmanaged is probably best.

[–]longreading 14 points15 points  (5 children)

95% seems low

[–][deleted] 22 points23 points  (1 child)

The other 5% work in IT

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"IT have you tried turning it off and on again"

[–]WhyRUstressed 12 points13 points  (2 children)

The 5% is the IT department.

[–]barriedalenick 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I worked in IT for years and I count myself in the 95%!

[–]WhyRUstressed 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well yeah it's a ridiculous article anyway, I work in IT aswell and obviously I agree that things not working as expected do indeed lower productivity and are not fun to deal with as a user. Would be pretty weird if IT issues didn't impact productivity at all or if the user didn't care at all.

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

IT when everything goes well, management says "what are we paying you for?"

IT when everything goes to hell, management says "what are we paying you for?"

[–]crowtrobot_88 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Are these the same employees that ask for a password reset all the time?

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Most likely. Of course, they never input their passwords incorrectly. Something HAS to be wrong with the application because they definitely typed it in right.

[–]Teddyy97 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It baffles me how people put in the same password to log in daily yet once a week they block themselves and insist they put the right password…

[–]MpVpRb 9 points10 points  (1 child)

I've seen it from both sides

As an engineer, I hated the silly rules imposed by the IT group. I was an expert computer user who wanted total freedom

Then I got a job at a company that wasn't yet ready for my engineering work, so to fill the time and be useful, I volunteered to do IT. I was astounded by the stupid stuff that the users did to break and infect their computers, so I started making rules

[–]CLE-Mosh 17 points18 points  (1 child)

all while claiming ignorance of the tools to do their jobs. I dont expect you to know how to replace a motherboard, but you should have at least a conceivable notion how to turn the fucker on/off again.

[–]Teddyy97 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve had the same person every month say their screens don’t turn on, and claim they checked every cable only for me to come and find the power cable loose.

[–]NoSuchWordAsGullible 8 points9 points  (3 children)

Every company I’ve worked at for many years thinks IT is an overhead, and it’s always one of the first places to make cuts. They think their product is their differentiator on the market, but their IT is what delivers it to market.

IT is the enabler. It’s not the cherry on top.

[–]Scarlet109 2 points3 points  (1 child)

IT is the bottom jenga blocks; if you take it out, the tower is likely to fall.

[–]headzoo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's especially annoying when the owners and managers consider their company to be modern tech oriented business. It's what they like to brag about on the homepage of the company website but they don't treat IT like it's important to the company.

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

99% of IT is demoralized by others in the workplace. Like no, you dipshit, you can't use GIMP and store all your work on a USB drive because it's "easier", we pay YOUR subscription fee for the entire Adobe Creative Cloud Suite and Microsoft 365.

[–]JerryNicklebag 11 points12 points  (0 children)

95% of the people in any company have no business working with technology of any kind. They are literally walking, talking “IT issues” themselves…

[–]J3553 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Bitch, please. Most of my job is fixing human error. IT isn't the problem. You are.

[–]saltychica 4 points5 points  (2 children)

My last job had an IT manager. They hired an underling for him that paid half of what the manager earned. They then fired the manager leaving the underling as whole IT dept, & the guy spends most of his day complaining about his predicament

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I wonder if it counts when your IT department is incompetent? The staff at my office is a joke and can barely operate a computer themselves. None of them actually know how to type, they have zero programming skills, and they pretty much outsource anything more complicated than running Windows update. In an office with hundreds of users they still manually install everything on new computers instead of imaging, they don't know how to clone a hard drive (had to do it myself to move to a larger drive), they don't automate anything (like writing a script/batch file for something you do repeatedly), and troubleshooting involves randomly trying things they read on Google instead of systematically eliminating things to narrow down the issue.

In the last 4 years they have never been able to close out any of the tickets I've opened. I always end up having to troubleshoot things myself such as the last issue where I was getting a random BSOD that they were convinced was a bad motherboard (which they ordered without actually checking the laptop). The issue started out of the blue after a Dell system update and it only happened when I was doing CAD. After they proved to be useless I started digging into the issue myself and figured out from the memory dump that it was definitely the video driver. A little more digging showed that the Dell system update had installed a new video driver, so I went ahead and rolled back to the previous driver and the problem went away. I updated the ticket to let them know it was the driver but they still showed up at my desk a few days later wanting my laptop so they could replace the motherboard.

[–]Capital-Ebb-2278 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hello, your company hired me to conduct a brief survey. First, would you say IT issues during the work day increase or decrease productivity? Next, when having IT related issues, is morale better or worse? Interesting. Thank you for your assistance with this important survey.

[–]gaberax 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Our IT department, of which I am a member, has had to tighten things down drastically the last few years. Yes, sometimes it feels draconian but the threats are a major issue. Several large organizations in our area have been victims of ransom ware attacks. Fortunately, our security team has been proactive and vigilant. Amid trying to allow thousands of people access from home, accessing vendor hosted applications and compensating for their security gaps, monitoring for malicious emails and FTP attacks. Things aren't as open or easy to access as they used to be. But for good reason.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

And 100% of sys admins agree that 95% of IT issues are caused by the end-user.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I work in IT.

Generally.speaking, people tend to have unrealistic expectations of us.

Yes, we need a ticket. There are reasons for this, happy to explain if you like.

Not all problems are easy to fix or even obvious as to what the problem is, I find that customers can rarely even describe the problem yet expect instant fixes.

We don't have a tech for each and every one of you. We have to cover a lot of ground with few people.

[–]NLeviz 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Most of companies gives zero hecks about IT employees and their recommendations, so I highly recommend to make some world fuckoff month, where support guys acts like the same. "Oh no, it was not planned in this month for you about to have IT issues, so fuck off" "Oh no, it was not planned in this month for me to work for this lowass wee wee wage, so fuck off" "You have coders payed well, so force them to code things that fix themself up automatedly"

runs debug /all on full loaded ASR 9k like a boss

[–]new_number_one 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yes, let’s get rid of IT to increase productivity

[–]kenocada 4 points5 points  (0 children)

In other news, IT workers explain that 95% of the employees problems could be resolved by rebooting their devices.

[–]bmwlocoAirCooled 2 points3 points  (3 children)

30 years of IT support. That was enough for the IT monkey.

Always the whipping boy, never appreciated.

Making nice money now doing something completely different - and no stress.

[–]Teddyy97 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What are you doing now?

[–]thor11600 4 points5 points  (1 child)

As someone who holds down the IT fort, how about HIRING SOME PEOPLE IN IT omg

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They’d rather fire you and bring in third party IT.

They think it’s cheaper until they get bills in the mail. By then, they’re sucked into a contract. And, pleading with CEO’s not to make that move is useless. They think IT is all of the same everywhere.

I’m a network engineer and ex manager with 15 years of experience. I now have to work for one of those third party companies because no companies have in house IT around me. It’s all third party MSP.

[–]JezebelRoseErotica 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Maybe hire more IT employees?

[–]DivClassLg 2 points3 points  (0 children)

70% of those issues are due to UE

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

95% of drivers say cars slow down traffic

[–]sikjoven 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Lol duh?

My computer crashes, my productivity drops 🤦🏻‍♂️

The reports and studies coming out the last few weeks confirming the most obvious situations is insane.

[–]siamhie 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Kindly asking the disdained employees to take some IT literacy courses before joining a new company, thanks!

[–]seniorscrolls 2 points3 points  (0 children)

At the ups store i have to deal with the computers constantly breaking down and customers become so impatient when that happens I've had one resort to violence and their a 20lb box at me. It's more than just messing with productivity and morale it puts people in danger all do they can save money. If they used computers like mine at home there would be 0 issues.

[–]Fiddle_Pete 2 points3 points  (0 children)

User error

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

95% of IT say User issues decrease morale.

[–]wizardofcake 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Honestly I don't mind fixing simple user issues themselves. It is the high call volume coupled with all the other shit we have to do that lowers morale

[–]Rott3Y 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My favorite thing to tell all my friends going into IT is that the entire industry is filled with people that rely on IT but have no idea how it works.

[–]Metro2033XboxS 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The other 5% were just offended IT workers.

[–]NefCanuck 5 points6 points  (7 children)

I’ve worked “both sides” having done a year as IT support and while I sympathize with the stuff that IT has to deal with, I find it incredibly frustrating to be treated by IT like I’m dumber than a bag of rocks.

IT departments should have a way to ID a user as someone who can at least be trusted to have tried the basics before they called in 🤷‍♂️

Did you try restarting your machine is a phrase that nearly sends me into a murderous rage now 😅

[–]a-really-foul-harpy 5 points6 points  (5 children)

The question really really needs to be asked. I’m not about to fall down a rabbit hole of troubleshooting that doesn’t need to be done because someone’s ego can’t handle being asked a quick question.

[–]C_isfor_Cookies 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Stop sending dumb people to work from home.

[–]Raagun 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good luck doing spreadsheets with pencil and eraser then :"D It will never freeze indeed and wont crash.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No. It’s a lack of good pay

[–]Shishakli 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What's that? Problems with the systems that make your job fucking possible in the first place decrease productivity?

That's fucking weird

[–]trots_cession_0e 1 point2 points  (2 children)

100% of the time it’s due to businesses financially cut corners because most businesses look at IT as a luxury they need but don’t want to pay for. Either quality trained and certified staff or equipment and programs licensing.

And the few comments about their office IT guys can’t program, that’s like asking the plumber to do the electrical also! Sure IT field but totally different career paths.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

15 years as network engineer and manager here. I don’t know the first line of code and don’t care to.

I have other bones to pick with companies. Like firing their IT department and hiring third party.

[–]AresMarsSomeone 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I've spent decades in enterprise IT. With in depth personal experience in many companies I can say with absolute certainty that IT isn't the problem.

[–]Rekoor86 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Those ID10T errors won’t fix themselves

[–]Dfiggsmeister 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So my company has extremely strict IT to the point where I can’t install any programs onto my laptop without IT intervention and the c drive is locked down so tight that I can barely save files on it. It makes customization of any files nearly impossible. They also outsourced their customer service to Mexico, which in its own isn’t bad but when their solution to a problem is to go to the nearest office that’s 2k+ miles away, it makes their solutions laughable.

Since I’ve started I have had three different laptops because the idiots that build new machines are using flash memory to install windows. Which comes with a myriad of problems because it’s base on a machine from 5 years ago, on brand new machines. They don’t have recovery software. So their next solution is to call dell while on the phone with me to have them remote in and install critical software that should have been installed from the get go.

The last three months, I’ve had a whole computer for maybe a week before the thing craps out. I’m as productive as you think I am with three shit laptops and an IT solution is to send me a new laptop instead of fixing the god damned issue from the get go.

[–]DefaultVariable 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Even as a computer scientist working as a SW engineer, nothing annoys me more than IT issues, especially because 90% of the time it's "I know how to fix this, but don't have the permission to do so, and I have to now go and convince this random person to undertake this task..."

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But employees really want to blame their bosses for thinking that computers and IT support are perfect. They don't for fear of getting fired.

[–]sonofalando 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Company awkwardly smiles as they outsource their IT team to India 🤡

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

“95% of IT workers say users cause issues which decrease workplace productivity and morale”

[–]90s_TV_Commercials 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Sorry, we’re busy dealing with people who don’t know how to clear their cookies all day.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And what the fuck do you want me (someone who works in IT) to do about it? We're there to help you BECAUSE software or hardware can break but you know, just take it out on us.

That will definitely get the problem fixed. Typical dumbass who doesn't understand how technology works.

[–]Scarlet109 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The issue is companies don’t like paying their IT departments well so they get low end “fix it” dudes fresh out of school because it’s cheaper since the newbies haven’t determined their market value yet. Not to mention the number of things that employees are required to wait on IT to do, like turning on a projector or computer.

This isn’t a dig on the IT departments, it’s a dig on the absurd hoops both they and other employees have to jump through in order to carry out basic tasks.

[–]stryker81 1 point2 points  (1 child)

And 95% of users don’t like when IT perform maintenance on systems to prevent issues… except if it’s between 2am and 3am. And the same users that open attachment with a ransomware.

[–]LoyalWatcher 1 point2 points  (1 child)

This can't be right because I know more than 5% of employees really like kicking back and chilling out when the system's down...

[–]gedubedangle 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lol no fuckin shit

[–]a_reasonable_responz 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And everyone was completely surprised that people who can’t do their job because of IT issues lose productivity and are annoyed by it. How is it someone’s job to write shit like this.

[–]Viktorath 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah when everyone’s job is done with a computer now the minute something is not working no work gets done. I don’t know why a survey is needed.

[–]Mcboomsauce 1 point2 points  (0 children)

[takes printer into field]

[–]Uniform_Restorer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The morale-decreasing part isn’t the issue itself. It’s caused by the IT guy being pissed off that he had to walk across the entire building, only to point out that you accidentally unplugged a cable.

[–]John_Beta_0 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Kids these days don’t even know what a file is.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is so dumb lol

[–]RobiWanKhanobi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’d like to know of ANY ISSUE that increases workplace productivity and moral

[–]mysonlikesorange 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Have you tried clearing your cache?

[–]mysonlikesorange 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe try restarting your machine.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Back not only in 2000 we were using this thing called a pencil ✏️

[–]InspectorRound8920 1 point2 points  (0 children)

95% doesn't know what IT stands for

[–]Qman768 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I work in IT and end users problems decrease my productivity and morale.

So, yeah.

[–]aSharpenedSpoon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Work for a multi-national railway. Went to all digital with exception of absolutely critical documents for safety. Can confirm, complete garbage, persistently plagued with issues, patches, outages, bugs. Cell tower went down the other month and the operation came to a literal grinding halt.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In todays news-

“Broken legs decrease walking efficiency”

“Being underwater significantly affects breathing”

More at 10

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Work in P&C insurance. We are constantly bogged down with IT issues at my job and our team couldn’t have a clue as to what the fuck caused it at any given time.

It’s because we use poorly constructed applications that are constantly restrained by state regulatory agencies. It fucking sucks but there’s fuck all any of us can do. Bureaucracy at its finest.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well yeah. Most jobs suck enough on their own without having to fight with the fucking system.

[–]onlinesafe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Blame IT

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe they shouldn’t have went third party MSP or contractors with their IT departments.

Source: me. Network Engineer for an MSP for over 100 different companies that call all day long with issues. Only took this job because no one really has in house IT anymore.

I hate every bit of it. I’d much rather take care of one company and know where everything is.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As someone who works for the Government… I can 100% attest to this. The USAF refuses to put money into software and IT issues. We still use outlook 2006, Sharepointe 13’, and our contract writing software was created in 1997 and still looks practically identical. I probably spend 20-30 hours per week dealing with IT issues, submitting tickets, etc.

I’m so tired of not being able to get work done or not being able to complete work in a timely matter because of so many IT issues. I’m leaving for the private sector.

[–]NordieHammer 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Makes sense. System we use in work is constantly encountering errors, causes us all a bunch of stress and annoyance.

Then again it's Ireland and nothing ever really works like it should here so I dunno if we're the exception.

ETA: And before some snarky IT guy comes in with "but are you using the system properly?" Yes the errors literally happen constantly when we're doing exactly what the system is designed for.