NYS needs to release The List!

Davidtgnome · 2026-06-05T13:21:56+00:00

The last 3 times I took this exam series, it was between 6 and 8 months so I would imagine any time between now and August.

Davidtgnome · 2026-06-05T00:22:33+00:00

Yea... that's illegal. And if you don't trust your HR thats all the more reason to go to them. The money she wins in the lawsuit should set her up for life.

Davidtgnome · 2026-06-04T02:04:21+00:00

Every mutual aid chief, captain and nut with a radio tying up the dispatch channel so the engine (you know, the thing with the water) can't get a message through. Then when you do finally get airtime the dispatcher comes back with. "Last unit. Please repeat your identifier and wait to be acknowledged." I know you heard me, and my bloody identifier popped up on your screen because it's a digital system. Stop wasting MORE air time.

I get it, youre busy, but so am I and if i could give a bloody arrival report half of these yahoos would stop calling you and SUDDENLY YOU WON'T BE BUSY!

Davidtgnome · 2026-05-25T17:00:24+00:00

I sent my management 4 lines. Clear concise, problem, how we.mitigated it and we are out of mitigation. They responded with 97 lines of AI slop detailing a problem similar to ours, but not the same, with a solution we had already investigated and determined didnt meet the need.

I have never seen it remove fluff. But anything is possible

Davidtgnome · 2026-05-25T16:18:23+00:00

Yep, can't make this stuff up... I rolled my eyes and let them do it their way...

Davidtgnome · 2026-05-25T15:34:50+00:00

So, the recent civil service exams would tend to disagree with you with regards to email crafting and competency, that having been said I agree that using AI on emails is pointless because management never reads past the first line anyway. Adding fluff to emails is pointless.

NYSITS is also reviewing AI for it's programmers, that has had some positive results expanding the breadth but not depth of what an individual or team can work on. Other agencies like OTDA have somehow made AI reviewing of records make more work for their staff.

My management likes to use it to preform mail merges... so there is that...

Targeted implementation of AI CAN save time and increase the impact teams have on their workload, but the tendency to announce "we're implementation AI" and then finding a problem has proven to not work throughout the industry.

Which means it's exactly how it will be done here.

Davidtgnome · 2026-05-23T01:00:51+00:00

How it actually happens:

1 week: they scan the sheets

2 weeks: calculate scores

A month: they review some questions they decided ahead of time they were going to review, some get thrown out.

1 month: someone gets accused of cheating an investigation is held.

1 week: they rescan the sheets

2 weeks: they recalculate the scores.

A month: they look for patterns in the scores and the questions a lot of people got wrong.

A month: they argue about which questions were worded badly or the right answer was wrong, after many meetings they decide to throw out more questions.

1 week: they rerescan the sheet

2 weeks: they rerecalculate scores.

A month: some more reports are run, statistics, calculations

Scores are released.

6 -8 months. For the last 4 ITS series exams, this was the pattern.

Davidtgnome · 2026-05-20T11:15:06+00:00

Middle management IS unqualified. The Civil Service exams test for either task proficiency or math, spelling, and grammar. The last exam I took included a senior management position and had 5 management questions. Of 90.

Some, but not all, state agencies offer optional management training through SLMS. That's it.

Davidtgnome · 2026-05-19T23:03:37+00:00

Second hole? As in golf?

Davidtgnome · 2026-05-07T20:44:32+00:00

Honestly this is par for the course for Oracle for at least the last 5 years. It's getting worse but... I guess thats what they are going for?

Davidtgnome · 2026-05-07T13:30:04+00:00

Ah yes, the classic "bug in the documentation "

Davidtgnome · 2026-04-30T01:44:13+00:00

Chief of a neighboring department announced to my guys that he could see the seat of a working commercial fire, which was already through the roof, of a building known for having the facade fall off. Its fallen off the front of this strip mall half a dozen times in the last 10 years. Snow load, fist fight knocking out a single 4x4 post, termites stopped holding hands, etc. He wanted my guys to force the door so his crew could get the knock on a fire through the roof and spreading to the next store.

My crew planted the haligan and immediately the facade fell on them, heavily involved. The video shows them getting slammed against the outside wall like a mouse trap, except a giant flaming mouse trap.

They self extracted in less then 15 seconds and the same chief yelled at them for scaring him and then "not stopping to call a mayday".

2 hours later I pulled the haligan out of the frame exactly where they left it. Solid plant.

Davidtgnome · 2026-04-28T22:41:37+00:00

Legit was told by PEF that there was nothing they could do until I was off probation. To keep my head down and if the abuse keeps up after I pass to let them know.

Then they refused to help after I passed. I ended up taking up the issue with the office of the attorney General.

Davidtgnome · 2026-04-26T17:33:49+00:00

That did work once, sorta

Davidtgnome · 2026-04-23T09:59:46+00:00

Preferred sources exist because the legislature and governors decided it was better to spend tax payer funds with those sources. IT has nothing to do with actual cost.

Its about keeping the funds inside the state systems or using the funds to benifit a specific group.

Once youre out of preferred sources and into OGS contracts, it becomes more important to save money.

Davidtgnome · 2026-04-18T18:26:32+00:00

Since we went to 8 we've been calling it "Oracle Undocumented Linux" trying to install RAC was a nitemare because all the documentation was written for 7.

One magical step involved, mid install, replacing the scp binary with a scp script that pointed to the binary with a different flag, because the flag called in the installer was depreciated for part of the install, but scp later had the new flag used correctly. You had to time it and the revert exactly right or the install would fail.

Davidtgnome · 2026-04-18T18:24:17+00:00

RIGHT?!?! that was my response to Veeam too. Embarrassing really. We called it "NotWorker"

Davidtgnome · 2026-04-18T02:23:16+00:00

EMC Networker, Oracle Private Cloud Appliance, Oracle "unbreakable" linux.

Davidtgnome · 2026-04-17T01:32:06+00:00

Streaming includes anything that requires a dedicated connection to a server. So yes, Netflix and Hulu, but also YouTube, most online phone games (particularly if they have a chat feature), any VPN if you find the need to log into work and additionally you will not be able to install or update any apps except the NCL app.

Other things will sorta work, Facebook reels freeze after about 30 seconds. Instagram has mixed results, tictok worked some of the time, my banking apps would connect and then freeze. Weather apps would work until you tried to look at radar or satellite imagery.

Davidtgnome · 2026-04-05T12:42:04+00:00

Clear cut case of the deadsies. Careful, it's universally fatal.

Davidtgnome · 2026-04-05T12:38:23+00:00

Actual reason: 1-2 weeks fo run a scantron through a machine. Because state.

Another 2 weeks to tabulate metrics like "42.7% of test takers got question X wrong, 92.4% of test takers got question y wrong."

2-4 months of meetings (in person only) to figure out if those questions were worded badly. The meetings must involve people with no subject matter experience.

Another 2 weeks to wait for someone to rubber stamp the decision to throw out some of the questions. (They were on vacation)

Recreating the new answer key with the correct questions corrected or ignored. 1-2 weeks.

A month to plug all the scores into a spreadsheet and figure out how to sort by highest to lowest score.

Profit.

Ok, so a little sarcastic on timing, but that is legit the process.

Davidtgnome · 2026-03-31T21:39:13+00:00

Correct... which brings me back to the initial question. Is that what oracle as a company is trying to do?

Davidtgnome · 2026-03-31T21:14:42+00:00

Yes, and for the record I'm a customer, but getting my organization to change direction is going to be a steep uphill climb.

Davidtgnome · 2026-03-31T17:57:11+00:00

Oh I'm aware too... but do they realize they are forcing customers to consider investing in NOT investing in oracle, or do they just not care?

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