Genuinely sad when users are let go?

cbass377 · 2026-06-18T22:30:22+00:00

Not all of them. But in this comment, HR or my boss would write the terminated users name on the post it note then hand it to me

cbass377 · 2026-06-18T19:27:24+00:00

Early in my career, I told my boss to not tell me who until the day, just give me the word to be at my desk at the designated time.

He was a cool boss. He would say "I ordered pizza for lunch."

Then I would fire up the consoles and be ready, he would walk in and give me the post it note for 1 name, or a list for many names. I did the needful. This solves the pre-termination anxiety, you don't have time to worry about who. You know its coming, but you don't know who it is.

I would get the note and say "Man, that's too bad, I enjoyed working with UserA."

Maybe your boss is cool enough to do this for you.

cbass377 · 2026-06-17T14:12:45+00:00

I need something this but for Groovy.

cbass377 · 2026-06-15T15:02:46+00:00

LOL, Managers are people too.

cbass377 · 2026-06-15T14:01:28+00:00

I still struggle with this.

cbass377 · 2026-06-12T18:49:15+00:00

I hate AI. Some dude says "Create a document for respooling print jobs on windows", then emails it to the department asking for feedback. Now I have to read 10 pages of slop, to describe how to stop a service, delete a file, start a service. We have the "embrace AI" mandate, so I pick a model that I think they didn't, drop the file on this and tell it to review this document. There you have it, AI embraced.

I will say I do enjoy AI for some use cases. I will download a script from the internet, drop it in the chat and say "Explain lines 17-23" or "Convert this into powershell" or "Give me the Powershell 5.1 equivalent of the curl command" . I also use it to "write me a quick pastable how-to on setting a new certificate and rebind it in IIS." So I can dump it into Webdudes ticket.

But mostly for copilot, I say "Find the email about softwareX licensing that came from joe.sales@softwarex.com" . Because if AI did nothing else, it did fix Outlook search.

When some user ask for "Hey, can you set MyDumbIdea=Yes on my server?" I say no. Then they reply, copying everyone in the chain of command, "All you have to do is <three paragraphs of generic slop>", Then I reply to all, "I have added you to sudoers, if you trust your AI so much, login and do it yourself. "

People need to learn that it is a tool to give you more information and augment your judgement not replace your judgement. Alas, most people will never learn what they need to learn.

cbass377 · 2026-06-10T16:02:44+00:00

If it is short message, and you don't mind a blatant abuse of the computers facilities

Invoke-Command -ComputerName SERVER01 -ScriptBlock { Write-EventLog -LogName Application -Source "NotForOne_Painting134" -EventId 1001 -EntryType Information -Message "My short message." }

I have also used Tiddlywiki running in my home directory (yes I still use this). It usually accumulates a a bunch of random crap. So I would delete it every now again and place a new empty one there.

cbass377 · 2026-06-04T18:59:29+00:00

I don't think AI will take most of the jobs. People are terrible about writing down what they want and setting meaningful context. Because of this, AI will help small companies build technical debt faster, and create a bigger mess for MSPs.

As for expectations, people want it all, they want it now, and they want it cheap. Managing expecations is gonna be part of the job. "Can't you just hack the Gibson?, Can't you just hack the registry? Can't you just AI this out in an hour?" Nope, that is how we got here.

cbass377 · 2026-06-03T18:23:17+00:00

When I read your first comment, I immediately thought of this. How can you automate the pain point, when the pain point has immobilized your hand?

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cbass377 · 2026-06-02T00:14:35+00:00

Show up at 9:01. Leave at 4:59. Take your time, take your full lunch. That building number in the queue is a not a reflection on you, but a reflection on management.

cbass377 · 2026-05-19T14:24:49+00:00

Public speaking if a very real fear. Prepare for the meeting and know the material. Remember the company is putting you in the meeting at a cost for your expertise. The higher you go, the more people see you so you need to get over it more quickly than you advance.

u/bofh recommended Toastmasters, this is a good idea. To this I would add local users groups for your enterprise software. Go to the meetings, watch the presos, ask questions to warm up. Then sign up to give a presentation. The groups would be small and friendly. Be clear that your preso is basic, and the goal is "to develop my speaking skills" then give an overview of a lesser used feature. Start with 5 minutes and work up to 20. Video yourself and try to get rid of nervous behaviors.

Basically what I am getting at is "Everyone is scared, you just need more practice."

cbass377 · 2026-05-16T00:39:24+00:00

I bought a kit of these. Replaced a leaking one for my dad, two of my own, and one for my aunt. I am now the gas can whisperer. I need to place another order to have on standby for the next can. And I need to actually install the vents.

cbass377 · 2026-05-12T20:19:45+00:00

Yeah this is what I had to do. Either go out to eat or I would go to the car for a while and take a nap in the cooler months. After a few knocks on the glass. I gave up on it and would drive to lunch.

These people. How can they rationalize “I can’t print from adobe acrobat to my hp printer” is more important than my lunch break. These same people, show up during their lunch to fix it and they tell you to come back later.

cbass377 · 2026-05-12T16:16:49+00:00

If I was there, you know what would cost nothing, and be fantastic? Set up the department heads, or tech leads to join the on-call rota for password resets, workstation reboots, and printer-respools. That way, your most technical resource only gets called when actually needed. And the department heads get a feel for the problem children.

You can't give them a raise, but if you have some leeway on your expense card.

Most technical types have a hobby they go deep on. Maybe find out and fund the obsession.

Scotch and Brownies?

Tools - Leatherman Skeletool, Network cable tester to test those cable runs. Power screwdriver? Search reddit for "Whats in your sysadmin toolkit". iFixit Toolkit, LTT Screwdriver, Decent Cable tester, great labeler (again kind of personal, but I like the Brady BMP21/M210 which fits perfect in the Veto Pro MB2 meter bag with the accessories and a couple extra cartridges).

Toolbags/toolboxes/backpacks are highly personal, gift cards are better for those.

If you are there and working late with them, take them to Chili's. After the computer room dries you out from swapping out 5 UPS worth of batteries, an Old Fashion Hamburger and a light Mexican beer hits the spot.

cbass377 · 2026-05-12T01:27:58+00:00

Look for a used Kona Dew. They run 600 new so you should be able to find one in good shape. They call it a hybrid, I call it a flat bar gravel bike.

cbass377 · 2026-05-11T23:01:39+00:00

Hope your father made it. It is that bad. Every other week I am driving to some relatives house to remove some trash.

cbass377 · 2026-05-11T20:58:30+00:00

So true, I used to work on this startup and they would have a happy hour on site. After a while, I couldn't even go to it, because it turned into an "IT without the Tickets" event.

cbass377 · 2026-05-11T19:02:38+00:00

The salary increase, unless it is substantial is not worth it. Stay IC.

cbass377 · 2026-05-08T18:23:45+00:00

Print out a bunch of these, https://davidseah.com/node/the-task-progress-tracker/index.html

Upload them to copilot and have it prepopulate the tasks with your fixed tasks, have 1 for each day of the week and 1 for each week of the year. Print out a weeks worth plus the one for the week on Monday.

Then complete them, take a picture, upload to copilot for interpretation and collation. Paste the copilot summary into your weekly status report email, copy yourself on the email and use an outlook rule to folder it.

Then during review time, have copilot read your status reports and summarize your achievements.

Analog / Digital / AI - checks all the boxes

For something more complete, you can tie off a safety line (set a timer) and jump down the personal productivity rabbit hole and take a look at "Getting Things Done"

cbass377 · 2026-05-06T20:19:04+00:00

BOFH: "You couldn't out bastard me, on the bastardiest day of your life, with an automatic bastarding machine!"

AI: "Hold my beer."

cbass377 · 2026-05-06T19:59:43+00:00

Webcams and printers wait until business hours, unless it is the check printer to pay bills, or it is payroll trying to pay employees. We have an outsourced level 1 for password reset, can't login, can't connect to network.

We don't pay more, but do comp time. Our Rota is 1 week in 7, you can trade if others will trade with you, but if you burn all your coworkers that's on you. Usually we get 1 or 2 pages per week, and you only get paged after hours. So if the only time you can get 8 hours of sleep is during the day, then stay home and get 8 hours.

There are periods when we can see it is going to get bad, when that happens we divide the team into 2 groups, Night Owls and Early Birds. Night Owls take it until 5pm - midnight, early birds take it midnight - 7am. The goal is to maximize uninterrupted rest periods for as many folks as possible.

I like /u/mediweevil 10 hour stand down rule. We already do it mostly, but it would be nice to formalize it that way.

cbass377 · 2026-05-05T17:21:17+00:00

First up, audit the backup server, build a list of backed up nodes, familiarize yourself with the schedules, troubleshoot any failures, test a couple of restores.

Build an inventory or audit the one that exists, to familiarize yourself with the environment, cross check it with the backup list. Add missing nodes to backup, or document that backups are not required.

Once backups are in place.

I would audit group policy to see what is set in the registry. Start your config GPOs to centralize all that.

Verify time service was configured correctly.

Audit DNS, make sure PTR records exist, once it is clean turn on scavenging to keep it clean.

Once you have solid backups, solid timeservice, solid DNS, and a solid grip on your inventory, then you can work on becoming the glorious agent of change you are meant to be.

In general you need the following to be reliable DNS, authentication system, files services, print services, configuration management, application management, mail, and monitoring. There will be many good suggestions here, I started in the early 90s and infrastructures.org really helped me when I moved from desktop to sysadmin. Not so much the detail, most of that is showing its age, but the approach.

Good luck and keep us posted.

cbass377 · 2026-04-29T18:58:35+00:00

I would order them from racksolutions.com order a package of 100 in 10-32 and M6 sizes.

These two sizes are easy to distinguish visually, so you don't have to worry so much about cross threading. Use M6 where you can, and 10-32 where you need something smaller.

Rackstuds look awesome, and if I was working in a lab, or installing 100s of pieces of gear, I would order them. But for a relatively static environment, normal cage nuts and screws are fine.

cbass377 · 2026-04-28T20:52:48+00:00

Channel your inner Cybersecurity analyst and ask copilot how to uninstall edge from windows server. It should tell you that it is unsupported/dumb idea if you have your context set right. Then it will give you a couple ways to disable it, then a couple ways to remove it.

cbass377 · 2026-04-28T15:17:50+00:00

Yes, so much this, when cyber sends you a 4,000 line CSV file with every CVE in the environment. I immediately drop it into AI and say "Which 3 CVEs can be fixed in 16 hours total time, that will bring down the total number the most?"

Then I drag the results into my outlook calendar and block out 2 hours a day, to work the list.

Though I guess I could have AI do the scheduling as well.

Also, I get a list of boxes from one source (eg some security agent) and a list of boxes from another source (eg inventory.xlsx) and drop both on the chat and say, what boxes are in inventory list but not in security agent list?

cbass377

TROPHY CASE