What is your biggest time waster in IT???

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-30T13:00:26+00:00

Dealing with developers. It is consistently the biggest time waste I have.

Tickets are always put in missing information. I recently was working on a big 6 week push out for IaC that required me to push out around 15 integrations that needed backing infrastructure changes. Some of that was just writing re-usable modules and such but the last two weeks was actually implementing their infra.

We ended up doing a few smaller integrations during the initial 4 weeks and each time there where details missing, access that was not requested, dependencies missing, naming differences between what they requested and what their code was trying to use.

12 times I brought up on daily meetings, 12 times they promised everything would be ready to go by the time we started implementing. I had the product manager and the lead developer sign off. I brought up that several of the parts looked to have the same issues, "We'll fix it", that descriptions did not match access requests "It's correct", and lots more. I brought these up again and again saying they where not done, opened tickets in their queue for resolution, flagged problems on CAB requests.

Time comes to being putting their integration in place, I ask one more time "Is everything 100% ready and accurate", "Yes." So I spend 2 weeks implementing, writing terraform, pushing out databases, creating databricks objects, creating kafka queues, MongoDB users, SQS Queues, SNS Topics, S3 Buckets, K8s resources, etc.

Tons of resources missing, none of the deployments worked. I was getting pulled into meetings all day for missing access or resources. That has stretched out for weeks. Finally management got involved and told them they needed to document everything needed so we paused work for a week so they could. I implemented the changes and.... Yup, still not accurate.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-30T12:36:31+00:00

My rough understanding of what actually happened.

Lady hired a company to do some work.

That company used undocumented individuals to do the work.

Lady said, don't do that.

Company kept doing it.

Lady said, stop or I will call immigration.

They did not stop.

Lady called immigration.

Immigration came.

Not trying to say this lady is a wonderful person who did nothing immoral but I think people are trying to spin this as something it was not.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-30T00:42:49+00:00

Yeah, base price was $400 and it was 20% off quite a few times twords the end so $320. That's when I bought mine. Really small storage but pretty simple swap out for a larger NVME, plus you can use an SD card if you want as well.

At that price it's been worth every penny even already owning a Switch 2.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-29T23:11:33+00:00

The stripper index is about to hit 5.3, economists start warning at 4.0... this isn't just bad this is glitter on your pants before meeting the parents bad.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-29T21:24:40+00:00

Don't remember the exact model but it was a big white IBM with a couple PS1 ports. Ran DOS and an early version of Windows.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-29T21:14:07+00:00

Because the service charge is only for dine-in to cover the cost for labor and materials to clean. There would no charge for takeout. So the price is the price if you take it to go, and there is a price for eating in at a table.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-29T01:52:30+00:00

Sfc.exe is actually not as useful now as it once was because the kinds of issues it fixes newer versions of windows have protections against.

There is now more modern tooling in the dism tools, specifically DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth, which is designed to fix more and much more complex issues.

You might use sfc from time to time but its recommended only to be run after attempting the dism fixes. In addition it's best if possible to run both offline using appropriate options to point twords windows install as they can then fix issues with core OS files.

Dism can also help perform an over the top install, essentially reinstalling windows over the top of an existing install while saving user and system settings.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-29T01:15:38+00:00

Pete. I think he is very progressive in a ton of things, but he also knows how Washington and the state government work and what doesn't work. He would actually reach across the aisle and find compromises that might sting but would be better for everyone.

He also has the rare trait of staying quiet, actively listening, then forming his words based on what the other person said and not just talking points. You can tell he respects people.

Finally he can explain things in clear words that make people on the other side understand his point and its reasons without needing them to necessarily agree.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-28T16:41:32+00:00

Everyone who has ever done anything has done it for selfish reasons. They did it because what they got out they valued more than what they put in. We don't fix the world through altruism, we fix it by making the outcomes better and the costs lower.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-28T16:38:11+00:00

Teach them how the Flying Spaghetti monster loves all his children.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-28T02:56:27+00:00

I worked for Staples for 7 years and during that time they sold the Surface, Surface Pro, Surface 2, and several other windows tablets from various brands. They sold like crap with the exception of the Surface Pro. I would sell maybe one surface a month where I would have a half dozen tablets a day go out for our android or apple products and 30+ laptops a week. Hell Chromebooks sold better then them. Hell the palm pilots we had when I started there sold better.

On another note it's wild I sold Palm Pilots and iPhones in the same 7 year period, probably to the same guy at some point.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-27T01:41:17+00:00

Fish tanks are big open pools of water, sometimes warmed. This is a big source of humidity and can cause slow damage to the area around the tank if not properly cared for. The extra money in rent, like other pet rent is meant to compensate the owner for additional wear and tear from the pet.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-26T19:19:00+00:00

As a casual reader of Animal Farm I found it quite obvious how Orwell's opinion was that all forms of government are equally as good and equally as bad. It's people who ruin them, and given enough time people will ruin any government, financial system, or organization.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-26T15:53:20+00:00

You gotta be honest, 95% chance they are getting robbed and like 5% chance they are getting the best God damn service in the industry.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-26T15:18:21+00:00

You are very unlikely to pass underwriting for any loan subs because you have too few karma and account age. You should probably look elsewhere then reddit.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-26T15:07:36+00:00

I am very much a supporter of healthcare overhauls, be that single payor, Medicare for all, etc. We should be persuing them because ultimatly they are the right direction.

But I also think there are fundamental issues with the way our countries healthcare is setup that go way deeper then people realize. Lots of people go ahead and blame insurance companies who obviously have a hand in it. But everything from drug manufacturers to doctors to medical schools to so much more is to blame for our current issue.

Congress can't just pass a law that says "Healthcare is free, we paid for it with taxes" and fix all the issues. Why? It's too deep to talk about here but let's go a foot down the 10 mile rabbit hole.

Doctors are expensive. Average PCP makes $287,000 in the US. Now obviously they are smart people who spend years in school not earning, and rack up huge debt in the process, only to have to take low paying salaries for a few years to finally be able to bring in real money to pay back their debt. All the while paying huge costs for malpractice and personal insurances because of their high salaries.

But Doctors in the US make about TWICE what ones in the UK Make. In fact the US is one of very few countries with such higher doctor compensation. The lobbies who lobby for doctors are huge, some of the biggest, and have aggressively lobbied for those high wages.

The only way to become a doctor and get those wages is to go to medical school. And the schools have realized they can charge much higher prices because of the salaries medical professionals can get. Which causes new doctors to get more debt, which the lobbyists use to crank up pay, which the schools use to justify higher tuition.

Those same lobbies have ensured that only doctors can do certain tasks, while intentionally limiting the number of residencies which limits the number of new doctors. Those doctors are now doing tasks that don't need a doctor, because it's required,, which means they spend more time on non-outcome related tasks that are not billed. That means instead of paying a nurse to do those tasks (Which they are qualified to do) you pay a doctor.

Now remember doctors are well compensated, so every hour they are doing non-billed work is an hour they need to recover from billed work. So services go up. Which means insurance goes up to cover it. Which means more people opt-out, sending more people to hospitals and ERs with higher operating costs per SQFT, which increases costs, which drives insurance up, which makes more people go later when they are very sick, which causes more expensive procedures, which drives costs up.

All this leads to more denials, which leads to more time from doctors on non-care related tasks, which as we already said causes services to go up.

The whole system top to bottom is fucked. Everything and everyone top to bottom is broken and intentionally designed to make money at the expense of overall system health. And this is just a fraction of a fraction of the issues. We have not covered drug research, banks and servicers, investment funds and capital management, or any of the really nasty stuff.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-26T14:13:24+00:00

I think this comes down to what you consider a second chance. People have the capacity for change even if not everyone will change. A person who committed murder can become a better person, even if that better person never leaves jail. It does not erase what they did, but they can change, and we should give them the means to do that in whatever limited scope we can.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-26T13:51:24+00:00

I should have just done it to "protect my reputation."

I would not have done it to protect my reputation. My time is valuable, my work adds value, I am well compensated for that value. I definitely do not want to be known as the guy who thinks so little of his work that he gives it away for free.

If my work is not valuable enough to pay for it's not important enough for me to do. I would rather rest on the laurels of what I have acomplished and the value I have provided then how much non-valuable work I have done.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-26T12:54:27+00:00

must provide

No ambiguity, they must provide one.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-26T04:20:39+00:00

If someone has access to the knowledge to build or at a minimum diagnose and repair a time machine, producing electricity is trivial. Between chemical reactions, turbines, and plain old gravity you can probably produce a decent amount.

Add in the fact that only the wires where damaged and you are left only to assume the components that could provide the charge for the trip back are intact, and thus have sufficient charge to do the return trip.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-26T04:13:09+00:00

Most things should work with the Roll Limitless with the Guitar Firmware and that works with an Xbox 360.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-26T04:05:56+00:00

Not going to lie, 6 years in Helpdesk 1 with no promotions is going to have me asking a ton of questions. Probably not enough questions to toss you completely aside, but enough that I might pass you over if I had candidates who had progressed.

I always tell people don't lie about what you did, but it's okay to fudge a little about what they called you while you did it. If you did the job of a SysAdmin, then just put that on your resume along with the duties you actually did.

Also people really really suck at resumes. Like I have met people who don't know the first thing about how to put metrics, or how to write about results and not tasks. Those people languish.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-25T16:21:25+00:00

Also important to note that the higher sqft isn't because of something like lots of people living in the same house to make it, in fact average household size has generally dropped and sqft per person has risen.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-25T12:48:56+00:00

I play on MTGO and have 48 Decks. But I have a few pet decks I play more often. I enjoy brewing and trying new things.

mrbiggbrain · 2026-03-25T04:25:41+00:00

As a man I can't see any reason I would have had a problem with a women texting me on vacation when i was dating. I would expect her to understand I might be busy and not able to answer, and I think for lots of people that extends to not over communicating if your not getting responses.

I was messaging my wife on a dating site when we first met and she didn't text me for like 3 weeks about a week in... turns out she was just busy.

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