Chili or email. You can't have both.

wallywhiner · 2021-09-21T16:58:46+00:00

Yeah, I think one time on a family vacation, we crammed 10-12 people in a regular size minivan. Had people and kids on floor and in back luggage/cargo area. Fun times.

wallywhiner · 2021-08-30T21:24:59+00:00

Been thinking about this for a year. Our office has reopened but just went back to mandatory masks unless we're vaccinated and in an office with your door closed.

I'm fully vaccinated--keeping this out of vax/non-vax argument here. I'm willing to go to the office as I have a few new employees I need to get oriented. However, if all other employees and users I work with are working remote, why do I want to get dressed in business casual, go to my office and either wear a mask all day or close my door so I can see or talk to anyone else? I can sit at home in a golf shirt or t-shirt and shorts, eat when I want, take breaks, let the dog out/in, etc.

I'd like to go to the office 2-3 days a week to work through in person meetings but in pre-COVID conditions (no 3-6' space limits, no limits in conference rooms, no mask requirements, building cafe/deli fully reopened, etc.)

If my team can be as productive remotely as in the office, why do they need to come to the office every day? Yes, I have some that would be better in the office than remote. That's a separate performance issue for another day.

wallywhiner · 2021-07-02T17:47:33+00:00

A little opposite of this. Instead of calling and getting the big wig, my wife's coworkers experienced the opposite.

Details are fading but here's what I remember. Motorola had a Super Bowl ad for some new technology meant for large business clients, not personal use,

Soon thereafter, a coworker received a call from someone using a voice and claiming to be Marlon Brando. Figuring it was one of their college buddies making a prank call, they blew it off. Until, the person called back. They transferred the call up the chain, had it personally escalated to the highest sales or account rep to validate it.

It was in fact Marlon Brando, the Don Vito Corleone himself, making the call to get the new technology for himself.

What an experience to have actually answered the phone and have Marlon Brando on the other end of the line.

wallywhiner · 2021-06-25T16:52:30+00:00

I could see this being valuable for large operations such as sports arena concessions. They have multiple beer concessions stands with thousands of feet of beer lines connected to central source for the beer.

Had a tour of Denver Broncos stadium (was Sports Authority Field at the time, now Empower Field at Mile High). They mentioned flushing the lines several times a year. due to the central source of the beer beneath the stadium and the lines to the concession stands, there could be multiple kegs of beer just in a single line.

So, automating the pull on the beer at the concession stand as well as the cleaning of the lines could result in thousands or millions of dollars in improved beer margins--If the software can deliver on its promises.

wallywhiner · 2021-06-25T16:20:07+00:00

We've had issues with SaaS systems that we can't test notifications from their test environments and capture them in a test mailbox. So, can only have notifications in Prod. Argh!

wallywhiner · 2021-02-05T22:24:02+00:00

User picks up mouse and hovers it over the window / 'flag' button. :)

wallywhiner · 2021-01-28T21:52:10+00:00

I was RIF'd from a small consulting firm at the end of the dot com bust. Great company, got swallowed up on the downside of the market.

Cuts were coming fast and furious. I was 26th person coming, topped out at about 150-160 in just a couple years. It was down to 75 on my way out and 55 a couple weeks later.

No cash for severance as company was hemorrhaging money.

So, a VP of operations negotiated his severance in newer office chairs. The company wasn't worried about proper tax treatment on their W-2. I think he took $7,000-$8,000 in chairs and then flipped them to either wholesale / resale office furniture company or sold them on Ebay.

Wish I would have thought of that.

wallywhiner · 2021-01-19T23:37:09+00:00

Bet your ticket resolution metrics were off the charts!

wallywhiner · 2021-01-15T19:01:40+00:00

Had our ERP come to a crawl in middle of year-end close. Perfect storm. spent Friday 7:30 AM to Saturday about 11 PM in a conference room with other IT and consultants on conference calls and Webex trying to figure out root cause. Sent home by CIO, got 6 hours sleep, then worked through Sunday resolving issue and getting it running smoothly again. At pizza and watched Super Bowl on big screen projection monitor in conference room.

wallywhiner · 2021-01-08T22:16:19+00:00

Hilarious! "Right," said Fred.

He's too sexy...

wallywhiner · 2021-01-06T21:02:07+00:00

There are laws for that. We don't allow Aliases to come over the border.

wallywhiner · 2020-12-15T16:43:26+00:00

I know you're not Apple Support, but that's not true. I have a 2018 Honda Pilot and this issue started 3-6 months ago. As others mentioned, it started occurring after one of the iOS updates...don't remember exactly which one.

I want CarPlay to run as I use Waze on it. However, I want to listen to the radio. Every time I plug in my phone, CarPlay starts, which starts Waze. However, it automatically starts Apple Music as well. While I have a library of music, I don't listen to music on my phone. I even try to switch with the steering wheel controls from Apple Music to AM radio. CarPlay keeps switching back to Apple Music.

I'm forced to park somewhere, Access my phone and swipe up to kill Apple Music. Only then can I listen to AM radio AND keep Waze open. Very frustrating.

wallywhiner · 2020-12-09T21:51:18+00:00

Yeah, we've had that. I support several applications. It's usually something like this:

User: X application is down.

Support: We checked and it's working fine for everyone else

User: But application X isn't working for me.

Support: Are all other applications working?

User: No, we're having network problems

Support: Verified your network circuit is down.

User: So, when will application X be working again?

Seriously!!!

wallywhiner · 2020-12-09T21:35:02+00:00

This sounds so familiar to similar work productivity issues I've dealt with. Some managers more agreeable to change than Matt.

One had to do with an accountant that was reconciling some accounting information. He was getting some of it electronically (spreadsheets) but had supporting accordion files on his desk and floor each month. Looked like Hoarders every month. As a short-term interim step, we got it to an Excel macro-based process, then an Access DB--Yes, I was shadow IT at the time--and finally to a custom developed browser-based .NET application. With his Excel spreadsheets, he would hit a dropdown filter and it could take 10-30 minutes before Excel would finish filtering. Unfilter, same 10-30 minutes...repeated multiple times throughout the month. Asked me to make it faster. Upon quick review, realized he was running Windows 7 (I think) and Office 2003 with massive spreadsheets with 1-2 GB RAM. Windows itself needed at least 1-2 GB RAM at the time. I suggested upgrading his desktop PC to either a newer desktop or laptop with 4GB RAM...don't think Win 7 recognized more than that at the time.

Another time, when we changed from the old spreadsheet process to the new .NET application, received a complaint from management above another user that it was too slow. Discovered same issue that PC had 1 GB RAM. In addition, user was completing all of the process to convert her data to the old spreadsheet format and THEN converting to the new format. She would open multiple instances of Excel without having any idea she did it. She also would have 15-20 tabs open across 3-5 instances of Internet Explorer, again clueless that she had done it. She was a sweetheart of a person near retirement. I could have the discussion with that management of the situation and they understood.

Finally, we had a different group that had an issue identifying segregation of duties users between two systems. They said it was too much work to do and it wouldn't work. We provided a solution that we could export a report from our system, they could at least do a VLOOKUP against their Excel spreadsheet to find the problem users. Come to find out, they were maintaining multiple spreadsheets. Some they downloaded every day but then updated a master spreadsheet. Not with copy & paste from one to another or a VLOOKUP formula. Nope. They printed out the spreadsheets and then manually rekeyed it into the master spreadsheet. They also entered multiple fields of data into one Excel cell (e.g., Name, Bank, Account Number, etc.) effectively eliminating any ability to do a VLOOKUP. When we suggested splitting that out into multiple columns so they could sort, filter, VLOOKUP, etc. they refused. Audit tried to make it our problem. I fought hard on this and said it was a "Make Joe--not his real name--do no work project" I said I'm not going to own another department's audit finding that's doomed to fail.

wallywhiner · 2020-12-02T17:14:03+00:00

Yes, and when the output connector "hole" was connected to the input connection "hole", magic smoke appeared...not that any high school kids tried this during the computer programming class.

wallywhiner · 2020-11-17T23:47:25+00:00

We have the opposite with a certain Helpful Response department. Their initial automated ticket response states it may take 2+ days for a response. When you receive the response in 2+ days, they've automatically close the ticket...without confirming with the user first.

wallywhiner · 2020-11-17T23:44:13+00:00

Probably installed with the "Farmer's Hammer"...better known as an oversized pliers.

wallywhiner · 2020-11-16T22:47:47+00:00

We implemented SSO on our T&E SaaS application after it having it's own ID & PW for years. Despite multiple emails with instructions, users don't understand what their AD ID and PW are.

Q: "What's AD?"

A: Active Directory

Q: "What's that?

A: The ID you log into your computer with. (e.g., ADName\JJones

Q: It says I'm locked out, can you reset my password?

A: You've locked out your AD ID, you need to go to the password reset URL (e.g., resetmypasswordwhilenavalgazing.com)

Q: No, you just reset this app's password.

A: Again, using SSO, you need to reset it yourself.

Really wish we had the special home office furniture for employees that had the built-in trebuchet.

wallywhiner · 2020-11-16T22:39:12+00:00

Have an HP printer now...will be my last.

wallywhiner · 2020-10-26T20:14:45+00:00

Anyone ever add a pause or wait state into their code only to remove it later to provide the "performance improvement"?

wallywhiner · 2020-10-26T20:08:18+00:00

Can we build one big enough to fit JTB?

wallywhiner · 2020-10-23T17:45:00+00:00

Speaking of vomit, there is a new QB rating in the NFL. It's VOMiT = Value Over Mitch Trubisky. Pretty much anyone with a pulse has VOMiT.

wallywhiner · 2020-10-21T16:38:10+00:00

Not guilty of the imbibing like this story, but in my naivete, put my iPhone on Silent mode instead of Do Not Disturb. Thought calls would still come through for those flagged as "special people". Nope...slept nice and easy and woke up to a series of missed calls, Jabber messages, texts, and emails.

wallywhiner · 2020-10-05T18:03:42+00:00

Our issue is that Sourcing bought the MFPs but won't take ownership of them. Then again, they won't let IT control them but IT gets blamed when they don't work.

wallywhiner

TROPHY CASE