Reckless

I assert than anyone who is retarded enough to install Windows Updates on a customer-facing production server in the middle of the goddamned day deserves everything they get.

They most certainly deserve a prompt phone call from me asking why my entire school’s website (including the hosted MIS) became unavailable while I was in the middle of posting new content, then later writing a pithy blog post about how “we didn’t think it would cause IIS to shut down” is not a valid excuse.

I work late on the evening after patch Tuesday to install server updates, and all of my servers are internal. When I’m paying you thousands of pounds a year to maintain this stuff, I expect that to stretch to some late working.

Downselling

It seems that the Dell store doesn’t quite understand the concept of what makes one number bigger than another.

Last time I checked, going from a 3-year warranty to a 1-year warranty didn’t count as an “upgrade”.

RM don’t have a damned clue what they’re talking about

Within minutes of logging onto an RM system for the first time, I became frustrated with the fact that on most workstations, any keyboard shortcut using the Windows key had been disabled, even for administrators. Win+R, Win+E, and Win+L are shortcuts I use all the time, so my frustration mounted quickly.

First I was told that Win+x shortcuts were disabled because they are “a security risk”, on the basis that by using Win+R, someone could run programs that aren’t on the Start Menu. There are three flaws in this argument:

1. If your workstation security is set correctly, it shouldn’t matter what program they can run. Security through obscurity is a fallacy I do not entertain.
2. There are plenty of other ways for someone to start programs that aren’t on the Start Menu.
3. You can disable this command using Group Policy for particular users without affecting administrators, or the other benign shortcuts.

Later I found an RM support document (TEC85637 for those with access) that boldly stated that by leaving Win+L enabled, users would be able to lock the workstation and stop other people from using it, even if they were prevented from locking the workstation elsewhere in the UI (i.e. by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del and clicking ‘Lock Workstation’). When I first read this, I’ll confess I’d never tested such a scenario, but it seemed very unlikely.

So I checked.

It’s utterly false.

RM really don’t have a damned clue what they’re talking about.

Dear Canon

When you hide the most useful version of your driver software on your U.S. website, leaving the European site bereft of even an explanation that an alternative exists to the retrograde version you foist upon us, you are wasting both my time, and yours.

Wait, scratch that. It’s just my time you’re wasting. Cut that out, will you?

I expect this from HP, not from you.

Love and kisses,
AngryTechnician

Dear Arrogant Sales Staff

There are no circumstances under which you will ever be important enough for me to talk to during the first week of term.

My new rule is that any unsolicited sales calls received during the first week of term will earn your company automatic entry onto my supplier blacklist. I know that you must think this week would be a good time to get yourself noticed at a time when we might be starting new projects, but you are utterly wrong. Here’s why:

1. The first week of term is always, ALWAYS extremely busy.
2. I did all my projects over the summer. An increasing number of school technical staff work during the break. You are therefore 3 months late – and an idiot.
3. Even if I were starting projects now, there is no way I would be risking taking on a new supplier during the first week of term, due to #1.

That you do not realise these things betrays a distinct lack of understanding about your market. That does not inspire confidence. Just consider yourself lucky that you don’t have my direct line, and that you instead have to go through the switchboard, where the school’s extremely patient office staff have been screening your calls so that I don’t tell you to stick your sales call where the sun does not shine.

Love and kisses,
AngryTechnician

Miscommunication

I recently received a response from a supplier after completing a customer satisfaction survey while I was logged in to their website. At the end of they survey, they had asked for ‘one way we could improve’, and I had duly noted a quite simple way that they could improve the decidedly mediocre rating I’d given them.

The response went so far as to apologise for the specific problem I mentioned, and under normal circumstances would have been very satisfactory.

However, I did not receive this response directly. Instead it was sent to Bond, my manager at my previous school, and prefaced with a note that they already knew I no longer worked there.

Well, great for them that they know I’ve left. Here’s the puzzle though:

1. To my knowledge, my previous school has not had any dealings with this supplier. Certainly not while I worked there, if ever.
2. I have only had a login for the supplier’s website since after I started my new job.
3. My username is my email address, which has the new school’s name in it.
4. My login is linked to my new school’s account with the supplier, as the primary contact for the account.

Despite all this, they seem convinced that I was sending feedback on behalf of my previous school. Perhaps this explains why I was never called back?

Deliveries

One of the greatest challenges an IT professional in education will ever face is not even a technical problem. There are neither recalcitrant students nor inerudite staff involved in this conundrum, and not even the weather or an Act of God is responsible for this repeated source of stress.

No, you see, the most challenging thing I have to deal with is trying to get couriers to deliver during the holidays.

The country's finest transportation services at work.

Some couriers are fine. Others are utter morons who are convinced that all schools are firmly closed for the entire holidays, and will therefore abandon their attempts at delivery at the earliest opportunity.

The worst example of this was a Parcel Force (aka Parcel Farce) delivery about 2 years ago. I was expecting it on a particular day, and when it did not arrive, I checked the online tracking. I was thoroughly irritated to find that it had been marked “DELIVERY ATTEMPTED” and returned to the depot, despite the fact I had left detailed instructions on the front door of reception for anyone to see.

The next day, I was more wary. All day, we kept an eye on the CCTV watching the front door. Meanwhile, I checked the online tracking periodically for any clue as to what time we might expect a big red van to appear following the “OUT FOR DELIVERY” message from about 7.30am.

At about 1pm, it changed to “DELIVERY ATTEMPTED – HOLD AT DEPOT”.

I was furious.

I called the Parcel Farce helpline and asked what they thought they were playing at. The numpty on the other end of the phone insisted that a delivery had indeed been attempted. I explained that we had just reviewed the CCTV footage for the entire morning and that no delivery driver had even got as far as the car park, let alone the front door. After a slightly heated exchange, they begrudgingly agreed to send it out again the next day on the premise that ‘perhaps they went to the wrong address’.

Lo and behold, it arrived.

On the box, written twice, in two different sets of handwriting, were the words “SCHOOL CLOSED – SUMMER HOLIDAYS”.

It quickly became apparent that both previous drivers, lazy reprobates through and through, had simply assumed the school would be shut and not even bothered to check.

Cash Cow

I got a quote recently from RM to upgrade the hard disks in one of my servers. This would involve buying three new 300GB SCSI disks and having an engineer fit them. I’ve been told I can’t fit them myself as that would invalidate the hardware warranty of the entire server.

The price I was quoted just for the drives was nearly double the price quoted by two competitors. I had anticipated them being a little pricier than normal, but this literally made me choke. In addition, the cost to fit the new drives was nearly £2,000, for a maximum of two days’ work.

I wish I could charge a thousand pounds a day, that’s for sure.

The total cost of the quote was roughly the same as buying an entire new server. I actually emailed the sales rep to point this out, and asked him if he’d made a mistake. He hadn’t. Personally I find it hard to understand where they think all this money is going to come from. The school has some very well-kept grounds, but as far as I know, there are no money trees on site.

When I started in my new job I resolved to keep an open mind about having RM as a primary supplier. So far, this approach is not paying dividends.

Bad Marketing

Yesterday, BBC News were giving some prominence to an alarmist story with the headline “School computers fail to filter“, all about how schools are failing to protect children from the rampant dangers of using the Internet. The story was questionably sourced, poorly researched, and anonymously written – so generally on a par with much of BBC News’ usual output. This created some annoyance in the educational IT community.

The article was clearly not only prompted by, but entirely based on, a press release from a company trying to sell web filtering and endpoint protection software. There’s much to dislike about their approach, but I’d like to focus on a hint for the marketing team at said company.

If you want to sell technology to a school, criticising the work of the school’s IT support team in the national media is not a good start. These people tend to have some say in the decision-making process. Annoying them with trite headlines is a sure-fire way to get them to back a competitor’s product instead.

I recall dealing with a sales call from one of these sorts of companies before; the sort of company that believes that their software can monitor and catch any and every unwanted act on a computer that a child might deign to perform. Here, for your pleasure, is a true and unembellished excerpt from the conversation:

“Do you currently use any systems to stop students accessing prohibited sites online?”

“Yes, we use ISA Server to do some web filtering.”

“OK, and do you use anything to monitor computer usage and detect when students work around the filtering?”

“Oh yes, we have a number of advanced monitoring systems that use adaptive heuristics and image processing to monitor the students’ computer use.”

“Oh really, what systems are you using?”

“We call them ‘teachers’.”

Spam

If you are a supplier touting for new business, may I suggest that adding my email address to your inane weekly mailout without asking me is a bad idea, especially if said weekly email is filled with special offers on HP products?