We pay you $80K a year and you come up with THAT?!

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

We've had an issue at the Red Checkmark for awhile now where our computer systems will grind to a a screeching halt at certain times of day and during certain periods. We ran into a lot of freezing/crashing and not loading problems during the recent iphone launch.

Now I'm not an IT pro but I can clearly understand the problem:

1) Our computers are all running IE 8 (yes, really!)
2) Whatever server or servers host our web based tools are getting overloaded. There's too much traffic for them to handle
3) The computers we use are sorely lacking in RAM

So, after a lot of complaining from the grunts, Red Checkmark brought in some of our top IT guys to come in to our center and evaluate things for a day. The idea being they'd get a good understanding of the problem and be able to implement a solution.

Well, two weeks ago, we got our official "solution".

What exactly do they want us to do to deal with these problems?

Keep FEWER open windows on our computers!

Yes, that's what they actually told us! And this coming from supposed "high level" IT guys.

If you need me, I'll be curled up in a corner somewhere, weeping for humanity.

[eltf177]

It would have been cheaper to drag in a couple of random people off the street if that's the best solution they could come up with!

[prjkt]

Might not be the best solution, but it is the cheapest...

[DGoddessChardonnay]

It would have been cheaper to drag in a couple of random people off the street if that's the best solution they could come up with!

Hell, I would think even Cheech and Chong would have done better than that, surely.

Whomever Red Checkmark hired to "troubleshoot" sounds like they were too much trouble.

[EricKei]

Might not be the best solution, but it is the cheapest...

More importantly - for them -, it requires absolutely no effort on their part, and will probably take some time "to tell that it really works"

[sms001]

this coming from supposed "high level" IT guys.

Or, sadly, from the bean counters. Unless they said something in your store, it's entirely possible that they saw the problems, went back and made proper recommendations, but those would require money and when pressed they offered less and less expensive solutions until this drivel hit the right buttons.

IT is too often seen as a money pit whose cures are too costly. In corporate's defense, this is often because IT often can't (or doesn't bother to) quantify the benefits, ROI, or savings of those cures.

[drunkenwildmage]

Makes perfect sense:

They were told to fix an issue,. but wasn't giving any funds to do so, and based on that, that was the best solution they could come up with.


IT is generally the last departmental of any company to receive any company budget, and is typically the first one that is cut.

[Geek King]

To be fair, as a Windows IT guy, I do see a lot of issues where people minimize windows rather than closing them when done. I had one person recently who had 138 emails open. Of course, they called me over to look at a computer running slow. -.-;

Checkmark's issue is probably an overloaded server, though. Those are classic symptoms. Those are expensive to replace though.

[eltf177]

Checkmark's issue is probably an overloaded server, though. Those are classic symptoms. Those are expensive to replace though.

And replacement would cut into management's bonus'. And we couldn't have that, now could we?

[dalesys]

...Checkmark's issue is probably an overloaded server, though. Those are classic symptoms. Those are expensive to replace though.

And the entire amount budgeted for hardware in the current, just begun, 5-Year-Plan was consumed by the expense of "expert" traveling to the site.

[EricKei]

GK - That's nothing. A friend of mine is of the type that prefers to keep Firefox tabs open for easy reference, rather than bookmark and close them when they're not going to be accessed anytime soon (I mean, it's not as if modern FF is a memory hog or anything, even as it comes )...so he grabbed an add-on that allows him to keep as many open as he likes without crashing. His record is somewhere north of five hundred tabs open in a single FF window...on 5+ year old laptop with 2 gigs of RAM. He asked me from time to time to speed his computer up (the usual, clearing temp and %temp%, running scans, etc)...but he doesn't wanna lose his precious tabs, nor EVER reboot his system for anything short of a BSOD x.x Hasn't been by in a while; I really hope he doesn't do that anymore.

I have suggested he use the "Bookmark All Tabs" feature, as it drops them all into a subfolder on the bookmark menu. Dunno if he ever did. I hope so...

[Tama]

Five.... hundred....

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Heck I think the most tabs I've EVER had open was around 18. At work it's rare if go north of 12.

Another cruddy thing is that most of our tools are IE based so if one window gets messed up and the browser crashes...all our windows go down with it, forcing us to reload everything again.

Anyone who works at a call center knows they make a big deal of average handle time/average talk time. I have told several superiors at length about how faster, better running systems would drive those handle times down and potentially make them look really good to THEIR superiors.

Sadly, they don't seem to listen.

[raudf]

500?! How is that comp even RUNNING?!

If I'm comparison shopping online, I could have upwards of 20 tabs (most likely less, though) open. Do I keep those open all the time? Heck, no. I bookmark the promising ones and close the ones that I decided didn't work. When the computer is one, FF is open on Facebook.. because I have no life

But 500?! Gah!

[Jay 2K Winger]

The most tabs I tend to have open is five or six per window, and usually only two windows at a time. Sometimes I'll go higher than that, but usually only when I'm sifting through forums and checking updated threads. One thread per tab. Usually, the updates are a handful of posts (usually less!) and I close out the tab when I'm done.

There have been times when I've had more open, but again, I close them out when I'm finished, and bookmark stuff I think I'll refer back to.