Yes, I'm really me, and no, I don't have a fever, but I think the most annoying thing in the world (now that AAFH2 has been sent to different pastures) is the dreaded Work Order Sniper (WOS).
The name is a bit of a misnomer, as he rarely actually FINISHES any work orders, but apparently, is the server admin, who gets bored during his maintenance windows and goes through my and bosslady's work orders and comments on EACH. AND. EVERY. ONE.
For example, we use a program to validate student access to the network. As this program is web based, we have to get MAC addresses for the PSxs, Xboxes and the like. The student fills out a form that's submitted to the helpdesk. We enter the info in, and BOOM! Online gaming for the masses.
Despite many directions and a new note stating the form is NOT to be used to report problems if you've had your system on previously, we get a bunch of incomplete or already entered in forms. I had one such form sitting in my open work orders, waiting for the student/idiot to get back to me. I had noted in the work order what I was waiting on. Yet, when I got into work after a maintenance window, I saw the WOS had left a note in the work order asking if I heard back from the student, and if I had to send the work order over if the student was having problems connecting.
AH DUH!
Of course, that was the day that he left a somewhat similar note on EVERY SINGLE ONE of my work orders! There are three distinctly separate areas of our IT dept. I have a toe in all of them. He is only in one. Thus, 2/3s of my work orders don't have a thing to do with him, yet he still feels the need to leave me a note on them.
Last week was pretty much the final straw.
From Wednesday late afternoon to Friday late afternoon, I was at a conference (posh resort, HOT TUB!), and while I was gone, a work order came in to create an account for our graduate adult studies program. These specific accounts have to be set up in a very exact format. WOS saw it and grabbed it. Normally that would be okay, as that IS his side of the pond. Yet, despite account creation and maintenance being his THING, he still screwed it up. Not only the account, but each account is stored in like accounts in groups. He, and I'm pretty sure it was him, managed to drag that group into another group. Since the proxy server that allows access to our library databases for our graduate adult studies program uses those accounts, no GAS student could access the databases during the weekend, until we got the first call about it, and I figured out where the group went to and got it back in place.
The other final straw started to break a little earlier. On Monday, I found out that we were going to start giving incoming freshmen their network username and passwords (thus, their email) during their orientation, rather than when they moved on campus. The first orientation? This week!
I immediately tracked down the WOS, and told him, because he had planned to revamp the script I used to mass create the accounts (do YOU want to create about 120 accounts by hand? I don't think so! Trust me, I've done it and worse.. Taiwanese nomenclature makes my head hurt). Some changes HAD to be made. So, I told him to get the mandatory changes done ASAP, and he would still have all summer for the more cosmetic changes. The rest of Monday goes by. Tuesday goes by. He asks for the names of the students, and I tell him he'll have to make up some because they can't get me a list until the following week. I manage to squeeze some names out of Admissions, and send them over. Wednesday afternoon slips away, and I have to leave for the conference. Thursday and Friday comes and goes, no other word from him.
Which brings to today. His boss comes over because, and I forgot the best part of the previous story. The work order WOS sniped? Well, he still couldn't get it to work, not knowing it was because of a case of a missing organizational unit, and passed it onto HIS Boss, who came over on a semi warpath, because none of the work order made sense. (Mainly because I fixed it before I knew there was a sniped work order)
I had just finished venting to bosslady about how I hated the sniping when the network admin came in, and I vented to him, and he vented right back! He had been yelling at WOS for the sniping all along also, but not because he knew he was sniping other people's work orders, but because he wasn't getting his own stuff done!
After we vented, I asked him if WOS had mentioned anything about the script, because I hadn't heard back from him about it. The network admin had been standing right next to us when I told WOS about it, so he knew how important it was.
So, in the end, the network admin pooled our knowledge bases together (he actually knew about the scripts, I knew this one because I'd been working with it for 2 years), and we (mostly) finished what took the server admin (who should really know this stuff inside and out) a week to barely touch.
In the end, Bosslady has permission from the network admin, and also the IT manager, to rake the WOS over the coals when he gets back(his wife's having their first child, and she's been in and out of the hospital with some issues..., of course, the only difference between WOS before his wife started having problems and now is that when he's not working, he actually not at work), and the network admin is probably going to do the same.
So, VICTORY! Once again!
The name is a bit of a misnomer, as he rarely actually FINISHES any work orders, but apparently, is the server admin, who gets bored during his maintenance windows and goes through my and bosslady's work orders and comments on EACH. AND. EVERY. ONE.
For example, we use a program to validate student access to the network. As this program is web based, we have to get MAC addresses for the PSxs, Xboxes and the like. The student fills out a form that's submitted to the helpdesk. We enter the info in, and BOOM! Online gaming for the masses.
Despite many directions and a new note stating the form is NOT to be used to report problems if you've had your system on previously, we get a bunch of incomplete or already entered in forms. I had one such form sitting in my open work orders, waiting for the student/idiot to get back to me. I had noted in the work order what I was waiting on. Yet, when I got into work after a maintenance window, I saw the WOS had left a note in the work order asking if I heard back from the student, and if I had to send the work order over if the student was having problems connecting.
AH DUH!
Of course, that was the day that he left a somewhat similar note on EVERY SINGLE ONE of my work orders! There are three distinctly separate areas of our IT dept. I have a toe in all of them. He is only in one. Thus, 2/3s of my work orders don't have a thing to do with him, yet he still feels the need to leave me a note on them.
Last week was pretty much the final straw.
From Wednesday late afternoon to Friday late afternoon, I was at a conference (posh resort, HOT TUB!), and while I was gone, a work order came in to create an account for our graduate adult studies program. These specific accounts have to be set up in a very exact format. WOS saw it and grabbed it. Normally that would be okay, as that IS his side of the pond. Yet, despite account creation and maintenance being his THING, he still screwed it up. Not only the account, but each account is stored in like accounts in groups. He, and I'm pretty sure it was him, managed to drag that group into another group. Since the proxy server that allows access to our library databases for our graduate adult studies program uses those accounts, no GAS student could access the databases during the weekend, until we got the first call about it, and I figured out where the group went to and got it back in place.
The other final straw started to break a little earlier. On Monday, I found out that we were going to start giving incoming freshmen their network username and passwords (thus, their email) during their orientation, rather than when they moved on campus. The first orientation? This week!
I immediately tracked down the WOS, and told him, because he had planned to revamp the script I used to mass create the accounts (do YOU want to create about 120 accounts by hand? I don't think so! Trust me, I've done it and worse.. Taiwanese nomenclature makes my head hurt). Some changes HAD to be made. So, I told him to get the mandatory changes done ASAP, and he would still have all summer for the more cosmetic changes. The rest of Monday goes by. Tuesday goes by. He asks for the names of the students, and I tell him he'll have to make up some because they can't get me a list until the following week. I manage to squeeze some names out of Admissions, and send them over. Wednesday afternoon slips away, and I have to leave for the conference. Thursday and Friday comes and goes, no other word from him.
Which brings to today. His boss comes over because, and I forgot the best part of the previous story. The work order WOS sniped? Well, he still couldn't get it to work, not knowing it was because of a case of a missing organizational unit, and passed it onto HIS Boss, who came over on a semi warpath, because none of the work order made sense. (Mainly because I fixed it before I knew there was a sniped work order)
I had just finished venting to bosslady about how I hated the sniping when the network admin came in, and I vented to him, and he vented right back! He had been yelling at WOS for the sniping all along also, but not because he knew he was sniping other people's work orders, but because he wasn't getting his own stuff done!
After we vented, I asked him if WOS had mentioned anything about the script, because I hadn't heard back from him about it. The network admin had been standing right next to us when I told WOS about it, so he knew how important it was.
So, in the end, the network admin pooled our knowledge bases together (he actually knew about the scripts, I knew this one because I'd been working with it for 2 years), and we (mostly) finished what took the server admin (who should really know this stuff inside and out) a week to barely touch.
In the end, Bosslady has permission from the network admin, and also the IT manager, to rake the WOS over the coals when he gets back(his wife's having their first child, and she's been in and out of the hospital with some issues..., of course, the only difference between WOS before his wife started having problems and now is that when he's not working, he actually not at work), and the network admin is probably going to do the same.
So, VICTORY! Once again!
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