How do you tell your IT people they doin't know what they're doin?

[klarencio]

Our computers have been down for a few weeks now, our so-called "Assistant to the Executive Director" acts like she knows what she's doin but doesn't, and our IT people are too damn lazy to come out and take a look at our system. My situation is much more complicated than this, everybody at my workplace is related to each other somehow, you know, if one person dislikes you, then they all dislike you. How would you ease your opinions into this matter without all the bull5h!t drama? Should I fix it myself?

[kallahar]

It's all about the bottom line. If their slowness is causing the company to lose money then that's what it takes for many managers to take notice.

Personally I just fix problems myself. Sure, you may get called on to do it later, but as long as they pay me well I'll do whatever work they want.

[AlxRogan]

It's all about the bottom line. If their slowness is causing the company to lose money then that's what it takes for many managers to take notice.

Personally I just fix problems myself. Sure, you may get called on to do it later, but as long as they pay me well I'll do whatever work they want.

This is the heart of the matter. IT's job is to support the company and ease how it does business. I'd do the same thing as Kallahar, and fix it myself, just make sure you document what you did, and why you did it. That way if there is any fallout from it, you've got your ass covered.

[astcell]

Be a pain in their neck until they give you local admin privileges. Then fix stuff yourself. When they see that you are the only PC to not die, you may have their job.

[klarencio]

we're a small office, not too much people know what they're doin when it comes to computers they're all still in the "90's". They get paid $$$ juss for sitting there, anywayz, i'd better stop before i get started. I'll do it myself.

[astcell]

I guess when the next Melissa comes out folks may find themselves on the chopping block for not knowing their stuff. or you can mention to management the idea that in California they want teachers to actually be able to pass the classes they teach. When the boss agrees, say something to the effect that the IT Dept is lucky they are not teachers in California. :>

[ndex]

Should I fix it myself?

Not unless you want to get fired. Start looking for another job right away. Don't quit this one, but take copious notes for your memoires, you'll be able to look back and laugh at this later.

It's not your fault.
It's not your responsibility.
It's not your job to fix it.

Your life is your job. The employment is how you care for people you love and pay for cool toys.

If you are related to all these people who are related to each other, I'm sorry. Consider going to school out of state as soon as possible and forgetting your home phone number. If you're not related to all of these people who are related to each other then *run* before they have an opportunity to contaminate your gene pool.

There are some things you just can't fix. Some things are broken and the lesson is to know when to move on.

</soapbox>

seriously though, get a new job and maintain a professional demeanor as you get out of there as fast as you can...

[kallahar]

I disagree, being "the person who can fix anything" is an excellent position to be in if you don't have any other special skills. I made a nice niche for myself here straight out of college by basically doing anything anyone needed done. You want to make sure you're not taken advantage of, and make sure they're paying you enough. Once you have the experience to justify a raise, you'll also have the experience to also be employed elsewhere, which is why they'll either give you the raise or let you take a job elsewhere.

[klarencio]

Well here's and update on this deal, they finally took the hard drives out, analyzed them and decided that they're no good. We have a substantial amount of information on these hard drives, our whole report database is lost according to her. Anywayz, i didn't get a chance to look at them. Man she is such a fucktard.

[Red Squirrel]

wow reminds me of how my high school was. I was just talking to the one and only IT guy for the entire school board and randomly asked him a question about security. To my horror, he had no clue what I was talking about. Who needs security in a school network anyway? If it was not for them installing deep freeze on top of all the problems and viruses I would have fixed most of the problems. some were very simple, like a missconfigured printer, but noooo they put deepfreeze so problems came back! Never tried long enough to bypass it either.

[Deviant Ollam]

Well here's and update on this deal, they finally took the hard drives out, analyzed them and decided that they're no good. We have a substantial amount of information on these hard drives, our whole report database is lost according to her. Anywayz, i didn't get a chance to look at them. Man she is such a fucktard.

uhm, i don't want to make broad remarks without knowing the details of the matter, but unless the machine holding the drive was subjected to a fire or had a humongous electromagnet pointed at it, the data isn't "lost" completely.

do the hard drives in question spin up at all or have they completely mechanically failed? if they spin up and can be detected in any fashion by an IDE or SCSI controller, chances are that you can recover the data right there in-house. if your tech department doesn't even know how to take a rudimentary stab at that, then they are woefully underqualified. (once again, without knowing anything about them i am remiss to give such a blanket statement... but it's how the situation strikes me)

even if the drives are 100% "dead" in a physical sense, you can always send them to a company with a clean room who can do data restore services. it's not the freaky forensic magic that everyone thinks it is (well, it sort of is beyond what almost anyone could do themselves, but it's not a superhuman undertaking and cn often cost less than people realize.) are the numbers / data that were "lost" on the drives worth a great deal to your company? for a few thousand dollars (typically $5000 to $10,000 from what i've seen) you could have it back with little stress. if your company has a large enough budget and you're interested in this, PM me and i'll put you in touch with some of the right people to pursue that option further.

[lil_freak]

uhm, i don't want to make broad remarks without knowing the details of the matter, but unless the machine holding the drive was subjected to a fire or had a humongous electromagnet pointed at it, the data isn't "lost" completely.

I agree with Deviant on this statement, the data stored on the drives should still be recoverable to some point. In most cases when I've had a drive go bad on me, I've still been able to recover at least 90% of all the data on the drive if not all of it.

if they spin up and can be detected in any fashion by an IDE or SCSI controller, chances are that you can recover the data right there in-house.

Unless of course your IT staff likes to distroy stuff, so they have a reason to buy new stuff.

Note: Only the hard drive was hurt in the making of that short clip and boy was it fun.

even if the drives are 100% "dead" in a physical sense, you can always send them to a company with a clean room who can do data restore services. it's not the freaky forensic magic that everyone thinks it is (well, it sort of is beyond what almost anyone could do themselves, but it's not a superhuman undertaking and cn often cost less than people realize.)

Because of you I now have a name for our clean lab: "The Freaky Forensic Magic Room", thank you I have been trying to come up with something for quite awhile now. I think it will work very nice, I'll send you pictures after we get the sign up.

[Deviant Ollam]

Unless of course your IT staff likes to distroy stuff, so they have a reason to buy new stuff.

hehe... that's awesome. i've never disassembled a drive with enough care to keep the mechanics and motor working after it's apart.

Because of you I now have a name for our clean lab: "The Freaky Forensic Magic Room", thank you I have been trying to come up with something for quite awhile now. I think it will work very nice, I'll send you pictures after we get the sign up.

sweet.

[klarencio]

uhm, i don't want to make broad remarks without knowing the details of the matter, but unless the machine holding the drive was subjected to a fire or had a humongous electromagnet pointed at it, the data isn't "lost" completely.

I know all the data isn't lost, and i'm for sure you know it, but how do you tell them that, it's not really my place to say, ..lol they just suck. Here's the problem; they OS (WindowsXP) starts up but the goes into a STOP ERROR. UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME. You can't access anything in Safe Mode, the people in my office like to play around with the computers internally, my guess is they deleted some of the drivers or other critical elements.

uhm, do the hard drives in question spin up at all or have they completely mechanically failed? if they spin up and can be detected in any fashion by an IDE or SCSI controller, chances are that you can recover the data right there in-house. if your tech department doesn't even know how to take a rudimentary stab at that, then they are woefully underqualified. (once again, without knowing anything about them i am remiss to give such a blanket statement... but it's how the situation strikes me).

To tell you the truth, I don't think they even went there.

uhm, even if the drives are 100% "dead" in a physical sense, you can always send them to a company with a clean room who can do data restore services. it's not the freaky forensic magic that everyone thinks it is (well, it sort of is beyond what almost anyone could do themselves, but it's not a superhuman undertaking and cn often cost less than people realize.) are the numbers / data that were "lost" on the drives worth a great deal to your company? for a few thousand dollars (typically $5000 to $10,000 from what i've seen) you could have it back with little stress. if your company has a large enough budget and you're interested in this, PM me and i'll put you in touch with some of the right people to pursue that option further.

We're a small office, all the money goes to paying these guys the salary. We probably wouldn't pay for that stuff, although the information on it is IMPORTANT. I think we're just screwed.

[lil_freak]

hehe... that's awesome. i've never disassembled a drive with enough care to keep the mechanics and motor working after it's apart.

The only time we couldn't keep one of the drives working was when we took a green sharpie and hammer to it a few times, but even then it kinda worked.

We're a small office, all the money goes to paying these guys the salary. We probably wouldn't pay for that stuff, although the information on it is IMPORTANT.

Sounds to me like your office needs to take a look at it resources and decide if keeping the current IT staff around is cost productive.

I think we're just screwed.

Unfortuanly, I would have to agree with that comment.