# The IT group here **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 20, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768 "2012-06-20T17:39:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/41 "2012-06-21T16:37:17Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] Except that I used the words I was told to use, and the very same person then told me that I was using the wrong words and to start over. [/QUOTE] He’s giving you good advice though. It works better if you give basic English explanations of what you need with no jargon at all. "I need a place on the network to store documents that is accessible to people in my department and this list of people in other departments. I don’t/do need it to be accessible from the internet or from an off site network. The documents are/are not sensitive and will/won’t need enhances security based on ‘this’ requirement. It will be ‘this’ kind of document and we’ll need X number of them eventually…you can check the size of an average document here with the sample. We need this service in place for ‘this’ reason by ‘this’ date. When can we expect it to be turned up? Will you be updating us on the progress of this project? Thank you, have a nice day.’ You know what you want wrt what your requirements are. Don’t try and solve the problem for IT…you’ll just make things more confusing. Just lay it out plainly and let THEM solve it for you based on your requirements. That said, based on what you were saying earlier, I still say your IT department needs some serious training in customer service, since THEY should have been the ones to give you the above speech, especially after the first mishap. I’ve given very similar ones to my users in the past when they asked me for some specific solution without grasping what they were asking for, telling what they were actually trying to do, and not understanding that what they were asking for wouldn’t solve their ACTUAL problem. It saves a lot of time and headaches when users give plain requirements and leave the solutions up to IT. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/42 "2012-06-21T16:41:29Z")
> [@Enginerd](#): > > There’s no reason for **BubbaDog** to worry about that process at all - that’s one of the things he’s paying the outside IT vendor to do. From **BubbaDog** s original post, it seems his own company screwed up first. It’s hard to read context on the internet, but apparently the idea that there would be an on-call IT staffer to help with issues isn’t clear from the post. I’d say it depends on the actual situation. If the contract specified that they’d deal with IT requests via the online system, it’s on **BD** s company to perform due diligence in checking out that system before signing a contract. Or maybe the IT vendor DID agree to on-call staffing support. But that’s not clear from the original post. Of course, the customer is always right, which means the vendor may have had to go beyond the limits specified in their contract to satisfy their client. That sucks, if it’s the case, but that’s part of business, i.e. “do as I mean, not as I say” is too common among clients. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/43 "2012-06-21T16:44:09Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Huh? We use the term XML call all the time. Do you only develop in one language? in the purview of IT and computer science in general the two terms XML and call when concatenated together is ambiguous and nonsensical. XML is a data format, how are you calling it? Perl? ASP? Java? rpc? ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/44 "2012-06-21T16:47:08Z")
> [@XT](#): > > He’s giving you good advice though. It works better if you give basic English explanations of what you need with no jargon at all. "I need a place on the network to store documents that is accessible to people in my department and this list of people in other departments. I don’t/do need it to be accessible from the internet or from an off site network. The documents are/are not sensitive and will/won’t need enhances security based on ‘this’ requirement. It will be ‘this’ kind of document and we’ll need X number of them eventually…you can check the size of an average document here with the sample. We need this service in place for ‘this’ reason by ‘this’ date. When can we expect it to be turned up? Will you be updating us on the progress of this project? Thank you, have a nice day.’ > > You know what you want wrt what your requirements are. Don’t try and solve the problem for IT…you’ll just make things more confusing. Just lay it out plainly and let THEM solve it for you based on your requirements. > > That said, based on what you were saying earlier, I still say your IT department needs some serious training in customer service, since THEY should have been the ones to give you the above speech, especially after the first mishap. I’ve given very similar ones to my users in the past when they asked me for some specific solution without grasping what they were asking for, telling what they were actually trying to do, and not understanding that what they were asking for wouldn’t solve their ACTUAL problem. It saves a lot of time and headaches when users give plain requirements and leave the solutions up to IT. > > -XT Yes, as a systems architect I haven’t been on the help desk in over a decade but when someone comes with a request I make a point of asking them what the problem is that they are trying to solve. But I am also assuming that the OP’s helpdesk may be “value engineered” or the company may be small and not have a full IT department. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/45 "2012-06-21T16:53:46Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > XML is a data format, how are you calling it? Perl? ASP? Java? rpc? ASP by way of vbscript. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/46 "2012-06-21T16:55:15Z")
> [@XT](#): > > He’s giving you good advice though. It works better if you give basic English explanations of what you need with no jargon at all. Except that I’m not originating the request. I’m the go-between. I’ve tried many many many times to get these two people to talk directly to each other. They won’t. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/47 "2012-06-21T17:02:31Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > ASP by way of vbscript. As you are writing the last piece what is the justification for not calling from the endpoint system? Most of the higher level languages are quite easy to use with XML, like python or ruby etc… ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/48 "2012-06-21T17:06:00Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Except that I’m not originating the request. I’m the go-between. I’ve tried many many many times to get these two people to talk directly to each other. They won’t. If you are in healthcare just say, “won’t FTP pain text passwords put us at risk of violating the hipaa security rule”? That will get them talking I am 100% serious and it is not exaggeration that FTP is unsafe to use for anything but anonymous downloads. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/49 "2012-06-21T17:06:10Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > As you are writing the last piece what is the justification for not calling from the endpoint system? I’ve gotten several. The latest one is “It can’t be done, end of discussion.” Another was “You’ll get too much data”, to which I replied “I can filter it”, which was answered with “It can’t be done, end of discussion.” ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/50 "2012-06-21T17:07:14Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > If you are in healthcare just say, “won’t FTP pain text passwords put us at risk of violating the hipaa security rule”? Even if the FTP site is password protected? ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/51 "2012-06-21T17:07:42Z")
Look, no one is saying that IT’s job is an easy one, I’ve worked on both sides of the fence. Where IT gets no sympathy, though, is when it drops the ball. The problem isn’t whether you should use FTP or not. The problem is that you submit a ticket and nothing happens except crickets chirping. You get a nonsensical request? Sure, I’ve seen that before, but it’s your job to contact the requester and ask, “What exactly was it you wanted, in English? Well, we \*could \*create an FTP folder, but I wouldn’t recommend it, and here’s why.” Can’t get to a solution right now because you’re swamped? I sympathise, but your job is to communicate that to the requestor in a timely manner. And to keep them in the damn loop. “Hey, just wanted to know that we haven’t forgotten about you. We’re still working on it.” The problem lies when nothing seems to happen at all. There’s no excuse for that. That’s when you’re going to get calls on your cell phone from disgruntled me demanding to “jump to the front of the line”. ---
**Author:** ![HookerChemical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/278dde/32.png) [@HookerChemical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HookerChemical)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/52 "2012-06-21T17:10:06Z")
If the request of the IT department doesn’t make sense to them, it’s their job to figure out what you’re looking for and the best way to accomplish it. I’m not IT, but FTP drive doesn’t make any sense and I think that’s the wrong term. Instead of kicking the can, dragging the request out, and otherwise being unhelpful, IT’s reaction should be “What are you trying to accomplish?” It’s unreasonable to expect everybody in the company to know the correct jargon. I have a fairly good IT group at my company. If I go to them and say “I want to access the network drive at the office from my home computer. Please help me do that,” it gets done. They send the VPN client, give me the address of the network drives, and clear instructions. If I ask them to combobulate the frumlator, they ask for some clarification about what I’m trying to accomplish and either tell me what I need to do on my end to make it happen or tell me why I combobulate the frumulator. If I’m lucky, they have a solution that’s almost what I was looking for. That’s IT’s job, not dragging out a simple file storage and access solution for a year. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/53 "2012-06-21T17:13:25Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Even if the FTP site is password protected? Yes, the fact it is password protected is the issue, it sends the username and password in plain text over the network. It is trivial to pull that data off the wire and there are many many automated tools that do it for you. It is a super security risk if you tie that to your network login or use that password for other resources. FTP as a protocol as designed in the days of “trusted computing” where it was assumed you would control access to the network by restricting what machines were put on it, that model was not valid at the time and is plain dangerous in today’s connected world. The RFC for FTP was written in 1985, the only reason it is still in common use today is people are ignorant of the risks. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/54 "2012-06-21T17:18:38Z")
> [@PoorYorick](#): > > Look, no one is saying that IT’s job is an easy one, I’ve worked on both sides of the fence. Where IT gets no sympathy, though, is when it drops the ball. The problem isn’t whether you should use FTP or not. The problem is that you submit a ticket and nothing happens except crickets chirping. > > You get a nonsensical request? Sure, I’ve seen that before, but it’s your job to contact the requester and ask, “What exactly was it you wanted, in English? Well, we \*could \*create an FTP folder, but I wouldn’t recommend it, and here’s why.” > > Can’t get to a solution right now because you’re swamped? I sympathise, but your job is to communicate that to the requestor in a timely manner. And to keep them in the damn loop. “Hey, just wanted to know that we haven’t forgotten about you. We’re still working on it.” > > The problem lies when nothing seems to happen at all. There’s no excuse for that. That’s when you’re going to get calls on your cell phone from disgruntled me demanding to “jump to the front of the line”. I am not blame shifting but in many companies, due to the cost of IT workers, the company tries to operate a few headcount down. In those situations the resources are not ignoring your ticket, they are fighting to keep their head above water with all the new higher priority tickets coming in. Of course there are also cases that are just lazy people with ineffective managers and/or petty politics. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/55 "2012-06-21T17:22:07Z")
> [@HookerChemical](#): > > If the request of the IT department doesn’t make sense to them, it’s their job to figure out what you’re looking for and the best way to accomplish it. I’m not IT, but FTP drive doesn’t make any sense and I think that’s the wrong term. Instead of kicking the can, dragging the request out, and otherwise being unhelpful, IT’s reaction should be “What are you trying to accomplish?” > > It’s unreasonable to expect everybody in the company to know the correct jargon. I have a fairly good IT group at my company. If I go to them and say “I want to access the network drive at the office from my home computer. Please help me do that,” it gets done. They send the VPN client, give me the address of the network drives, and clear instructions. If I ask them to combobulate the frumlator, they ask for some clarification about what I’m trying to accomplish and either tell me what I need to do on my end to make it happen or tell me why I combobulate the frumulator. If I’m lucky, they have a solution that’s almost what I was looking for. That’s IT’s job, not dragging out a simple file storage and access solution for a year. Well I am not defending them but an FTP “drive” would be most closely parsed as a FTP site that is most commonly means a place to share files with external parties. That is what was provided, the 90 day retention period is because people upload files to the FTP site, the client or partner downloads it and they never go back delete the file off the FTP site. You have to age off data on those services there is no practical way to track what should be kept and what is cruft. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/56 "2012-06-21T17:35:32Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Huh? We use the term XML call all the time. Great. What do you use it for? ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/57 "2012-06-21T17:39:33Z")
> [@kushiel](#): > > :mad::mad::mad: > > You know how you’re patiently waiting in line for your turn at the customer service desk at a physical store, and some angry person rushes to the start of the line and demands to be served immediately because they’re more important than everyone else? > > Yeah, yeah. That’s you, buddy. The pushier you get, the less I want to help you. I want to help the nice, patient people first. Now, if you file a ticket and label it with the highest priority, I will go look at it immediately to see if it is actually an emergency, and if it is, I will drop a lower priority ticket to help you. **But you do not get to butt in line.** > > My coworker is currently tied up by people who call her and want their problems fixed right now and will continue calling back multiple times a day. Meanwhile, she doesn’t get a chance to help the nice people who email her requests and wait patiently for a response. Those people who call and want their non-emergency problems fixed immediately go to the top of the Shit List. Your response would be valid if 1 - My situation wasn’t an emergency 2 - Their newly implemented trouble reporting system made any sense (or worked for that matter) 3 - They hadn’t promised to give immediate support for emergencies in their contract. Your description of your IT group sounds like so many I’ve seen in the corporate arena before. Your reporting system is so cumbersome that your customers realize their only hope in getting their problem fixed in a timely matter is to be the loudest squeaking wheel. It amazes me that you can complain about my attitude and those of your clients while outlining exactly why they need to do what they do. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/58 "2012-06-21T18:03:31Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > Your response would be valid if > > 1 - My situation wasn’t an emergency > 2 - Their newly implemented trouble reporting system made any sense (or worked for that matter) > 3 - They hadn’t promised to give immediate support for emergencies in their contract. > > Your description of your IT group sounds like so many I’ve seen in the corporate arena before. Your reporting system is so cumbersome that your customers realize their only hope in getting their problem fixed in a timely matter is to be the loudest squeaking wheel. > > It amazes me that you can complain about my attitude and those of your clients while outlining exactly why they need to do what they do. You didn’t say ‘immediate support for emergencies’ in your original post - ‘quickly fix’ is what you said. In my world, that might mean finishing what I’m doing and getting to you in an hour or two. **If your contract was actually for instant, drop everything else support, then I’m behind you.** By the way, one of the things our clients love about us is our response time. I’m not actually IT, I’m website development, but I do end up answering a lot of IT-related questions. We don’t have an ‘emergency response’ level of support like you are referring to, all clients are equal and their individual requests are handled by the level of brokenness (website won’t load? Full 911 response! You can’t figure out how to get your pictures out of Microsoft Word? Not an emergency even when you claim it is!) followed by when the request was made. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/59 "2012-06-21T18:37:29Z")
> [@Gary\_Kumquat](#): > > Great. What do you use it for? To retrieve data via an XML service. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2012, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768/60 "2012-06-21T18:42:14Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Huh? We use the term XML call all the time. Do you create GUI interfaces using Visual Basic to try to track IP addresses? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-it-group-here/625768.md?page=4)