# To the Clowns in IT **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 10, 2014, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785 "2014-07-10T19:41:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/41 "2014-07-11T05:26:34Z")
Count me in as another expecting this to be a Stephen King thread. I read the headlines in The Pit 3 times through before I previewed the thread and realized my mistake! ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/42 "2014-07-11T10:10:09Z")
> [@statij](#): > > Dear Mr End User dipshit, > > I have been on the other end of this for years, and while some of what you say is undoubtedly on the mark, the vast majority of clownery comes from you. > > Do you know how to turn on a monitor? The power switch. You may also have to plug it in, but I understand that sometimes requires an IT clown. > Do you know that mice don’t work by moving them around literally physically on the screen? True story. > Do you know that you don’t get a new computer every 6 months because you install so much garbage that it stopped working properly? (not my policy that allowed you to do it in the first place.) > If you deleted a file 6 months ago and mentioned it to me today, it probably isn’t still available. And that’s your fault not mine. > I could go on forever, and I understand that IT guys are not always of the mold you might prefer. But from my experience, the average user generally makes them look like geniuses. You think we’re here to serve your whim, and you have no idea what makes IT work. That’s because its your job, not theirs. They have a different job that you probably couldn’t do either. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/43 "2014-07-11T10:30:48Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Don’t bother, they’re here. Snort. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Greenjeans](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.greenjeans/32/551_2.png) [@Mr.Greenjeans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Greenjeans)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/44 "2014-07-11T11:46:29Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > It was kind of fun seeing the senior leadership loose their shit… Perhaps they need more fiber in their diet. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/45 "2014-07-11T12:06:24Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > And before you can make a new crazyass password, you have to put in the previous crazyass password, which you can’t remember because it was too crazyass and you forgot to write it down and leave it in a convenient place, and when you try to use the “Forgot password” feature it asks for a capcha that you can’t read for shit, so you keep refreshing for a new one and when you get one you think you can read you’re told it’s wrong, try again, but you keep getting ones you can’t read or aren’t accepted and you just want to slam a fork in someone’s eyeball but you don’t because you’re a civilized human being and prison food is crap. At my previous job I literally had at least two dozen different passwords to remember, for different companies’ databases, not to mention variations on a potential username. I ended up getting the LastPass password keep them straight. I transferred to another job where I don’t need quite so many passwords. When creating an account on a new company’s database, I pulled out LastPass’s password generator feature. First one was rejected. Second and third were too. A rep from that company was there with me, and was really confused. He asked me to try a simpler one. Bingo. It was rejecting my password as not meeting its standards, but failing to tell me enough about what the standards are. :smack: My guess is that each time I was using a disallowed ‘special character’ and the system doesn’t bother to tell you that some special characters aren’t allowed. One case I saw had a requirement for a special character in your password but they limited your choices to only three. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/46 "2014-07-11T12:50:02Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > So, anyone else had a bad IT day recently? Yes. I work in IT. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/47 "2014-07-11T13:13:05Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Yes. I work in IT. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/48 "2014-07-11T13:26:14Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Then why do you assholes make us change our passwords every month, with no words from the dictionary, capitalization in odd places, numbers, and non-alphanumeric characters? It’s a telemarketing company, not the fucking CIA! > [@JXJohns](#): > > Because users can’t be trusted to not use toughies such as “password” or “123456” or the real brain buster: “987654321”. If you all had the common sense attributed to a common garden slug, such draconian password rules would not be needed. Ah, so there’s no middle ground between using “password” and having to input “De7gt83&=#)Gh\*” Uh-huh. When I need to look up something in the patient database and there is a big warning box about a scheduled system reboot, it’d be nice if I could see the warning once and then not have to be interrupted by it every time I log back in for the next few days. I see there’s a box to check so I don’t have to see it again, but _it does not work_. I e-mailed Mr./Ms. IT about the problem but apparently replenishing the Fritos supply takes precedence over that and other annoying software glitches. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/49 "2014-07-11T13:40:53Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > That’s the combination to my luggage! Aha! Now I can nefariously steal your underwear AND deoderant! [sub]I don’t want either one, but being nefarious sometime means doing things one doesn’t want to do…[/sub] ---
**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:** [July 11, 2014, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/50 "2014-07-11T13:47:38Z")
I can’t decide which to choose. Should I make a condescending remark towards users or towards IT? I’ve been on both sides of this war and pretty much everything said so far is accurate. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/51 "2014-07-11T13:52:02Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > Aha! Now I can nefariously steal your underwear AND deoderant! > > [sub]I don’t want either one, but being nefarious sometime means doing things one doesn’t want to do…[/sub] Curses! Foiled again! ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/52 "2014-07-11T14:30:29Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > (Yes, this was my job - and yes, this happened all the time - and don’t blame the poor desktop/server tech - he was doing what I told him to do - because we had a contractual obligation to return the equipment when you didn’t renew the contract. Do you know how much the clause is for using software we aren’t authorized to use is, on hardware we don’t own and aren’t under contract to use? About $500k in legal fees, and then we just paid the six figure settlement - and we signed a contract which we could have renewed at a 30% discount for full price.) Oh, Dear Developers, Stop pirating software. Read the damn EULA, it is probably not free just because you are developing with it - you still need to pay. Read the damn EULA, the software you are using is free, for home use, the moment you start developing commercial product with it - like we do here - we need to pay for it. Just because we have an “enterprise agreement” for the contract doesn’t mean its an all you can eat buffet - it just means that we need to true up every year. Just because someone has a copy of it on CD or a distribution server and you can get it doesn’t mean you have right to use. Yes, we need to pay for it if its installed, it doesn’t make a difference that you haven’t used that development environment for a year - if you haven’t used that environment turn it off. The reason you have an MSDN login is because we pay for them by user - you really shouldn’t be sharing that account across 30 developers in your group, or setting up system accounts so everyone can use the same MSDN license - it doesn’t work that way. And when I say I need access to your systems to audit, I need access to your systems - its way better when I tell you than when Accenture comes in here with a court order from Microsoft. $200M to Microsoft, thank you very much, and lesser amounts to HP, Autocad, IBM, et. al. - paid out of the central IT budget. Want to know why no one got a raise and all our headcount got cut? ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Stilettos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/fbc32d/32.png) [@Red\_Stilettos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Stilettos)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/53 "2014-07-11T14:46:23Z")
One of the company’s that I collaborate with decided to change all of the email addresses about two months ago. Unfortunately, they set it up so the old addresses don’t generate an undeliverable bounce back message, nor are emails automatically forwarded to the new addresses. Instead, emails just go into a blackhole. The sender doesn’t know they never arrived and the recipient has no idea they were ever sent. It took me about 3 weeks to figure out why no one was responding to any of my requests. Did their IT group not see this problem coming? What company only receives internal emails? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/54 "2014-07-11T14:48:23Z")
I just got a sales call from some woman with an Indian accent and the mistaken belief that I’m authorized to make IT purchases. Sure, my position is officially Technical Support but that’s just a euphamisim for Database Editor. ---
**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/55 "2014-07-11T15:17:06Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Dear end user, > > If you’re going to eat your lunch at your desk, could you please quit dropping crumbs into your keyboard so that it stops working and you have to call us every month or so to vacuum it out? > > Thank you, > > IT I never bothered calling IT for that. Just turned the keyboard upside down and beat the snot out of it (figuratively speaking - I never did blow my nose in a keyboard). At one of my previous jobs we had special keyboards for some custom software that we used (for me to explain in more detail would impact my “semi-anonymity” that I like to try to maintain here). The software manufacturer really in truly told us that if we had problems with the keyboards to try picking them up 2 inches and letting go. We took their advice many times. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/56 "2014-07-11T15:54:41Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > Yes. I’m a developer so they give us admin accounts. Touch of irony here. Everyplace I have worked…the developers _are_ considered IT guys. So, by extension…clowns. ---
**Author:** ![HookerChemical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/278dde/32.png) [@HookerChemical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HookerChemical)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/57 "2014-07-11T16:15:18Z")
Threads like this make me appreciate my company’s IT. They’re there to stay out of the way. I can install what I want and get help when I (rarely) need it. When they see my computer downloading a bunch of strange files off a FTP server, they give me a call and I can confirm that it’s a source I trust (a client with draconian IT practices) and they let me go on about my work. I don’t have to call for permission to install the latest publicly available, government developed/distributed software I need to do my job. IT keeps things working and gets out of the way. This is my only real complaint: > [@G0sp3l](#): > > And you connect to the VPN this week the same way you did last week! And last week and last month and last year. And please, don’t get me started on printing! Or email! The VPN process stealth updated and the instructions weren’t on the company website where they could be accessed. And for email, there’s no documentation that nothing but Outlook will work if you’re connected to the company network or VPN. But nobody should need IT to add a printer anymore. The only reason I haven’t done it for offices on the road is that I’m too lazy to look up the printer ID/make and download the drivers for a single page I need to print. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/58 "2014-07-11T17:19:09Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > > [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > > > If it was so important, why did you let the lease run out? > > > > (in other words, its your company, not the IT guy who comes across as a stupid asshole here) > > Take one guess who manages the leases. > Yep, the IT department. It may be that IT manages the leases but they’re not the ones to decide if a lease should be renewed; they may have no idea if that server/printer/whatever is still needed. So the renew/do not renew decision may not be up to them. but instead be up to the owner of the particular project, who may not be in IT. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/59 "2014-07-11T17:26:33Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > It may be that IT manages the leases but they’re not the ones to decide if a lease should be renewed; they may have no idea if that server/printer/whatever is still needed. So the renew/do not renew decision may not be up to them. but instead be up to the owner of the particular project, who may not be in IT. In most cases they do a really goods job. They send an email to whoever is the registered user of the machine saying something like; "Your lease is up in 90 days. Go to the link in this email to order a replacement. I’ll follow up with you in two weeks to make sure you ordered the replacement and arrange for transferring your files. Please give me a call if you have any questions, Bob in IT X 1234" Why in this particular case they deiced to notify no one and simply remove the machine and wipe it clean is a mystery. I suspect the guy that did it was new and didn’t get proper instructions from his boss. ---
**Author:** ![JXJohns](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jxjohns/32/469_2.png) [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2014, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785/60 "2014-07-11T19:30:44Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Ah, so there’s no middle ground between using “password” and having to input “De7gt83&=#)Gh\*” > > Uh-huh. > > When I need to look up something in the patient database and there is a big warning box about a scheduled system reboot, it’d be nice if I could see the warning once and then not have to be interrupted by it every time I log back in for the next few days. I see there’s a box to check so I don’t have to see it again, but _it does not work_. I e-mailed Mr./Ms. IT about the problem but apparently replenishing the Fritos supply takes precedence over that and other annoying software glitches. If the average user could remember that the reboot or maintenance is scheduled and they actually save their work, check files in, etc. in order to follow the most basic safe computing best practices, repeated warnings would not be necessary. Since most cannot remember their own password that they themselves set, or where they parked their car that morning, how can we expect them to remember to shut their shit down on Friday night before the reboot, if we don’t plaster it everywhere including the breakrooms, restrooms, cafeteria, food courts, etc? All of this just so we can prevent MOST of the calls on Monday morning from furious users blaming the IT Clowns for losing a month’s worth of work due to them not saving said work prior to the scheduled and much announced reboot. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-the-clowns-in-it/692785.md?page=4)