Screw IT

[AngelaHornung]

First off let me say I mean the job, not the hard working individuals in the field. I left five years as a Web Applications Developer to work IT for a bit while I went back to school as I needed flexibility that my current position couldn't offer me. I've been working IT for a bit over a year now and my goodness do I despise it. Let me give you the breakdown of what I can't stand.

 

Microsoft 365 on paper is a fantastic deal, office with updates, corporate email services and cloud storage in one tightly nit package. Except that the email service will quarantine good messages but let through obvious phishing attempts to a user base that doesn't know how to empty their recycling bin on a good day. I then release the good email and quarantine the bad one manually. After I let Microsoft know that this needs to be fixed and I get some BS answer of we're sorry the issue should be resolved now or we'll submit this to our development team. Then the same thing happens for the next three weeks and still no fix all the while the client is getting frustrated at me because they're not getting contract emails because they're being marked as junk and Microsoft is too incompetent to fix their email firewall.

 

Google on paper once again has a fantastic series of products many of which are free to use as us the user is the product, which in many cases should be an acceptable deal, except nothing works. First off search especially for weird problems with Windows is nothing but a bunch of AI generated nonsense speaking of a completely different issue that a two year old who ate lead paint could solve. Google Drive's UI and organization is abysmal on a good day and my boss who I'm sure would be crucified for Google doesn't organize files but rather just sends links and uses their Google Drive search which also doesn't work. Tell me again how a search company can't do search? 

 

N-Able, why don't you update machine lists for a client when YOUR CLIENT IS INSTALLED? How come your removing in software will randomly stop working on Mac OS for two months until you finally send out an update forcing me to have two machines? Can you explain to me why we're spending money on your when effectively 9/10 I still have to make the drive to the client you were supposed to save me? Then I submit a ticket and tell you to send it to your dev team and fix this shit, but you then close the ticket and the issue still isn't fixed? I responded to your inquiry so the ticket was live and a ticket isn't closed until the issue is fixed in production. Now I have clients mad at me as I have to drive out to their office to fix things which costs them more money because of the mileage.

 

I can summarize my experience in IT in one large but decent sentence below. 

 

I'm the Dollar Tree brand band-aid for the crappy decisions and incompetence of billion dollar companies that imposes real harm on the clients I serve who then hate me for it, and being a band-aid I don't actually fix any real problems, I'm just a meat shield between shitty tech giants and the client and I HATE IT. 

 

I loved Web Applications Development because I was making web services that people used and solved real problems, I felt like I was using my brain and when they had an issue I took it too heart because I wrote the code and I was on that shit. In IT I'm just a mindless meat shield mediating two sides, one of which is angry at me because the other side is incompetent but they don't want to leave the other side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not looking for solutions from the forum I'm looking to vent my frustrations. Effectively my plan at the end of the day is for the mean time to do the bare minimum in this position to finish school. My goal is to be a Computer Science high school teacher in my wonderful city of Hartford Connecticut and while I finish school I'm going to do the absolute minimum for this job and spend most of my days working on personal development projects, school and trying to keep my skills sharp. Fuck IT, fuck Microsoft, fuck Apple, fuck Google, fuck N-Able, I want nothing to do with them. Give me Ubuntu and PHPStorm to do development work in Laminas PHP. 

[TempestCatto]

In regards to Outlook, it's always been shite. When I ordered the screwdriver bundle on Lime Day (LTTstore) the confirmation email went to the spam folder. Which is weird because I've ordered stuff from there before, the email went to spam, and I specifically told it "not spam" I really wish I could switch away but I've used it since it was msn.com so I've kinda made my bed. 

[TetraSky]

20 minutes ago, AngelaHornung said:

I'm the Dollar Tree brand band-aid for the crappy decisions and incompetence of billion dollar companies that imposes real harm on the clients I serve who then hate me for it, and being a band-aid I don't actually fix any real problems, I'm just a meat shield between shitty tech giants and the client and I HATE IT. 

Yup, that's IT in a nutshell. It's great when your clients understand that your hands are tied due to the poor decisions of those above you. But most of the time, they don't.

I learned that during my brief stint in IT years ago and this made me decide to pivot my studies toward a different, but slightly similar field (industrial electronics, which corresponds to NOC 22310 in Canada). I am quite loving my current job and best of all, when a machine fails and I go fix it, the operators are happy to see me instead of thinking "great, here's that useless guy again who will be spending 2 hours on the phone just to be able to do something".

[AngelaHornung]

11 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Yup, that's IT in a nutshell. It's great when your clients understand that your hands are tied due to the poor decisions of those above you. But most of the time, they don't.

I learned that during my brief stint in IT years ago and this made me decide to pivot my studies toward a different, but slightly similar field (industrial electronics). I am quite loving my current job and best of all, when a machine fails and I go fix it, the operators are happy to see me instead of thinking "great, here's that useless guy again who will be spending 2 hours on the phone just to be able to do something".

Thats what I'm doing, just doing the bare minimum to not get fired so I can afford and finish school to get into teaching and in the mean time trying to keep my development skills sharp by spending most work days working on personal stuff. Perhaps I should see if an open source repo could use some development work. Would look good on the resume too. 

[SPOPATT]

I won't get into it here because I'm still working through some junk but your rant, which I doubt you intended any good other than ranting to come from it helped me. I've been in a rough patch at work where I work IT and it's helpful to hear others have their struggles too.

 

Appreciate you.

[Agall]

55 minutes ago, AngelaHornung said:

I'm not looking for solutions from the forum I'm looking to vent my frustrations.

But have you tried contacting your system administrator?

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, Agall said:

But have you tried contacting your system administrator?

Cries in being the system administrator :,D

[Agall]

Just now, jaslion said:

Cries in being the system administrator :,D

I'll unironically tell my coworkers to do this as they're telling me their problems. I'm the system administrator. I don't do it often enough for it to incite violence.

[jaslion]

Just now, Agall said:

I'll unironically tell my coworkers to do this as they're telling me their problems. I'm the system administrator. I don't do it often enough for it to incite violence.

Yeah working on moving out of 2nd/3rd line It support and just going full network engineer mode rn. Gonna take some  but thats ok job pays good and I have time

[Agall]

1 minute ago, jaslion said:

Yeah working on moving out of 2nd/3rd line It support and just going full network engineer mode rn. Gonna take some  but thats ok job pays good and I have time

I'm a one man army for ~50 employees. Sometimes its rough, sometimes I'm fighting for things to do. This forum keeps my troubleshooting skills sharp since there's dramatically less things I'm actively troubleshooting at work after fixing most of them. Gives me tons of ideas too.

[OddOod]

1 hour ago, TempestCatto said:

In regards to Outlook, it's always been shite. When I ordered the screwdriver bundle on Lime Day (LTTstore) the confirmation email went to the spam folder. Which is weird because I've ordered stuff from there before, the email went to spam, and I specifically told it "not spam" I really wish I could switch away but I've used it since it was msn.com so I've kinda made my bed. 

You can set up gmail to be the front end for that email...

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, Agall said:

I'm a one man army for ~50 employees.

Ha I relate. Think I'm up to 700 now or so no fuckin clue. Was supposed to be 1000 but someone came in and took 2 divsions away.

 

Surprisingly my workdays are quite ok with often downtime because nothing moves due to bureaucracy really which is of course boring af. It is kinda funny and sad that any help I am supposed to get nopes out after a week or 2 usually. Only been there 2 years on my 6th? raise or so because I'm the only one keeping things from sinking further

 

But hey I have the lowest project past deadline date for IT with only an average of 18 months compared to the 44 months average of the global company!

 

Yes this shit is beyond fucked but well job insurance all thanks to microcrap mainly. Oh and Dell!

[Agall]

24 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Ha I relate. Think I'm up to 700 now or so no fuckin clue. Was supposed to be 1000 but someone came in and took 2 divsions away.

 

Surprisingly my workdays are quite ok with often downtime because nothing moves due to bureaucracy really which is of course boring af. It is kinda funny and sad that any help I am supposed to get nopes out after a week or 2 usually. Only been there 2 years on my 6th? raise or so because I'm the only one keeping things from sinking further

 

But hey I have the lowest project past deadline date for IT with only an average of 18 months compared to the 44 months average of the global company!

 

Yes this shit is beyond fucked but well job insurance all thanks to microcrap mainly. Oh and Dell!

80-20 rule at play.

 

Biggest problem I run into now a days is obsolescent hardware that they won't give me the budget to replace. Execs would rather wait till it dies than proactively replace stuff actively failing, but still mostly working. Really testing the BC/DR plan that I also write and maintain...

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, AngelaHornung said:

I left five years as a Web Applications Developer to work IT

Eh? Web Development is an IT role/career?

 

If I understand correct from the rest of your post you are currently working in an end user support role? Desktop Support? Service Desk?

[Sir Asvald]

11 minutes ago, Agall said:

80-20 rule at play.

 

Biggest problem I run into now a days is obsolescent hardware that they won't give me the budget to replace. Execs would rather wait till it dies than proactively replace stuff actively failing, but still mostly working. Really testing the BC/DR plan that I also write and maintain...

I've had that at my old place, I have a term called the "The Fire brigade Approach". Meaning that someone will wait until something happens, e.g. a fire spreads across the college and then they spring to action... 

 

[AngelaHornung]

1 hour ago, Agall said:

But have you tried contacting your system administrator?

I am the System Administrator. lmao Good joke tho. 

[AngelaHornung]

8 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Eh? Web Development is an IT role/career?

 

If I understand correct from the rest of your post you are currently working in an end user support role? Desktop Support? Service Desk?

Yes. I worked as a Web Applications Developer for five years at a Connecticut non-profit called EASTCONN. Loved working there, however I currently IT as in people submit tickets and its the most soul sucking brain dead line of work I've ever done. I've used more brain power working in a Six Flags kitchen in high school. 

 

Its all just I get "this isn't working" tickets for all these applications I have no development control over and I find the problem to be a bug with their software, submit a ticket and wait for a response thats a lie more than half the time. My empathy has been drained completely for the clients. At this point I just want to tell them to drown and move on. 

 

But I can't do that. As I said I'll be working hear for three more years to finish school and then give everyone the middle finger on my way out. 

[AngelaHornung]

1 hour ago, SPOPATT said:

I won't get into it here because I'm still working through some junk but your rant, which I doubt you intended any good other than ranting to come from it helped me. I've been in a rough patch at work where I work IT and it's helpful to hear others have their struggles too.

 

Appreciate you.

Sorry to hear you're struggling too. It's just a frustrating position because you're expected to fix things but you have no control over the things to fix so instead you end up in a game of telephone between the client and the company. Perhaps back in the day when in house servers were more common IT was a lot less telephone, but as of right now in my position it's a game of angry telephone. lol 

 

Curious what's going on with you if you're willing to share?

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, AngelaHornung said:

Then the same thing happens for the next three weeks and still no fix all the while the client is getting frustrated at me because they're not getting contract emails because they're being marked as junk and Microsoft is too incompetent to fix their email firewall.

Incorrectly flagged emails is almost always the send unfortunately. People tend to think running email services isn't difficult but what makes it so is maintain your domain email sender reputation and that you are implementing all the security protocols and configurations so you get a good send reputation revaluation.

 

For the sender you are having this issue with you can go here and see what their reputation score is, odds are it's only moderately good which makes it susceptible to incorrect spam flagging.

 

https://senderscore.org/

 

On the face of it this seems simple but it's not and everyone involved has a part to play in consistent and reliable email delivery.

 

Also the email protection capabilities are configurable too, your organization can make changes to make this better (or worse). Some of those features and capabilities are locked behind additional product services i.e. Defender for Microsoft 365

 

 

And yes I agree email can be annoying and frustrating. Microsoft 365 itself isn't actually a single unified service either, it's just an umbrella name for a bunch of separate services that sometimes integrate well with each other and sometimes just don't.

[leadeater]

12 minutes ago, AngelaHornung said:

however I currently IT as in people submit tickets and its the most soul sucking brain dead line of work I've ever done. I've used more brain power working in a Six Flags kitchen in high school. 

Ah, that is typically called Service Desk or Desktop Support. That's the position name you'd see advertised and is probably similarly named position you have in the HR system.

 

Service Desk is more answering phone calls, processing email queues/inbox and creating a job ticket from that information or providing first contact support through a web chat box type thing. Mostly data entry and no actually "doing anything". Sounds like you're more in Desktop Support such similar position name since you are actually contacting users and help resolve the job tickets.

 

These types of positions are widely known to be not the greatest and people try to move on from them to better positions as fast as possible, very especially Service Desk. Nothing will make you hate the IT career path than that if you end in an unpleasant working environment and workload.

 

My advice, cut and run. Find a position you'd find more satisfying if you can. Don't hate your job and just bare with it unless you absolutely have no other choice. 

[leadeater]

16 minutes ago, AngelaHornung said:

I am the System Administrator. lmao Good joke tho. 

Oh haha never mind the directly above then, other than the cut and run advice.

[leadeater]

11 minutes ago, AngelaHornung said:

It's just a frustrating position because you're expected to fix things but you have no control over the things to fix so instead you end up in a game of telephone between the client and the company. Perhaps back in the day when in house servers were more common IT was a lot less telephone, but as of right now in my position it's a game of angry telephone. lol 

"SharePoint Online is down, when is it going to be fixed?"

 

Answer: Keep checking the service status page and when it says available again that is when it is fixed.

 

"But it's very important this is back online as fast as possible"

 

Answer: There is literally nothing I can do other log a Microsoft premier support case which will not get it fixed faster

 

"Grrr, this is not good enough"

 

[AngelaHornung]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Incorrectly flagged emails is almost always the send unfortunately. People tend to think running email services isn't difficult but what makes it so is maintain your domain email sender reputation and that you are implementing all the security protocols and configurations so you get a good send reputation revaluation.

 

For the sender you are having this issue with you can go here and see what their reputation score is, odds are it's only moderately good which makes it susceptible to incorrect spam flagging.

 

https://senderscore.org/

 

One of those seems simple but it's not and everyone involved has a part to play and consistent and reliable email delivery.

 

Also the email protection capabilities are configurable too, your organization can make changes to make this better (or worse). Some of those features and capabilities are locked behind additional product services i.e. Defender for Microsoft 365

 

 

And yes I agree email can be annoying and frustrating. Microsoft 365 itself isn't actually a single unified service either, it's just an umbrella name for a bunch of separate services that sometimes integrate well with each other and sometimes just don't.

I appreciate the more in depth explanation, it's certainly fascinating, however I'd argue that these "extra" features should come with the base subscription. My clients aren't willing to give Microsoft more money and to be quite frank as frustrating as that can be I don't disagree with them. The services we use from Microsoft are piss poor at best so why would we give them more money?

 

Idk maybe I'm some iSheep or something, but Microsoft and Google piss me off the most (Apple is by no means innocent, aka lack of repairability and the fact that I can't remove a drive to recover data makes me want to put a "nerf" bullet down my throat).

 

I suppose at the end of the day (and maybe this is a selfish or perhaps a resulting position of frustration but I don't care. I don't want to play this stupid game of telephone because features which I feel should be included automatically aren't clear or are blocked behind paywalls. I don't want to play this stupid game of telephone because companies can't get their core business features working. Especially BillQuick, screw those guys and Intuit too. Dealing with that software is like dealing with a dying horse, I'm ready to send it to the glue factory at this point.

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, AngelaHornung said:

I appreciate the more in depth explanation, it's certainly fascinating, however I'd argue that these "extra" features should come with the base subscription.

Yep, completely agree and most of it you'd get if you installed Exchange locally on a server. Not all of it but there are other additional products like MailMartial that will give you every possible control you'd want. That was our infrastructure design prior to migrating to Exchange Online and it's been a process of more than 5 years to get it as good and as reliable as the prior setup on-prem.

 

And much of getting it there was waiting for Microsoft to create and offer missing feature and capabilities too btw.

[Zodiark1593]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Cries in being the system administrator :,D

“Oh god, I’m the admin…”

…

“OH MY GOD! You morons made me admin!? How!? Why!?”