Where in the World is Bob Saget?

[luv]

Lol, this is why in my school district, the middle schoolers take a semester of tech ed. In general, if it moves, it's a GIF. JPEG is the format you'll see more frequently for stills. I know I don't explain it very well, sorry!

I assure you, when the people who are now taking that class are my age, none of what they learned in Tech class will be any help to them.

I took Computers in middle school, too.

Shouldn't you be in school?

 

[PUSH]

Multiple images/videos/gifs really do put a strain on the server, and on my computer as well, trying to load the page. I've had pages that refused to load properly when there was 15+ images per post. (it was a different thread and probably the impetus for Steve's decision)

Same here. One thread randomly started to be GIFs/JPEGs everywhere, for no reason relating to thread itself. It lagged my computer so bad. I don't want this thread to turn into that.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

I assure you, when the people who are now taking that class are my age, none of what they learned in Tech class will be any help to them.

I took Computers in middle school, too.

Shouldn't you be in school?

I went in for half of a day. Asthma, as usual. Trying to get it under control...Don't worry, not pulling a Bueller. I have a peak flow meter that measures how well I'm breathing, and if it's below a certain number (for me 200, it varies based on the person) I can't be in class. Legally, the nurse will not let me. Otherwise if I encounter something like perfume, I could end up in a life-threatening situation. So sometimes I get it under control in the morning and can go in for half a day, which is when my AP classes are anyway.

Yeah, probably not, but it's been 5 years since I took it and it gave me enough of a basic knowledge that I was able to expand on and update, and it at least gets us through high school and college. I think the purpose more is so people will be comfortable around technology and not be like my friend's mom, my mom, and my grandmother who are all scared of it.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

Wow. Not a lot to read on here tonight. What's going on? Busy day everyone?

 

[englanddg]

My day has been horrible.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

My day has been horrible.

I'm sorry

 

[PUSH]

NFL Draft. 'Nuff said.

 

[englanddg]

I'm sorry

Meh. Comes with the position. It's IT.

I just hate it when it happens. Sales managers freaking out over something they don't understand and they made up their own idea as to what the automated system was doing instead of...oh...I dunno, asking the guy who wrote the automation...meaning me?

Would that be so hard?

Instead they just decided that the whole thing was broken, when in fact, it was doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing, and they just made up features that have never existed (but can, if they told me they wanted them...but, they didn't do that either)...

Interfacing with users is annoying at times. Especially when they carry big guns (EVPs, etc.)...though I have big guns to fire back with as well, it's just a big waste of time.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

Meh. Comes with the position. It's IT.

I just hate it when it happens. Sales managers freaking out over something they don't understand and they made up their own idea as to what the automated system was doing instead of...oh...I dunno, asking the guy who wrote the automation...meaning me?

Would that be so hard?

Bet that's frustrating. I don't get why when people have an expert on hand or a resource available, they don't use it.

 

[englanddg]

 

[StarWarsGirl]

@englanddg lol. Probably not.

 

[englanddg]

In Jan, top priority was call recording (our whole company is on VoIP)...so, I researched solutions, and found several. There is NICE (which is what Disney uses, by the way), super expensive (40k buy in minimum) and then there are others. I found an open source solution that would cost us about 4k for support for a year...much better and does what we want.

In Feb, still priority (because the sales managers are idiots and don't realize that their agents are idiots), so I spend nearly a month rolling it out. So, finally get it done, and time to integrate with our CRM (Customer Relationship Management system), and we ran out of our 30 day trial.

End of March, I'm ready to go with integration...and then get told...yeah...not a priority.

Just a waste of time.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

In Jan, top priority was call recording (our whole company is on VoIP)...so, I researched solutions, and found several. There is NICE (which is what Disney uses, by the way), super expensive (40k buy in minimum) and then there are others. I found an open source solution that would cost us about 4k for support for a year...much better and does what we want.

In Feb, still priority (because the sales managers are idiots and don't realize that their agents are idiots), so I spend nearly a month rolling it out. So, finally get it done, and time to integrate with our CRM (Customer Relationship Management system), and we ran out of our 30 day trial.

End of March, I'm ready to go with integration...and then get told...yeah...not a priority.

Just a waste of time.

Sounds incredibly frustrating.

 

[englanddg]

Sounds incredibly frustrating.

It's how the real world works. You'll find that idiots with "business degrees" and small minds control most companies.

It's not that they are wrong, a company should be focused on sales, and sales first and foremost. It's that they largely ignore what stands behind the initial transaction, and often don't appreciate it.

They are like children. They make demands, and expect them to be met. Then forget they made demands. I worked contracts for federal government, and as bad as this is, they were even worse.

It's everywhere...

 

[StarWarsGirl]

It's how the real world works. You'll find that idiots with "business degrees" and small minds control most companies.

It's not that they are wrong, a company should be focused on sales, and sales first and foremost. It's that they largely ignore what stands behind the initial transaction, and often don't appreciate it.

They are like children. They make demands, and expect them to be met. Then forget they made demands. I worked contracts for federal government, and as bad as this is, they were even worse.

It's everywhere...

I will remember your advice since I want to be one of those business leaders. But for Disney, not for the government. While I do think it's important to make sure your workers aren't "sluggish" (my dad is second in command at his firm and he has complained about another attorney not working hard enough so he's had to kick her butt) it's important to also treat your workers fairly especially when you have ones that work hard as you sound like you do.

Two ridiculous experiences with Journalism. First a few months ago a teacher sent a really nasty email about how she sounded like a racist in the article and then accused the writer of being a racist. 1. She sent it to the account that all of us can see, making her look like a complete witch. 2. She accused the writer of being a racist. The writer is from Palestine and a good friend of mine. Definitely not a racist. 3. She was quoted properly and admitted it. So glad I did not have that teacher. Besides, our teacher worked for newspapers before becoming a teacher. If something was wrong, she would have caught it and had it rephrased. The teacher demanded a retraction. And didn't get one. And then a second time my teacher got a nasty email from an ad person telling her to "get her people on the job." She sent a very nice email back saying that they wouldn't let it happen again, but please remember her "people" are students and they make mistakes. Oh well. We still send our paper into Columbia University to get evaluated every year and every year we get gold. Competing against college newspapers too. Some school pride there.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

Okay, so who is fake Bob tomorrow? And has someone given Meg the pink slip?

 

[StarWarsGirl]

NFL Draft. 'Nuff said.

Of course

 

[luv]

Bet that's frustrating. I don't get why when people have an expert on hand or a resource available, they don't use it.

Because they think they know everything. It is exceedingly difficult to learn anything when you think you know everything. That's why know-it-alls are always such morons.

It's how the real world works. You'll find that idiots with "business degrees" and small minds control most companies.

It's not that they are wrong, a company should be focused on sales, and sales first and foremost. It's that they largely ignore what stands behind the initial transaction, and often don't appreciate it.

They are like children. They make demands, and expect them to be met. Then forget they made demands. I worked contracts for federal government, and as bad as this is, they were even worse.

It's everywhere...

I always listen to the IT guys. I'm very polite about it. Then I re-ask my question in a different way and listen again. Then I admit that I have no idea what they're talking about and I say, "Look, I cannot understand your X and Y words because they make no sense to me. I just want to B without all this C and D. Can I do that? Can you show me how?"

Now, I don't suggest that you are talking computer gibberish to them. I just know that IT guys, in general, seem to think the rest of us have some basic knowledge of rudimentary computer stuff, which we do not all have, lol.

I apologize to IT guys all the time for being so dumb.

I also had to apologize to Engineering once, after they spent like an hour looking in the ceiling and at ducts and stuff because we were all cold. Then they asked us if we had tried adjusting the thermostat. We were like, "What thermostat? There is no thermostat!" But there was. It was behind a filing cabinet. And No, we had not adjusted that. I asked them why they didn't tell us it was there and one said, "Because we assumed you wouldn't be stupid enough to complain about being cold without turning up the HEAT! Dumb blonde!"

It was a very good thing they were drinking buddies of mine or we would never have gotten them to do another thing for us.

I never lived it down, though. Whenever I'd ask for anything, they'd ask if I had tried something ridiculously obvious before agreeing to come help. "We have no power." ... "We'll, blondie, did you turn on the light switch?" Never ended.

So, cheer up! Lots of guys have jobs where they work with dumb people.

Sorry you had a rough week. It'll get better.

 

[englanddg]

Good hearted jibes I can live with. Ignorant babble, I can't.

We just opened a new store in a new city, on less than a week's notice, and for years I've told them if they want Internet for a new store, I need more than a week's notice. As they consider internet service a utility (basing it on their experience getting it for their house), they don't understand that when you place commercial orders, it can take up to a month (or more sometimes) to get build outs done.

They think it's like power, something you make a call and it gets turned on.

So, we turned on Comcast at this new location, and found out that signal on their node there is very weak (yesterday), so we continued to run them off of Clear WIMAX (which was a shot in the dark that got us up, considering Clear doesn't even admit they are in the area...works fine for internet, but the VoIP phones are crap there)...

Now they are demanding we find a T-1 CLEC provider (they didn't use that term, as they have no idea what a CLEC is) and screw Comcast, whilst Comcast is asking for a week or two to upgrade the node in the area before they finish the install.

The ideal solution is we stick with Comcast...but sales managers are idiots.

So...friggin...frustrating...

 

[englanddg]

I made a comment in a meeting today to one manager that if she needed to call the helpdesk to learn how to use MS Excel, she probably shouldn't be telling me how to run our IT infrastructure.

It...didn't go over well...but I wasn't in the best mood yesterday.