Downside of the Download

He's safe for work, technically speaking.

At one company I worked for, I got bored seeing the same background on everyone's screen from Windows, so I started adding my own wallpapers to people's computers to add some life to it. I did this when setting up laptops/desktops and after I re-imaged them. I was sending these machines all around the country and it added some excitement to my day.

I got an email from an executive in another state once after doing this. They asked me if I was mad at their team. Perplexed, I asked what they meant. It seems that the executives felt left out that I changed everyone's background to something else, but did not do the same for theirs and this is what the talk of their office was: "whether I truly did not like them, hence why I did not change their wallpaper,too." I figured everyone but the executives would care and I didn't want to seem "unprofessional," but when the non-mgmt people booted up their laptops and went around seeing what I did, they were really excited. A few of the exec's who received their laptops a few days before noticed I did not change their wallpapers and felt like I shafted them on purpose.

I mean, it's nice to know people care that I care to change their background. My CTO and team actually laughed at me for changing the wallpapers and said I shouldn't invest time into doing so. I kept all the pics on a thumb drive with all the other programs I was installing anyway. From that moment on, I made sure to change ALL wallpapers to something new I found online.

I re-imaged one person's laptop and gave her a new pic and I got an email with a sad face asking for the pic she had on there to return. So I had to email it to her so she could get it back since she liked what I originally chose so much.

At a job I had, I worked in IT and was in charge of booking all meetings for everyone in every state we were in with an online meeting tool, GoToMeeting. Well, anyone who has used this knows with the corporate account, GoToWebinar is the same thing, i.e. it uses the same login and you have to choose which meeting type you want.

I accidentally booked one user for the same time as another user. The person I added accidentally to an already taken time slot got in and was having their meeting. The person I accidentally bumped came flying into my area in hysterics. I mean tears running down her face like I was the cause of someone dying. I realized what happened, apologized for my double booking, but I knew we had another meeting tool I could use that worked the same, WebEx. So as we are sitting in the conference room and I'm making the new meeting and sending out the invite to all on the call, this woman is sitting next to me in tears, snot and everything, red face, completely falling apart at my double booking, as she rambled and professed how horrible it was that this happened.

I calmly sent out the meeting request and logged into the new meeting and waited for everyone to join before I left. Later on that day, the user's supervisor came up to me and profusely apologized for her worker's behavior that morning and congratulated me on staying professional when they did not and said she had emailed my supervisor the same thing. Like half an hour after that, the woman who was in tears that morning, came to my desk to apologize for her behavior as well.

What is the kicker for this whole story? This meeting was a pre-meet. In case you don't know what a pre-meet is and let me tell you, before working in this place I did not----I essentially overbooked her dress-rehearsal.

                       The dozen people on the call across the US were practicing for their actual meeting that took place the following week, but they still held a 2hr meeting with everyone going over everything with the meeting I overbooked.

....they're not just for cosmetic appearances....

If there's a password for things, either keep password protected doors and computers closed or just don't bother having them.

Let's take a look at this computer setup, shall we?

 What is the point of having password protected accounts, if you're going to post two Post-It's with multiple passwords on your computer for your accounts on said computers? A little constant vigilance never hurt anyone. There are security features in place to protect information, people and companies and by so lazily allowing it to be known to anyone sitting at the desk is just trifling and dumb. This is why IT doesn't even bother asking you your password most of the time, it's probably written on a paper on your desk somewhere.

In order to turn this

into this

...someone has to actually do it. We would all love to have color coordinated bookshelves

What really grinds my gears about working in IT, is going under someone's desk and seeing and having to smell Payless. OMG, SHOES. 

When I leave my home in the morning, I don't take my shoes off until I leave work and get home or go to the gym. Do you not know how to prepare for your day? Why do people feel the need to have 50k pairs of shoes under their desk!?? Are you Jay-Z? Do you need to always Change Clothes? This is true for men and women of all levels in a company. If you feel the need to bring your personal shoe collection to work, can you at least keep them in a sealed bin? IT has better things to do than be face to face with your shoes while needing to go under your desk to fix/put equipment.

Not all messages I've received over the years are bad. Some are in a word, just full of love.

"I WANT IT NOW, DADDY!"

There are a lot of Veruca Salt's in offices around the world. They have their own form of Penis Envy mixed with Napoleon Complex anytime someone has a newer piece of technology than they do. Golden Goose Syndrome is the reason why you have no idea what kind of egg you will get, you just want it because it's different than your current one.

"Could I please get a lab top for travelling next week. Thanks."

Here's an idea, why don't you try restarting your computer for once every day? If you insist on having a million browser tabs, plus EVERY Outlook message you've read today, plus 50 Excel spreadsheets and 30 Word documents.....what do you think will happen? You don't need to keep all of these windows/tabs open. You choose to have too many windows open and you choose to have the fate that comes with such nonsense: a slow computer.

Or, try not downloading every document someone sends you. EVERY attachment is not going to be needed. Your archive is a joke. If I deleted 50 messages at random from it, you wouldn't even know. Perhaps, just a thought, you should try getting a Dropbox account. That is, if it's a personal e-mail that you have going to your work account or you just HAVE to save every picture your sister sends to your work account of every little thing her baby does. Do NOT for the love of  love of the world, save confidential work documents to Dropbox. There's a reason we have a firewall, proxy, passwords on your e-mail etc.

These two are not the same. I don't care if your name is Alessandra Machale......if you keep putting in your password and the intranet site doesn't work, are you checking the name, or just retyping in the password? Every company has a login setup for their employees. At your company, are you allesandram or amachale....knowing the difference will make ALL of the difference between you getting in or not.

And so help me Larry David In A Parking Lot, if you keep typing in "alliem" as your name "because my friends call me Allie" I will destroy you! Who cares what your assumed alias is, I need to know what Active Directory calls you.

  It was stolen because you are a Jackass. When I fly, if I go any more than 5ft from my laptop, I pack it up in my bag and bring it with me. I don't trust aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyone. Did you think you would be able to leave ALL of your stuff alone while you went down the terminal to get a coffee and it would still be there? You were negligent b/c you don't have to pay for your laptop and now I have to stop what I'm doing to re-image you a NEW laptop, that will probably get stolen again, but this time from your car......when you left it on your back seat....uncovered.

No matter what I write here, please remember, I like helping people. I’m not a “Guru” in any way. I make mistakes, I learn from them and I move on. When I do something wrong, I accept 100% responsibility for it and I don’t blame my teammates, even if they did lead me astray.

I work in IT. I have for years. I just wish people would think before they said some of the things they have said to me. People truly think what we do is magic. Sometimes, a lot of the time, actually, I surprise even myself when I get an answer to your problem.

Over the years, I’ve had many people who could have helped me get a solution to what I asked them, but they didn’t and I have never forgotten how they made me feel, so I make sure I don’t ever make one of my users feel the same way, even if I think they deserved it. Help should always be available, if someone has the courage to actually ask you the question.

If you don’t want to answer someone’s question, you are in the wrong field. I never complain TO my users, so I’m using this blog to complain ABOUT my users, as well as highlight things I’ve seen that deserve praise. All too often, people are not recognized for doing a good job and I want to make sure I give my two cents.

  Scott Adams was on to something when he wrote about the Dilbert Pocket back in 2009. Think about it, without modern technology, we would be SCREWED. Let's look at exactly how much technology I've used today, that was not here 10 years ago. It's all of 2:40pm now.

So, I woke up to the alarm coming from my not one, but two different Blackberry Smartphones. I turned the alarms off and went back to sleep. Guess who was late to work today? As I got washed and ready for the day, I listened to Music Choice on the channel 872 of my digital cable package. I also have an HD tv. I left my home, but, wait, had to go BACK into my home, because I only had one of my cellphones, not my personal one. How would I answer all of my texts today!?!? I'm already late, so, I go back in and get my cell phone.

While at the bus stop, I take out my 5th Generation (b/c Apple lives to UPDATE) iPod Nano and scroll through to find my favorite song. This music is on my iPod, because I used iTunes to add it, on my laptop that does not weigh 10lbs. I then check my personal Blackberry to check NextBus to see when the next Banana Bus (b/c it comes in bunches) will arrive. It's one thing and very frustrating to wait 20 mins for a bus, not knowing when it will or won't come and not wanting to risk walking to another stop/line, only for the bus to show up. But its an entirely DIFFERENT story to know you will be waiting 20 mins. The world is your Oyster. Will I run back in Carl Lewis style to my living room to pickup what I forgot? Will I go to the store across the street real quick? I have 6 minutes. I can make it! GO! GO! GO! Autobots, roll out! 

When I return, I am now idle. What to do? Check my Facebook on my cellphone. Nothing here...nothing here...she said what?? Oh! someone commented on my post! I have a notification! I feel like a somebody now. When the bus arrives, I must tap my Charlie Card to shuffle to the back and I snag an open seat next to someone sitting on the aisle thinking I won't ask to sit there because they're there. Hmph. Well, I now shuffle a few songs on the iPod. I'm idle again. I do have a book in my hand, I could read it, but why do that, when I could check my Facebook again? So I check Facebook again. I reply to a comment or two and then put it away and pull out the book. I don't open the book, but instead take my cell to message two friends about something ridiculous someone else emailed me at my job. I look up to see just HOW late I am so far, as the bus has the time and date and driver number and street posted in digital LED lights at the top of the bus for all to see. Oh, and the bus has a voice to ANNOUNCE each stop. Some tourist just pushed the button to make the driver stop at the last stop that everyone else is getting off at anyway.

I get into the station and I'm about to tap my card, when I see that there's a senior citizen having trouble. Do I stop and help or do I snicker as I tap my card and keep walking? I look up at the digital clock in the station that also makes announcements that we supposedly need to hear. I'm already late, in for a penny....so I stop to see exactly what the guy is doing. His friend, also another older gentleman, is already on the other side. Waiting. So I see what he's doing. He's trying to put his card IN the machine. I see that its a plastic card so I tell him he has to tap it. He does and the machine denies him. I look at it and see its a senior card. Needless to say, it was being tapped too hard. So I tap it slower and the gate opens. Now, the attendant who was in the booth FINALLY comes out after watching this to ask us "what you's up to?" Really lady? You saw all of this happening. I then let him go ahead of me and tap my card. Heaven forbid if we don't BOTH pay. Geez.

Of course I listen to my iPod on the train and see that pretty much everyone else is as well. Apple owns us. We've moved on from all of us wearing the white earphones. Back in my day, when I still had a MiniDisk player, when I saw the white headphones, I knew this person was so hip to have such cool new technology. Now everyone and their grandma has an iPod.

I get to work and open my laptop and turn on my external monitor. Having TWO screens makes you really cool. I check 50k websites. Facebook has been checked more times than I wish to admit, including no less than five times writing this post and I setup an entire social networking connect for this site. All in a days work. I feel like I neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed to do everything that I have open or I will be incomplete. I have IE open on one screen and I'm using Chrome for this screen to do the post. I don't have to remember my messages or what I said, because its on the internet. I didn't have to have a rooster wake me up, because I have not one, but TWO cell phones. My friends didn't have to wait to see me, thanks to us being charged to send unlimited texts like our cellphone company doesn't use the airspace for FREE. I am able to go everywhere and anywhere on the internet, without ACTUALLY going somewhere away from my desk. We are all so technology dependent, that if any of these companies ceased to work for a day, we'd be screwed.