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Dear Users… (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people) Part 10

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Oh, dear, yet another person fell into the trap of confusing these two completely separate things:

1. This report is an accurate summation of the data that is currently in the database.
2. This report is an accurate reflection of reality.

As Moses said unto pharaoh: "Garbage in, garbage out". They spend most of every day cramming turds into there, what did they think would come out the other side, petit fours?
 
I should have mentioned earlier. I had my Performance Appraisal with the boss last week. This is something that I always find stressful and anxiety-inducing, even when they have nothing but good things to say about me, which they did.

It also formally acknowledged that I am now the senior agent at my level (APS4), which means that I am the automatic tap if someone is needed to do Higher Duties as Team Leader (APS5). I also kind of committed to applying for the position should one of the three TL positions becomes vacant in the future, which it definitely will.

To give you an idea, the salary range for an APS4 is AU$67,100 - $73,256 and an APS5 is $73,636 - $79,841. Use your favourite currency converter to put that in terms that are familiar to you. I'm doing pretty well on my current salary, but the next level up is going to be sweet.

It is waaaay outside my comfort zone, but it's pretty clear that actually getting the position if I apply for it is a shoe-in. My bosses want me in the position (I know this because they said so). And also, it will allow me to put an almost-literally magic word on my resume: "supervise". With experience supervising staff, a whole new world of future opportunities opens up. And this is by far the easiest way for me to get that word on my resume, since most supervisory positions require experience in, you know, supervising. And this is the reason I'm very confident that one of the three TL positions will open up in the not-too-distant future - it's a common jumping point for people to go on to bigger and better things.

Things are looking up in Wollitown.
 
arthwollipot said:
I should have mentioned earlier. I had my Performance Appraisal with the boss last week. This is something that I always find stressful and anxiety-inducing, even when they have nothing but good things to say about me, which they did.

It also formally acknowledged that I am now the senior agent at my level (APS4), which means that I am the automatic tap if someone is needed to do Higher Duties as Team Leader (APS5). I also kind of committed to applying for the position should one of the three TL positions becomes vacant in the future, which it definitely will.

To give you an idea, the salary range for an APS4 is AU$67,100 - $73,256 and an APS5 is $73,636 - $79,841. Use your favourite currency converter to put that in terms that are familiar to you. I'm doing pretty well on my current salary, but the next level up is going to be sweet.

It is waaaay outside my comfort zone, but it's pretty clear that actually getting the position if I apply for it is a shoe-in. My bosses want me in the position (I know this because they said so). And also, it will allow me to put an almost-literally magic word on my resume: "supervise". With experience supervising staff, a whole new world of future opportunities opens up. And this is by far the easiest way for me to get that word on my resume, since most supervisory positions require experience in, you know, supervising. And this is the reason I'm very confident that one of the three TL positions will open up in the not-too-distant future - it's a common jumping point for people to go on to bigger and better things.

Things are looking up in Wollitown.
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That's awesome!
 
Dear user,

When you send me a ticket claiming “password reset is not working”, in which the included screenshot clearly shows the new password you’re attempting marked as “weak” and the error message “You cannot use that word as part of your password”, do not expect a non-snarky response.


Sent from my volcanic island lair using carrier pigeon.
 
I recall working in a mainframe systems programmer department. One team looked after VM/CMS systems and another MVS. One of the VM managers after bitching about how insanely biased we were against VM because not all of us had VM ids was asked if he had a MVS id. No, so shamefacedly asked for one. It was given. Then he bitched about how our system was so unfriendly and we couldn't even set up a new account properly. So we checked the logs. He was entering his incredibly trivial password as his userid as evinced by the "Logon id tuesday1 not recognised".
 
I've become firmly convinced that there is no surer method of making your users turn their computers off then to send out several e-mails that say "During the evening of XXXXX day we will be performing critical updates, it is vitally important that you leave your workstations on when you leave for the day."

I'm not kidding that I am metaphysically certain fewer users would have turned their computers off if we just said nothing.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I've become firmly convinced that there is no surer method of making your users turn their computers off then to send out several e-mails that say "During the evening of XXXXX day we will be performing critical updates, it is vitally important that you leave your workstations on when you leave for the day."

I'm not kidding that I am metaphysically certain fewer users would have turned their computers off if we just said nothing.
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One of the places I worked at had solved that problem by using WOL (qv). if you happened to be working after hours, you could be snapped to attention at 3 in the morning as all the computers in the building started powering up.
 
Hellbound said:
Dear user,

When you send me a ticket claiming “password reset is not working”, in which the included screenshot clearly shows the new password you’re attempting marked as “weak” and the error message “You cannot use that word as part of your password”, do not expect a non-snarky response.


Sent from my volcanic island lair using carrier pigeon.
Click to expand...

Just yesterday I had a problem creating an account on a new site. I saw the message that said I had a "weak" password, but that's the one I use for sites that don't matter. It took me several tries to realize that the message meant I couldn't use that password and needed a stronger one, even though it didn't specify that.
 
alfaniner said:
Just yesterday I had a problem creating an account on a new site. I saw the message that said I had a "weak" password, but that's the one I use for sites that don't matter. It took me several tries to realize that the message meant I couldn't use that password and needed a stronger one, even though it didn't specify that.
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I would passwdsafe's random password generator a lot more if sites could just be upfront about their password rules, especially which special characters are valid and/or required on that site.
 
I'll never for the life of me understand a site/program in 2022 have a maximum password complexity.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
One of the places I worked at had solved that problem by using WOL (qv). if you happened to be working after hours, you could be snapped to attention at 3 in the morning as all the computers in the building started powering up.
Click to expand...
In this day everyone of significant size should have have WoL set up.
 
catsmate said:
I haven't seen an internal modem in a while, and IIRR serial modems did not do WoM.
Also I haven't seen an RS-232 in a while.
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Apparently in doctors', lawyers'. and real estate agents' offices all over the world fax modems continue to whistle and beep away. My Brother printer/scanner has one built in but I've never tested it.

As for RS-232. Well. There is nothing to be said for RS-232. :eek:
 
Favourite pet peeve for sites with STUPID password rules, is a superannuation site that clearly states:

"Password must be AT LEAST eight characters long."

After wasting approximately one hour, I discovered that they meant:

"Password must be EXACTLY eight characters long."

The same site says that the password must not be recorded anywhere, including in any password management system.

At least that idiocy can be ignored.
 
Work has taken a turn for the better.

I have separate ID/password combinations for all the different domains that I need to connect to (because I maintain servers/software/services on those domains).

We're moving to Delinea Secret Server and Connection Manager to manage this.

So now, I literally do not know or care what my various domain passwords are, because SS maintains them for me. They're all ludicrously strong, and automatically updated.

Connection Manager links to Secret Server, and I have a host of 'connections' set up so that I can RDP or Telenet to any server with a couple of mouse clicks.

Note that Secret Server is set up with encyrpted sessions and two factor authentication.

I'm a happy man.

All the workarounds etc. that I used to maintain in KeePass have now gone away.

(Password expiry, and password inheritance)

:D
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
Apparently in doctors', lawyers'. and real estate agents' offices all over the world fax modems continue to whistle and beep away. My Brother printer/scanner has one built in but I've never tested it.

As for RS-232. Well. There is nothing to be said for RS-232. :eek:
Click to expand...

A couple of years ago one of my coworkers had his luggage broken into and stuff stolen on a trip home to China. He had to fax a list of what was lost to the air carrier.

The RF ID tag readers we use still have RS-232 connections between them.

TLG-I1-1000-S0-00EB
 
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