Dear Users... (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people)

Status
Not open for further replies.
Norman Alexander said:
Auditors have been around since the beginning of business in some form or another. The ancient Romans had them. The Forum hawkers BC used to spit at them, I expect. So it's hardly a new, neo-liberal, commie idea. Please... :rolleyes:



Btw, Jesus tossing the merchants out of the temple of Jerusalem is yet another example of "regulatory compliance enforcement". Perhaps the dress-wearing bearded Middle-Eastern peace-nik is a better example than we thought. ;)
Click to expand...
I made a mildly serious point, and a small joke. Somehow you managed to miss both.
 
arthwollipot said:
Here's something that irritates me a little bit. We have a standard process for requesting password resets. If you need your password reset, we need to verify that you are not someone who is just pretending to be you in order to get access to our network illegally. So we get you to have a colleague submit an online Identity Verification (IDV) form saying "this is a real person - I know them or I've checked their security pass". This form then displays a 4-digit number on screen, while simultaneously emailing it to us. They can then give us the number over the phone and we verify it against the number that was emailed to us. Simple, right? We've had the same process for years, it's publicly documented, and it is used by pretty much everybody who doesn't use the self-service password reset system that we provide, which is pretty much everybody.



But still. Someone will ring us and the call will go like this:



Them: Oh hi, can you reset my password for me?



Me: Certainly. Have you had a colleague submit an Identity Verification form?



Them: Sure, hang on. Hey Susan. Can you do an identity thing for me? An identity thing.



Me: Identity Verification form.



Them: Identity verification form. Can you do one of those for me? Hang on, she's just doing one now. No, the identity verification. For a password reset. No, the... Yes. That one. I think. Yes, LAN password. No, LAN password. Thanks. What? Who's my supervisor? Jane. Yes. It's not working? Oh, it's working? It's not working. Hang on.



*five minutes of dead air*



Them, suddenly: Five one three two.



Me: Okay, I'm going to need you to repeat that in a moment once I receive the form.



It's not that they don't know the procedure that irritates me. Everyone doesn't know something. It's that they make me wait, on dead air, for so long while they sort their stuff out. That's time that I could be using to take other calls.
Click to expand...
Wow. Automated multi-factor authentication, especially for password resets, is so commonplace that it never occurred to me that orgs might still be doing it manually. That must really suck.
 
MEequalsIxR said:
That actually seems quite plausible. I can see a scenario where you are allocated bathroom time and a limited number of visits per day at specified times. So many minutes to shower, so many for each function. Washing clothes or dishes at allocated timed for a certain time. Pretty much everything is allocated.

Oh you want to bake that? You have 12 baking minutes left for this period. Want to boil an egg you have 20 minutes of boiling time left for this period.

Doesn't sound like much fun but it does sound like like most of the MBAs I've had to deal with industry.
Click to expand...
Like Amazon?
 
theprestige said:
I wasn't replying to arth.

Besides, what do you imagine auditors are auditing, except regulatory compliance?

Take away the regulation, and the audit is unnecessary.
Click to expand...

In my industry, it's mainly compliance with non-mandatory industry standards.

ETA, for example, ISO 9000x compliance isn't mandatory, but a lot of our customers require that.
 
Last edited:
jimbob said:
In my industry, it's mainly compliance with non-mandatory industry standards.

ETA, for example, ISO 9000x compliance isn't mandatory, but a lot of our customers require that.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. I figured someone would bring up voluntary regulations. They're a different case, not covered by my blanket description that implied government regulations only. So you have a valid complaint there.

On the other hand, the distinction between auditors and regulators is still valid, I think. And the argument that one should welcome the auditor's strict adherence to the auditing process, if one believes that the regulations have value.

Obviously in the case of voluntary regulations, one must believe they have value. Otherwise, one isn't just questioning the value of the auditors, one is questioning the value of one's entire industry. At that point, one should probably be looking for a different career, in an industry with rules one actually believes in.
 
catsmate said:
Like Amazon?
Click to expand...

I'm not familiar with their policy but I have worked in environments where people were given specific break times for such matters. I kinda had in mind more of a scifi type of dystopia where everything is budgeted and controlled.

But I like the way you think. :)
 
MEequalsIxR said:
I'm not familiar with their policy but I have worked in environments where people were given specific break times for such matters. I kinda had in mind more of a scifi type of dystopia where everything is budgeted and controlled.

But I like the way you think. :)
Click to expand...

Interestingly enough, a couple of my colleagues (a recent graduate and an intern on a thick sandwich course) were discussing use of AI and machine learning in manufacturing today. They were discussing systems that can see where people slow down so that they run out of time to do the next job before their beaks, so they get off earlier.
 
jimbob said:
Interestingly enough, a couple of my colleagues (a recent graduate and an intern on a thick sandwich course) were discussing use of AI and machine learning in manufacturing today. They were discussing systems that can see where people slow down so that they run out of time to do the next job before their beaks, so they get off earlier.
Click to expand...

I dunno if I'd call those AI. I think of them as "expert systems". But that's my own private jargon.

Anyway, whatever they're called, I'm pretty sure that in a few short years we'll all be at the mercy of such systems.
 
theprestige said:
I dunno if I'd call those AI. I think of them as "expert systems". But that's my own private jargon.

Anyway, whatever they're called, I'm pretty sure that in a few short years we'll all be at the mercy of such systems.
Click to expand...

It was teaching itself what to look for, hence the machine learning, which I tend to understand as being classed as AI, but hey, that's not my field, so I could easily be using the wrong terms.
 
theprestige said:
Slow down. I'm not saying we should get rid of regulators. I'm saying that it's not fair to blame the auditors for making your life miserable, when it's actually the regulators who make the auditor's job necessary.

Also, if you believe the regulations and the regulators have value, then it seems to me that you should also welcome the auditing process, with all its strict demands. By ensuring regulatory compliance, the auditors are helping you make the world a better place.
Click to expand...
Indeed. But it can still be onerous at times, which is what I think Faydra was trying to convey.

theprestige said:
Also, it's possible to over-regulate. Even if you believe in far reaching government regulation, you may still believe a specific regulation goes too far, or is counter productive. In such a scenario, your hurr durr late stage capitalism arguement is worse than useless. Not that it matters here, since nobody's really arguing those points anyway. I made a lighthearted remark, appended to a comment about the distinction between auditors and regulators. Somehow you took this as a call to deploy weaponized sarcasm. It didn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to stay this way. Shall we both back down?
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's pretty far off topic for this thread.
 
theprestige said:
Wow. Automated multi-factor authentication, especially for password resets, is so commonplace that it never occurred to me that orgs might still be doing it manually. That must really suck.
Click to expand...
I know, right? I think it's because they actually have to set it up first. I'm absolutely sure that some people keep saying "oh, I should set that up some day oh no I need my password reset right now". Some people don't realise that the function exists. Some don't trust it. Some are old-fashioned.

For a range of jobs for which the selection criteria has included basic computer skills since the 90s, it's startling how many people in these jobs don't have basic computer skills.
 
MEequalsIxR said:
I'm not familiar with their policy but I have worked in environments where people were given specific break times for such matters. I kinda had in mind more of a scifi type of dystopia where everything is budgeted and controlled.
Click to expand...
Just like Amazon then.

MEequalsIxR said:
But I like the way you think. :)
Click to expand...
Like the motivational improvement produced by removing usernames and having everyone log on to the domain with their staff number?
 
"My computer is running slow why is..."
"... because you have 50 tabs open and never log off or reboot for updates. Same as the last time you asked"
 
catsmate said:
Just like Amazon then.





Like the motivational improvement produced by removing usernames and having everyone log on to the domain with their staff number?
Click to expand...
In the UK we are always hearing about our low productively compared to other countries and everyone appears at a loss to work out why. The answer is very simple, on the whole productivity units, sorry employees are treated badly compared to these other countries. 48 hour working directive, just sign here if you want the job and opt out of that because we know you want to work 72 hours plus a week and can't have johnny foreigner interfering with that. The only saving grace we have is at the moment his our employee rights prevent "at will" firing.
 
Darat said:
In the UK we are always hearing about our low productively compared to other countries and everyone appears at a loss to work out why. The answer is very simple, on the whole productivity units, sorry employees are treated badly compared to these other countries. 48 hour working directive, just sign here if you want the job and opt out of that because we know you want to work 72 hours plus a week and can't have johnny foreigner interfering with that. The only saving grace we have is at the moment his our employee rights prevent "at will" firing.
Click to expand...
My contract is based around the 70 hour fortnight. With 1.67 and 2.50 overtime multipliers for hours in excess.
 
It may be just confirmation bias, but it seems to me that when software developers call the Service Desk they assume that the person they are speaking to is also a software developer and therefore has a full and complete understanding of all of the developer tools and jargon that they use. Tier 1 is an entry level job (that I happen to have developed into an entire career path). We don't have the detailed knowledge that you do.
 
Okay, so there's another facepalm moment. Someone's account has been deactivated. If they are a contractor, there's an online form that their supervisor needs to submit. If they're a permanent staff member, then an email from someone of a certain level is sufficient.

I've spoken to this person three times now, and each time I've told them the correct procedure. But they've done the wrong thing each time, and had to go back to try something different. If they'd done the right thing, as I told them on the first call, they would have had their issue resolved by now.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom