If You Make Something Idiot-Proof, They Will Just Make a Better Idiot
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I strongly suspect this should be my epitaph.
I’m going barking f-ing mad here, people. `They’ have finally gotten me. No, not the illuminati. Not the terrorists. Not even Dick Cheney’s personal waterboarding team could do this kind of damage. Of course I’m speaking of my coworkers. Not my department; the entire company.
I know I work with the Special, but somehow these people are way more Special than the regular Special. I am not talking about people with birth defects or learning disabilities. I am talking about the Stupid. The Voluntarily Stupid. The Corporate Institutionalized Voluntarily Stupid<tm>. The people for whom we advise leaving the computers on when they go home because they wouldn’t be able to turn them back on when they arrived the next morning. The people who you spend a week warning that there will be a power outage on Friday at four. Then you send out a message and a page at ten of four. The people who then scream bloody murder when the power goes out. You ask didn’t they get the message. They ask what message?
I know I’m not the only IT person plagued by the Lobotomized but sometimes it just gets to be too much, even for me.
I work in a main office that manages a lot of smaller offices, like a hub and spoke setup. The task at hand was a daunting one: create email addresses for each of the offices.
“What’s so difficult about that?” you’re probably asking.
I asked that too. And unfortunately I’m getting the answer.
The operation started like all operations do: with meetings. One cannot simply create a few hundred email accounts, no sir. There are a few questions that need to be answered and things that need to be worked on first:
- do we create addresses by first names or last names or unit names? [2 weeks]
- do we host it locally? [1 day]
- how do we list it locally? [2 days]
- how do we send notification to units? [2 weeks and a lot of arguing]
- how is the notification worded so everyone will understand it? [4 weeks]
Many different departments got involved. I can’t believe it was accomplished but in a first for the corporation, there was not a single instance of Powerpoint used in the entire process. No, I’m not kidding.
So the letters went out to the offices. In a fit of sheer genius, someone (who is currently hiding in fear) decided to put my email address as the contact for people to call to activate the account.
My entire life has been taken over by this project, along with those of my entire department. Anyone who thought that the process was finished after we created the accounts is now out on sick leave due to extreme stress. I watched several heads actually explode over this.
It’s not that I mind people calling to activate their accounts… it’s just that no one is calling to activate their accounts - they’re calling because they don’t understand. Here is a random sampling of responses:
- can you send another email? I lost the other one. (it was sent snail mail)
- what do you want me to do with this?
- what do you mean set up email?
- I’m not using that. I don’t want to.
- can’t you come set it up?
- I don’t understand what you mean by `use this account’
- I don’t like the name you set up: use this one.
- yes, my name is Roger but everyone knows me as Steve
- I threw it out.
- What does mandatory mean?
- You know me, I’m computer stupid [fake laugh]
It’s been weeks of this. Major projects have been kept waiting because everyone is busy translating English to whatever it is that our people speak.
Everything was included with the paperwork, yet this has been treated like the company asked everyone to design a solar-powered rocket to take us to the moon (again).
If I were to attempt to find something positive to say at this point, it would be that we’re fortunate that breathing is an involuntarily-controlled function because if my coworkers had to breathe on their own, they’d all be dead. The few that survived would require intensive IT assistance on a one-to-one basis. There wouldn’t even be enough managers for a series of meetings to decide on a theme for the series of meetings.
Where did I put my medicine? Guess I’ll call the Helpdesk and ask.
6 Comments
the oracle
April 8th, 2009
at 1:57pm
Sounds as though you’ve got enough information, and inspiration, for a great blues tune.
the oracle
April 8th, 2009
at 2:00pm
Oh, I forgot - you also seem to have the proper work atmosphere for a Windows 7 shop - it was designed from the ground up for the new generation of idiots.
Newstech
April 9th, 2009
at 6:53am
Oh, I feel your pain, man.
Buffalo
April 9th, 2009
at 12:53pm
The flip side…
(what they really mean…)
From: Your friendly helpdesk manager
Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 9:45 AM
To: REALLY BIG USER DISTRIBUTION LIST
Subject: MS patch release for April 2009
To all colleagues,
(To all USERS,)
Please review the attached notice for the April Microsoft Security Patch release Monday evening.
(Interpretation: I’m too lazy to copy and paste the insignificant content from the attachment, that I was told to forward from my boss (head IT guy), into this message. He though that the little picture of the computer with his message in Microsoft Word would say something to you and I don’t want him to think he hasn’t got a clue. Better to incovenience you all than to PO the boss. I’d rather you all had to open a MS-Word document than to just reproduce the content here as plain text. And besides my messages don’t take up enough bandwidth so I’d rather make the mail server send out 3,315 instances of a word document.)
(For our purposes of studying the help desk animal, here is the contents of the attachment — Wouldn’t it have just been more convenient for everybody if they just put the text in this message (like I did here) rather than make it a WORD document attachment? — The answer to that question is “yes”.)
————– START OF ATTACHMENT CONTENT ————–
Microsoft Security Updates
WHO: All USERS (Except those of you in the satellite offices for whom this doesn’t apply even though you are getting this message, all 843 of you.)
WHEN: Monday April 13, 2009.
WHAT: Microsoft Security Updates will be installed to all workplace workstations and laptop computers Monday night at midnight. Please leave your workstation computer powered on and the desktop locked Monday evening so that the updates can be installed and the workstation can restart after midnight when the patch is released.
If your workstation is powered off Monday night and it is restarted on Tuesday morning April 14th, the updates will be automatically installed once they are downloaded, and your workstation will restart 30 minutes after the installs are completed.
(Our interpretation: Think about this before you leave on Monday because you don’t have a gajillion other things on you mind at 5 PM as you attempt to leave the office before the boss asks you to do “just one more thing.” This will mean a delay for you on Tuesday when you start your workstation, if you forget, and you will, and the following is really important!)
Please save any work before leaving your workstation or laptop so no work is lost that you may be working on.
(How wonderful: an IT procedure that exploits human weakness. Now we can be sabotaged by our own people as well as the criminals. Saving all my stuff is the prelude to turning off my machine the other 20 days of the month and you want me to remember this with a 5 day warning from a message among the other 32 message I have to deal with today?)
*** Questions? Please call the Help Desk at 555-5555. ***
(When? In the time that computers don’t save me? Notice: The how to use your computer webinare has been expanded from 3 hours to 36 hours.)
————- END OF ATTACHMENT CONTENT ————
(…but the help desk message continues because I don’t have enough to do.)
Currently Microsoft patches are released on the second Monday of each month.
(Tim, the toolman says, EARRRRRGH?!? This could be before or after the RTM for everybody else in the world unless they actually mean the Monday after the second Tuesday, or the Monday just before the second Tuesday–though it is probable that they get the patches before the general public–I’m pretty sure that Microsoft releases the patches in tiers–I vote for the Monday before the second Tuesday.)
These patches are downloaded to the workstations (PC’s/laptops) during the day on Monday and then are installed Tuesday morning at 12:01am and the workstations (PC’s/laptops) will restart if needed.
(What is the other name for workstations, again? Which Monday again? In some month it could be the first Monday. So, but this month it really is the second Monday of this month. It is difficult to be precise without making a real good attempt at it, isn’t it? …but you’ll be sending out a message like this next month won’t you? So I just need a date and you can forget the relative offset. The likely outcome is that half of the people reading this, which is less than half of half the people, won’t understand. The rest of them trash your email without reading it because they try to filter for content they need in the next 24 hours. Hence the real message is, don’t expect to work with your workstation right away when you come in–it might be a good idea to crank it up before you really need it–but there is more instruction…)
We need to ask our colleagues to leave their workstations on Monday when they leave the office so you will not miss Tuesday midnight time frame for the release of the patches, (Please either lock your desktop or select Logoff instead of shutdown but do not leave your PC logged in).
(Interpretation: This really means “We are asking you users to…” and not “We need to ask our colleagues to…” The “we need to ask” phrase is to be interpreted as “Honest, friends, romans, and countrypersons, we’re really sorry to interrupt your regular workflow with this pesky message and our pesky procedures, but we can’t figure out a better way to operate, and thanks for your patience, so we are asking you to…”)
If you do turn your workstations (PC’s/laptops) off the patches will come down to your workstations (PC’s/laptops) Tuesday morning when the workstations (PC’s/laptops) are turned on as you come into work. If the patches are downloaded and installed on Tuesday morning, the PC will require a restart to complete the installation.
(Interpretation: This is a warning that you could be delayed if you don’t restart your computer before you actually need it. That would be a start to load the patches and a restart to install them, or two starts that morning. Login, wait awhile, shutdown, begin again, wait awhile, login. If you ignored our instructions to leave your PC running, which we normally ask you to turn off because we’re trying to green up our image, don’t be calling the help desk because you have to wait.)
You should be prompted with a message box stating the computer will restart in 30 minutes, however if you are not at your workstations (PC’s/laptops) you will not see the message.
(About as clear as mud, but, really, this is already covered. …and won’t the dialog box also say “…or click here to restart now?” I think they mean “Your understanding of this message affects how you think the computer system is working for the times that this patching process may interrupt your work every month.” “Ask us about our up-time (99%–nobody’s perfect).”)
Thank you in advance for your cooperation and please note this patch release does not include the Satellite locations.
(The above statement is an indication that a non-segregated mailing list was the target for this message–a lot of people got this message when the content has nothing to do with their operation. …because we don’t have enough email to read because we really don’t do anything because computers save us Sooooo much time.)
Michelle
Manager, Your Friendly Help Desk
(The face of the IT department)
Clueless Coworker
April 9th, 2009
at 2:03pm
I’m glad I found you here. I am totally confused about this. Can you help me? I am using Microsoft.
leftystrat
April 9th, 2009
at 4:04pm
Clueless: Yes. Do you have a pencil sharpener? Please put your head in it. You’ll be much sharper as a result and able to figure this stuff out yourself.
There. I have empowered you.