Sticking to Your Guns

If there’s one thing my mom taught me, it would be, stick to your guns.  Once you make a decision see it through to the end come hell or high water.  From the Free Dictionary the title of this post is an idiom based on the military meaning of stick to your guns ( to continue shooting at an enemy although it puts you in great danger).

Tech Support Idiocracies #3

Fail, incompetence, blonds and cows.  These are a few of my favorite things to hate.  Coincidentally, these words can also be used to very accurately describe an individual I work with.  Combined, she is the epitomy of the word ‘nightmare’.  I’ve blogged about her before, she’s a problem user, she’s incompetent, she’s blond, she’s an irrational thinker and she’s a complete cow.  I resort to thinking about colorful things and rainbows whenever I’m dealing with her because I’d be more concerned with the dent I’d cause a street pole if one were to surreptitiously wrap itself around her head.

The Curse of the Laptop

We have a bizarre occurrence at work that is worth mentioning. It’s really strange and it’s got to the point where we can start to place fairly accurate bets as to its result. What I mean is this, when we upgrade users from desktops to laptops there’s a very high chance that within 1 month they will resign from the company, they will leave and move onto something else. Why is this and what causes this? It makes no sense yet time and time again we can track this trend.  A co-worker and I have dubbed this occurrence ‘The Curse of the Laptop” and whenever a recently upgraded user resigns we call it ‘The Curse of the Laptop strikes again!’. I guess there could be any number of plausible explanations, was it pure coincidence or is there something more sinister at play?

Living a Web 2.0 Life in a Web 1.0 World

When everything on the web is shifting towards a highly integrated medium where information seamlessly inter-operates across platforms, architectures and languages why is it that back at home, in the sad old real world, the pace of change is slower than it should be.

Why are people slow to adopt the philosophy that there’s always a better way to do something? Even worse why do some people flatly refuse to even consider it?

Hey, HR Dept! I’m Pointing My Pointy Finger At You!

I have a bone to pick with you, Human Resource department! My beef is that you’re hiring stupid people! Yes there’s just no classy way to put it, they’re stupid people!

As defined by Reference.com the term ‘Stupid’ means any one of the following:

• Lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; dull.
• Annoying or irritating; troublesome.
• Slow to learn or understand; obtuse.

With that clearly understood, why is it that companies around the world are being filled to the brim with people that have the equivalent combined brain-mass of three goldfish and perhaps a trout…and maybe an algae eater too?…

The Art of Looking Busy

I’m a hacker, a life hacker so to speak, I’m always looking for ways to beat the system, to overcome restrictions and conformity imposed by others. This curiosity operates automatically on a sub-conscious level, I don’t even have to think about it, it’s simply an always-on passive skill, I’ll almost always instantly pick up on ways to break the system. I find it appealing to have the sort of knowledge that if acted upon could land me up in jail but I’m smart and I know what’s good for my health if you know what I’m saying. I’m not going to do something stupid, that being said…

The Travesty of Making Eye to Eye Contact

You’re walking down the hallway, it’s empty of human traffic, a false sense of safety comes over you. This is quickly shattered when suddenly Employee Drone # 612 emerges from her cubicle hole, wings flapping and all, she’s angry, she looks around, notices you and then starts flying towards you at a rapid pace, all kinds of thing’s race through your mind, will I ever see the light of day again?, why isn’t that burrito I had for lunch settling down? and when the heck will Duke Nukem Forever come out? You start to panic, blood vessels constrict, heart beat quickens, sweat pores open like the Panama Canal. You have a destination, and you don’t want to be interrupted. You don’t want to make eye contact, doing so will most certainly result in an implosion of the known universe…

Fresh Air!

I’ve sat through 3 major business re-organisations at my company, it can be a little nerve wracking but luckily my position has never been affected by it. I have to be honest when I say that it’s like a breath of fresh air when people you don’t like are on the list of those set to be terminated. Out with the old in the with new, out with the trash, the riff-raff, and the scum sucking bottomfeeders.

Can you smell that? It’s the smell of freshly terminated employees and it’s quite the aroma.

All together now, count to 10 and…..breath. Ahhhh.

Web 2.0 in the Enterprise - Social Collaboration

It doesn’t take a person with an IQ of 5 to realize the advantages of shifting to a Web 2.0 mentality in the workplace. Unfortunately it’s going to take a paradigm shift before anyone starts to use it effectively, especially in certain industries that rely on ever-stagnant pillars of change as a catalyst for change. However, those that are on the forefront of technology have already been collaborating in revolutionary new ways for years now but I feel that thing’s aren’t moving fast enough. We need more leaders that think outside of the box to look at how social collaboration in their companies can impact their business. The problem is the technology will move forward with or without them…

Advice to Users #1 - Listening Skills & Cheese

Yes that means you. Why is it that when I tell a user I don’t have anything to do with supporting server-side Citrix apps they go “Okay…” and then continue to tell me what the problem is even though there’s nothing I can do to help them aside from holding their hands while I phone the helpdesk for them. Is it because I’ve got two ears for them to vent their frustrations to and I’m probably the only one that actually listens to them whine and complain?

Advice for users, grow some listening skills, it will benefit you, really did I have to tell you that? Are we back in high school now? I mean … really.

You want some cheese with that whine?