I hate corporate IT people

[edesignuk]

That's because the IT people make it that way. For example, you can not use Firefox on the NMCI network. For crying out loud.

Any idea why that might be? You can't push out security updates with WSUS (Windows Server Update Services, essentially a corporate version of Windows Update) for Firefox security holes, and you have no control over it with Group Policy.

Don't get me wrong, I prefer Firefox and would tell anyone to use it at home. In business though, perhaps not.

IT people don't "make it that way", it's a regulatory thing. Higher powers and all that jazz, it's a pain in the neck, but it has to be complied with.

 

[scotthayes]

Well the IMing software is part of the Lotus suite that everyone in the company uses, so I assume yes.

Guessing here, but you don't work in the IT support industry.

I see so many people who have been asked to support a product without training on the system, then a year or so later their company finally discover they are only using half of the product and then send the staff on a training course.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Nothing is as simple as you think.

Except slagging off people.

I hate some of my corporate IT people. The others are pretty cool, but they play things by the book; a book they seem to be constantly writing as they go.

 

[pilotError]

While at MTV creative services I found the IT department to be very mac friendly and nice people to boot. things took a bit long at times but that was most likely the fact that there were only two IT's for a floor of 100+ people.

ESPN was pretty mac friendly. they had a crew that was specifically assigned to the mac community, mostly for the magazine. they werent as punctual to our needs but did eventually get around to fixing things. We were several blocks away from their home base. Nice peeps too but not very talkative.

Every other company ive worked for was too small for an IT dept and I usually ended up playing the role...

MTV uses mostly consultants don't they?

I hate to say it, but both sides are right!

I hate my IT lockdown as much as the next guy. They even get crappy with me (Developer), so I have to slap em around a bit (hey this is NY).

My last contract did a study to see if they could leave some things open without the heavy lockdown. They put out an email the week before explaining how you should handle emails from people you don't know and to not open any attachments unless your sure you know the person.

The next week they sent out a fake virus (it would ping one of our servers with your IP address) from some email address outside the company. Something like 47% of the company opened the email, another 12% opened the attachment. This is just a week after sending the "What to Do" email to the entire company. After that, they locked down external email (yahoo, google, aol, etc.) from within the company.

I see both sides of it. There are reasons for it, but it does suck...

 

[robbieduncan]

Due to compliance issues there may also need to be a way for all IM traffic to be recorded in a readable and searchable format and kept for the next 5 years. The list goes on. Nothing is as simple as you think.

That's because the IT people make it that way.

Whilst I am not Windows IT I would like to point out this is not ITs fault. These are mandated controls put in place by government oversight, in this case I believe this is a US FCC requirement. If you don't like it pester the (US) government. Many of the things you think are ITs fault are probably the same. Whilst I'd prefer to have a Mac at work you have to remember it's their computer, not yours. Therefore their rules not yours. If you don't like it leave and get another job.

Don't get me wrong, I prefer Firefox and would tell anyone to use it at home. In business though, perhaps not.

Oops, I use FireFox at work: it doesn't require admin rights to install...

 

[freeny]

MTV uses mostly consultants don't they?

I can only speak for the CS department and no, they are staff.

 

[Baron58]

1. They all think they're better than you.

In many cases, they are.

2. They have no social skills.

You mean, that's different from the cube-dwellers who post lists of why they hate IT people on an internet message board?

3. Half of them smell bad.

By your logic, half of them don't. In reality, your obese, coffee-breath, farting co-workers are quite disgusting to the IT staff who hold their breaths when they visit the cubes.

4. Even if they make less than you, they think they're more important than you in the company just because they have administrative rights over your computer.

They DON'T have administrative rights over your computer. YOUR computer is the one you have at home that you bought with your own money. If you're referring to the COMPANY computer you are assigned to do work that you are assigned according to the policies of the company (which the IT group is part of setting and enforcing), then that's different. **** & GBTW. Oh, and in many cases they make *more* than you.

5. They are anti-mac. They will literally hate you for owning one.

Not all. But zealots who can't **** bring it upon themselves.

6. They slow down your PC by putting all sorts of useless security and monitoring software on it. My PC takes 10 minutes to boot.

Some IT departments have poor judgement on configurations, that is true. Security & monitoring software is not useless, though, since you've shown yourself to be a risk. You probably try to change the company computer to how *you* want it to be, right? Who knows what kind of damage an arrogant know-it-all may do. If you're so smart with computers, work in IT. Then you'll see the other side of the story.

7. They refuse to enable IMAP on the exchange server for my iPhone.

With good reason. You don't know how the server is configured, it's not just that simple. Besides, no IT person responsible for an Exchange server wants to further increase the load on it with additional services that may cause issues. Also, why should they do anything for YOUR iPhone? Did the company buy it for you? Did the company tell you to buy it? Did the company say they'd support it? It's not theirs, they don't owe you crap for your personal toy. Get over it.

 

[scotthayes]

IT people don't make "it that way", it's a regulatory thing. Higher powers and all that jazz, it's a pain in the neck, but it has to be complied with.

As it was an American who thought it was "Because IT make it that way" they need to read all about sarbanes oxley. and with ITIL standards over here life has gotten a lot harder for IT staff, not to mention the Data Protection Act and the Computer Misuse Act.

 

[ZachsMacDaddy]

I am a corporate IT guy. I partially agree with you. There are some who fit your description 100% and some who don't come close. I'll hit on your issues:

1. They all think they're better than you.

Ok, we're not better than all of you. Some of you, not all of you.

I can't expect you to know the intricacies of a Windows based domain and you should not expect me to know the details of electrical engineering.

BUT, if you constantly tell me how you like to build computers at home for your family and then ask me for help with a simple cut & paste operation, then I should be able to smack you like a V8 commercial.

When it comes to the computer side of things, many of us ARE likely better than you. That's why you have your job and we have ours.

2. They have no social skills.

My wife is always amazed at how I can strike up a conversation with just about anyone. I like to think I can make new friends fairly easily. I don't understand the folks who spend all night doing online gaming and never see daylight on a weekend.

3. Half of them smell bad.

Sorry, not me. But I have worked with enough engineers to feel this comment is backwards. Some of those guys must NEVER bathe! I actually got physically ill one day when some engineer stood in my office asking questions. I don't care if your culture has different beliefs on hygiene, get some soap and don't come back until you figure out how to use it. That guy was actually approached by HR about the BO.

My one complaint about IT guys I have worked with is the obsessive addiction to tobacco. It's not just IT, but at that job the smokers outside were 90% IT. I am happy to now work where 0% of IT smoke.

4. Even if they make less than you, they think they're more important than you in the company just because they have administrative rights over your computer.

I'm not more important than you because of that. But don't you go getting a fat head and tell me that it's your computer and you should be able to do what you want. We keep your hands out of the cookie jar for good reasons.

5. They are anti-mac. They will literally hate you for owning one.

Yup, there are too many narrow minded Windows kool-aid drinking loons. I have been in IT for 12+ years now and I have enjoyed Windows, OS/2, Mac OS, Linux, BSD... I have owned Macs on & off over the years. At home I run a Windows network, but my desktop is a Mac Mini and I have a Macbook. The only XP box in use is my wife because she is resisting the switch.

I bring my Macbook to work as well. It sure comes in handy for some things.

6. They slow down your PC by putting all sorts of useless security and monitoring software on it. My PC takes 10 minutes to boot.

Don't blame me. A lot of those items are forced upon us by management or government regulations. I used to be an Altiris administrator. There were 2 clients installed for the project. 1 was a simple little piece that had NO impact. The other was a hog of a service that I hated. I constantly tried to eliminate that side of the project because it served no purpose. BUT, my bosses boss had been the one to buy the product against recommendations and to roll it back would have been a black mark for her with the vendor who she liked. So, we kept the $200,000. application suite all because she was too embarrassed to admit she was wrong. I suffered and so did every server and workstation. Don't blame all IT people for all those things that are running on your computer.

Besides, are you SURE that the Google toolbar, Google desktop search, Weatherbug and desktop pet you installed aren't contributing? How about that 6MB scanned image of your kid/dog that you are using for wallpaper? Do you realize what kind of impact YOUR things are having on your computer's performance???

7. They refuse to enable IMAP on the exchange server for my iPhone.

Ok, let's add work and maybe some vulnerabilities to a corporate server that has 4000+ clients because "Bob" bought a new toy!


Do you stereotype all people like you do IT people?

 

[Queso]

Where were you located?
I was in Manhattan where it was mostly the Magazine as well as the ill fated phone. a bunch of corporate offices too.

Mostly at Hammersmith in London where the ESPN and Soccernet sites were developed, but I also did a whole bunch of network upgrades for Disney across Europe. Milan was my favourite office. That's where they draw all the comics for the European market

 

[Plymouthbreezer]

Until you have worked in tech support / IT (at a large company, or government agency like myself) yourself, make NO judgments about the job, despite the fact it might appear to you we're stubborn, arrogant and narrow minded.

IT people have to follow their departments rules, otherwise, our jobs are at risk. We have bosses too.

 

[scotthayes]

this sums up IT support departments to a tee

Jebs Jobs

 

[GoCubsGo]

There's nothing worse than those Windows geeks that work in IT at corporations. Here's my list of reasons I hate them:

1. They all think they're better than you.
2. They have no social skills.
3. Half of them smell bad.
4. Even if they make less than you, they think they're more important than you in the company just because they have administrative rights over your computer.
5. They are anti-mac. They will literally hate you for owning one.
6. They slow down your PC by putting all sorts of useless security and monitoring software on it. My PC takes 10 minutes to boot.
7. They refuse to enable IMAP on the exchange server for my iPhone.

Please feel free to add to the list.

I'm sure you've heard enough of how wrong your statements truly are as they overgeneralize an industry that clearly doesn't fit this so-called mold you've created.

Wow pretty unintelligent statements by you.

First off casting everyone into the same category is stupid you might as well have said you hated blacks, or jewish or even white people.
SNIP

I applaud you for this statement.

Hey relax folks. I'm just trying to get a rise out of you IT guys. There's plenty of IT guys who are great people that I like. And I thought that the non-IT people would find this to be funny.

... but still, there are some IT people who totally fit the bill...

Isn't it great when someone comes to a public forum and makes a complete twit out of themselves only to turn around and say "just kidding"?

Honestly Red Sox, you clearly have beef with a small population of people at your company who have put measures in place to stop people from harming the corporation they work for. Your computer taking 10 minutes to boot is probably an exaggeration but even if it is not your wasted time is nothing compared to the time the company would spend on fixing the result of loose computer security measures. While I believe that some of your issues are indeed indicative of professionals in various industries, I don't believe this is the majority. There are people here in the Mac world that believe themselves to be gurus (for lack of better words) of the most random things ever. The arrogance isn't just in the windows world my friend.

A final thought, if your company feels the need to get you access to your e-mails they will provide you with a way. Not being able to use your precious iPhone is most likely the least of their concerns.

 

[iBlue]

this sums up IT support departments to a tee

Jebs Jobs

<applause>

 

[stomer]

In my last job, the relationship between IT support and us devs was slightly frosty to say the least. Rightly or wrongly, the general opinion was that support was manned by a bunch of incompetent fools (not necessarily my opinion) and I imagine that support regarded the devs as a bunch arrogant a*****s. It didn't help that support knew very little about *nix, and we ended up doing support that they should have been doing.
Anyway, I remember on time when my computer was supposed to receive an upgrade. It needed to be taken away and I agreed to this to occur on my day-off. I turned up the following day, and there was no computer. I wasn't annoyed, but I found the situation a bit funny. I was in a jovial mood when I rang support about the missing computer, but my mood was completely mis-interpreted:

Me: "Would it be ok for me to have my computer back please?"
Amanda (not necessarily her real name): "There's no need to be sarcastic Paul!"
Me: "I'm not being sarcastic. I'm just asking you if I can have my computer back."
Everyone in the office laughed at this point.

In my job prior to the one above, the support guys, apart from being anti-mac, were pretty darn good, really friendly and very helpful.

 

[Evangelion]

7. They refuse to enable IMAP on the exchange server for my iPhone.

I can see it now:

Red Sox: "Hey Mr. IT-person. I just bought an iPhone. Could you change the configuration on our corporate email-system, so I could receive email on my phone?"

IT-person: *blank stare*

Yes, I work in corporate IT .

 

[TBi]

Red Sox: "Hey Mr. IT-person. I just bought an iPhone. Could you change the configuration on our corporate email-system, so I could receive email on my phone?"

IT-person: *blank stare*

In our place it's a bit different:

Worker: "Hey Mr. IT person i bought one of those new fangled blackberry devices, can you set it up so i can get mail from the corporate email system, so I could receive email on my phone?"

IT-Person: *blank stare* (Or "No we can't, ever")

Worker: "You know like on your blackberry there" *pointing to blackberry and showing you have an identical model* "you told me before that you get all your work mail on it"

It-Person: *blank stare* (Or "our models are super special editions so special even blackberry don't know about them")

I don't hate all IT people. I just hate the pricks in IT.

 

[Evangelion]

In our place it's a bit different:

You missed the point. The person apparently bought himself an iPhone, and then complains when the IT-department doesn't make changes to their corporate email-system in order to accomodate him and his phone. If one of our users came to us and said "hey, I bought this phone that is totally different from the other phones we use, and I would like you to make changes to our production-servers so I could access them with my phone" he too would receive a blank stare.

No, you don't go about making changes to production-systems justs because one user thinks it's a good idea. And if those changed were made, and one day he noticed that he's not receiving any emails, he would go complain to the IT-department, who would then have to spend time and energy trying to fix a problem that only exists on a device that is totally different from the other devices that are used in the office. There's a reason why IT-department supports certain set of devices, as opposed to supporting everything.

 

[edesignuk]

In our place it's a bit different:

Worker: "Hey Mr. IT person i bought one of those new fangled blackberry devices, can you set it up so i can get mail from the corporate email system, so I could receive email on my phone?"

IT-Person: *blank stare* (Or "No we can't, ever")

Worker: "You know like on your blackberry there" *pointing to blackberry and showing you have an identical model* "you told me before that you get all your work mail on it"

It-Person: *blank stare* (Or "our models are super special editions so special even blackberry don't know about them")

I don't hate all IT people. I just hate the pricks in IT.

Why would you be surprised by this? Unless the company provide the Blackberry there's no way you're getting your privately bought one added to the corporate Blackberry system. Rightly so too.

 

[a456]

My experience is that they are poor communicators. Instead of asking people what they need they rely on some kind of faulty osmosis, so for example you ride a bike to work and need a laptop - they give you a laptop the size and weight of a small pony. You need to open files saved in Mac HFS+ (or whatever it's called) on a PC on a daily basis as does an office of 10 employees, they put the software on your director's PC and expect him to share the facility with everyone. And, finally the classic - you spend all day chasing them for support, leaving hundreds of messages on their voicemail, and then they come down and tell you to reboot your machine.

 

[edesignuk]

and then they come down and tell you to reboot your machine.

might be an idea for you to try that before wasting your day waiting then, eh?

People lose all common sense the second they walk in to the office. If something isn't working at home, what do you do? Turn it off and turn it on again. Apparently this is a bit much to ask for at work.

 

[a456]

might be an idea for you to try that before wasting your day waiting then, eh?

I didn't say it solved the problem. It simply gives them the chance to walk away while the reboot happens.

Anyway I am now self-employed and so get to work all day on a lovely Mac and don't have to worry about all that nonsense.

 

[Eraserhead]

You need to open files saved in Mac HFS+ (or whatever it's called) on a PC on a daily basis as does an office of 10 employees, they put the software on your director's PC and expect him to share the facility with everyone.

That is ridiculous. They should just buy it for everyone.

 

[robbieduncan]

That is ridiculous. They should just buy it for everyone.

It is ridiculous but in the current economic climate every cent/penny of expenditure has to be carefully looked at: if you can get by with 1 license instead of 10 then it'll be 1 license.

 

[TBi]

Why would you be surprised by this? Unless the company provide the Blackberry there's no way you're getting your privately bought one added to the corporate Blackberry system. Rightly so too.

Yes but why can't they just say that? Rather than some stupid excuse. Although i don't understand why i shouldn't be able to view my work emails on my phone when i can check them at home on my laptop over the net.

Especially since all they have to do is set up the account. Unlike an iPhone, they already supported the blackberry.

You missed the point. The person apparently bought himself an iPhone, and then complains when the IT-department doesn't make changes to their corporate email-system in order to accomodate him and his phone. If one of our users came to us and said "hey, I bought this phone that is totally different from the other phones we use, and I would like you to make changes to our production-servers so I could access them with my phone" he too would receive a blank stare.

No, you don't go about making changes to production-systems justs because one user thinks it's a good idea. And if those changed were made, and one day he noticed that he's not receiving any emails, he would go complain to the IT-department, who would then have to spend time and energy trying to fix a problem that only exists on a device that is totally different from the other devices that are used in the office. There's a reason why IT-department supports certain set of devices, as opposed to supporting everything.

I didn't miss the point. I just said the i've met guys which are bigger pricks, hence "different" .

Would you agree that not allowing me to use my own blackberry, which they support and use, is just bloody annoying?