Bah.
We have a Dell Professional Services guy doing out machine installs/configs. DPS was about 25% more expensive than local estimates, but said they could do it in half the time, and the contract was fixed price. So I figured "Hey, we bought the crap from them, they should be able to do the job competently." So far they are 2 weeks over for what they estimated at a 2 week job.
The latest issue has been our backup server. We're using NAS/iSCSI for network storage, and doing a disk-to-disk-to-tape backup regimen. Well, genius boy did see the 6 750GB SATA Drives we had for the d2d part, and partitioned 1TB out of 3 of them (I'm still not sure how he only got 1TB out of 3, but that's another matter). So I mention to him "Weird that we can't get enough storage out of 6 750GB Drives." "6?" "Yeah, 6." "Oh, I didn't see the other drives, let me reconfigure."
Next day.
Con: OK, NTFS only allows 2TB, so that's all you can get.
Me: Weird that your storage expert sold us 6x750GB just to get 2TB.
Con: Yeah, guess he didn't know.
So I call the storage guy...
Me: So, how did you envision these 6x750GB's being configured?
Him: Oh, you should be able to get about 3.5TB from em.
Me: Contractor says 2TB limit.
Him: There's a real easy workaround in Win2k3.
So I get the two of them in touch... then the contractor calls me.
Con: Well, it turns out I would have to rebuild the machine to make that work.
Me: OK.
Con: But you don't really need 3.5TB. You only have 2.1TB on the storage drive, and are only using 200GB right now, so you'll be fine.
Me: We're going live in 1 month. There are 3 test users on the system and no more.
Con: Yeah, but it'd take you a long, long time to grow to 2TB, and then you can have another project to reconfigure everything.
Me: No. I want the entire amt available.
He then tried to spend 5 more minutes telling me I didn't really need that space and everything would be fine.
Bah.
Contractors
Oh, so he started rebuilding the machine yesterday. He's working remotely.
At 4pm, I called him saying that I had to leave the office, and asked if he needed any CDs or anything in the machine?
Con: No, I'll be fine until tomorrow.
Me: OK, but if you need anything - Call XXXX, he'll be here til 6 or so.
Con: OK.
At 4:05 he calls XXXX and tells him that he'll need a CD inserted in "5 minutes."
XXXX waited until 6:15, then called Con and told him he had to leave.
This morning I called Con's PM and explained the situation to her. She said she'd spoken to Con, and said he was waiting on us for a CD. I repeated the story above. She apologized profusely.
Too bad apologies don't make people work any better.
At 4pm, I called him saying that I had to leave the office, and asked if he needed any CDs or anything in the machine?
Con: No, I'll be fine until tomorrow.
Me: OK, but if you need anything - Call XXXX, he'll be here til 6 or so.
Con: OK.
At 4:05 he calls XXXX and tells him that he'll need a CD inserted in "5 minutes."
XXXX waited until 6:15, then called Con and told him he had to leave.
This morning I called Con's PM and explained the situation to her. She said she'd spoken to Con, and said he was waiting on us for a CD. I repeated the story above. She apologized profusely.
Too bad apologies don't make people work any better.
It's not me, it's someone else.
Precisely. When I worked in Edinburgh, the fuckers we (& the entire city council for that matter) outsourced all our techie shit to one particular company. They sucked out loud. They maintained a server that had a GPS map of the city & the various services (water lines, streetlights, power boxes) therein. It would go down sometimes two to three times per day & every bit of progress in the building would ground to a halt. I literally could not do my job w\o this server.TheCatt wrote:Oh, you mean his brake line? I thought you meant if I pissed em off, he'd take down our stuff.
& their fucking building was right on my walk home, too. Many was the time I thought of wreaking havoc on that place.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
"Dell Professional Services"? Is it actually Dell or just a local contractor working for Dell?
I've never been impressed by any of the contractors/consulting firms I've ever worked with or hired for a project with one exception. The exception being Infinet out of San Francisco.
Contractors natural flaws are:
-Most lose their best people constantly to companies who pay more and offer steady work.
-These consulting firms' very existence relies on more business from it's customers. Think about that for a minute. Hell, you write about it above. em as they are to youThe contractor tells you increasing storage can be a project for later. He's intentionally being lazy so that there's more opportunity for work down the line.
-Your problems aren't as critical to them as they are to you.
Never be afraid to fire a contractor, just have a good replacement ready.
I've never been impressed by any of the contractors/consulting firms I've ever worked with or hired for a project with one exception. The exception being Infinet out of San Francisco.
Contractors natural flaws are:
-Most lose their best people constantly to companies who pay more and offer steady work.
-These consulting firms' very existence relies on more business from it's customers. Think about that for a minute. Hell, you write about it above. em as they are to youThe contractor tells you increasing storage can be a project for later. He's intentionally being lazy so that there's more opportunity for work down the line.
-Your problems aren't as critical to them as they are to you.
Never be afraid to fire a contractor, just have a good replacement ready.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
It's a contractor work for Dell under the DPS name.
I don't think he's lazy so much as incompetent.
I could be wrong, it's hard to tell them apart sometimes. He just tells me things that are wrong. Which sucks, cuz we contract this stuff out cuz we don't want to hire people to do it, so I've not got an inherent knowledge on which to judge his wrongness. We've got a network engineer who's really good though, and does some Windows stuff on the side, so I've been leaning on him as a resource, which has been useful.
Good help is too hard to find.
I don't think he's lazy so much as incompetent.
I could be wrong, it's hard to tell them apart sometimes. He just tells me things that are wrong. Which sucks, cuz we contract this stuff out cuz we don't want to hire people to do it, so I've not got an inherent knowledge on which to judge his wrongness. We've got a network engineer who's really good though, and does some Windows stuff on the side, so I've been leaning on him as a resource, which has been useful.
Good help is too hard to find.
It's not me, it's someone else.
Does he seem to believe his answers or does he just flatly & mechanically pull them out from a ready made database of bullshit in his head?TheCatt wrote:I don't think he's lazy so much as incompetent.
I could be wrong, it's hard to tell them apart sometimes. He just tells me things that are wrong.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
He's a contractor, and we're a "big client" to him. He's made a few mistakes, but not more than a normal person, and he's always quick to admit what he doesn't know, or when he has to call in additional help.GORDON wrote:Make sure he feels appreciated, or you'll lose him.TheCatt wrote:We've got a network engineer who's really good though, and does some Windows stuff on the side, so I've been leaning on him as a resource, which has been useful.
It's not me, it's someone else.
he's always quick to admit what he doesn't know, or when he has to call in additional help.
Honestly, that's a good quality to have in an IT person.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
It's good if they eventually do it less & less, unless you're comfortable assigning a babysitter to him for every project.Leisher wrote:Honestly, that's a good quality to have in an IT person.he's always quick to admit what he doesn't know, or when he has to call in additional help.
If it stays constant, then that's bad.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
It's good if they eventually do it less & less, unless you're comfortable assigning a babysitter to him for every project.
If it stays constant, then that's bad.
I totally disagree.
Small organizations have IT guys who can't possibly know everything about everything. Sure, they get very adapt regarding their specific equipment, but there are still going to be problems that they've never encountered on equipment they're only partially familiar with, and thus, they need help. If they're sitting around wasting hours because they're too proud too call for help or too stupid to, then it's a real problem.
Yes, they should know how to do their daily tasks and troubleshoot the majority of issues they face, but there will always be issues they cannot resolve alone.
I have yet to meet an IT person who knows everything and I am quite confident in thinking I never will.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell