Weird and Cringe things you've seen while working in IT - Since everyone is too lazy to make such a thread where IT bros can vent

[Disdainer of the Plebs]

They've been replacing the office computers with newer models, including the keyboards and monitors. All the Windows users seem very disappointed with this, since the new machines are Windows 11, but they're not half as disappointed as me, who came in to find my Model M missing and some off-brand Dell-clone piece of shit in its place. Thankfully they'd just thrown it in a bin along with all the other replaced keyboards (higher-quality versions of the new keyboards), and it was intact.

Can't change my mind that something like MX Blue's belong no where near an office environment. It's rage inducing being near someone with one when trying to do focus work. The rest of the mech key options remain on the table though

I used to use a Unicomp Model M at the office, the guy next to me probably wanted to beat me over the head with it.

The Model M now lives in my home office and I now use an MX Clear at the office. I might bring it back though, it’s nowhere near as obnoxious as jeets hollering at each other on Webex.

 

[Curry Teafag]

There must be something wrong with me, but I've tried all sorts of keyboards and I've never liked any as much as my $6 mass issue dell keyboard.

Not really. You just aren't living the illusion so many people live who get influenced by keyboard autists and redditors to walk down the rabbit hole.

I, for example, do quite enjoy typing on short-travel laptop keyboards, despite them all being rubberdomes (and everyone knows rubberdome is Le Bad). Simply because of how fast it is due to their short travel and internal PS/2 connection, and because they are quiet.

 

[Disdainer of the Plebs]

Not really. You just aren't living the illusion so many people live who get influenced by keyboard autists and redditors to walk down the rabbit hole.

I, for example, do quite enjoy typing on short-travel laptop keyboards, despite them all being rubberdomes (and everyone knows rubberdome is Le Bad). Simply because of how fast it is due to their short travel and internal PS/2 connection, and because they are quiet.

Rubberdomes aren’t inherently bad, but I don’t care for short travel keyboards because I learned to type as a kid on pc clones and Apple IIgs’s (this was the late 90s but the computer lab’s hardware at my school was ancient) which taught me to really hammer the keys. If I type all day on a thinkpad, it’s not comfortable. It’s a bad habit I maintain to this day, so I really appreciate long travel, high resistance key presses.

I see keyboards and mice like office chairs, sofas and mattresses, shoes and underwear; if you’re going to spend a lot of time with it, make sure to buy one you like. Whether it’s a $6 Dell or a $200 Code, it’s your hands and your money. Do whatever makes you happy and most comfortable.

 

[oh no its pipkun]

I used to get weekly questions about a 3rd party time clock program we use. some of it is poor code: the dashboard doesn't accurately show the days and shifts worked while the timesheet section does. Lot's of phone calls about us stealing time. others are user error like people whining about their schedule being fucked up while looking at the wrong week period and whining about the discrepancies between their actual paycheck and the app's projected paycheck on the dashboard. I've had to explain countless times that the app's paycheck predictor doesn't work because it doesn't take into account their w4 filings. about a decade ago this company rolled out mobile clock-ins and we had a number of retards thinking they could clock in early while they were still at home. the poorly coded app would always acknowledge the clock-in but not record anything because the privilege wasn't there, most people smartened up after getting a "where the fuck are you?" text. only one exceptionally low-iq broad ended up getting fired because she kept coming late despite the text. on the mobile clock-in front, i had another retard claim she had a medical reason to use the mobile clock-in because her immunosuppressed ass couldn't risk getting sick from touching the work tablet used to clock-in. her lazy ass didn't last long.

e: you have to get a physical in order to get hired.

 

[Curry Teafag]

but I don’t care for short travel keyboards because I learned to type as a kid on pc clones and Apple IIe’s which taught me to really hammer the keys

I learned to type on a mechanical typewriter when I was five. That doesn't really affect my current-day choices much.

 

[Kheapathic]

Speaking of niches, I’m fascinated by clunky government platforms where the state makes organizations upload files and forms for eg grants or procurement contracts. They’re just so unbelievably bad that I can’t help but laugh. Would love to hear from anyone who’s ever worked on such a team.

Was going through a process and was requested to supply a specific tax form, for the years 2019-2022 for State and Federal taxes. I don't want to glaze the IRS, but their entire process was easy. I submit my ID stuff online, they check it to verify I am who I say I am, I log into their portal, click a few buttons get the Federal Tax form I need. California on the other hand, you go to the Franchise Tax Board website or call their number, and they encourage you to utilize their online system.

So I go to make an account, I have to fully dox myself down to my driver license number, and one final check is to fill in the number on a certain line item for a specific year of taxes. The data they guard, they require you to know to make an account on their own fucking website, and if the IRS wasn't surprisingly good at their job, I wouldn't be able to get past this part. So I complete the process, I get told my temporary profile and password has been created, and they will physically mail me my password, and I have to use it within the next 20 days, otherwise the system invalidates it and I'll need to go through this entire process again. It took a few tries, because I'm pretty sure whoever dispatches the mail from their office only does half the job half the time. I actually manage to get what I need quicker, by sitting on hold for hours and verbally requesting said info from a human, it took a few attempts but I finally got 3 of the 4 forms I needed from them this way. So I finally get access to their online portal and guess what; it's nothing more than a glorified "Request Form" system. The IRS system let you look, download, and even print your forms from their portal, but the California portal they push you to, is just a fucking request shit system. Now before I continue, guess how they mail stuff out. If someone says they need various papers across an amount of years, the logical thing to do might be to put all those papers in a single envelope and send them out. But if/when you request more than 1 paper, you get each one individually wrapped and mailed.

But the ultimate insult is, unlike the IRS, where I said "I need x-paper for y-year," because it was an early Corona year things were special, and the State of California does shit differently. So despite the IRS being able to generate that form, on a fucking web portal, and letting me download it immediately, every time I sent a request in to the State of California Franchise Tax Board, something in the system or humans would error out, and they'd forget/ignore me. It was only about 2 years of going through this retarded fucking dance, I call, and a dude on the other end is like "Wow, you ordered this quite a few times," - "Yes, I've never received one." We talk for a bit and come to find out, because of this retardation, I need to email a specific address and request this one specific thing; is this process listed anywhere, no, is this email listed anywhere, no, the entire fucking process is opaque as fuck. So I send an email saying what I'm requesting, they send an email back saying what I need to provide; name/dob/driver license/ssn card/etc. So I send that back, and like a day or two later, instead of physical mail, they fucking email me what I needed. Despite no matter how hard I begged, pleaded, and raged, they couldn't provide shit via e-mail, because it's unsecure or whatever, despite how hard you have to fucking dox yourself every fucking time you contact them.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

Was going through a process and was requested to supply a specific tax form, for the years 2019-2022 for State and Federal taxes. I don't want to glaze the IRS, but their entire process was easy.

While it's nice for the IRS to have its forms available for download, uploading stuff can be more of a chore. At least one Federal tax site I've logged into requires submissions to be done with either Chrome or Edge; nothing else will work. Of course, the only way to learn this is to use a non-supported browser and call the help desk number and ask why nothing works. Godbear forbid they include a "For best results use Chrome or Edge" statement in the site footer .

California on the other hand, you go to the Franchise Tax Board website or call their number, and they encourage you to utilize their online system.

This sounds similar to my limited experience with the California FTB. Boss received a letter that the application for some sort of online FTB account was pending, but with no further useful info such as how long it would take to approve the account for full access or what he could or couldn't do with the account in the meantime. A previous boss once opined dealing with state treasuries is worse than dealing with the IRS. It's been difficult to disprove that statement ever since then.

Despite no matter how hard I begged, pleaded, and raged, they couldn't provide shit via e-mail, because it's unsecure or whatever, despite how hard you have to fucking dox yourself every fucking time you contact them.

Recently, the boss requested a document. The sender used their company's secure email system. Long story short, the password had to be reset for the Boss' account on the secure system and doing so erased the waiting secure message for security reasons. A request to re-send the secure message resulted in a reply... but this time it came from the contact's regular email account. Boss and I shook our heads at the whole, "We need to do this securely" insistence only to receive what was needed through the sender's less secure traditional email account.

 

[John Andrews Stan]

Boss and I shook our heads at the whole, "We need to do this securely" insistence only to receive what was needed through the sender's less secure traditional email account.

This kind of thing drives me absolutely bonkers. I have been trying to help a small community nonprofit get some things in order. The elderly treasurer wouldn’t tell me over email the door code for their office (a code known to literally dozens of people, most of whom he couldn’t identify), but all over his monitor he has sticky notes detailing their most important account logins and passwords. It’s not worth my time, aggro or oxygen to try to explain how dumb it all is.

 

[dame dudi jench]

Makes one wonder how office people did go by in the typewriter era when their loud typing noises could be heard through walls easily.

The word processing department was generally kept in their own ghetto like IT nerds are.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

The word processing department was generally kept in their own ghetto like IT nerds are.

The Stenography pool

 

[mr_negativity]

I am stopping by again to say I fucking HATE IoT shit like the Ring Doorbell cameras. I don't care how useful it is, I'd rather deal with fucking CCTV installation than those damned cameras. WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE OFFICE NETWORK ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOUR WHORE ASS CAMERAS. WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO CONNECT IT TO A HOTSPOT FIRST THEN SWITCH IT OVER TO THE GODDAMN OFFICE NETWORK YOU PIECE OF SHIT. LITERALLY ALL THE COMPUTERS ON THE NETWORK WORK JUST FINE, WHY IS IT YOUR SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE SHIT WON'T JUST CONNECT TO THE DAMNED NETWORK. HATE HATE HATE

Anytime I do Uber Eats deliveries, it's a 50/50 shot that the person's ring doorbell is just straight up busted/broken... to the most extreme "the button has been physically removed from the device" sense of the word(s). Or there are the other ones that have BOTH the regular and ring bells.

It's like you said, if all they wanted was a camera, they should have just gotten a camera.

Ring doorbell cameras are one of the worst tech products I have ever used. How can they ship a product this broken other than it being a blatant scam? Basically they design a product with no storage or ram so it has to wake up connect to wifi, then AWS, handshake and send data within a second or two of a motion event or it completely gives up and drops everything. To top it off as a solution they will sell a Ring Chime range extender as a "solution". When the ring doorbell 15 feet away from the router and doesn't work, the problem isn't range. Maybe its the cheap as fuck 2010 era wireless 2.4GHZ wireless N chipset.

I think the designers of the Ring doorbell started out with a development kit / chipset meant for an outdoor trail camera, deleted local storage and bolted wifi onto it, pushing the SoC to the absolute limit. They stuck around all the design limitations of the 1st gen product even if better SoCs are a available because, they'd have to rewrite their backend and firmware if they want to do something like actually buffer the camera stream.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

No business should be using Ring cameras when companies like Ubiqiti have more reliable, reasonably-priced network cameras that are actually made to work securely and without the cloud being needed.

 

[Kheapathic]

No business should be using Ring cameras when companies like Ubiqiti have more reliable, reasonably-priced network cameras that are actually made to work securely and without the cloud being needed.

I don't know if this is true or not, but from what I've seen, Ring got popular because Shaq used it and was impressed he got a notification on his phone while in China or somewhere. So he contacted them, while they were still a small company, and offered to do marketing for them. Amazon took notice and bought it out. This is per a story Shaq himself told, so it's not some suit lying about it, if there is a lie in the story. The other problem is most nigger cattle will take the ease of wi-fi over a better configuration that may require some extra work, not to mention people having an unwillingness to learn but would love to use you as free tech support. Know a girl who's getting iffy, reading all the articles about organized break-in groups that are utilizing signal jammers. For some reason she comes to me, and pretty much explain how signal jammers work and how having wired Internet would mitigate that issue. It turns into one big "but I can't wire my Ring Camera" or "doing all that costs a lot." Gave her the, "it's your decision to make." I don't want to come off like a pissy dad or anything, but sometimes you got to make hard decisions, and unless you're gonna pay me, I'm not gonna offer you any official support.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

Shaq used it and was impressed he got a notification on his phone while in China or somewhere. So he contacted them, while they were still a small company, and offered to do marketing for them.

No wonder it's shit. Anything that Shaq touches or is even related to means it's not going to be good at all.

See: Kazaam and any of his "rapping" such as his appearance on MJ's "2 Bad"

 

[John Andrews Stan]

I and a couple of other guys have been volunteering to help a small local nonprofit get its administrative and technical house in order. Their purpose is pure and noble and they are good people, so I feel a lot of guilt for rolling my eyes all the time with them. For the same reason the other guys aren’t trashing them either, much as I can tell they’d love to. But that means there’s no cathartic venting going on between us. So I’m glad this thread is here.

Until recently they were using a Gmail address for official correspondence, a transition the guys and I helped them with. Previously, multiple people from their volunteer leadership would be logging into the Gmail daily, which caused confusion, unread messages, etc. Now they are all asking for access to the new, branded email account and I am preparing for a battle. This is one of the rare times I have wished I had a thick corporate policy manual to validate my position.

 

[Betonhaus]

I and a couple of other guys have been volunteering to help a small local nonprofit get its administrative and technical house in order. Their purpose is pure and noble and they are good people, so I feel a lot of guilt for rolling my eyes all the time with them. For the same reason the other guys aren’t trashing them either, much as I can tell they’d love to. But that means there’s no cathartic venting going on between us. So I’m glad this thread is here.

Until recently they were using a Gmail address for official correspondence, a transition the guys and I helped them with. Previously, multiple people from their volunteer leadership would be logging into the Gmail daily, which caused confusion, unread messages, etc. Now they are all asking for access to the new, branded email account and I am preparing for a battle. This is one of the rare times I have wished I had a thick corporate policy manual to validate my position.

I don't know their layout, but could you set up a forwarding rule so that everything sent to the official address gets CC'd to the people who want access?

 

[John Andrews Stan]

I don't know their layout, but could you set up a forwarding rule so that everything sent to the official address gets CC'd to the people who want access?

They don’t get access. More than one person logging into an email account, reading, not marking things as unread, etc. just create a huge mess. Multiple people don’t need to be on the official email.

 

[Betonhaus]

They don’t get access. More than one person logging into an email account, reading, not marking things as unread, etc. just create a huge mess. Multiple people don’t need to be on the official email.

Then don't. Set up individual email accounts for the people who really need access and set a rule in the main account to forward the emails to each account

 

[John Andrews Stan]

Then don't. Set up individual email accounts for the people who really need access and set a rule in the main account to forward the emails to each account

To be clear, I wasn’t asking for advice for how to deal with the e-mail drama. I was just venting about it. (These people are all volunteers. They can continue to use their personal email addresses for org matters as they have for decades.)

 

[teriyakiburns]

The pain of working with brogrammers who think an LLM solves everything. It's like having an indian, though fortunately without the smell.

if (path.startsWith('/location-quality/failed-geocoding')) return ['/location-quality/failed-geocoding'];
if (path.startsWith('/location-quality/duplicate-management')) return ['/location-quality/duplicate-management'];
if (path.startsWith('/queue-monitoring/flow')) return ['/queue-monitoring/flow'];
if (path.startsWith('/queue-monitoring/explorer')) return ['/queue-monitoring/explorer'];
if (path.startsWith('/queue-monitoring/maintenance')) return ['/queue-monitoring/maintenance'];
if (path.startsWith('/queue-monitoring')) return ['/queue-monitoring'];
if (path.startsWith('/imports')) return ['/imports'];
if (path.startsWith('/data-processing')) return ['/data-processing'];
if (path.startsWith('/maintenance/health')) return ['/maintenance/health'];
if (path.startsWith('/maintenance/jobs')) return ['/maintenance/jobs'];
if (path.startsWith('/settings')) return ['/settings'];