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

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Something I remembered from my first job.
It was a small company and they've had an IT/support department that would be setting up stuff like user accounts, spinning up new servers etc. Pretty much everything was running under Windows Server, with one ancient machine still running on version 2003.
One day I got an issue logging to one of the remote servers via RDP. I asked their head admin to help me with the issue and he couldn't figure out why I can't log in either. He then asks me if this is urgent, I say it's not but I don't really have anything else to do right now. The perspective of me doing nothing must somehow offended the boomer admin and he said that he's going to tell me "a secret". He then gave me a login and password for an user that everything was running on. And I mean that literally, every single service they've had was running under this one, singular account. After the user/pass was revealed I was instructed to be VERY VERY CAREFUL when typing these login credentials, since mistyping the password three times locks the account and when the account is locked all services stop as well. Yes, you're reading that right, mistyping a password three times cripples the entire company. And it happened a bunch of times when someone else mistyped the password.
When I got home curiosity got the best of me and I tried to look up the IP address of one of the servers I used to work on. It was visible from the internet.
The "secret" didn't even turn out to be a secret at all because these login credentials were hardcoded in a great deal of applications. So in case the account was compromised they couldn't really rotate these at all without some serious firefighting, it would probably take a few days to get everything back up. Yet somehow they're still in business.
 
Something I am dealing with right fucking now:

me: I don't understand why you're entering the date into the event name when there's a date field. Can you explain it?
them: Sure, let's get on a call. When are you free?
me: Just a simple explanation will do.
them: when are you free?
me: Is it because they have multiples of the same event?
them: when are you free?
me: Please just tell me in the chat.
me: The one we're using right now.
them: *slack huddle noise*

They aren't even indian...

update: Explanation finally received. I understand even less now. God save us from marketroids...
 
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SIMON THE PIEMAN said:
Something I remembered from my first job.
It was a small company and they've had an IT/support department that would be setting up stuff like user accounts, spinning up new servers etc. Pretty much everything was running under Windows Server, with one ancient machine still running on version 2003.
One day I got an issue logging to one of the remote servers via RDP. I asked their head admin to help me with the issue and he couldn't figure out why I can't log in either. He then asks me if this is urgent, I say it's not but I don't really have anything else to do right now. The perspective of me doing nothing must somehow offended the boomer admin and he said that he's going to tell me "a secret". He then gave me a login and password for an user that everything was running on. And I mean that literally, every single service they've had was running under this one, singular account. After the user/pass was revealed I was instructed to be VERY VERY CAREFUL when typing these login credentials, since mistyping the password three times locks the account and when the account is locked all services stop as well. Yes, you're reading that right, mistyping a password three times cripples the entire company. And it happened a bunch of times when someone else mistyped the password.
When I got home curiosity got the best of me and I tried to look up the IP address of one of the servers I used to work on. It was visible from the internet.
The "secret" didn't even turn out to be a secret at all because these login credentials were hardcoded in a great deal of applications. So in case the account was compromised they couldn't really rotate these at all without some serious firefighting, it would probably take a few days to get everything back up. Yet somehow they're still in business.
Click to expand...
The fact that this sort of thing is the foundation our modern economy and society is built upon is truly frightening.
 
Raise your hand if you've ever had this exchange.
>Indian coworker: Hello do you have time for call now
>You, 90 seconds later: Sure
>Indian coworker: *doesn't respond for another hour*
 
SouthernBitchBob said:
Raise your hand if you've ever had this exchange.
>Indian coworker: Hello do you have time for call now
>You, 90 seconds later: Sure
>Indian coworker: *doesn't respond for another hour*
Click to expand...
With Indians you have to act like you are superior to them and only do them favors once they beg for it. Otherwise they will think you're beneath you and treat you like shit.
 
Importing an old database. The previous DB admin is the biggest asshole humanely possible.

He'd fucking duplicate data across several tables because he was too fucking to set things up properly. You want to know the balance for a bill? Well, you take that bill id, you use it to get all line items in a separate table, then use those line items to get the details of the line items in a different table, and then finally use that to get the price of the line item details. Four fucking tables to see a client owed 2$ for a coffee. I had to sit down and physically draw all of the connections and write notes about what/where fields actually were.

Motherfucker was also too good to use Unix timestamps for dates. Instead he counted days since he started the database February 23rd 2012. He did not tell me when the database went live, I had to guess based on the changelogs actually having timestamps. Also had a very creative conversation with HR and my boss about why there was a new function called "retardCalc" that suddenly appeared. Honestly, they should have just been happy I chose a nicer word than what I initially wanted to go it.
 
Betonhaus said:
Is there a corp-speak way of saying "you should know this figure it out yourself"
Click to expand...
I work at an IT company with some relaxed customers (of course with a few horrid ones).
But most of our issues are more with the account managers.
These retards sell shit and do not think about the consequences, because afterwards its our problem.
So when they sell something, they do not note it down, and ask us what they sold them.
We used to give them reports about this but eventually we told them to fuck off and to it themselves.

I really fucking hate corp speak, but a good "Fuck you, do your job." does not only make them fuck off, but they also tell their colleagues they shouldn't ask you for help.

Even spoken with HR about this and explained that the more you dump shit that does not belong to our department, the less we are meeting our SLA's (Had to explain what an SLA was). Never heard a word about it afterward.
 
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Dumpster dived waifu said:
He'd fucking duplicate data across several tables because he was too fucking to set things up properly. You want to know the balance for a bill? Well, you take that bill id, you use it to get all line items in a separate table, then use those line items to get the details of the line items in a different table, and then finally use that to get the price of the line item details. Four fucking tables to see a client owed 2$ for a coffee. I had to sit down and physically draw all of the connections and write notes about what/where fields actually were.
Click to expand...
Am I retarded or are you just describing 3NF?
 
The local vending machines here have one of those fancy digital interfaces installed.

Really nifty; you can change language, ask for help, access developer panel, etc.

Nobody bothered to change the dev password (12345) and I usually just unlock the showcase door via dev panel and help myself to a drink.
 
I just love it when you're hard at work on a new feature, you've got all the requirements, client seems happy, everything seems to be going to plan, and then:

1758707462410.webp


Turns out our sales guy decided to upsell them on a feature that was never planned for. AGAIN.
 
teriyakiburns said:
I just love it when you're hard at work on a new feature, you've got all the requirements, client seems happy, everything seems to be going to plan, and then:

View attachment 7956660

Turns out our sales guy decided to upsell them on a feature that was never planned for. AGAIN.
Click to expand...
In my experience clients tend often to make last minute requests/expecting more then what was agreed upon initially at no additional cost.
Sales rep degenerates are pretty much there for selling, regardless if their ground men get worked off to the bone for an occasional thank you gift (<10$) for the Holidays.
 
Have some decency and don't let these kinds of people abuse you and your goodwill. If you haven't made any promises about being able to deliver these insane requests then it is not your problem that you won't be ready at the promised time. Trying to make it work just opens you and your team for further abuse and encourages your boss/the sales people to try and get away with even more bullshit. Sometimes you need to let the system fail for your own good.
 
Indian management strikes again. What's the correct way to start a project? If you answered:
  1. Come up with an idea pulled from some last-minute annual objective last year, your rectum, or as a knee-jerk reactive need to swap out some license you no longer want to pay for.
  2. Don't consult your engineers at all.
  3. Imagine a deadline and attach it to this project that so far has no solid goals and hasn't even been risk-assessed.
  4. Fling the project at your under-manager, who will proceed to fling it at his engineering team no questions asked.
  5. Meet any variation on "what?" with "You're professional engineers, figure it out!"
Congratulations, you'll go far in an Indian-led org.

Does it matter that the third party application you *must* integrate with has a several bugs that block you from doing this, or that fixes to these bugs depend on either forking this entire third party project or waiting for bugfixes that aren't on your timeline? Silence! You're engineers. Figure it out. Get more engineers to look at the problem. I want the entire thing done in a month.

The saddest part is, I know how Indian management works. Failure means those stupid fool engineers couldn't hack it under my amazing leadership. Success means I get results under ridiculous demands. I get a promotion either way.

Some days it's like working for Miranda Priestly minus the competence. "Where was that piece of paper I had in my hand yesterday?" "Why is no one rea-dy." "What's that? I don't want that. Have the book on my desk by four."
 
Doubleposting from my soapbox, don't care.

Working in IT has kind of made me...hate Kubernetes and its offspring? Don't get me wrong, I understand the uses orchestration and containerization have and how powerful they can be. I hardly ever see it used that way. IME, Kubernetes is used as a mysterious tool that ~other teams~ manage so *I* don't have to understand what infrastructure is or specify any requirements. It's a magical Jarvis AI that just does the networky and storagey and autoscalingy things without input so application developers can skip over learning anything about infrastructure or, god forbid, infrastructure as code. The best projects I've worked on had the app developers *also* do the infrastructure.

It leads to application teams demanding magic Kubernetes dust to just "do it" and bitching about needing to work with this, yes, complex daycare software that doesn't solve the problem they *actually* want solved: "bibbity bobbity ChatGPT, create a server perfectly fit for me, never ask questions, make me read a manual, or crash plz", which ends up working out exactly the way you think. And in organizations that treat K8S as some enterprise service instead of a team that works directly with a specific application (and thus knows their requirements since they're tightly integrated)? Mess.
 
I had a customer suggest that social security numbers should be a requirement to create and manage online accounts. You got me fucked up.
 
>Be the only one working a 5 day work week from our skilled servicedesk
>Other colleagues are going to school 1 or 2 days in a week.
>Teamlead that does fuckall and is busy with a booster toward a new function is telling me to deal with it.
>Tell her that I am not cleaning their shit because I am working fulltime.
>"Oh well your not cleaning their shit"
>Dont meet the SLA's
>Get blamed for not tardhandling them enough.
>Tell her this is not my function and I am resigning.
>Gets very "Corporate acceptable" pissy with me.
>"I guess we are not able to give you the structure YOU want." And I politely agree.
>Leaves the room slamming the door.

Her boss wants to speak with me now.
Not sure what they will offer me or if they just tell me I am being difficult and tell me to fuck off.
 
The Windows 11 rollout for our big retarded client is crawling along so well that my boss sent the owners of that company an email saying ‘We told you what the timeline was for Win 10 EOL, we offered structured deployment of hardware and proper IT inventory and logistics, you penny-pinching cocksuckers said “No” to all of it, so when your insurance company shits fire down your throats, tell them we told you to get your shit together and you fucks refused.”

Sometimes life in the Wild West gives you a chuckle now and then.
 
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