[Closed] Please shoot me

Unlucky, sounds shit. Brilliantly expressed though, so ta for making me laugh.

My wife nearly lost 15 years pension contributions following an IT upgrade.

They didn't transfer her details, the only PC that would still run the old software broke and was binned by IT before anyone realised it had the only copy of the software on it...

Some bloke had kept a bit of microfiche 'for old times sake' and it happened to have some copies of her payslips on it that proved she'd made contributions.

We stayed calm for most of the 18 months to sort this out...

IBIS is still available read only, data frozen at point of closure, all time and project cost data is open to view, I suggest user error.

Fine here.

😉

Cheeky git 😆 Had to get a new password for IBIS, followed instructions after phoning 8080 to get new password, problem that function has gone and the phone message is out of date 😆

Just gave up on SOP after sitting on hold for 20 minutes.

😆

scratch my latest post, none of my time codes are recognised...

Brilliant 😆

ass jizz garglers

the only PC that would still run the old software broke and was binned by IT before anyone realised it had the only copy of the software on it

Having said that our head of IT has brought in a new job system, 3months in and lots of upgrades and it's still a steaming pile of unusable shite but no chance of returning to the previous flawed but still a million times better to use system - that is still available.

*yes IT departments can be shit and anyone have a bad day but I've seen [i]lots[/i] of other people's mistakes being blamed on IT.

I believed the bloke who told me. Apparently they got a shiney new replacement with Windows 7 on it but the software woudl only run on Windows 95 and no one could get IT to install such an old version of Windows on it and eventually gave up.

The personnel people seemed a bit 'these things happen' about the whole situation and the fact my wife was losing half her pension was just unfortunate collateral damage...

You try supplying a govt department with IT systems.. They are the ones with no clue and we get the blame.

Shut up Molly 😆 if the log in took 2.5hrs then I don't hold out a lot of hope for the rest of the system 😥

For time codes and project codes put ENV in front of most of them.

BTW no idea what you are talking I come on here to try and escape putting in all of my time sheets. 🙂

Why did it take 2.5 hours? They were probably told they needed X amount of computing power, but to try and meet economy targets they only paid for X/4 computing power. Guess what happens?

Oooh! It's been a few years since someone had a proper employee rant on here, it didn't go well for them.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang ... click, click, click

There you go 😐

Was that a proper rant??

Just learnt the ENV trick.

Molly how often do the end users get involved with the procurement and specs of a system? Settle down, there is a dear 😉

They don't, but if I had my way they would. The 'they' in my ranting is your managers, or more likely their managers' managers.

"Time - straight" was my issue, user error, I'm sure it's in the guidance

right, all up date, time sorted, projects reconciled. Posting on here whilst on hold has helped but now all my problems are solved I can do some proper work.

Thanks for the catharsis Mr Pig.

I hear that Molli 😆

no one could get IT to install such an old version of Windows on it and eventually gave up

bad IT systems are usually the result of poor/changing/vague business requirements or (occaisionally) failed testing.

IT is pretty black and white...'puters do what they are told to do so it's usually a case of them being told to do the wrong thing.

That said it's much easier to blame IT 🙂 !

Needs downloading to the clouds innit.

bad IT systems are usually the result of poor/changing/vague business requirements

Which is in turn a result of bad management, which is in turn a result of people thinking they know more about IT than they do...

IT is pretty black and white...'puters do what they are told to do so it's usually a case of them being told to do the wrong thing.

Yeah but working out what the right thing actually is CAN be a lot harder than it first seems.....

Pigface - I've recorded 14 hours on my timesheets so far under the "inputting time recording" code - yes I've done 2 full days on it so far.....

I had to bite my tongue speaking to SSCL today......

Don't think I'll be getting my standby/overtime payments this month... 🙁

In doing a bit of work for DWP in Sheffield, I asked the client if he had some presentation slides to keynote the session with. He siad he would bring a disc along with his chizzle on it, ready to go.

It was 2002, my laptop only had a CD/DVD drive and strangely, no matter how we tried the 5 and a quarter inch disc just wasn't going to cut it....

He was both serious and dissappointed.

DAJG

And please please please I hope Jabber never starts (may be too late though....)

With a name like Pigface I bet you are the Prime Minister's favourite civil servant 🙂

Which is in turn a result of bad management, which is in turn a result of people thinking they know more about IT than they do...

I find this - I don't think in some cases its managers thinking they know a lot about IT, it's not knowing what the users of the IT actually do with the IT they have and what they need/want to do - the people at the sharp end don't ever get asked..... 🙁

Ah, IBIS and the old 8080 number!! I feel your pain

The thing is, we as implementers have seen this a hundred times before, and we have a pretty good idea of how things will go down, and what'll be needed. But for some reason they rarely let us properly talk to the end users or experts. The managers want to 'own' the solution and control what happens.

It's usually just public sector that does this, for some reason.

He isn't my favourite Prime Minister though 😆

Cheers Teenrat, it is the replacement of IBIS that is causing so much vexation 😆 two weeks on holiday and I am way under the speed I need to be travelling at to be able to cope with this.

which is in turn a result of people thinking they know more about IT than they do...

As a civil servant, that was one of the best rants on here for some time. Judicious insults and spelling errors.

You appear to have an obsession with semen 😯

Why did it take 2.5 hours? They were probably told they needed X amount of computing power, but to try and meet economy targets they only paid for X/4 computing power. Guess what happens?

Performance is rarely about compute power these days 99% of the times it shitty code, poorly thought out business logic, poorly designed databases structures (agile development anyone?). if your application needs more hardware that is currently on offer then you are doing some serious processing

Eh?

Depending on how many users you have, you'll need certain specs to get decent performance no matter how good the code is, etc.

As stated, the vendors will generally have a fairly decent guidance on what those specs are based on the customer requirements. And again, as stated, often those requirements will be ignored to save costs or they've got the basic info wrong - eg number of users or more importantly number of concurrent users...

(agile development anyone?)

Depending on how many users you have, you'll need certain specs to get decent performance no matter how good the code is, etc.

Yep, so you say 'you need X' and they say 'we can only afford Y' but they still need a system and you still need to fulfil the contract.. so the managers usually find a way to fudge it, and the techies say 'this isn't going to work' and the managers say 'expecations have been managed' which is their way of saying stfu.

if your application needs more hardware that is currently on offer then you are doing some serious processing

I just implemented something using an off-the-shelf product that had already been sold. It had a particular set of requirements, and we were only given 2 cores and 4Gb RAM. That's not much these days, is it? Why so low? Because the physical machine was a monster, but it was running dozens of other apps at the same time in VMs. 4Gb was all that was left, and 2 cores was all the license they could afford.

So we had little control over the product, and no possibility of getting any more power.

On a related note, my daughter's gymnastics coach asked me yesterday how much it would cost to build a system to help her run the club - it would be easy, I just need to copy the [url= http://gesdep.net/es/index.aspx ]example football websit[/url]e she sent me the link to, change a couple of things, all done.

[img] [/img]

Molly how often do the end users get involved with the procurement and specs of a system? Settle down, there is a dear

molgrips - Member

They don't, but if I had my way they would. The 'they' in my ranting is your managers, or more likely their managers' managers.

They do where I work (also public sector). User representatives (cross section of actual end users / team managers / Business information teams etc) given guidance to produce a functional requirements spec, which is then graded against any competing products and this informs the decision of which product we recommend they buy. Same users are then involved in the rest of the project from contributing to the 'as is' and 'to be' processes to helping write test scripts and finally when the system is rolled out they are 'system champions' to help gain the acceptance of the new system amongst their colleagues.

Just heard we are the guinea pigs for this new system, so that may be why it is so glitchy

You appear to have an obsession with semen

Pig face - looks like I won't get paid my standby payments now, no one appears to be able to sort it out. 🙁

robdob that is what my wigout was about, standby over bank holiday weekend has gone in but no body knows how to figure out the overtime

My overtime hours have gone in but the daily payments in ICD just won't work, my TL authorises them but they are rejected overnight.

Yep, so you say 'you need X' and they say 'we can only afford Y' but they still need a system and you still need to fulfil the contract.. so the managers usually find a way to fudge it, and the techies say 'this isn't going to work' and the managers say 'expecations have been managed' which is their way of saying stfu.

So true

It's quite normal for really important corporate and public sector IT upgrades to be utter shite. I think there must be a clause in the contract somewhere.

We are the only part of the government sector using this at the moment. Guess nobody told us we were guinea pigs as well.