[Closed] Web monkeys - when you say 20 minutes...

We can't comprehend any time beyond 20 minutes; it's as long as we can concentrate on one task for.

oh look - a squirrel!!

Rachel

I find holding all those in a given profession jointly responsible for individual failures the best way of managing my resentment. It's worked on the Bankers really well. And estate agents. And the lawyers. Web monkeys deserve the same treatment I reckon.

It was back up and running a long time ago, they just don't like you so are taking the piss.

Maybe it was fixed in 20 mins but you can't hurry a pint and a burger after?

You know anybody who can network 8 connection machines and debug 2 million lines of code for what I bid for this job?

Maybe it was fixed in 20 mins but you can't hurry a pint and a burger after?

I do know someone who was so pleased that they'd managed to fix a bug with their work intranet so quickly on a friday afternoon that he let himself knock off early and it was only half way through a bottle of wine that he realised he never actually turned the intranet back on...

I find holding all those in a given profession jointly responsible for individual failures the best way of managing my resentment. It's worked on the Bankers really well. And estate agents. And the lawyers. Web monkeys deserve the same treatment I reckon.

Well I get the flak for what certain journalists have got up to, so yep - sounds fair to me.

Whilst you are waiting for the system to come back up you can read the [url= http://bofh.ntk.net/BOFH/ ]BOFH[/url]

You can read it either as a morality tale, or a warning.

You know anybody who can network 8 connection machines and debug 2 million lines of code for what I bid for this job?

And it's back.

I did quip via email to a colleague that "20 mins usually means 2 hours" when she told me they had started the work.

I was right almost to the minute, which indicates they're probably reading our emails.

Because in more than 10 years of working in digital media I don't think it's ever been the case.

working? 🙂 What agency, just in case we've talked and not known it. We need a STW secret handshake or something

20 minutes means we don't have a frickin clue but need to tell the people in designer glasses and beards something to get them off our back to sort the latest shell-shock-style patchfest 😀 - and I prefer the term infrastructure monkey, more techinicalish, innit?

2 million lines of code

Read that as coke and was in awe of your recreational substance capacity/fringe benefits!

It's because they are sick of conversations like this:

"How long will it take?"
"I don't know."
"How can you not know?"
"Well, changing the thing won't take long, we just need to find out what thing is wrong."
"How long will it take you to find what's wrong?"
"How the ***k should I know, I've no idea what it is yet?"
"Well I need an estimate."
"Well, last time it took about 30 mins to figure out what was wrong."
"Ok.."

25 mins later..

"You said it'd be done in 30 minutes! You people are useless, you don't know how to work with people.. bloody geeks.."

So now they just give you a random figure to make you go away.

Probably delayed by people phoning up asking how long it will take 🙄

It's because they are sick of conversations like this...

These conversations are very familiar to me. Sometimes with customers. But usually with the boss. It never sinks in.

Anyway, it's well accepted practice in the IT industry to take any quoted times given to you, and double them. Kinda like Internet bike mechanics.

Our IT guys are famous for sending out emails to tell you the system is back up and running!

Hi boys! we love you really 🙂

What it actually means is 19 minutes until I've just about done it whereby I'll hit a problem that will become a rabbit hole to a load of other, bigger, problems.

What is the agreed time as per SLA?

molgrips is spot on 🙂

When you say “I don't know how long” people get pissy, so you take a punt… when it might be a 5 minute job, or half an hour, or maybe even longer… say twenty minutes. Estimates are estimated.

The 20 minutes is probably a carefully thought through response. Short enough not to result in serious escalation and a shower of management interference, but long enough to buy some time for investigation. Say two hours and before you know it your on "war room" calls every 15 mins and having to produce a pretty PowerPoint "dashboard" showing the incident progress.

what molgrips said ^

but often worse...

[i]them1: "oh my god the $THING is down!"[/i]
me: "I know, I'm looking into it"
[i]them1: "If you knew why didn't you tell us?"[/i]
me: "because we only noticed while you were storming over here"
[i]them1: "well how long will it take to fix?"[/i]
me: "I don't know, not sure what the problem is yet"
[i]them1: "but you said you were looking into it"[/i]
me: "I was"
[i]them1: "so you must have some idea?"[/i]
me: "not yet, I was looking into it, then you came over"
[i]them1: "well can you give me an estimate?"[/i]
me: "not really, at this point anything I say is going to be made up"
[i]them1: "well I need something to tell people"[/i]
me: "ok, well at this point you know as much as I do so either you can give me 10mins to investigate and see if I can give you a better idea or you can make something up..."
[i]them1 "hurrumph! ok, i'll be back in 10 minutes"[/i]
me: "ok, ill let you know how I get on"

2 seconds after they've left...

[i]them2: (who co-incidentally sits a few desks from them1) "Oh my GOD! the $THING is down!"[/i]
me: "I know, I'm looking into it"
[i]them2: "If you knew why didn't you tell us?"[/i]
me: "because we had only just noticed"
[i]them2: "but it's been down for 5 minutes what have you been doing!?"[/i]
me: "having this converstion with them1"
[i]them2: "well how long will it take to fix?"[/i]
me: "I don't know, not sure what the problem is yet"
[i]them2: "but you said you were looking into it"[/i]
me: "I was"
[i]them2: "so you must have some idea?"[/i]
me: "not yet, I was looking into it, then them1 came over, and then you came over"
[i]them2: "well can you give me an estimate?"[/i]
me: "not really, but I said the them1 I'll have a look and update in 10 mins"
[i]them2: "hurrrumph! OK, ill be back in 10 mins"[/i]

2 seconds after they leave...

RING RING...

ignore phone and look at problem...

RING RING

ignore phone and look at problem...

a couple of minutes later...

[i]them3: "why aren't you answering your phone?"[/i]
me: "because the $THING is down"
[i]them3: "Oh dear god! the $THING is down?!"[/i]
me: "yep, can I get back to you, I really need to deal with this"
[i]them3: "sure, do thing1 and thing2 know about this?"[/i]
me: "yes"
[i]them3: "why haven't they told me?"[/i]
me: "I really don't know, sorry"
[i]them3: "but it's been down for 10 minutes!"[/i]

STOMP STOMP STOMP as them1, and them2 return together....

[i]them1: "it's been 10 minutes, do you have an update?"[/i]
me: "not yet, sorry"
[i]them2: "but you said it would be sorted in 10 minutes"[/i]
me: "no, I really didn't I said I would give you an update in 10 minutes"
[i]them3: "why didn't you tell me about this?"
them1: "we were trying to find out from him what's going on first"
them2: "so do you know what it is yet?"[/i]
me: "no, not yet"
[i]all the thems: "hurumph!"[/i]
me: "look, give me 10 minutes uninterrupted to let me investigate and I'll be able to give you an update"

All the thems walk of tutting

9 minutes later...STOMP STOMP STOMP

[i]them1: "is it fixed yet?"[/i]
me: "no not yet, but I think I've worked out what's wrong so hopefully wont be long"
[i]them1: "how long?"[/i]
me: "I don't know, hopefully about 5 mins if it is what I think it is"
[i]them1: "ok, ill let them2 and them3 know"
[/i]
6 mins later...STOMP STOMP STOMP

[i]them2: "them1 said it would be fixed in 5 mins, what's going on?"[/i]
me: "I said hopefully 5 mins, if it was what I though it was, unfortunately it looks a bit more complex"
[i]them2: "so when will it be fixed"[/i]
me: "I don't know at the moment, I need to investigate further, it looks like $THING is broken because of $OTHERTHING"
[i]them2: "how long will that take?"[/i]
me: "not sure, give me 10 mins to speak to the people that look after $OTHERTHING"
[i]them2: "hurumph!"[/i]

Phone up the people that look after $OTHERTHING..

me: "hi, our $THING appears to be down as we're getting an error from $OTHERTHING, are you aware of any problems at the moment"
[i]people: "oh yeah, we've got some planned maintenance going on on $OTHERTHING at the moment"[/i]
me: "oh? planned? we dodn't get any notification through about that"
[i]people: "we told them3 last week"[/i]
us: "riiiight, when does the maintenance window end?"
[i]people: "should be back in about 5 mins"[/i]
me: "thanks!"

STOMP STOMP STOMP.. as them1 them2 and them3 return

[i]all the thems: "so, any news?"[/i]
me: "yes, it's down due to $OTHERTHING, there's scheduled maintenance going on"
[i]them1: "what? why didn't you know about this?"[/i]
me: "we didn't receive any notification about it, but apaprently they told them3 last week"
[i]them3: "oh that? I didn't think that was important as thats not our system"[/i]
me: "but ours communicates with it and is dependant on it"
[i]them3: "oh, so how long until it's fixed?"[/i]
me: "they said it'll be back in about 5mins"
[i]them2: "ok, so it'll be fixed in 5mins?"[/i]
me: "no, $OTHERTHING will be back in about 5 mins, then I may need to do some work to get $THING going again"
[i]them2: "how long ago was this?"[/i]
me: "about 10 mins actually"
[i]them1 "what! so why aren't you fixing $THING"[/i]
me: "because you came over here to ask what was going on"
[i]them1: "so can you fix it now"[/i]
me: "i'll go and have a look"
[i]all the thems: "hurumph!"[/i]

2 mins later while they stand around watching...

[i]them1: "is it fixed yet?"[/i]
me: "no, give me a minute it's still starting up"
[i]them2: "can you let us know when it is fixed?"[/i]
me: "yes, ill drop you an email when it's fully sorted"

they all leave...

a few mins later $THING is back and you're watchign it like a hawk to make sure all OK when... STOMP STOMP STOMP

[i]them2: "is it fixed?"[/i]
me: "yes, it looks to be..."
[i]them2: "why didn't you tell us?"[/i]
me: "because I was just keeping an eye on it for a few mins to make sure it was all ok"
[i]them2: "hurrumph! I want an incident summary on this so i can tell bigcheese what happened"[/i]
me: "no problem, I can have that to you in about 10mins"
[i]them2: "ok, 10mins!"[/i]

3 mins later... STOMP STOMP STOMP.

[i]them1: "is it fixed yet?"[/i]
me: "yep, been back for about 5 or 6 mins now"
[i]them1: "what?! why didn't you tell me?"[/i]
me: "well I was keeping an eye on it to make sure it was working OK, and then them2 came over to ask if it was fixed so I haven't had a chance to yet...."
[i]them1: "hurumph!"[/i]

RING RING RING

me: "hello?"
[i]them3: "is it fixed yet?"[/i]
me: "yes, been up almost 10 mins now"
[i]them3: "what?! why didn't you tell me?"[/i]
me: "well I was.."
[i]them3: "oh never mind, as long as it's working"[/i]

STOMP STOMP STOMP

[i]them2: "I haven't got that summary yet?"[/i]

and then my head exploded*

*obviously this story bears no resemblance to any real events or people I have worked with, or currently work with 😉

*obviously this story bears no resemblance to any real events or people I have worked with, or currently work with

No problems today, obviously 😆