What grinds your gears?

[Nich]

Hmm, yeah i did some research on that too. I talked directly to the lady at taxation office and she gave me a form that asks for 3 forms of ID. categorises them as primary (passport, birth cert etc), and secondary (drivers licence, medicare, bank statement). All ID must be supplied by Australian organisations.

Oh just got a call from real estate agent. We sign the lease on a converted warehouse studio in fitzroy tomorrow! Yus! They asked for 8 weeks bond instead of the advertised 6 weeks bond, which is a hell of a lot better than asking us for an inflated weekly rent.

[Savage]

8 WEEKS bond!?!? Fuck - I thought 4 weeks bond and two weeks rent in advance was bad.

[Nich]

yeah, we are essentially paying 3 months rent in order to move in.

[Cyberbob]

Ah yea, between rent in advance and bond, we basically maxed out a $5k credit card getting moved into our place.

But grats! Fitzroy is pretty nice.. very arty

Be sure to check out Mana Bar on Brunswick street. It's a gaming bar

[TnT]

Ok, I'm sure I've raged about this before, but fuck it Ima do it again.

Popular music. FUCK OFF. Every fucking song has the same fucking beat, the 'lyrical content' is nothing more than a few words repeated over and over and over. If you break down pretty much anything in the top 10 in any country, they all are exactly the same. Manufactured paff with slick marketing, designed entirely to make some cunt rich, and not the cunt who is 'performing' said 'music'.

What happened? Where the fuck did we go wrong? When did music stop being about emotion and how it made you feel? Why do we have crap like Justin Beiber, One Direction, Nicki Minaj selling bucketloads of their cookie cutter by-the-numbers bullshit, yet people, actual musicians who've spent years honing their craft and their performance, writing songs that make you want to laugh, cry, get angry... barely rate a mention, because as soon as the flame is out on 'pretty boy du jour', A&R Executive X from compuhypermegaglobalcorp Y has now pushed the go button on the multimillion dollar marketing push for 'Pretty Boy X's latest single, (which sounds suspiciously like his predecessor 'Pretty Boy W's last single), to tell the masses what they'll like next...


/rage.

[Cyberbob]

There are those that want to make you laugh, cry, get angry.

Then there are those that want to get as rich and as famous as humanly possible.

[dylan]

customer: "oh hai we wanna change our wireless access password from 'AccessOurWAP123%^&' to 'access123'"
me: "umm ok...probs not the best idea but do you mind if I ask why?"
customer: "Well u see the public are finding it hard to type in"
me: "wait wtf you are giving this password to the public? you know you have, like, a whole back office infrastructure and servers with data on them and shit? and you are giving this to random people who happen to wander into your business?!"
customer: "ya but like i said they find the caps hard and shit"
me: "here is a thousand reasons why you shouldn't do that: 1 - 1000"
customer: "ha well the joke's on you buddy b/c we been giving out that password for ages and nothing bad has ever happened so just stfu and change it, why you IT guys always make excuses??"

I don't want to live on this planet any more

[Saladin]

Originally Posted by TnT

When did music stop being about emotion and how it made you feel?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emo_music ?

[chiQ]

Pounding headache, plus house is a tip, plus, weather is shitty. Can't sleep but too miserable to actually get anything useful done. Going foetal now...

[Rince]

Originally Posted by TnT

Ok, I'm sure I've raged about this before, but fuck it Ima do it again.

Popular music. FUCK OFF. Every fucking song has the same fucking beat, the 'lyrical content' is nothing more than a few words repeated over and over and over. If you break down pretty much anything in the top 10 in any country, they all are exactly the same. Manufactured paff with slick marketing, designed entirely to make some cunt rich, and not the cunt who is 'performing' said 'music'.

What happened? Where the fuck did we go wrong? When did music stop being about emotion and how it made you feel? Why do we have crap like Justin Beiber, One Direction, Nicki Minaj selling bucketloads of their cookie cutter by-the-numbers bullshit, yet people, actual musicians who've spent years honing their craft and their performance, writing songs that make you want to laugh, cry, get angry... barely rate a mention, because as soon as the flame is out on 'pretty boy du jour', A&R Executive X from compuhypermegaglobalcorp Y has now pushed the go button on the multimillion dollar marketing push for 'Pretty Boy X's latest single, (which sounds suspiciously like his predecessor 'Pretty Boy W's last single), to tell the masses what they'll like next...


/rage.

worse than that: welcome to the internet generation, so that even without compuhypermegaglobalcorp PR exec XYZ, people like Rebecca Black become household names


The shit my kids listen to is just pants (yeah yeah yeah, old man syndrome, the only reason you don't get our music is because you don't like it). Last year I was given tickets to the NZSO - not normally my thing, but seeing 120 musicians on a single stage playing from the same sheet of music written by ONE person 100 years ago was awesome.

[aR Que]

Originally Posted by dylan

customer: "oh hai we wanna change our wireless access password from 'AccessOurWAP123%^&' to 'access123'"
me: "umm ok...probs not the best idea but do you mind if I ask why?"
customer: "Well u see the public are finding it hard to type in"
me: "wait wtf you are giving this password to the public? you know you have, like, a whole back office infrastructure and servers with data on them and shit? and you are giving this to random people who happen to wander into your business?!"
customer: "ya but like i said they find the caps hard and shit"
me: "here is a thousand reasons why you shouldn't do that: 1 - 1000"
customer: "ha well the joke's on you buddy b/c we been giving out that password for ages and nothing bad has ever happened so just stfu and change it, why you IT guys always make excuses??"

I don't want to live on this planet any more

should have suggested changing the password to password, you know, for ease.

[Cowboy]

Originally Posted by aR Que

should have suggested changing the password to password, you know, for ease.

Just make it an open access point.. that way they don't even have to walk into the office! Easy!

[TnT]

Insurance Brokers... Mate I've taken your services on to advise me of the cover I need. When my business is burgled, and I ring the insurance company to make a claim for the stuff stolen what I don't want to hear is 'You don't have cover for that event sir'... Like I *REALLY* don't want to fucking hear that.

At least the photography gear is covered under the other policy.

[Cyberbob]

oooo motherfuckers.

That shits me too. Been paying policy for soo long, and then ya find out you're not covered for specific scenario XYZ when it happens.

[StN]

AAarrrrgggghhhhh!!!!

A mate at the pub was waxing because his shitter don't work no more. Insurance suggested he get a plumber in to sort out the bits between his house and the road and that will trigger his emergency accommodation allowance, which is only valid for a year - so when his house is eventually rebuilt (easily a year away) he will have to stump up living somewhere else all on his own.

/waits for GT...


The annoying bit is that we got ours fixed almost a year ago, and we'll need to live somewhere else in the nearish future too...

[crocos]

Originally Posted by StN

AAarrrrgggghhhhh!!!!

A mate at the pub was waxing because his shitter don't work no more.

Reading that after reading this... yeah.

[TnT]

Originally Posted by Cyberbob

oooo motherfuckers.

Oh man I nearly fucking hemorrhaged when I went,
Me: 'Ok fine, obviously that policy is not worth the paper it's written on, here's a different policy number for the stuff I cannot afford to replace'...
CSR:'Oh yes sir, see you have section 13 coverage which is accidental loss or damage, not burglary'....
Me: 'WHAT?!?! *ok deep breath don't make the guy hang up on you*... so when my broker assured me that and in his words, 'your gear is covered anywhere in Australia for anything' under this multirisk clause, he actually meant everything *EXCEPT* burglary?"...
CSR: 'I'll just check with my manager'

I'm actually paying quite a lot of money for insurance and now I'm sitting here going... so I'm paying all this money to *not* have cover for the actual reason I wanted insurance in the first place? That's a bit fucked. Fortunately CSR seems to have his wires crossed and the gear is covered. But when he said that, I kinda had that 'time stood still' moment where I could feel the blood vessels in my forehead and neck expanding...

'So is there anything else I can help you with today?'. It took quite a bit of self control not to blurt out 'Yes give me back the well over $5k I've paid you cunts for this insurance that doesn't actually cover me for the thing I wanted to be covered for'....

If I'd had just picked the policy myself, I'd feel like I was a tool and didn't get the right product for my requirements, but I didn't, I relied on a 'professional' who obviously isn't as good as I thought he was.

Edited for rage induced grammatical and spelling errors.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by dylan

customer: "oh hai we wanna change our wireless access password from 'AccessOurWAP123%^&' to 'access123'"
me: "umm ok...probs not the best idea but do you mind if I ask why?"
customer: "Well u see the public are finding it hard to type in"
me: "wait wtf you are giving this password to the public? you know you have, like, a whole back office infrastructure and servers with data on them and shit? and you are giving this to random people who happen to wander into your business?!"
customer: "ya but like i said they find the caps hard and shit"
me: "here is a thousand reasons why you shouldn't do that: 1 - 1000"
customer: "ha well the joke's on you buddy b/c we been giving out that password for ages and nothing bad has ever happened so just stfu and change it, why you IT guys always make excuses??"

I don't want to live on this planet any more

Dunno, I'm gonna play devil's advocate here and say... why are you being an IT Mexicant when you could be an IT Mexican?

IT costs that company money. Having customers - that is, people who aren't part of the company - makes that company money. Being nice to people and making them happily-disposed towards the company is often a key part of getting those people to decide to become customers. Marketing, in other words.

So, rather than looking at this from an IT point of view and shitting yourself about the potential security disaster that could result from giving Wifi access to the public, why not see it from a marketing POV: making people like the company might help them decide to be customers or make them decide to keep being customers, and giving them wifi is a way of making life easier for them and people feel positively-inclined towards companies that make life easier for them, and it sounds like front office have been giving away Wifi access already, so why not make it as easy as possible for everyone and mitigate the potential harm?

Start from a position of "Wifi access is going to happen whether I like it or not because that's good customer relations" and then work backwards to how you can make it safe, rather than sperging out about how the front office staff are retards. Why didn't you say to your customer "hey let me think about it for a few minutes and then I'll get back to you with a proposal as to how we can accomplish what you want without endangering the internal infrastructure of the company?"

I mean, I dont know what your relationship is with this outfit - you refer to them as a customer rather than as "front desk" so I presume you're outsourced 3rd-party support. But I would have seen this as an opportunity to leave YOUR customer with warm fuzzy feelings about how helpful you are by helping them give THEIR customers warm fuzzy feelings about them.

Fuck, setting up a wifi hotspot DMZ isn't rocket surgery. Having a customer think "fuck I hate IT, what a bunch of unhelpful cunts" and give away access to the internal network unmonitored anyway probably ain't the greatest outcome.

[TnT]

That said, the CSR was actually really good, given the bad news on my part I'd not reacted well, and immediately sworn 'You mean I'm not covered for burglary, you have got to be fucking kidding me?!', he didn't get all 'if you continue to use bad language I'll be forced to terminate the call' on me, just took it in his stride. I apologised for the bad language, and later again for getting intense when he told me the other policy wouldn't cover me.

Down side, Laptop and cash, not covered, upside, photo gear is. Lappy was 3 years old anyway, probably would've given me $8.32 replacement for it...

Not a great week...

[Ab]

(catches up on thread) dude, thefuck? That's homidical-rage-inducing shit right there.

[TnT]

Originally Posted by Ab

But I would have seen this as an opportunity to leave YOUR customer with warm fuzzy feelings about how helpful you are by helping them give THEIR customers warm fuzzy feelings about them.

Stebe really has gotten to you hasn't he.

[Ab]

I know, do something trivially easy that makes the customer happy, crazy shit.

[xor]

I try to avoid the cynical attitude of desktop support, it's an easy trap to fall into and very poisonous.

It is hard not to sometimes though, some end users can be very tough

[TnT]

Originally Posted by Ab

(catches up on thread) dude, thefuck? That's homidical-rage-inducing shit right there.

Yeah man I'm now re evaluating ALL my insurance, if this had've been home and a bunch of music gear walked out the door, and they pulled either 'no burglary cover' or 'sorry you need to specifiy that $3k guitar we won't cover it', you'd be hearing about my reaction and the ensuing bloodshed on the national news...

This could've been a total disaster, as it stands it's a pretty fucking major annoyance, but more importantly it's a wake up call. Check your insurance, make sure it actually covers you for stuff you want it to.

[Rince]

Originally Posted by Ab

bunch of IT User world blah blah blah.

you've been out of IT Support too long.....

[JiggaRoll]

Originally Posted by Rince

you've been out of IT Support too long.....

He does have a point. It's not that hard to setup something for them so public users can at least have internet access. They are getting it anyway in a way that isn't secure.

It then saves the headache of having the receptionist or whoever giving access to their network to any random that walks in and they don't feel like they are living in the dark ages where they can't offer external users wifi access.

[smudge]

Yes, you maybe the CEO of a "national industry body" but I find I can't bring myself answer support query emails when they are totally formatted comic sans. Regardless of the industry sector you are in. Sorry.

>_<

[aR Que]

ahh Whut?

[pxpx]

Originally Posted by Ab

IT costs that company money. Having customers - that is, people who aren't part of the company - makes that company money. Being nice to people and making them happily-disposed towards the company is often a key part of getting those people to decide to become customers. Marketing, in other words.

So many IT based people need to learn this.

[tor]

Originally Posted by pxpx

So many IT based people need to learn this.

Help desk guys work under the directions set out for their department. In a small organisation they can make decisions like "enable free wifi for customers" in a fairly ad hoc fashion and that is why most small companies have horrifically bad IT.

If the company is listed or has contracts around IT then a help desk guy enabling free wifi is the kind of action that will often get them fired / lead to a catastrophic fuck up.

End users probably need to learn this.

Helpdesk guys are normally doing their job as they are instructed to do it. No one else in the company gets to just do what they want, why would the helpdesk guy be any different?

If the end user does not know enough about technology to understand why it could be a bad thing (enabling LAN access would probably be a bad thing) and the helpdesk guy has not been instructed to create a free hotspot then it will be a bad communication situation sure.

But it is not really the helpdesk guys fault.

Either party could suggest to their managers that free access to the customers would be good, neither is likely to be allowed to do it.

[xor]

Initiative can go a long way

Especially in IT, there's a fucking truckload of different ways to achieve the same goal.

[aR Que]

The pie-man drives around in a van and brings us (the lowly workers) pies!
He gets money,
We get pies,
Perfect.
UNTILL!
Someone (a shop owner, to be sure) has complained about his trading and called it 'hawking' so now the pie-man can't come to our workshop (or anyones) to sell us his sweet, sweet pies because the council has issued him with a 'cease and desist' notice. What happened to free trade man!

just because your cafe sucks arse at producing tasty food.

[Wally Simmonds]

Originally Posted by xor

Initiative can go a long way

Especially in IT, there's a fucking truckload of different ways to achieve the same goal.

And the way it would probably go down would be something like 'setting up a secure access point with access to limited resources is going to cost x' and 'ticking the box that says no password is going to cost y', the person funding these things would have gone with y. Got to tighten your belts, people!

In a years time when someone wanders out with a truckload of information using the 'open' wifi, I doubt very much that the person signing off the cheques is gonna man up.

"HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW! THIS IS WHAT WE PAY YOU PEOPLE FOR!"

[CCS]

Originally Posted by aR Que

The pie-man drives around in a van and brings us (the lowly workers) pies!
He gets money,
We get pies,
Perfect.
UNTILL!
Someone (a shop owner, to be sure) has complained about his trading and called it 'hawking' so now the pie-man can't come to our workshop (or anyones) to sell us his sweet, sweet pies because the council has issued him with a 'cease and desist' notice. What happened to free trade man!

just because your cafe sucks arse at producing tasty food.

That's pretty shitarse. Sounds anti-competitive to me. I reckon it'd be a sweet job to be the pie man. Drive around in a van full of pies. If I were a pie man, I'd had a big fibreglass pie sign on the roof of the van. I'd call the venture Tasty Pies. Says it all really. Or maybe just Pie Man.

[Stalk3r]

Originally Posted by CCS

That's pretty shitarse. Sounds anti-competitive to me. I reckon it'd be a sweet job to be the pie man. Drive around in a van full of pies. If I were a pie man, I'd had a big fibreglass pie sign on the roof of the van. I'd call the venture Tasty Pies. Says it all really. Or maybe just Pie Man.

fucking, lets do it, keen as fuck, i like pies and i like driving, keep em out of arms reach while im driving and we should be instaprofit

in my own gear grind, Lead logging out of nzgames before bringing his machine in so i cant type " I heart penis" under his username

[chiQ]

Originally Posted by aR Que

The pie-man drives around in a van and brings us (the lowly workers) pies!
He gets money,
We get pies,
Perfect.
UNTILL!
Someone (a shop owner, to be sure) has complained about his trading and called it 'hawking' so now the pie-man can't come to our workshop (or anyones) to sell us his sweet, sweet pies because the council has issued him with a 'cease and desist' notice. What happened to free trade man!

just because your cafe sucks arse at producing tasty food.

He probably just needs to get the right licence. If Mr Whippy can sell ice cream from a truck then it follows that other foodstuffs may be similarly handled.

[Saladin]

I've run out of Pie related puns!

[leadinjector]

what grinds my gears is paying 200 something dollars to replace my stupid router and power supply

what oils my gears is that stalkers asian boy wont be beaten tonight

[aR Que]

Hey, what gives stalker? I thought you said i got to have a turn tonight?

[crocos]

Are you azn? No? Then it's probably your turn to get beaten.