network admin / designer work stories thread

[dimeroll]

Post your stories here, conquests, failures, realizations. Also link sites / blogs w/ related articals.

Why: Knowledge.

[dimeroll]

One story i got. I was working with an ex army tech on a job a ways outside my county. We we halved the 80 an hour we made, but my partner had some shitty debt some some mother fucker. So the said mother fucker is bitching about his keyboard not working sometimes and then deciding to work at others, and wouldn't buy a new one cause he loved the one he was used to. So for 3 hours my partner is soldering the fucking keyboard up and down making connections while i'm just sitting around pist @ no payment. Eventually i looked at the connection on the computer and it was an old AT type w/ a ps/2 adapter on it. I go in my toolbox and hookup an AT to ps/2 adapter i keep around and the keyboard error on boot dissapeared, for good.

I srsly wanted to slap the guy i was working with directly in the nuts.

[Grover]

Here's why I don't work without a contract anymore

I got a job off Craig's List, and this guy was stressing me over getting the job starting right away and didn't want to deal with a contract. He was offering a lot, and I was broke, so I was cash hungry. The job was going fine, we were meeting weekly and keeping in contact. He was paying me weekly, and my first 2 checks came in just fine, about $500 a piece. Then things start getting crazy. He went on trips a lot, and would cancel meetings on me, and start telling me what he wanted, and then turn completely around and call me at horrible times, like 10pm on a Sunday. He eventually racked up a $1200 bill, and said, "I dunno man, that's pretty steep" and I said, "well, that's great, but you're working me on off hours, and I'm courteous and even take some off the bill if I'm late, so the least you can do is pay this bill."

He stopped picking up my calls, stopped answering e-mails, and eventually just took off. Missed rent, fucking dick. His project has a nice concept, shitty fucking design though. Might be better if he didn't rip off designers.

[mhu]

being a network administrator for my own house at 15 years old was hell enough. My mom wouldn't get me the money to get wireless cards for all the computers in the house so for two rooms that had 2 comps each i had to ad-hoc them together and bridge them through the wireless on one computer, and any time it would run slow and my mom would be on the one w/o wireless she would start with the phrase "I PAY THE CABLE COMPANY ALL THIS MONEY AND THE INTERNET DOESN'T WORK???" when it was really just because she was cheap and we had shitty equipment.

not to mention the fact that for a month we had a wireless network set up but we were still on dialup, so i was sharing that connection through proxy server inside the house. It still amazes me that the speed only ran at 4 kbytes/sec, and that simple little things like loading a graphics heavy webpage could kick everyone in the house off of AIM.

[bling]

being a network administrator for my own house at 15 years old was hell enough. My mom wouldn't get me the money to get wireless cards for all the computers in the house so for two rooms that had 2 comps each i had to ad-hoc them together and bridge them through the wireless on one computer, and any time it would run slow and my mom would be on the one w/o wireless she would start with the phrase "I PAY THE CABLE COMPANY ALL THIS MONEY AND THE INTERNET DOESN'T WORK???" when it was really just because she was cheap and we had shitty equipment.

not to mention the fact that for a month we had a wireless network set up but we were still on dialup, so i was sharing that connection through proxy server inside the house. It still amazes me that the speed only ran at 4 kbytes/sec, and that simple little things like loading a graphics heavy webpage could kick everyone in the house off of AIM.

wow what a horrid life you have lived

[bling]

Here's why I don't work without a contract anymore

I got a job off Craig's List, and this guy was stressing me over getting the job starting right away and didn't want to deal with a contract. He was offering a lot, and I was broke, so I was cash hungry. The job was going fine, we were meeting weekly and keeping in contact. He was paying me weekly, and my first 2 checks came in just fine, about $500 a piece. Then things start getting crazy. He went on trips a lot, and would cancel meetings on me, and start telling me what he wanted, and then turn completely around and call me at horrible times, like 10pm on a Sunday. He eventually racked up a $1200 bill, and said, "I dunno man, that's pretty steep" and I said, "well, that's great, but you're working me on off hours, and I'm courteous and even take some off the bill if I'm late, so the least you can do is pay this bill."

He stopped picking up my calls, stopped answering e-mails, and eventually just took off. Missed rent, fucking dick. His project has a nice concept, shitty fucking design though. Might be better if he didn't rip off designers.

sounds pretty classic

[mhu]

then there was my mom, who would download anything that hit her inbox, then when the computer went haywire I would get grounded for "breaking the computer because i was trying to get around the parental controls"

then I would end up vindicating myself by stealing her AOL password and going into her email and printing out the offending message and showing her how much of a retard she was.

then there's the fact that being on dialup opens one's computer up to the rest of the internet without being behind a router, so i completely missed new years eve 2002 because i was trying to fix a virus that was debilitating the computer, and by the time I got it I was so excited I looked up and saw that it was 12:30.

[bling]

yeah man, nice life

you should have grown a pair and told your parents off

[mhu]

yeah man, nice life

you should have grown a pair and told your parents off

that happened, just it happened way too late.

[bling]

that happened, just it happened way too late.

yeah i know, that sucks

[shreal]

mhu im pretty sure most of us do that kind of shit for our family

i am my sister's FIX THE PRINTER AND THE INTERNET DOESNT WORK bitch

[Grover]

Yeah, if you're the nerd of the house, you become the IT guy for the house. That's my role around my dad's.

[cs2o7]

being a network administrator for my own house at 15 years old was hell enough. My mom wouldn't get me the money to get wireless cards for all the computers in the house so for two rooms that had 2 comps each i had to ad-hoc them together and bridge them through the wireless on one computer, and any time it would run slow and my mom would be on the one w/o wireless she would start with the phrase "I PAY THE CABLE COMPANY ALL THIS MONEY AND THE INTERNET DOESN'T WORK???" when it was really just because she was cheap and we had shitty equipment.

LOL my mom is the same way I hear it every day. we used to be on aol dialup and all I hear is "im switching back to fucking aol this is bullshit"

[mhu]

luckily i set everything up pretty well before I moved out so very little has gone wrong in the last three years that I haven't lived there. Only minor adjustments need to be done, and I just do those if I happen to be in town.

my sister keeps fagging up the computer that she got so i stopped reformatting it for her so she doesn't get to use it anymore. My mom password protected hers so that my sister can't use it either. I had to reformat it 3 times in 6 months so I just gave it up altogether and told her that she lost her privileges to use the internet if she can't keep a computer free of debilitating spyware for more than a few weeks.

it's not my fucking problem anyways I don't live there anymore.

[cit1]

I walked into a new clients office yesterday, an hour later walked out with a check. Prod, ahoy at cha boi.

[mhu]

my mom did set me up with a few jobs though when i was in highschool, just home network installs. Would make like $60/hr and it was way easy.

I got $120 for two hours of computer work when i was 16 once. my mom's friend had spyware from their daughters using the comp but didn't wanna do a reformat because he said his computer tech said that was an "extreme" option (lol@) so i just did safe mode then antivirus then spybot then hijackthis and it was done. It's amazing what people will pay for when they have no idea what they are doing

[reality]

wow what a horrid life you have lived

LOL

[dimeroll]

heh mhu i used to be the biggest dick possible when my mom would do some stupid shit on the computer and screw up her machine.

now she knows the difference between an exe and a doc or pdf and i ain't gotta do much of shit for tech work on her box.

"YOU DON'T OPEN UP THE EXE FILE YOU GOT IN YOUR EMAIL"

"YOU DON'T OPEN EXE FILES FROM GEOCITIES.COM, WOULD YOU DRINK AN OPEN COKE YOU FOUND ON THE STREET? NO? SAME THING!"

[dimeroll]

heh mhu i used to be the biggest dick possible when my mom would do some stupid shit on the computer and screw up her machine.

now she knows the difference between an exe and a doc or pdf and i ain't gotta do much of shit for tech work on her box.

"YOU DON'T OPEN UP THE EXE FILE YOU GOT IN YOUR EMAIL"

"YOU DON'T OPEN EXE FILES FROM GEOCITIES.COM, WOULD YOU DRINK AN OPEN COKE YOU FOUND ON THE STREET? NO? SAME THING!"

actually good practice how to talk to employees if i'm ever a network admin.

[mhu]

each time i got grounded from the computer, the internet / printer / something would magically stop working and i would magically forget how to fix it. The mighty hand of injustice would swing both ways in my parents' house.

[mhu]

here's a real one

when i worked at my neighbor's company in highschool i was kind of the computer guy for small things

well we got a new dell machine for a new office they put in, so i was setting it up. Everything worked fine until suddenly nothing would work regarding the LAN. I restarted, nothing. So, we do the install all over again, and after the third restart it would always do the same thing.

Get on the horn with dell support and because we bought a home machine and not business we got the indian call centers, they are calling it a bad onboard lan because the light is flashing, and i could only understand a third word out of the guy's mouth.

End result: after the third restart Norton Internet Security kicked on and would not allow any network traffic whatsoever, which works extremely well on roaming desktop server side profiles and logon and shit.

One entire day and 3 hours of unpaid overtime wasted, not to mention boss who was on the phone complaining to whoever on the other end that computer stress the shit out of him and he hates them.

All of the problems at that place were either caused by norton or the secretary who HAD to have AOL installed on the computer to check email and it would crash it at random.

The entire Norton suite has got to be the worst piece of software ever written. It causes way more problems than it solves. I had the same issues at LAN parties cuz my friend who was computer-impaired had his dad set up internet security and he couldn't connect to us for halo and shit.

[dimeroll]

here's a real one

when i worked at my neighbor's company in highschool i was kind of the computer guy for small things

well we got a new dell machine for a new office they put in, so i was setting it up. Everything worked fine until suddenly nothing would work regarding the LAN. I restarted, nothing. So, we do the install all over again, and after the third restart it would always do the same thing.

Get on the horn with dell support and because we bought a home machine and not business we got the indian call centers, they are calling it a bad onboard lan because the light is flashing, and i could only understand a third word out of the guy's mouth.

End result: after the third restart Norton Internet Security kicked on and would not allow any network traffic whatsoever, which works extremely well on roaming desktop server side profiles and logon and shit.

One entire day and 3 hours of unpaid overtime wasted, not to mention boss who was on the phone complaining to whoever on the other end that computer stress the shit out of him and he hates them.

All of the problems at that place were either caused by norton or the secretary who HAD to have AOL installed on the computer to check email and it would crash it at random.

The entire Norton suite has got to be the worst piece of software ever written. It causes way more problems than it solves. I had the same issues at LAN parties cuz my friend who was computer-impaired had his dad set up internet security and he couldn't connect to us for halo and shit.

zonealarm dude, or for treal shit there is this linux distribution

http://www.ipcop.org/

[dimeroll]

check this out, back in the 90s i worked at a local dial-up isp. my job was to walk winter texans and other idiots though the process of setting up dial up networking.

I got a call from some mexican who was completely uncooperative in fixing HIS problem. He was being a real wise guy who thought he was Neo from the matrix or some shit saying "you don't understand, i don't exist". After being told that about 5 or 6 times in responce to "what is wrong with the COMPUTER?" I told him to quit prank calling my office and hung up on him. It turned out he was representing a company that had about 10 hosting packages and several dial-up accounts. The jackass called up the owner of the ISP I worked at, a god damned Korean, and I lost my job because the wise guy was offended.

I got hired back at the company about two years later as an office clerk, I did my job bad ass and became good friends with the manager who trained me in about a week how to work the books. I would have invoices out 2 or 3 days ahead of schedual and had the books done badass. That same korean kicked me out saying "i want a secretary (woman) not an office clerk" working the books. I don't know why, i heard the indie rock tech w/ long hair there had to show his teeth to keep the korean from trying to braid it, no shens.

Anyway about a year later my manager quit the isp job cause he was sick of the korean's shit too. Every time the manager started a solid plan to make money and they wound up 20 or 30k into the process, the korean would pull out and cut losses.

When the manager quit he called me up and we ran an operation all over our area making 40 an hour at each stop. The only problem is that the last job we did, i put in about 10 hours running cable / installing windows / installing components / setting up tcp/ip and i didn't get anything in writing. I never saw that 400 dollars.

[A2_]

now she knows the difference between an exe and a doc or pdf and i ain't gotta do much of shit for tech work on her box.

difference? executable, the lot of em! ;P

[chad]

difference? executable, the lot of em! ;P

lol ;x

[Godmode]

Keep the stories coming.