I almost died reading this. This was posted yesterday on ZipRecruiter

[-]

ryanmj26@reddit

It is funny but sometimes upgrades are very expensive to small companies like mine. We have 2 CNCs that use XP and 4.1. New CNCs are like $300k and for my company that would be break the bank. So here I am with unopened copies of Windows XP and Windows 7 bc the we also have a Win7 computer that acts as the FTP to the XP.

[-]

Ashamed_Promotion_37@reddit

Good old days.

[-]

bitslammer@reddit

Plot twist....job is in a Technology Museum.

[-]

pointlessone@reddit

Sign me up. Taking care of old hardware in a curated display style environment sounds like the dream.

[-]

bitslammer@reddit

No kidding. Break out the Novell and OS/2 floppies!

[-]

AdMysterious1190@reddit

I'll be in that. I love Novell! 😜

[-]

Papashvilli@reddit

This has to be the case.

Or your commute is via DeLorean.

[-]

bananaphonepajamas@reddit

I'd seen some places that still use XP and older stuff, mostly in aviation, when I was looking at co-op jobs. Usually they have some software that doesn't work on anything after XP and is considered irreplaceable.

From what I saw they normally end up with two networks and two computers each, with the XP stuff not internet connected.

[-]

igloofu@reddit

Yeah, I was the head of IT for a small aerospace company in the late '00s. We have 5 of 6 XP machines that were kept kicking just to run controls systems (for autoclaves mainly). They were completely air-gapped though.

[-]

TheStorytellerTX@reddit

What about a bank with 75 ATM's? I've seen some crash to the BSOD and you could tell it was Win2K or even XP.

[-]

Papashvilli@reddit

I mean Fed is still using COBOL so anything is possible.

[-]

Breitsol_Victor@reddit

Well they are until the doggy boys rewrite it all in python or something.

[-]

CaptainBrooksie@reddit

I used to deploy updates to Windows XP ATMs using SMS 2003 back in 2008

[-]

xXxLinuxUserxXx@reddit

rocket science in 2008. nowadays only cool if the sms is sent by an LLM on top of kubernetes ;)

[-]

bot403@reddit

Is SMS like whatsapp or something? :)

[-]

thunderbird32@reddit

Lots of ATMs used to be OS/2, and its 'successor' eComStation

[-]

BigFrog104@reddit

OS/2 = still more secure than Windows 10 and 11 :)

[-]

pascalbrax@reddit

I miss OS/2 ... it was so cool...

[-]

Cheomesh@reddit

Should have been Windows Embedded, yeah?

[-]

bananaphonepajamas@reddit

Haven't worked in banking, can't say.

[-]

Shazam1269@reddit

Are they at least using a virtual machine running on new hardware?

[-]

natefrogg1@reddit

We did that for an ancient CAD software, it worked pretty well but the user would get real confused between their operating system and the virtualized one. For you and I that is no big deal, for them it was quite confusing, much better than keeping new old stock hardware around and alive!

[-]

Shazam1269@reddit

Yeah, I struggled with explaining why they can't drag a document out of their virtual window on to their desktop.

[-]

OcotilloWells@reddit

Who here has never at least clicked something in the wrong window?

[-]

natefrogg1@reddit

That’s not really what I meant at all. Sorry for any confusion there.

[-]

OcotilloWells@reddit

I was really joking, I didn't take your post as throwing rocks at end users. :-)

[-]

wolfej4@reddit

We have a tube system at my hospital, similar to a bank, controlled with a PC that runs XP

[-]

notHooptieJ@reddit

yeah, but mac G4s and OSX 10.2...

[-]

mc_it@reddit

As recently as 2023, my office had a POS system from a snack vendor that used XP.

They always forgot to disable the touch screen inputs when they were doing remote support after 530pm...

[-]

Box-o-bees@reddit

Or your commute is via DeLorean.

I'd immediately buy a bunch of stocks, then quit the job and make them send me back to the future.

[-]

Papashvilli@reddit

Probably have some sort of Looper clause for if you use company equipment improperly.

[-]

Ok-Pickleing@reddit

Or like severance with elevator scanners.

[-]

shaggydog97@reddit

The sad thing is that I'm qualified and experienced in most of that

...I'll just crumble into a dust pile now.

[-]

deadzol@reddit

I hate FileMaker… atleast they didn’t ask for FoxPro.

[-]

Impossible_IT@reddit

I worked with software created using FoxPro. I hated supporting it. Had to call tech support for that software and it was a loop, press this, press that and I finally got a human after about 15-20!minuted of their automated merry-go-round and I was pissed. I told the helpdesk tech that their software was a pie or of shit. He said I don’t have to take this and he was reporting me up the chain, to the project manager and contracting officer. Boy I thought I was going to get fired. Told my supervisor about what transpired. She said she had my back if I got in trouble with the CO.

[-]

Tymanthius@reddit

Never be ugly to the front line. It's not on them. I've said the same thing to many a front line person and never had them get mad at me b/c I was clear 'this isn't about you, but this policy/software/ivr/whatever sucks'.

[-]

daganner@reddit

The only mob I’ll ever get “ugly” with are pushy cold call sales attempts. Had one try to go over my head to the CEO and managing director, told them in no uncertain terms to pound sand.

[-]

Impossible_IT@reddit

That was very early in my IT career and I’ve learned from that experience. I’ve been in IT 26 years. But I was pissed trying to get this collections software to work for this user that needed it right away and I got caught in an automated merry-go-round.

[-]

slonk_ma_dink@reddit

It wasn’t ACCPAC/SagePro 7.x was it? Shit is a fuckin nightmare

[-]

Impossible_IT@reddit

No, was some type of museum/curator collections software.

[-]

BalderVerdandi@reddit

I'll see your FoxPro, and raise you a Lotus 1-2-3.

Or would you prefer AmiPro? Or Enable (or Enable O/A)?

[-]

deadzol@reddit

Now for clarity it was FoxPro 2.5… but you may still have me.

Never had to sysadmin Lotus was only a user but heard stories.

[-]

Breitsol_Victor@reddit

Hey now. Fox and Clipper were good stuff.

[-]

catwiesel@reddit

i still have a few customers that still work with filemaker. of course they did not pay for the network license, but need to work on the files with multiple people and from home...

but. you know. the webapp replacing this will be here. any moment. surely.

[-]

BeagleBackRibs@reddit

Working on a FoxPro 6 migration right now. Only a couple decades behind...

[-]

deadzol@reddit

Wait… Right Now!! I’m so sorry.

[-]

PhishKnut@reddit

Me too, buddy. Me too. /cries in COBOL

[-]

trisanachandler@reddit

Looks at my parent, one eye cries in COBOL, the other in FORTRAN.

[-]

jhs0108@reddit (OP)

I'm begging my Dad to go back into that stuff.

His first job was when Citigroup was just starting out with FORTRAN and COBOL.

Now he works in Ruby and gets paid peanuts.

[-]

Aboredprogrammr@reddit

He should definitely job search on COBOL. The expertise is literally dying!

10 years ago, I was contracted to create a data link between a COBOL-driven mainframe and a few other systems. We were going fine until suddenly the client said they needed to take a month off. I was already paid, so I said no problem and worked on other things. After that month, they asked for 3 months. We scheduled a face to face meeting to discuss the project and they said they had to take a break because their only COBOL programmer died (80-ish years old) and they were having trouble finding a replacement.

[-]

peacefinder@reddit

That someone with such a scarce and bankable skill doesn’t want to use it shows how miserable those were to work with

[-]

pdp10@reddit

Cobol does nothing but implement business requirements.

Furthermore, these environments aren't going to use Agile development. It's going to be Waterfall, so the programmer gets to wait 4 more months to see their work integrated with everyone else's, and then another 2 before release.

[-]

Breitsol_Victor@reddit

Could you please write it correctly? COBOL is the name. May I never read it again.

[-]

CCHTweaked@reddit

OR,

you just compile overnight and patch live on the mainframe.

no one looking over your shoulder who understands Cobol.

if you break shit, it's just more job security.

[-]

vogelke@reddit

The first few Google hits for "cobol bank jobs":

6 days ago
Mainframe Engineer - COBOL, DB2, CICS, VSAM [on-site/see locations]
Regions Bank
Atlanta, GA
126K-161K a year
Full-time, Paid time off, Health/Dental insurance

14 days ago
Software Engineer 2 (HOGAN CIS Mainframe Cobol)
U.S. Bank National Association
Cincinnati, OH
105K-136K a year
Full-time, Paid time off, Health/Dental insurance

Of course, it might suck to work at a bank.

[-]

shaggydog97@reddit

No, from my friends that have. I hear it's a great gig. No jeans though.

[-]

smares21@reddit

You don’t get a FT job with cobol expertise. You go into consulting.

https://cobolcowboys.com

They bill at upwards of $600/hr and pay their consultants $150-200/hr.

[-]

shaggydog97@reddit

Ugh. How about RPG on an AS/400? I'm talking pre iSeries days, lol.

[-]

shaggydog97@reddit

Also, dragging around twinax, now that I think about it. But we phased that out after we setup our Novell Netware server!

[-]

BCIT_Richard@reddit

We still have a Twinax controller for a department that insists on keeping the dummy terminals, and the company no longer provides support, if I remember correctly my manager said we're just one a few companies left still running it from what he was told and they dropped the product completely.

[-]

smoothvibe@reddit

But with COBOL you are the hero in the finance sector, right? Heard they pay hefty premiums there.

[-]

jhs0108@reddit (OP)

My first IT endeavors were trying to revive my folks Windows 2000 machine. Then I learned what happens to hard drives after 13 years of use.

[-]

PhishKnut@reddit

On my second day at my first full-time job as an IT professional, I was on a team upgrading workstations at next county over's health department from DOS 3.3 to Windows 3.11. Most of the users had never used a mouse.

[-]

Greedy-Lynx-9706@reddit

they were all proficient in command line?

[-]

Breitsol_Victor@reddit

Open WordPerfect to use its file explorer to open a lotus spreadsheet.

[-]

pdp10@reddit

Few seem to know this, but Line-of-Business applications in the pre-Mac/GUI era were almost all menu-based. DOS and Netware? Menus. IBM mainframe CICS screens? Menus. AS/400? Menus. Unix full-screen? Menus.

Menus are easy to build in batch file or shell script. Many use menu-builder apps, which produced, e.g., those nice Borland-look DOS menus.

Chain together a few sequences of menus and one can build workflows, or even perhaps a Line-of-Business application itself. Gopher, the pre-Web client-server information protocol, was heavily mennu-oriented, as it lacked Hypertext.

[-]

Greedy-Lynx-9706@reddit

I didn't (and I'm +50 lol)

[-]

catwiesel@reddit

solitair and especially minesweeper were included in windows to entice people to use the mouse more and get used to it and learn right/left click

[-]

shaggydog97@reddit

I remember building the menus in TCL for the AS/400. The programs were in RPG, which is one step above a punch card.

[-]

PhishKnut@reddit

Proficient enough to run the batch file that opened their word processor and CRM apps.

[-]

OcotilloWells@reddit

Then they got addicted to Solitaire, I'm guessing?

[-]

PhishKnut@reddit

I recommended that they play it to get used to how the mouse works.

[-]

pdp10@reddit

At the time, users were expected to quickly come up to speed when changing between diverse systems from competing vendors.

Seemingly today, users will scream and push back when a vendor puts in a "ribbon" or keeps silently installing an "AI assistant".

But we know its mostly performative, because those same users spend their own money on touchscreen devices that don't run any of the same applications.

[-]

SplooshU@reddit

What... What happens to hard drives after 13 years of use? My WD Black is still chugging along after 10 years, but I mainly use it for backup data storage. Takes forever to access though.

[-]

marcos_mageek@reddit

Funny. I was just, for the fun of it, checking some 5.25 floppy drives last used in 1996. They work! I could read the files from my high school homework...

[-]

Ashe410@reddit

I recently found my dad's old 1984 Apple IIe, drives, and printer, along with the disks he typed up a book on in ~1988. Everything, including the printer, worked flawlessly. Pretty impressive considering they've been wrapped in a trash bag in a dampish basement for 35 years give or take.

[-]

sheps@reddit

Bit rot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_degradation

[-]

Cheomesh@reddit

I mean, XP didn't vanish that long ago.

[-]

hurkwurk@reddit

One of my gigs at a school district basically covered that. The late 2000s were a weird time.

[-]

Alienate2533@reddit

All I see is Financial and EOL OS’s. Run.

[-]

xored-specialist@reddit

The company is lazy, or they have to get a job description changed by approval. It happens and looks bad. But some don't care. I worked at a place where you had to go in front of a committee to update a job description. Then, sometimes, over the next few weeks, they would tell you the results. I fought so hard to get DOS out of the job description so we could post a job.

[-]

Ok_Echidna9923@reddit

Salary is probably also as out of date as the hardware

[-]

thatto@reddit

It's a nonprofit.

Raiser's Edge, Financial Edge, Patron Edge

Are all Blackbaud products.

They stopped selling boxed software ~15 years ago.

[-]

Primal_Thrak@reddit

I supported it for about 10 years at an NPO as an IT director. It was decent software at the time, and by that I mean it was a horrible product but the best on the market in a sea of garbage. Like Jira is to the Dev community now.

[-]

SirCEWaffles@reddit

Anymore than an Excel spreadsheet that's linked to an Access DB that's 30gb? Oh and the AccessDB has to be relinked each time it's used cause it's also shared through SharePoint, and there's 3 user that have had sync issues so they have the [Foldername] (x) and don't want it fixed.

[-]

Primal_Thrak@reddit

Not sure my eye has twitched so many times reading a comment before.

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georgiomoorlord@reddit

Can confirm Jira is a pile of hot garbage but there's not much better in the large scale work tools. Service now is worse.

[-]

metalder420@reddit

What exactly makes Jira hot garbage? I think why you mean is your set up is hot garbage.

[-]

flunky_the_majestic@reddit

The slowness of the interface. The inconsistency of the search. The unannounced UI changes.

And if you manage your instance and pay the bill, everything about managing the instance and paying the bill. The business side is duct taped together.

[-]

metalder420@reddit

1) Slowness isn’t Jira but your set up. 2) I don’t have any problems with searching at my company 3) again, been using Jira for years and the UI changes have been minimal.

[-]

georgiomoorlord@reddit

There certainly was a lot of nonsense going on before i got there that's for sure.

[-]

in_use_user_name@reddit

Snow sucks, but jira is way worse.

[-]

Rollingprobablecause@reddit

TBH, all the new JIRA/Confluence updates have been wonderful. I find that when people start complaining about it, it's not the tool most of the time it's all the process that gets jammed into it, etc. Project managers are notrious for this.

"A fool with a tool, is still a fool" is something I live by.

[-]

spaetzelspiff@reddit

Couldn't agree more.

Jira can be as simple as you want it to be. Just an issue summary and description if that's your workflow. Do with that what you want.

What's the alternative? Phone call? Email? Slack? Drive by? GT absolute FOH with that.

Anytime the morons get responsibility over issue templates, screens and workflows and required fields, chaos ensues.

Give your teams autonomy over how they manage their work, and leave that ITIL bullshit with ServiceNow.

[-]

tech_london@reddit

Good quote!

[-]

georgiomoorlord@reddit

That is true. If we didn't have a million and one project managers wanting graphs they know we can't do and we end up having to do them anyway life would be sweet.

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Rollingprobablecause@reddit

Yeah I spend a lot of time keeping our systems incredibly simplistic - if I need complexity, I do it myself in a way it doesn't interrupt people (EX: JIRA Atlas, Structure, etc. if I need something conveyed differently)

Pretty much keep my teams focused on Epics/Stories/Tasks, use tagging and GitHub integrations and move on.

[-]

L0kitheliar@reddit

I like how customisable ServiceNow is. Sure it's a pain to work with... But you can do so much with it

[-]

DarthJarJar242@reddit

I disagree with Service Now being worse. My current place has it after spending 10 years on Jira and it's a million times more manageable.

[-]

adrabo_CLE@reddit

I will say of all the ITSM I’ve been inflicted with I hate Jira the least.

[-]

georgiomoorlord@reddit

That's actually fair. The UI does a lot and looks good. The issues i have with it are beneath the surface. Like how thsir API doesn't respond to the same permissions their UI does. And how their Clone button isn't a function in of itself.

[-]

allegedrc4@reddit

Surely it can't be that hard to simulate post-it notes.

[-]

wild-hectare@reddit

I felt that Jira comparo

[-]

Primal_Thrak@reddit

Yea I was working in Data Science a few years ago and had to use/support it. Painful.

[-]

Breitsol_Victor@reddit

Now hosted on MS Azure - RE NXT, FE NXT. Not sure about patron edge.

[-]

JustOneMoreMile@reddit

Blackbaud…well that’s a name I didn’t expect to see today…

[-]

leepeyton@reddit

Why is it when you said Blackbaud 'Fortunate Son' started playing?

[-]

JagFel@reddit

No joke right there, I just had a PTSD flashback.

Previous life I supported a nonprofit independent school running Raiser Edge and Financial Edge, plus a homebrew SIS made in FileMaker Pro.

I move to the other side of the country in leaving that job.

[-]

tech_london@reddit

No wonder they are non profit, non excitement, non pay increase, non security updates

[-]

thatto@reddit

The real payment is the warm fuzzy feeling for continuing the mission of the nonprofit entity. Not paying bills.

[-]

NordicGold@reddit

Or an educational institution.

[-]

mrcomps@reddit

Non-profit for the poor sucker that ends up supporting this mess...

[-]

tuxedo_jack@reddit

Raiser's Edge, Financial Edge, Patron Edge

Weren't those bought out by Abila / MIP / Sage years ago? Good god, I haven't seen that in... almost 7 years.

[-]

CaptainZhon@reddit

I use to support Financial Edge, it was for a nonprofit that the for-profit company owned

[-]

fresh-dork@reddit

i was going to make a joke about working in a museum, but it turns out that's about right

[-]

Site-Staff@reddit

I hope so. Imagine getting 20yo wages adjusted for inflation. $200kyr?

[-]

post4u@reddit

I'd take care of 75 users running Windows 2000/XP for $200k. Sign me up. Lol

[-]

uprightanimal@reddit

Patch Tuesday would be a breeze!

"What's the update compliance for this month?"
"100% of available patches deployed!"

[-]

ImmortalTrendz@reddit

384 vulnerabilities unpatchable

[-]

Ok-Pickleing@reddit

*shutters in cybersecurity *

[-]

Background_Ice_857@reddit

*shutters in cybersecurity *

does that mean you close the windows so people can't peek at your monitors or sumpin

[-]

Cheomesh@reddit

*puts on ISSO hat* Mitigating conditions are as follows: Systems are secured in a strongroom with authorization 8675309. Systems are stand-alone and not inter-networked, managed individually with unique administrative accounts. Systems are encased in concrete...

[-]

Ok-Pickleing@reddit

https://youtu.be/6WTdTwcmxyo?si=4vvopcnQ1QbX30Xf

[-]

Cheomesh@reddit

Alas the only meme number I know that's not too inappropriate hah

[-]

me_myself_and_my_dog@reddit

It's ok, they are all plugged into a token ring network, with dial up Internet.

[-]

fencepost_ajm@reddit

"How do we protect against data exfiltration?"

"128kbps upload speed. If something's being uploaded everyone is going to know it's happening."

[-]

CCHTweaked@reddit

Security through obscurity!

You can't hack it, if you can't reach it!

[-]

tech_london@reddit

It is like going to South Africa and having a shag bare back

[-]

pascalbrax@reddit

And half of them requires Powershell to be exploited which cannot be installed in any way.

[-]

colossalpunch@reddit

Can’t have any vulnerabilities if you don’t look for vulnerabilities! taps forehead

[-]

Mnemotic@reddit

Accepted the risk.

[-]

crysisnotaverted@reddit

Some people actually revived Windows Update for XP: https://legacyupdate.net/

[-]

aes_gcm@reddit

XP boxes are airgapped, marked as N/A

[-]

davidbrit2@reddit

I keep hoping I'll be like the Cobol guys now, and eventually make a quarter mil with my extensive SQL Server 2000 knowledge. :P

[-]

Stonewalled9999@reddit

I took COBOL, I never got offers over 40K

[-]

csanburn@reddit

Companies using COBOL don't like to spend money. That's why they're still using COBOL.

[-]

KnowledgeTransfer23@reddit

They don't until they need someone to fix their COBOL. Then their tech debt comes knocking in the form of two mobsters with cigars and a crowbar.

[-]

jbglol@reddit

You took a class on COBOL, or you actually worked on COBOL? Big difference...

[-]

BCIT_Richard@reddit

This, I used to work as a contractor in a Card manufacturing company, they paid out the nose for COBOL programmers and this was almost 10 years ago.

[-]

zebula234@reddit

I know a COBOL programmer, dude has retired like 5 times now. The $$$ keeps pulling him back.

[-]

cyborgspleadthefifth@reddit

that's what I'm hoping for in the last third of my career, that by the time I need to slow down I can make a living supporting "ancient" equipment that no one raised on smartphones and AI will know how to fix

one day I'll need to crimp a crossover cable to save the day, I just know it

[-]

bot403@reddit

Kinda like this, but you're swinging in to save the day on a self-crimped crossover cable?
https://xkcd.com/208/

[-]

niomosy@reddit

Same but Solaris and maybe AIX. Every now and then I glance at a tab I've got up for z/OS docs and training, though.

[-]

PrincePeasant@reddit

There's big $$$,$$$ in COBOL and RPG now.

[-]

Booshur@reddit

Running on modern hardware it would probably perform pretty well. Didn't they make a 64bit version of xp? Maybe 2kpro?

[-]

catwiesel@reddit

there was xp 64 bit but good luck finding drivers for it

[-]

Booshur@reddit

Haha fair point!

[-]

Stonewalled9999@reddit

Xp64 was based on Server 2003 kernel - software and driver support was a beech on it. I ran XP64 on my laptop from 2007-2009 (I hated Vista)

[-]

BadSafecracker@reddit

I still have a laptop that I run XP64 on. (It's dedicated to one thing and not on 24/7.) Absolutely love it. I'll run that until it absolutely doesn't work anymore.

[-]

kahran@reddit

All that to run Half-Life 2 in 64bit mode for me. Maybe improved CPU performance by 15% lol

[-]

ridley0001@reddit

And the Far Cry 64 bit patch that was just AMD marketing rubbish.

[-]

alpha417@reddit

They did.

[-]

IRedditOnMyPhone@reddit

More accurately - they crippled Server 2003.

[-]

catwiesel@reddit

ill take 2000 and xp over 11 any day...

just because its new, doesnt mean its better. with all the enshitification going on... the opposite may be true.

if only one could put xp in the web without getting a petridish of viruses before the cable is all the way in. and get certified and insured.

one can dream.

[-]

mad-ghost1@reddit

Exactly my thought . But you gotta be battle proved with Xp and 2000. Dust of the old certs 😂😂😂

[-]

post4u@reddit

I could manage XP/2000 with my eyes closed. I'd bust out my 2002 copy of Norton Ghost and go to town.

[-]

hangin_on_by_an_RJ45@reddit

hell yeah. It used to be easy. Back when you could manipulate profiles more, too. I hate Microsoft for taking that away (or at least making it so much harder that I haven't figured out how to do it anymore..)

[-]

thunderbird32@reddit

I'm a vintage tech hobbyist, this sound like a dream job, lol.

[-]

Dezideratum@reddit

Free money - can't support what doesn't work lol.

[-]

token40k@reddit

get paid in peanuts and handshakes

[-]

popeter45@reddit

and being the scapegoat when they get hacked

[-]

igloofu@reddit

But I wanted a peanut...

[-]

KagariY@reddit

Get paid with exposure /s

[-]

Ok-Pickleing@reddit

You can die from exposure

[-]

Ssakaa@reddit

Is that what they call it when the CEO exposes himself to the company every christmas party?

[-]

Baselet@reddit

I was thinking more along the lines of radiation exposure

[-]

Elminst@reddit

I read this as "peanuts and milkshakes" and was like, that sounds nice.

[-]

Maelkothian@reddit

Minimum wage hasn't gone up that much since that gear has gone lol 😁

[-]

JonathanPuddle@reddit

This was exactly my job, 15-20 years ago.

[-]

Breitsol_Victor@reddit

I had RE, FE and NetCommunities before we went to hosted. Since they moved to NXT I haven’t had much to do with it.

[-]

fourpotatoes@reddit

We went from RE7 and NetCommunity (but not FE) to Altru. I think we skipped NXT due to the need/desire to run something custom from JCA.

[-]

JonathanPuddle@reddit

Wow... NetCommunity, I completely forgot about that mess.

[-]

JonathanPuddle@reddit

Same, I moved on before the NXT migration.

[-]

JonathanPuddle@reddit

Honestly, good times.

[-]

namocaw@reddit

This post must be from 2004/2005. IDK. I looked it up and it was posted by "Rishabh RPO" in NYC and their website is down. The only online presence left is the SM accounts for the HQ in Gujarat.

[-]

yarg321@reddit

I've worked with enough art orgs and non-profits that I can almost read the tea leaves of what's happening here. This is actually an interesting issue (assuming I'm seeing it properly). They almost certainly have some custom integrations, scripts, and workflows built out in Blackbaud and in Filemaker that are tying them there. But after a full assessment, I'd isolate the old workstations on a Secure VLAN and restrict internet access so we don't get owned, or even see if we could convert the old systems to VMs we could isolate. I bet they have poor BDR, so that would need to be addressed. Given they're using such outdated versions they could almost certainly move to contemporary, open-source versions of software and maintain similar functionality...

It would be a fun puzzle for a proactive admin.

[-]

Gorby_45@reddit

I started in IT with MCSE2000. About to retire soon (M63)

[-]

TacodWheel@reddit

Was the job for a remote village in Africa?

[-]

jhs0108@reddit (OP)

It was for a remote island that you probably never heard of. Manhattan

[-]

Gorby_45@reddit

I just bought the island. Was only $26. Bought it from native american…

[-]

Icy_Dream_3028@reddit

Sounds exotic

[-]

frocsog@reddit

Home of the Nacirema people.

[-]

Cheomesh@reddit

Heck, link it to me, I'll apply hah

[-]

Whyd0Iboth3r@reddit

Oh, that must be by Madagascar.

[-]

Site-Staff@reddit

Urban jungle.

[-]

PNWSoccerFan@reddit

Concrete jungles. Wet dreams tomatoes.

[-]

njpa2018@reddit

Take the job. Anyone running that tech and still affording the rent/fees/taxes is obviously a nosho money laundering deal. I’d commute to the city everyday for that.

[-]

JeOlso@reddit

Went to the Company Info section to learn more about them and it seems as though they "spare no expense".

"This means that Rishabh BPO will focus on getting value for their customers by investing their own resources in the short-term so that the clients experience the value of working with Rishabh BPO over the entire engagement."

[-]

olinwalnut@reddit

You would be surprised but I went to a shop that liked that I had a lot of experience with PowerPC Macs as even though Apple Silicon was a thing, they still had two old cranky PowerMac G5s that were running QuickTime Pro to do subtitles on videos and their one customer only liked how QTP rendered them.

It was nuts.

[-]

Hdys@reddit

Netscape and ie 3.0 as well

Intranet powered by altavista

[-]

Otto-Korrect@reddit

Must know how to put those little 'under construction' gifs on a web page.

[-]

aes_gcm@reddit

I miss the scrolling text, auto-playing music, and visitor counters.

[-]

pascalbrax@reddit

and the guestbooks, the first victims of the spam bots.

[-]

aes_gcm@reddit

I genuinely miss this age of the Internet, when the bar was much lower because anyone could hand-code HTML into a functional webpage. The bar is much higher now, and everyone uses templates and CMS frameworks. It felt more personal, less commercial. But I'm glad auto-playing music and auto-scrolling text disappeared.

[-]

saige45@reddit

So you won't be adding an animated Netscape Now and/or Internet Explorer image link(s) to the footer of your page?

[-]

aes_gcm@reddit

Don't worry, I still have "Secured by McAfee" in the bottom left corner.

[-]

saige45@reddit

as of February 21, 20125???

[-]

EggsInaTubeSock@reddit

DancingSpiderman.gif

[-]

aes_gcm@reddit

Isn't that the one that seems in sync to practically any music?

[-]

EggsInaTubeSock@reddit

It sure is! Also count on the webpage taking an extra 2 minutes to fully load.

[-]

Mister_Brevity@reddit

Blinky text and midi r&b jams

[-]

HerfDog58@reddit

Their website is hosted on Geocities.

[-]

1RedOne@reddit

Maybe one day. All I can do now is add a bunch of cool dragon ball z fireball gifs as horizontal rules

[-]

Otto-Korrect@reddit

Omg that would be so cool!!!

[-]

TonalParsnips@reddit

“Please take me to Google”

[-]

ShawtySayWhaaat@reddit

gif

[-]

Silence_1999@reddit

Sounds kinda fun though.

[-]

bruce_desertrat@reddit

Did they offer time machine commuting allowance so you can shuttle back and forth to the 90's?

[-]

jekksy@reddit

Maybe they’re Air-Gap’d

[-]

Stygian_rain@reddit

Attack is Russia just got the biggest hard on ever reading this

[-]

YellowOnline@reddit

if the pay is good, this is an opportunity to pull that organization into modernity. I love such projects.

[-]

OpenScore@reddit

And each computer for media files has:

Winamp Real Player Flash Player Shockwave plugin Quick Time

Chat comes down to:

MSN Messenger Skype AOL Messenger ICQ Yahoo Messenger

Tom could probably be your new online friend.

Did i miss anything else?

[-]

faulkkev@reddit

Probably were frozen in cryochamber and just thawed out.

[-]

LastTechStanding@reddit

That is ransomware attack waiting to happen

[-]

lusid1@reddit

Copy-pasta. IT guy retired and they dug out the job posting that hired him. in 2003.

[-]

immortalsteve@reddit

this reads like the first job I ever took in the tech field

[-]

FensterFenster@reddit

Let it die, that is the only way it gets fixed.

[-]

halodude423@reddit

I'm at a small NFP hospital and it looks pretty much like us. We're at least on windows 10 but the other applications 100%.

[-]

Breitsol_Victor@reddit

See if your foundation folks will go to hosted RE NXT.

[-]

halodude423@reddit

We're on emr/ehrs that were outdated 10 years ago, not software update wise but features and current tech wise. We still have seperate ones for inpatient and outpatient (Paragon and eCW). Hell oncology is on paper.

[-]

Breitsol_Victor@reddit

Ouch. That hurts my head.

[-]

ilrosewood@reddit

Did they accidentally repost a job listing from 2005 instead of 2025?

[-]

Math_comp-sci@reddit

I've encountered this sort of thing before. In all likely hood the person who was supposed to write up the requirements to send to HR to post online, never followed through, so HR just used what they could find in the company's file share instead. If you want practice interviewing you should apply because they are not getting more than a small number of applicants.

[-]

deyemeracing@reddit

Ah, Windows 2000... the most awesome and stable OS ever. I was sad when I had to upgrade our servers. 2003 was s*storm, and we ended up going to 2008, then 2008R2 for a long time.

[-]

SPMrFantastic@reddit

Was the pay offered from that Era as well?

[-]

xixi2@reddit

Listen you all keep saying "To be in tech you gotta be learning new things every year and be on top of the industry news!" but soon anyone that's got recent experience in XP will be in high demand and rewarded for never learning anything

[-]

zeroibis@reddit

36k, in office 12 hours 5 days a week and on call the rest of the time.

[-]

pakman82@reddit

I keep tapping to see if there's more info.. .. for personal Indemnification, I hate zip recruiter. I recall it wanted me to pay to see more jobs, or something. Then I tried working with a friend who does recruiting for a few special industries, and he showed me what he goes through finding resumes, and trying to help some customers get applicants.. and he will PAY them for results matching 3-4 word phrases, and out of 400 or so these reports, get 5-7 that actually by any human logic come close. On the other hand, the companies and technologies he's working with, do have some terminology that overlaps a great deal of others and hasn't changed in 30 years... Just like the poster of this advert.. it gets hard to find people that want to touch older stuff.

[-]

cillam@reddit

It seems like they took the same description from the last time this job position was open 20 years ago. LOL.

[-]

fnordhole@reddit

I'M QUALIFIED !!!

[-]

6-mana-6-6-trampler@reddit

Let's get you to bed, grampa.

[-]

fnordhole@reddit

It's cold, and there are wolves.

[-]

DarkSkyViking@reddit

[-]

AntelopeDramatic7790@reddit

"I'm sorry, are you from the past?" \~ Roy Trenneman

[-]

Coffee_Ops@reddit

Give them a break, their IT capital expense budget is probably $5 and a piece of string.

[-]

NNTPgrip@reddit

Guy that did it before for 25 years+ finally got pissed off or died.

This was the job listing he originally responded to, back in the day.

No one else knew what to even update now that said dude is dead/gone, so they just posted the same shit from 25 years ago.

[-]

Bodycount9@reddit

Raiser's Edge. That application before they went cloud based was so much awful all rolled into one. Took me half of a day to install it on one user's desktop. I was so happy when they went to the cloud. Just needed to install centrix connector and I was done.

[-]

DukeOfRadish@reddit

Wow... File Maker Pro and Windows XP. Makes you wonder how a company this far behind survived to be this far behind.

[-]

OpenGrainAxehandle@reddit

Sounds like a job for firewalls, proxys, and honeypots. I'd do it.

[-]

TimmyzBeach@reddit

Wow, that gives me some serious flashbacks. I hated supporting some stupid sales person's FileMaker Pro database on a Power Mac G4.

[-]

Lemonwater925@reddit

I’m sorry. Are you from the past?

[-]

pascalbrax@reddit

The button on the side, is it glowing? ...yeah, you need to turn it on.

[-]

duranfan@reddit

"I'm sorry, are you from the past?"

[-]

Royal-Equivalent9638@reddit

Why not post the rest of the description? More gold:

Equipment Setup & Maintenance:
Configure and set up new PC/Mac workstations and laptops, install software, and manage system updates/security patches.
Maintain an inventory of IT equipment and use imaging tools like Norton Ghost for system management.
Troubleshoot and repair hardware/software issues, liaise with technicians for advanced support.

Network & Systems Administration:
Assist with Local Area Network (LAN) administration, including Active Directory and Apple xServe user management.
Monitor backups using BackupExec and Retrospect, ensure timely antivirus updates, and manage network services (DHCP/DNS).
Administer MS Exchange (user mailboxes, public folders, access privileges, server monitoring).
Configure and troubleshoot Alcatel LAN switches, VPN clients, and VLAN assignments.
Manage Active Directory (user/group creation, Group Policies, printer/resource publishing, software patch deployment).
Monitor server health using HP Insight Manager and coordinate repairs with vendors.

[-]

Chewychews420@reddit

Nostalgia right there

[-]

jhs0108@reddit (OP)

A college I used to work for was using Ghost still in 2022.

Apparently they spent 50k on trying to setup SCCM. They didn't think 100mbps access switches would be a bottleneck.

But that place was a circus.

[-]

robertmachine@reddit

filemaker pro hahahaha well that makes total sense now

[-]

phantom_eight@reddit

Lemme know now when the Windows 3.1 DOS jobs come around. I'm really good at optimizing EMM386.

[-]

Distribution-Radiant@reddit

Bah, give me QEMM.

[-]

Healthy-Poetry6415@reddit

I would almost guarantee this is a non-profit. The ones that do a lot of grant writing seem to hover around Raizers Edge.

What's the pay. If it doesnt completely suck ass you might want to consider this. Ignore their outdated ad. I think thats actually a good sign AI bots are not going to be fondling your resume and real people are making decisions here.

[-]

HerfDog58@reddit

The ones that do a lot of grant writing seem to hover around ~~Raizers~~ Raiser's Edge.

Higher ed fundraising/financial gift solicitation too.

It doesn't sound like that organization uses M365, which is good, because if they're as out of date on the Raiser's Edge plugin for outlook as they are on hardware/OS, it's going to stop working in like 4 months.

[-]

notHooptieJ@reddit

the hardware they listed wont support 365, so the rest is kinda moot.

Mac g4s with 10.2??! to even get a workign browser you're goign to be using somethign awful like icab

[-]

HerfDog58@reddit

Hey, no need to let the facts get in the way of a burn attempt!

[-]

Dragonfly-Adventurer@reddit

Yep Raiser’s Edge is the giveaway here. Unfortunately, that means it’s likely gonna come with a “mission-driven” salary, i.e., 20% below market.

[-]

ihaxr@reddit

Gotta pump up the nonprofit CEO salary somehow

[-]

whirlwind87@reddit

worked at a college that used Raizers Edge as their fundraising management suite.

[-]

architectofinsanity@reddit

You have a solid point here.

[-]

stromm@reddit

All for $20/hour salary.

[-]

epitrochoidhappiness@reddit

Plus tips

[-]

texan01@reddit

wow.... I can do that role swimmingly.

What year is it? cause that's what I did in 2004.

[-]

bobmlord1@reddit

Whoever posted it probably has a template that hasn't been updated in years and didn't have enough knowledge of the subject to correct it.

[-]

wrosecrans@reddit

At this point, the office drone may be younger than the text they are copy-pasting. It really scares me how much of our civilization depends on people who are just cargo culting stuff and going through motions handed down without understanding. The complexity of the world has collided with the death of the idea that you should actually be expected to understand what is going on around you. Feels like it's downhill from here.

[-]

Bob_12_Pack@reddit

I work in government and sometimes it's easier to use an old but approved job description than to go through all of the hassle and red tape to get HR to approve a more current one.

[-]

a60v@reddit

This. Some office drone in the personnel department just copy-pasted it from one that was used two decades ago. Even if it's real, they still won't get any applicants for the job.

[-]

Hoosier_Farmer_@reddit

lol they'll get buried in a sea of bots and indians, just like every other shite that gets posted these days

[-]

OcotilloWells@reddit

If they still have the one from two decades ago, odds are they are still using the same computers also.

[-]

OmenVi@reddit

Whoever posted it probably has a template that hasn’t been updated in decades and didn’t have enough knowledge of the subject to correct it.

-FTFY

[-]

Greedy-Lynx-9706@reddit

Oh yeah, we have those here also : "must be proficient in cleaning the workplace" WTF ? !

[-]

Ssakaa@reddit

Worse, it's based on the job duties the guy that just retired (we hope) were still listed as from the last time his position was updated.

[-]

adrabo_CLE@reddit

Well, on the bright side, at least the candidate wouldn’t have to futz around with Autoexec.bat and Config.sys.

[-]

notHooptieJ@reddit

i hope it comes with a time-machine in case you need to fix ... literally anything.

[-]

Rocknbob69@reddit

Sounds like a not for profit that doesn't know there are resources to get modern shit

[-]

vdh1979@reddit

I'm old enough this doesn't even bother me 😂

[-]

Whoofph@reddit

I would almost be interested in applying not because I want to work there... But because I want to ask them why.

[-]

Ill3galAlien@reddit

oh my gawd

[-]

cyberentomology@reddit

Stop browsing ZipRecruiter with Internet Explorer.

[-]

9Blu@reddit

They forgot to add: "Must supply own Tardis for commute"

[-]

MEXRFW@reddit

Curious for the salary, almost sounds like a migration project.

[-]

Nymesis@reddit

A hacker found a jackpot

[-]

rotll@reddit

Filemaker...oy!!

[-]

Likely_a_bot@reddit

HR Cut and paste from 30 year old software.

[-]

WesternIron@reddit

Wellllll

They could be a power company, let me tell you, the oldest tech I’ve encountered is consulting for power companies

[-]

BerkeleyFarmGirl@reddit

Niche industry software is well behind the curve on compatibility/updates. Source: work in one of those industries with that niche

[-]

colossalpunch@reddit

Projects on our long-term roadmap you will need to assist with:

Upgrade all PCs to Windows Vista
Deploy and train all users on Internet Explorer 9
Deprecation of SSL 2.0 and enablement of TLS 1.0

[-]

Carribean-Diver@reddit

The person who wrote that job listing is already dead.

[-]

mrbiggbrain@reddit

To give some context I saw a job posting a couple years ago saying they needed knowledge in: Windows XP, Server 2003, Server 2008, and a few older apps.

Thing is, I worked for that company and personally offboarded all those applications 7 years before. I also knew people at that company so I knew they didn't have any of those from acquisitions or similar. I also knew the Manager and he had sent me the requirements to send to anyone I knew... None of these where on his job requirements. HR had simply been using the exact same job requirements with no updates since the position was first created.

[-]

SAugsburger@reddit

This happens many times where the job description keeps getting reused. It might work for some generic office job, but for IT jobs where happen you're supporting keeps changing it can be confusing to know whether HR is lazy or it really is a museum.

[-]

zeus204013@reddit

Looks possible in some place in my country. But here only ask about knowledge, don't inform about all infrastructure. And pays less than usd 1000 /month...

[-]

RamsDeep-1187@reddit

Maybe the ad is like how they put a bus stop out side of group homes for seniors with dementia

[-]

jhs0108@reddit (OP)

My Grandmothers Dementia unit didn't do that but the only way to get to the front of the building to exit to the street would require you to walk through a very realistic looking fireplace.

They have multiple emergency exits for fires. It was the best place for her. She was happy until the very end.

[-]

aes_gcm@reddit

but the only way to get to the front of the building to exit to the street would require you to walk through a very realistic looking fireplace.

Do you have any pictures? That's the craziest thing I've ever read, but I'm so glad that it exists to keep everyone safe. It's practically a Platform "9 and 3/4" trick.

[-]

jhs0108@reddit (OP)

I’d have to go look.

Obviously they had alternative exits for emergencies.

[-]

aes_gcm@reddit

In a weird way, that's kind of creepy, until you realize that there have been elderly people lost or killed and these kinds of tricks are innocuous methods of keeping everyone safe.

[-]

Sharpymarkr@reddit

So much Edge

[-]

aes_gcm@reddit

You'll be given an office chair, but you'll only need the Edge!

[-]

Royal-Equivalent9638@reddit

I looked up the posting. It also mentions Norton Ghost, BackupExec, and Alcatel switches.

For a Manhatten software development company. Part of me thinks they just had their 20-year tech leave and they re-posted the job description from 2005.

[-]

Intelligent_Title_90@reddit

Reminds of a documentary from north korea where the government faked a computer lab in a university

[-]

aes_gcm@reddit

There's a great video of an auto dealership, and everyone from potential customers to the front-desk staff are obviously faking activity. It's really fascinating honestly.

[-]

itishowitisanditbad@reddit

I think I work with some of those people.

Just... staring at the screen... just staring.

[-]

packetdenier@reddit

BackupExec... bad memories reading that

[-]

Cheomesh@reddit

Yeah it was...not great. Had some features our replacement (DPM) didn't but was really expensive and a pain to troubleshoot at times.

[-]

SerialMarmot@reddit

Norton Ghost, BackupExec

Yikes.. the job got even worse

[-]

Elminst@reddit

It looks like a sweatshop...

[-]

malikto44@reddit

That sounds almost impossible, especially because almost all that stuff is decades past EOL, and there are no security patches. I'm amazed the org hasn't been hacked and every computer with a red screen demanding a Bitcoin payment.

I'm sure the salary is probably 2000s tier as well.

I just hope they have good copies of the media CDs, and maybe even back up the ISOs.

Windows 2000/XP? May be okay if everything is air-gapped, but as soon as that stuff is plugged into the Internet, every one of those machines is going to be serving spam and NCMEC torrents to the world.

This sounds like something interesting just for retro stuff, but I don't see how this can work moving forward. If price is an issue, perhaps just go with Google Workspace, Ubuntu Studio, and Chromebooks, so stuff is fairly recent? Export FileMaker Pro stuff to LibreOffice Base?

[-]

JayRemmey627@reddit

I don't even wanna know what the salary would be

[-]

Burgergold@reddit

They may have posted this 12y ago and never filled the chair?

[-]

eldonhughes@reddit

Time machine included?

[-]

SetylCookieMonster@reddit

Is it a job spec for a technology museum?

[-]

eric-price@reddit

You laugh but there is a major flight software company near me that advertises (and to my understanding still uses in production) for Windows NT 4

[-]

wivaca@reddit

They'll have to bring a retiree back into the workforce.

[-]

vato915@reddit

FileMaker Pro

Oh wow. "Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time..."

gif

[-]

CdnDude@reddit

Always happy to see FileMaker Pro being mentioned

[-]

OrganicSciFi@reddit

Raiser's Edge means NFP

[-]

BostonCEO@reddit

2003 is calling

[-]

AmanApp@reddit

Current economy in Tech? I'd honestly take anything at this point.

[-]

Jeff-IT@reddit

FileMaker Pro is the bane of my existence right now

[-]

CAPICINC@reddit

https://imgur.com/N9DYJjd

[-]

Recalcitrant-wino@reddit

Be honest - were you time-traveling again?

[-]

basylica@reddit

I had recruiter call me recently asking for bee es experience and it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize he was talking about BES (blackberry enterprise server)

I was like yeah, several years working on it rebuilding it… etc.

Then he drops the “well, i think we are looking for someone with more RECENT experience”

😂😂😂😂

Dude it was dead tech when i left that job in 2014. Its 2024. Not sure who is gonna have more recent exp!

[-]

flsingleguy@reddit

I bet what happened was they had a long term person who left. They have a 20 plus year old job description and HR does not know how it should be updated as nobody actually knows what the role should be.

[-]

s_schadenfreude@reddit

I have a feeling someone from "HR" copy/pasted a job description from 25 years ago because they don't know any better.

[-]

CardiologistTime7008@reddit

Windows XP and Apple G4 Desktops?! 1999 called and they want their stuff back!

[-]

jgmachine@reddit

Our job descriptions are super outdated. I work for a school district and my director says it’s “too much of a hassle” to update the descriptions because they have to be approved by the board. To me it seems like it would be worth it for the fact that any qualified candidate isn’t going to want to apply for a job listing decades plus outdated systems that they are responsible for working on.

[-]

Any-Fly5966@reddit

Must be familiar with AOL chat and migration to Office Communicator 2007

[-]

eyedrops_364@reddit

Everyone is over qualified!

[-]

Double_Cheek9673@reddit

That's gotta be a joke.

[-]

abyssea@reddit

Suprised you don't need Lotus Notes and Adobe Flash experience.

[-]

Impossible_IT@reddit

Macromedia?

[-]

ohv_@reddit

I have to work out the kinks to get flash working recently. Mms.conf file was the key

[-]

ncc74656m@reddit

I am assuming this was an HR posting from a very very very old recycled job description. If not, you should absolutely run in terror.

[-]

hamstercaster@reddit

I supported this organization around 2002

[-]

No_Cut4338@reddit

Print shop maybe? Some of those old presses never got updated and are pretty spendy to replace so folks run them with unsupported OS's and they airgap the whole shebang.

[-]

twikoff@reddit

ah, so a government position

[-]

Nightflier101BL@reddit

Jesus. Better have some funding for upgrades or deal with some serious security risks.

[-]

OrvilleTheCavalier@reddit

I want to see the time debt required to post this job.

[-]

mrcomps@reddit

Wow, the first IT job posting where it's actually possible to have 20+ years of experience with the products listed!

[-]

TequilaCamper@reddit

Raisers edge. Already know what I need to know.

[-]

The_Penguin22@reddit

Yup. Run away!

[-]

realhawker77@reddit

Sounds like a lovely place for someone relatively new to the field.

[-]

Impossible_IT@reddit

Salary $25K

[-]

Pygmaelion@reddit

Raiser's Edge means not-for-profit... and you will also not profit.

[-]

professionalcynic909@reddit

Haha, Filemaker. Made something for a customer in that, somewhere around 1998.

[-]

Desnowshaite@reddit

This must be some sort of government job...

[-]

Icy_Dream_3028@reddit

I had a client that was still running Windows XP machines in prod environments as of 2018 and they were such a pain in the ass to do anything with. I can't imagine managing an entire fleet!

[-]

jhs0108@reddit (OP)

the Macs are so much worse. People stopped using PowerPC in 2010 and support died out fast.

[-]

nightwatch_admin@reddit

April 1st is early this year. Nice. I hope.

[-]

TKInstinct@reddit

I had one where they were asking for SQL experience as a Desktop Support person. I wasn't sure what to think of it when I saw it but I was bewildered.

[-]

jhs0108@reddit (OP)

Ya Desktop Support has lost all meaning in this job market.

I've gotten emails where the recruiter admitted to me that the Desktop Support person was the only IT role in a company of 300 employees with no MSP.

[-]

TKInstinct@reddit

You know what, depending on what they were doing I might go for that one. Having to deal with other people's BS and getting in the way is a problem. If you are the sole IT person then at least you can make a case for why things need to change, having a manager holding the line of "that's how we've always done it" is problematic. I'd give it a try at least.

[-]

OS X 10.2 10.4

No love for Panther :/

[-]

jhs0108@reddit (OP)

Just the rural town on a remote island called Manhattan.

[-]

jwalkernyc@reddit

Probably a government job.

[-]

IfOnlyThereWasTime@reddit

Their way of asking for older and more experienced applicants?