Who are these people
Posted by Deep_Library_6375@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 428 comments
Fridays can be pretty dead. Our office is four days in the office. Fridays tend to be work from home and that means it's pretty chill. But for some reason at about 3:00 every fucking Friday somebody starts pebbling me with questions and odd requests. "Hey buddy, can you help me set up a Power BI connection to a local database?" Generally it's the same two or three people. They just decided after procrastinating all week that they're going to do something but first they need help from it. I just want to tell anyone who's out there that's not in this position that this is a war crime then you will be put on trial one day.
Thank you for allowing this rant
LousyRaider@reddit
Pretty standard behavior every place I’ve worked. My favorite are the people who stop by right at 5 as I am packing up for the day and hit me with an “oh good, you’re still here” salutation.
SellAble7@reddit
I've got a guy Who is in Pacific time and I'm in Central and he knows that and he will wait until six o'clock To send me something that a customer needs.
The last time he did it ignored him and then the next day by Boss asked me why and I told him he always messaged me at 6 and I wanted to set a better precedent than always answering him.
And my boss was like scrambling because the COO was asking why it didn't get done.
But he took what I said and kind of formalized it and said hey he sent this after hours.
When I told my boss he understood he wasn't entirely happy but he understood and he didn't give me a bunch of grief. But I think he was more concerned with what to say to the COO.
And it's always something that I can't just do you know period I need a maintenance window I need to know that they know that I'm going to do this at x time
xiongchiamiov@reddit
"I didn't see it until the next morning because he messaged me after I had already logged out."
I tend to keep Slack on my phone because I find it useful to know about stuff outside hours, but even then I have dnd rules set to not notify me of pings outside of working hours.
SellAble7@reddit
Nah, gotta have it on for emergencies.
xiongchiamiov@reddit
If it's an emergency, you use the paging system, not Slack.
Even when humans are able to initiate pages, that does provide a useful check. Plenty of times people are willing to message someone, but then you say "is this important enough to page them?" and they say no.
BatmansTailor@reddit
Like they have to roll a D20 to pass a charisma check to see if you will respond? /s
NickW1343@reddit
Yeah, your manager did pretty good here. When an exec talks to them, it's super common for it to be a light reprimand no matter how in the right an employee is. There's some managers that would've been annoyed at you for the next week if the COO talked to them about how there was someone that message you 3 hours after you left work and you didn't respond.
It's kind of lame how the shit always will roll downhill no matter how good the manager. I assume it's because managers need to do something in case the higher up follows up asking what they did to better the situation and a little verbal coaching is mostly pain free. Whatever, it's how corporate work is. Long as your manager isn't the minority of psychos, it's a nothingburger by next week.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
Right up there with the people who catch you as you're walking around the hall. "Oh hey dude! My keyboard hasn't been working for a month. I'm glad I saw you"
Do you not have fucking legs?
I_AM_NOT_A_WOMBAT@reddit
Forgot to add, "it's been broken for a month and IT'S AN EMERGENCY!!"
RagnarStonefist@reddit
'Hey man, my headset hasn't been working for like the last few days and I have a really important sales call in like five minutes. Can you take a look'
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
There are 45 people in the conference room, I walked in 10 minutes late to make my presentation and I don't know what my password is
neopod9000@reddit
Management bought a whole new conference room system from a vendor. Zero involvement from IT. We didn't even know they did it.
First meeting in the new room, the same management who bought the thing comes in and goes "hey, we need your help quick in the conference room..."
They couldn't figure it out and instead of calling the vendor, assumed we were actual wizards.
therankin@reddit
Ha! Reminds me of the access control door locks that my work put in. It started with about 5 doors.
I'm head of IT and didn't hear a word about it until the installers were there and needed someone to load the software, learn the software, add all the gateways then locks to said software, and then produce HID badges for 90+ employees.
'Hey IT! Here's something new that you're fully responsible for in which you had zero input or say about! Also, drop what you're working on because the installer has to finish today! Thanks!'
mountain_bound@reddit
Classic mode of operation in most businesses when people without modern coordinating skills are in charge.
After you've been put on the spot countless times to re-seat a cable, choose the correct source, or simply turn a system on you start to learn that no AV project should be awarded without good IT oversight.
And awhile a lot of sysadmins don't want to deal with it the technology can be way more interesting than building PowerAutomate workflows for some unaware jacktard's SharePoint list.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
It totally requires you to crawl around under the table but nobody wants to back out and let you in there. Finally one person does so you're sitting around under everybody's crotch trying to figure out where the wires go.
RedHal@reddit
Desk Rabbit!
19610taw3@reddit
I have a few users who will consistently message me at 4:45 on a Friday for something that's been an issue all week.
Well I didn't have time to report it until now.
the_computerguy007@reddit
I have these users too, some of them call me just 10 minutes before EOB, and when I start trouble shooting, all of a sudden they don’t have time and they must go. New rule is, If they report less than 1 hour EOB, it will be for the next business day. I usually book this one last hour for administration work.
zveeg-0610@reddit
It'll wait 'til Monday.
Warrlock608@reddit
This last week I had someone put an emergency ticket to reset the pin for their cisco voicemail. When I got assigned it I look up the mailbox and it is disabled. This usually means it was inactive for a long time so I ask
"When was the last time you logged into your voicemail?"
"Ohhhhhhhh..... maybe a few years."
BoringOrange678@reddit
Before my IT career I worked in restaurants. It is the same there. Shows up 10 min before close then wants to change everything they order.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
Then they sit there as you put up the tables and the chairs and mop the floors and they sit and chit chat
PeilAyr@reddit
I see you've met my FIL and his partner
Ssakaa@reddit
I'm kinda guilty of that, but I've also been roped into helping put up chairs. And I've been asked very pointedly where the hell I think I'm going when I go to leave before it's closing time... I feel like the staff at a couple of my usual places like me being around sometimes...
dustojnikhummer@reddit
Many restaurants in my country close the kitchen an hour before closing and they are clearly signed. Still, some people try. Some of them resort to locking the doors (you can get out, but not in)
RagnarStonefist@reddit
'hey can you help me quick?'
'I would love to, but I'm off the clock and we've been told that overtime is a no-go. Do you want to circle back on Monday morning?'
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
My brothers, I agree with all of you. I just hate these people
Master-IT-All@reddit
But do they know that?
The first rule of good System Administration, be the bad guy.
lordjedi@reddit
Be the bad guy to these people.
Be nice to Sarah in accounting. She gives you snacks, is totally chill, doesn't call during month end, and gives you plenty of time to troubleshoot issues (unless it's month end in which case the issue gets ignored). She will also never complain about her computer but will be super happy when she gets a new one.
Chaos_Support@reddit
Exactly this.
At my last job I was walking away from someone's desk after telling them I wouldn't break company policy "just for them." They huffed loudly and said something about me not needing to be rude about it. Their supervisor, who knew I could be relied on when it matters, replied, "Actually, he's pretty awesome when people aren't being dicks to him. You should try it some time."
zveeg-0610@reddit
Not for long, I'm not.
HerfDog58@reddit
"No I'm not, I'm LousyRaider's Life Model Decoy packing up their stuff to take it to their car. You'll have to submit a ticket for any help requests."
Then walk away.
tesseract4@reddit
"Aww, bummer! You just missed me! See you Monday "
IndependentDream6516@reddit
These are the same people who think they’re doing you a favor by letting you know you can call them at 8 PM to help them with something relatively minor which can be fixed during the day but they just can’t make time because they’re super busy…outside of the times they’re messing around on their phones and chit chatting with coworkers.
Ssakaa@reddit
They're busy then too. It's called "collaborating". I've discovered I'm really good at it since I've been forced into a cubicle 5 days a week (with a union contract that states 4x10s is an option).
Valdaraak@reddit
"No I'm not. I have an appointment I have to get to."
rehab212@reddit
“No, I left ten minutes ago.” Is one of my favorite lines.
Master-IT-All@reddit
And then you just walk out the door saying, "Yep, I was."
Distortion462@reddit
Until they follow you to your car continuing to ask questions. I've had to tell people they're crossing a line they didn't even realize.
SpaceChimps98@reddit
"I am going to be traveling next week and need a laptop by Monday"
AnonEMoussie@reddit
I’m still here, but I’m on my third drink, so I don’t know how good my advice will be…
SAugsburger@reddit
I was going to say 3pm you at least have some time if you don't have more pressing work. Many people wait until you're getting ready to grab your bag for the day to ask you for something.
bageloid@reddit
And I immediately say "Just finishing up quick so I can catch my train."
SillyPuttyGizmo@reddit
Sure, want to walk out to the car with me
neopod9000@reddit
There are some who use this as a tactic.
Monday morning they owe their boss a status update on the new PowerBI dashboard they were supposed to be working on all week. If you dont work with them at 3pm on a Friday to get it done right away, their update to their manager on Monday morning is "I told IT I needed them to build the connection last week. Not sure where its at but doesnt look like they took care of it."
Throwing other people under the bus in order to goldbrick the week away appears to be habitual for certain folks.
IOUAPIZZA@reddit
Love that shit. Bring it on fuckers lol. The amount of times I've pulled out a log, a picture, some proof of what they are saying is bullshit they learn real quick its not worth the smoke. I'll dig through weeks of email traces to proves you didn't send me something last week, not for the last 2 months, and have submitted zero tickets, why are you complaining IT doesnt help you? Please, explain so I can add your supervisor to the thread and let them manage you.
I remeber telling one hostile staff member part of my job is looking through hundreds, sometimes thousands of lines of text to find one inane thing that is stopping you from doing work. How much effort do you think I'm willing to expend to prove you wrong so I can get on with my job, because its about equal, you're being as equal a problem as an actual computer issue and preventing work from getting done dragging me into your mess. Pound sand and do it by yourself please!
19610taw3@reddit
I had one user who wad very impatient and really preferred IM or direct calling on our personal cell.
Eventually management told her she had to put in a ticket or call the helpdesk line. Her habit after that was to call, hang up after first ring, call back and hang up again , repeat A third time ... then start calling on our cell phones and say they she tried and no one answered.
pulling the call logs for that was fun
IOUAPIZZA@reddit
https://tenor.com/search/indiana-jones-no-ticket-gifs
originalunagamer@reddit
This has been my experience, as well. I stopped working people's issues with I realized they did this a lot. Sorry, I'm not staying late because you dragged your feet on something all week and what to try to blame IT.
CubesTheGamer@reddit
I’ve literally responded to someone asking on Monday morning for a status on something they sent Thursday at 3pm (we don’t work Fridays): “I received your message 3 business hours ago, turnaround for this type of request is variable depending on other priorities but usually at least a full business day. I’ll let you know once it’s taken care of, should be able to get to it today or tomorrow.”
Aster_Yellow@reddit
When I was at the help desk we had someone at like 4:45 PM call and saying they were locked out and needed in immediately citing that they "hadn't been able to work ALL day." lol okay, is your manager aware you haven't worked all day?
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
ding ding ding
soulseaker@reddit
This is 1 reason why some kinda written/documented communication (e.g. email, ticket...) is so important. Makes it somewhat harder for people to do that.
lemaymayguy@reddit
It's why these type insist on a quick call instead of a indexed and searchable with timestamped teams message for future reference
RedHal@reddit
Which you follow up with an email that is indexed and time-stamped, "Further to your telecon of 15:55 today, I need a few answers to capture all the necessary information."
fireshaper@reddit
This is why every request needs a ticket. “My boss doesn’t know I’m working unless you put in a ticket.”
dustojnikhummer@reddit
"I see the ticket was entered on 16:08 on Friday. We end at 15:30 on Friday"
I once had a customer do this "We told you last week". Yes, you told us on a friday AFTER our public working hours and then tried to call our on call, who rightly told you it isn't an emergency and will be dealt with on Monday
Intrexa@reddit
You submitted the ticket 15 business minutes ago.
zveeg-0610@reddit
That's why, not ticket, no work. That's why people like this don't like having to submit tickets, because it make accountable.
HerfDog58@reddit
Send an email to that douche outlining that he requested help too late on a Friday afternoon to complete before close of business, and had given you no advance notice of the project requirements. You didn't have time to develop, test, and implement the work he was supposed to do for himself, and that you'll make time in your full schedule in 2 days. And CC his manager and yours.
If superiors push back with "We're a team, we all need to sacrifice" say "I am, I've got to put several things off this week to help him. While we're at it, I plan to implement SLAs and a Change Approval process that will require sign offs by management. Because we want to make sure the TEAM is aware of timeframes and project requirements."
IndependentBat8365@reddit
Repeat after me!
MisterBazz@reddit
Work flow, backlog, sprint plan - learn these terms and use them frequently.
woohhaa@reddit
20%of the users cause 80% of the problems.
I’m not sure if that statistic is made up but it feels right.
kernelqzor@reddit
It’s definitely one of those “feels true so my brain accepts it” stats.
In my place it’s like the same handful of people who somehow manage to trigger three systems, a permissions issue, and a mystery bug just by opening Outlook. Then they act surprised when IT groans the second their name pops up.
woohhaa@reddit
We had a few at my old shop that people would avoid like the plague. One lady was so demanding and difficult that some of the techs would reassign her tickets to someone else as soon as it dropped into their queue. I got to know her and somehow became her go to guy. All her tickets dropped into my queue but I didn’t mind.
One day she said “I know I’m difficult and I’m sorry” so I asked her why we had to jump through extra hoops for her when 99% of the user base got on just fine with our normal efforts. She went on to explain her mental and physical health issues and how changes to small things caused her extreme anxiety. After understanding her a little better I could sympathize with her and it seemed like she became easier to work with. It was kind of eye opening.
RyuMaou@reddit
That’s the Pareto Principal, and it’s a good rule of thumb for a LOT of human behavior in groups. Like to the point that it seems supernatural, but in my anecdotal experience, it bears out.
therankin@reddit
Can you give a few examples? This sounds interesting.
RyuMaou@reddit
Well, when I was in college, the old saw was 20% of your customers produce 80% of your sales. That's familiar to a lot of older sales people. Also, from the volunteer world, 20% of the volunteers do 80% of the work for any organization. The top 20% most reported bugs will fix 80% of the total reported bugs. The top 20% of the richest people have 80% of the reported income.
I wouldn't say it's a hard rule, but it's one of those rules of thumb that seems to bear out.
RedHal@reddit
Doing that is a change. Changes do not have SLAs. Do it Monday or Tuesday.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
we're tiny... like I'm the entire IT dept with a +1 I was finally able to hire and he's on Vacation but, bottom line, there are no SLAs... just "heeeeey buddy"
Huge_Writing_5764@reddit
No changes in prod on Friday
T_Thriller_T@reddit
"Heeeey buddy" sounds as infuriating as my experience of
"Thrilleeeer, you do know computers, don't you..?"
Luckily this was not at work, and I shot it down after the second of third time - unfortunately it was public enough so it established itself as a joke.
BCIT_Richard@reddit
If it's just you, you get to control the flow.
"Sorry, my day is already booked from other requests, I'll tackle this on Monday, kthx... byeeeeee."
Hot_Ambassador_1815@reddit
Sometimes you don’t have that luxury, unfortunately.
Like for me just yesterday, got a call 2 hours after my shift ended to enable key fobs for a few people that were staying in the building longer than usual. I had no choice but to drop everything I was doing so I could vpn in and modify access schedules for a few people
lordjedi@reddit
You had a choice. The person that contacted you could have escorted them wherever the overstaying visitors needed to go. That's how that works.
If your visitor system requires a timeframe, then it's up to the person that will be with them to account for that extra time. In our case, visitors like that wouldn't be given a badge. They get escorted by the person they're there to see. So they can get out of the building, but they can't get further in without an escort.
So yes, you did have a choice.
Hot_Ambassador_1815@reddit
You filled in a lot of blanks with your imagination.
They weren’t visitors, they were employees that were staying later for a pop up event. The person requesting was the “ceo” and wasn’t present.
Yea, I had a choice. I chose to keep my job.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
It's not ideal. In IT we are generally expected to do things 24/7. I read the request you had to deal with is kind of legitimate. That's the kind of thing I'm not thrilled to do but we do it because it's right.
My example is purely pointed at people who are using IT as their crutch
Hot_Ambassador_1815@reddit
Honestly, they treat me good enough to deal with these one-offs, and they don’t hit me with them often. Us IT folk are still obligated to complain a little bit haha
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
If it were a one-off, I wouldn't be too annoyed about it. This dude is a serial offender. Same two or three people, same time of day. Never hear from them all week long and then suddenly at the end of the week there they are.
Prizmasm@reddit
My friend is a manager in IT and would constantly get the same treatment so they created a tracking spreadsheet with exact times, requests, actions, etc. If that person became ridiculous with last minute requests that made my friend look bad, they submitted the spreadsheet to that person's boss or HR.
lordjedi@reddit
This is why you put policies in place.
New hires need X amount of time unless equipment needs to be purchased, then it's Y amount of time. Weekends do not count in that window. So when you get a ticket at 4pm on Friday, it's getting ignored until Monday. So when they ask you about it on Monday, you tell them you've had the ticket for 1 business hour. "But I submitted it on Friday?!". Yep, at 4pm. We don't work weekends.
It's not ITs fault that HR submitted the ticket for a new hire that starts on Monday on Friday evening.
Prizmasm@reddit
Friend, is that you?? This is exactly the type of requests they get. Oddly a lot from HR at 4pm saying onboard new person 9am monday. So they toss that spreadsheet, emails, etc back at HR and CCs their boss.
Texkonc@reddit
Sounds like some 3pm doctor appointments are in your future…..
Hot_Ambassador_1815@reddit
It’s so annoying because you have to have a direct disregard for someone’s time to pull that shit on your IT team.
lordjedi@reddit
>In IT we are generally expected to do things 24/7.
If you're expected to be available 24/7, then you need more coverage. Literally the only time I've been contacted on the weekend or after hours at my current place is when an emergency termination was happening. I've been with them for almost 4 years. My boss will even shutdown a morning chat when he realizes what time it is where I am (I'm west coast, he's east coast, I will often answer questions while lying in bed).
> I read the request you had to deal with is kind of legitimate.
I popped off because the request really isn't legitimate. CEO or not (and I've worked with the type), that's poor planning. If they had to contact him because the event went later than expected, that's poor planning.
Appropriate-Border-8@reddit
Our job description in mid-management includes: "Duties as assigned." 😉
lordjedi@reddit
Why do employees have a time limit? That seems weird to me.
Seems like otherwise you should just get alerts that you could forward to the CEO with a "was this approved?" question.
Hot_Ambassador_1815@reddit
I’m not trying to be asshole here man, but do you even work as a sysadmin or even in an IT environment? Nothing is as cut and dry as you are assuming. Especially if you’re in a solo or leadership role.
I’m not volunteering details about where I work, but it’s very common to have building access schedules for employees.
techretort@reddit
Absolutely understand. Making enemies of the CEO by saying no is a quick way to an exit interview.
Ultimately it's happened due to poor planning, unless the pop up was arranged in the 2 hours from you clocking off until the time you got called. What if you were 6 schooners deep and unable to work, or attending to a personal emergency? What's the contingency if youre not around?
barclavius@reddit
Military IT dude here. I was just doing an entire day of "How-to" with a new guy from another unit. He and I are both one-man shops. My old man advice at the end of the day was Expectations Management and this right here!
The civilian world has its hierarchy just like we have our rank structure and you have to "do what you rank can handle," but like I told him, yes you have a boss and department heads, but that is YOUR shop and you make the rules and so long as you're doing your job to the company's intent and producing results AND being actively engaged, you'll be fine.
Sorry, I think my meds are kicking in.
identifytarget@reddit
yeah seriously, OP, stop being a bitch. 3pm on Friday = Monday problem. Let them know "Sorry, I'm currently upgrading some system which will take the rest of the day. Ping me on Monday and we'll get you fixed up."
HaloNevermore@reddit
I love this reply, been doing this for over a decade because 3:00 pm on Friday asks have always been a thing.
If OP was smart, he would be questioning the need. And then he needs to question who these reports are for.
Then go to THAT individual.
Do you know how much shit I have solved by finding out who this “mysterious person who needs this report” and then go politely asking THEM on how THEY want the reporting to look and then work out the distribution times?
We have somehow accepted that another employees behavior is now our problem.
You get more respect from others when you say “no” because you are protecting your most valuable resource, time.
And when I mean “others” I mean c-suite. C-suite understands the value of time.
jaydizzleforshizzle@reddit
Yup, I call it “protecting your time”, it’s one of the largest things a new tech can learn, because everyone wants to help, but things need to prioritized or it’s just firefighting.
themast@reddit
Exactly. I also try to get the requestor to "put skin in the game" - if your time costs nothing to them they will pepper you with requests. If you respond with "yeah, I need you to put the requirements in the ticket, what data, who gets access, how should it be organized, what's the retention period, does it need a backup, etc" suddenly poof - a lot of requests just disappear. They're all about the idea when it costs nothing to them. Once they have to do some work it's a hassle and they're not interested. Guess it wasn't that important after all, huh?
techretort@reddit
The wally deflector! "Sure. I want to help, I just need some more info from you so I can get started."
You'll never see them again
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
Perhaps I could use AI to create a giant form for them to fill out.
oh!
Perhaps the form could be a web page that somehow fails and resets randomly as they work through it
Texkonc@reddit
If you don’t have a Helpdesk site, setup a shared mailbox at a minimum and work from there, or just your normal work email, but make a formality. The saying is no ticket, no work. But you can start with, no email no work.
It’s auditing and a paper trail, when it time for a raise, you got something.
fastlerner@reddit
It won't help. You'll just get a form submitted at 4:30 on a Friday instead of 3:00, followed immediately by a phone call that they really need it done before COB.
mwenechanga@reddit
That's why my official schedule is 7:30-4:30, and I only work on high priority tickets (that meet my criteria for high), outside that window when on call, and nothing at all when not on call.
Those Fuck-you Friday people can miss me with their procrastination.
jaydizzleforshizzle@reddit
Depends on who it is, unless it’s a csuite I’m not promising anything at that point. I will very easily say “I will handle it first thing on Monday”
tdhuck@reddit
If you are a one man shop and there isn't a ticketing system or they aren't forced to use one, either enter the ticket yourself and make sure they get a ticket email reply or ask them to send you an email of what they need and you'll get to it when you can.
As long as you continue to bail them out last minute when they ask for help, they will never change their ways.
TheRealLazloFalconi@reddit
Sounds like you might not have a helpdesk set up already. I'd recommend getting one. Even something simple like Spiceworks. Since you have another tech, tell your users it's best to submit a ticket that goes to all available techs, so their requests get handled much faster.
Now, any time you get a "heeeey buddy" tell them that you can't help right away, but if they put in a ticket they'll be added to the queue.
flecom@reddit
never underestimate the power of the wally reflector, works >90% of the time to make stupid requests go away
jasmeralia@reddit
Wally reflector?
PalliativeOrgasm@reddit
Reference to the Dilbert cartoon, I think pretty old ones (when we didn’t know that Scott Adams was nuttier than squirrel shit).
mwenechanga@reddit
Oh hey, I didn't put this together as a coherent thought until just now - he died a painful death from bone cancer, so I guess it's okay to like the comics again!
They are fairly mid anyway, but at least now they don't support a bigot.
jasmeralia@reddit
sigh In the immortal word of Teal'c, "Indeed."
sardonic_balls@reddit
everything is critical until someone has to answer a follow-up question
beanmachine-23@reddit
To add to this, it’s easy when you have a small organization to just knock things out as they come, but in the long run it sets unrealistic expectations that anything they bring you can be done right then and there. It also gives your coworkers the idea that you are just sitting around waiting for requests and problems. Don’t let them think you are dispensable or not busy, because it will be a pain to get more manpower when you do need it.
billnmorty@reddit
As opposed to the virtual assistant they think you are, on standby waiting for their request 😂
jaydizzleforshizzle@reddit
Oh absolutely, shifting the tiniest bit of the onus on to the end user forces them to question whether it’s worth it, and most people will not commit.
Dekklin@reddit
Even firefighting has priorities.
jaydizzleforshizzle@reddit
Yah but you don’t get to choose those, they just come about. Preferably you can prioritize progress, not just maintenance.
gashandler@reddit
The more you accommodate them, the more they expect it, and you end up with an unofficial SLA of "right away."
Toribor@reddit
I run a similar sized shop and I only drop my current work to take urgent requests for new functionality if they escalate through their executive.
That immediately gets them to more properly analyze the urgency due to the embarrassment of having to go to their manager/exec and explain why everything is being done last minute and why I need to be pulled off whatever other task I'm working on.
Unfortunately a lot of the time it's the executive team that has the most unusual last minute asks but at least they know exactly why other projects and objectives tend to drag on for so long.
smoothvibe@reddit
Doesn't matter. Implement SLAs and a ticketing process, otherwise they will drown you in the long term.
Aggravating_Refuse89@reddit
Where do you work that a sysadmin can implement these things? Sure if they have management and C level buy in, but this is sysadmin not IT management
oldnbusted0@reddit
Absolutely fuck that. Leadership likes fancy terms like change control, use that to your advantage. Everybody submits a ticket even the C- levels. Production changes are properly planned including rollback plans.
Aggravating_Refuse89@reddit
I work in a place that has these things. But you realize most places are lucky to have a ticketing system, many do not have change management processes and C levels and directors can get away with breaking rules just this one time anytime.
Most IT shops are not run well and in orgs that are not run well. Most people in this sub are not the decision makers and do not have power to fix this.
While I agree with your philosophy 100 percent. I just think sometimes people get tone deaf to the reality of how bad most IT shops are and how many people work in the small/medium business space. One one or two, often dysfunctional people call the shots
UninvestedCuriosity@reddit
I pushed read only Friday as a term quietly in the right places and it took off like wildfire to other teams outside i.t.
Aggravating_Refuse89@reddit
Until a VIP or someone who complains to director level or higher, yes. Once that happens, my experience tells me you are going to end up doing the thing one way or another and sometimes its best to roll with it and curse silently. If they will end up getting it anyway, do not die on the hill. Now if you have a director level person who will back you in telling them to F off until Monday, by all means do it. But if not, you are just going to end up doing it with a director breathign down your neck to do it faster and clueless higher ups wanting to know why you are being difficult.
You should know who the people are who will cause this, but they are the same types of people who would use Power BI and postpone work until 3PM on a Friday. Likely mid level employees or managers who have deadlines and will scream loudly to make it not their fault it got missed.
This is not about philosophy and it shouldnt be that way blah blah. Its reality. In every org there are players who will get what they want. I have learned its better to not fight them if director level and up wont back you.
DefJeff702@reddit
I'd suggest developing an SLA and incorporate that into your ticketing process. Setting expectations is going to not just save you the headache but also prevent that 3p.m. Friday user from expecting immediate results so they can plan their own time better.
Chaos_Support@reddit
Also, a change freeze calendar. Absolutely no changes that aren't scheduled and approved on Fridays, three days before a holiday, the week before and after Christmas, anytime you know you'll be too busy with a big project, etc.
Dabnician@reddit
I have a daily reoccurring meeting that blocks out 3pm to 7pm so i show as busy.
Helps stop stupid end of day meetings and also people bothering me unless it really is a emergency, otherwise they can put a ticket into the helpdesk.
Xzenor@reddit
"can't! Major issues to fix. Sorry!"
tdhuck@reddit
Don't reply. Or if you do reply, 'hey, I'm working on a few items right now, please submit a ticket and I'll add it to my list.'
Unless you are the CEO/owner, get in line, no special treatment for you.
When I was in HD and started doing this, people slowly stopped asking me for help, which means things worked as planned.
Oc34ne@reddit
Currently going through something similar, except it's me as the junior. No ticketing software. No change management. No asset management. Just email, phone, and oh heyyyyy. Drives me nuts, but don't have the clout to make unilateral changes to actually fix the problems, even though the structural changes would be easier and faster than all these one off menial honey-do's.
Morkai@reddit
Are you me?
I've complained long and loudly about constant shoulder taps and my hatred of the phrase "just a quick question" that invariably are never actually quick.
Happy_Kale888@reddit
Well if there are no SLA's let me take a guess and say you have no change control. With a team of 1 you can set that policy I am a team of 1 and we have change control all you need is a doer (you) and a approver (your boss). Open the ticket and write up what you can and the wait for approval.
This crap always happens on on Friday afternoon not just to you people procrastinate then when they can't do it they blame IT. I am okay with that...
Veldern@reddit
Do you actually do it for them on 3PM Friday? If so, you're showing them it's okay to do it
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
most of the time I do. It's rarely hard -it's just annoying as hell and it's ALWAYS the same people I don't hear from ANY other time of day or week. Sometimes I think I'm doing their work for them
Evil_Rich@reddit
The answer on friday is ALWAYS "no non-break/fix changes on friday after lunch." Because NOTHING ever goes the easy way at 3pm on friday..
Veldern@reddit
It's not about it being easy or hard, it's about training them to be better users and to not do this to you
EFMFMG@reddit
I leave at 4. The requests start coming around 3:55 or at like 4:15 with “I just wanted to grab you for a minute before you left for xyz ridiculous request.
Shazam1269@reddit
So you help them with Power BI? Typically IT is break fix, with some coaching here and there. Things like that are beyond the scope of IT (usually). I'd point them to the information to complete the task, that way they're empowered and can maintain their workflows. If they want help with an Excel formula or macro, for example, I'd send them over to Mr Excel so they can educate themselves.
And if it's only you, it's time to get good at diplomatically moving jobs like that to Monday. And then provide guidance and coaching, not doing their job.
Stephen_Dann@reddit
Then implement SLAs. There is also no change Friday, unless it is a emergency no changes. I insist on using change control, so no completed and approved change ticket, no change
TheJesusGuy@reddit
But youll just be told you need to do it. It doesnt work like that as a solo.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
As systems administrators we are a very solution-oriented group but I prefer to say, much like my significant other, 'sometimes I just need to be heard'
surveysaysno@reddit
Then ur doing it wrong.
There are no solutions at 3pm on Friday. Only emergency fixes.
PurpleTangent@reddit
I think OP's just trying to say they wanted some other IT people to commiserate with, not a solution to their problem lol.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
the irony is painful
PurpleTangent@reddit
pouring one out tonight for our bravest soldier o7
Ssakaa@reddit
As systems administrators we are a very solution-oriented group...
KerryBoehm@reddit
Even better. Respond with put in a SR. That’ll buy you till Monday
Arudinne@reddit
Yeah, I leave those messages on unread for like an hour or two.
We have a ticket system for a reason. Everyone knows it exists.
PawnF4@reddit
“Your failure to plan accordingly does not constitute an emergency on my end”
From one of my msp mentors.
RikiWardOG@reddit
"Oops sorry didn't see your message last week."
Master-IT-All@reddit
Ok, then reply Hey buddy, fuck off til monday. THANKS!!
screampuff@reddit
"put in a ticket and I'll triage it"
theMightBoop@reddit
Make up your own change request process. Make up your own SLA’s. Make up your own policies. Then when people pull this shit you just point to the policies you made that are all official like and just shrug and say you are just following policy.
eleqtriq@reddit
I demand you change your Reddit username to heeeeeeybuddy
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
So that particular phrase was actually from a prior company that was so well known I could say that and everybody would say, "Oh my god it's Terry."
He would even type that out in Teams. "heeeeey buddy"
-oh fuck here we go
TheWDWillis@reddit
Hahahahaha
magicmanme@reddit
Meee
GardenWeasel67@reddit
No SLA, then requests are handled by voicemail and retrieved each morning.
Maysock@reddit
I just wrote something like that to a user the other day.
"If you think something is broken or know something is broken, that's an incident"
"If it isn't broken but you want it to be different, that's a change request"
I'll see you guys next week for the inevitable follow-up discussion, "no, it's not broken just because it doesn't work like how you imagined. Yes, that's gonna be a change request".
Agreeable-Buy-999@reddit
imo this is the only sane response. Monday it is.
MrBDIU@reddit
And - NO CHANGES ON FRIDAY!
Aggravating_Refuse89@reddit
You guys have actual SLAs?
tejanaqkilica@reddit
This guy changes.
JohnC53@reddit
Our org abuses this. They convert REQs and INCs into Change tickets, which closes the INCs/REQs. But the Change ticket just sits in the draft state with no movement. No SLAs on those.
TexasVulvaAficionado@reddit
I am ashamed to be a part of this. Exactly how it goes.
Often for good reason but the end user doesn't necessarily know that and their bosses suck an communicating down...
NSA_Chatbot@reddit
Read-only Fridays!
sexuallyactivepope@reddit
"nothing new after 2"
rangerinthesky@reddit
Fist bump
T_Thriller_T@reddit
I'm somewhat guilty of starting my shit too late.
But god damn I'm not bothering folks right before close, even less on a Friday!
I'm just cursing myself why I started at 4 when half my colleagues finish at 4:30, so at 5 I can't ask the stupid starting out questions.
panzerbjrn@reddit
I always treated Friday afternoon requests the same as Tuesday afternoon requests ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If its in my queue and I'm not working on something else, I'll work on it until I finish for the day.
I mean, it's what I'm being paid for, yes?
I honestly never understood this reluctance to deal with stuff on a friday. If it's a change, sure, read only Friday, but if it's just another normal ticket, work on it until you go home.
Klutzy_Possibility54@reddit
The principle behind "read-only Friday" makes sense; don't make changes on Fridays that you might not be able to resolve before the end of the week. I can understand not making major or risky changes on Fridays, sure. But a whole lot of people have taken that concept and stretched it into an excuse to not do anything they don't feel like doing, as though it gives them an excuse to not do their job regardless of the actual risk. Unfortunately I work with some of these people; it frustrates me as a coworker, and I'm sure it's even more frustrating for users who did the unthinkable crime of asking for help on a Friday.
Personally I'm with you, it's all the same to me, but I also don't really have an issue setting things down for the day without being a jerk about it. I can't think of a single time I actually got any flak for not responding something (that wasn't actually an urgent priority) until the next morning when I didn't have time that day.
panzerbjrn@reddit
100% agree. Some people also need to ask themselves "is this going to go through CAB? If not, maybe it isn't actually a change..."
dervish666@reddit
Log. A. Ticket.
And I will get back to you within SLA.
Though to be fair there is no one in our office at 3pm on a friday.
Rustyshackilford@reddit
Why are so many in this sub unable to communicate expectations?
Klutzy_Possibility54@reddit
I really do feel like most of the reason I've excelled in my career isn't because of my tech skills (they're just okay), but because I couldn't even imagine speaking to my users the way so many people on here insist others should.
I mean, I have no problem putting down work I can't finish on Friday to pick up on Monday morning, especially if it isn't legitimately urgent, but I don't feel the need to write a whole manifesto to the user that (checks notes) did the unspeakable crime of asking for help on a Friday. I just respond on Monday morning and I can't think of a single time that has ever been a problem.
nyckidryan@reddit
"Oooh, sorry, I've got an appointment in 30 minutes. Open a ticket and I'll take care of it."
On Monday when I next log into the ticketing system. 😛
tachik0ma7@reddit
Only applicable response : "Please submit a task ticket and someone will review at earliest opportunity" (Translation: Monday morning)
One-Economics-9306@reddit
The same group that will only call for assistance during lunch or EOB because their time is too important and can't be interrupted.
Start setting boundaries. Repeat after me."That sounds like an issue for Monday I have a prior engagement that I can't miss."
imightbetired@reddit
Oh, I hate this so much. That person gives too few details, always. Mentions that it's urgent, so you call them. Doesn't answer. Try to connect to the laptop, it's offline since he closed the lid and went to his lunch break. Wait until he comes back, finally talk to him, and a lot of the times the problem had nothing to do with IT, he doesn't know how to do his job. Try to explain nicely that his laptop is fine, all programs are fine, he tries to make you solve his issue. They give up fast when you mention that you will talk with their boss about it. And another version, he has a serious problem that takes a lot of time to fix and he tells you about it when he has to leave home. Because you can fix it after his work hours end. Even if he knows that your work hours are the same as hism. Your time is not important. Ugh
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
Email to helpdesk
HELP
-the end
zveeg-0610@reddit
Gets closed IMMEDIATELY, as that's the only way to get their attention long enough to ask for more info. Also that's the reason/justifaction for closing the ticket in the first place.
I_Am_Become_Air@reddit
I had a literal call when I was pitching in at the help desk.
"Help! My monitor is on fire!"
First sign of the lightning strike hitting the water table the previous night and spreading hell to 3 of my buildings via mainframe wiring.
Good times, man... twitch twitch
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
Hey, a couple lights are out in my office. Could you fix those?
- Apparently IT is anything that has a wire.
Bright_Arm8782@reddit
IT is everyone's dad, just like HR is everyone's mum.
One-Economics-9306@reddit
and the cherry on the shit sandwich is the cc or bcc to his or your vp about how it's an IT issue that needs solved ASAP.
20 years working in this field. Their the reason when I take vacations they're to areas without cell or internet service.
zveeg-0610@reddit
I'm almost 30 in, and I've had this happen. I responded explaining EXACTLY what the problem was and cc'd THIER manager/VP for visibility. Last time that happened.
msi2000@reddit
The best response to cc'ed emails is to make sure you cc the replies and follow ups when they don't respond.
imightbetired@reddit
God damn, we're working with the same type of people
agitated--crow@reddit
"That sounds like an issue for Monday I have a prior engagement that I can't miss."
cellnucleous@reddit
I asked people who did this; answer was along the lines of "I wanted to get that done before the end of the week". Also used to get a batch of tickets from HR at 4:30 to 5pm on Friday. The HR ones were usually accompanied by "That'll be done for Monday morning when the new staff arrive though right?".
SnakeBiteZZ@reddit
Take a half day for those Friday’s that you can totally random. Then see them get shafted
Dharkcyd3@reddit
Our security team sends out the password resets needed before expiration on Friday at 5. We are out of the office by 4 at best. There were seven other hours in that day
patrick_bateman9_6@reddit
5:59 Friday (you just on call): I'm going on vacation so make an auto answer for my mail and check my VPN if I can work remotely?
AdvancedWrongdoer@reddit
My 3pm end of day crowd consists of "hey I've been locked out of 'x' and it's been like that for a few weeks. Can you help me?".....sure, thanks for telling me after it's been an issue for you for a whole ass month and you're just now telling me right when I'm about to leave. In fact, I'll see you tomorrow because I'm not doing shit right now.
LikeALincolnLog42@reddit
I think some of these people submit requests when they finally have time, which is at the end of any given day, and for some of them only on Fridays. I think that perhaps that they need to find a way to make time earlier so they can submit it earlier and also not on a Friday.
Stryker1-1@reddit
As soon as I have a ticket for your request it wil be actioned in the order it was received.
And for those pesky users who love to file everything as a P1 your ticket will be assigned the correct priority level by staff
AhYesTheSoldier@reddit
Had a guy ask me to replace his phone at 16:30 on Friday. Hasn't worked well in over two months...
Flat-Window-1622@reddit
All people are like this
LForbesIam@reddit
Mine are the P1s from software installed on Thursday night but doesn’t take affect for 24 hours and at 4pm on a Friday usually before a long weekend all craziness breaks loose. No one is working due to Friday EDO day
purawesome@reddit
No change Fridays 🫶 file that ticket and I’ll check it out next week.
karlsmission@reddit
People who want to blame IT for not getting their work done while having a quiet weekend.
duderguy91@reddit
Submits request at 4:55 Friday and then emails at 9am Monday asking why it isn’t done after 3 days. I do get some joy out of responding with the actual time of “X business minutes” to make them feel just a little stupid.
karlsmission@reddit
I just forward the tickets back to their manager, and let them know that it can be resubmitted on monday. I don't have very many friends outside my team, but my team loves me and I don't plan on moving up the ladder here so I'm OK with it.
duderguy91@reddit
I’ve promoted as far as I can with my employer without going the management route. It doesn’t take much to get a bit of attitude from me when developers in particular put in stupid ass requests.
karlsmission@reddit
I did go into management... My boss (who is amazing) got promoted, and they were going to put somebody else in charge of my team who was an incompetent micromanager, and my only option was to apply to be in that position myself. but I don't play the office games well enough to be promoted above where I'm at (I'm a manager, and above me is my director, I would have to grow my team enough to justify pushing myself into a director level position, which is... doable, but I don't want to, I already manage 3 teams). it's nice because my attitude carries weight, and people just can't go crying to my manager. My director just points them back in my direction, lol.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
this is the way
zhinkler@reddit
Friday 3:30. Not happening. Go whistle. If you don’t put in boundaries, the only one that will suffer is yourself.
teasemejessy@reddit
The 3pm Friday ticket is a universal law of physics at this point. They spend the entire week staring at a problem and only decide it is an emergency the second you start mentally checking out for the weekend.
Suitable-Hand-1059@reddit
I made the SLA policy for our company. I specified 48 business hours for exactly this reason.
I get that you, Mr. Executive, don’t want to deal with this any more than I do, and you don’t want to answer the slew of questions I’m going to ask you in writing to ensure that whatever stupid shit you just asked for is on record. You’d rather I just take my best guess and go for it - not happening. I’ll talk to you at 8am on Monday.
ponteaggere@reddit
Got two onboarding tickers for new hires. That starts on Monday. "Sorry for the late notice"
Was almost prepared to resign on the spot.
toebob@reddit
“Sorry for the late delivery. User setup takes 5 business days.”
CaptMelonfish@reddit
Exactly, we always advised our ola's openly, there was even a checkbox in the ticket that said "I understand a new starter request should be made 5 days in advance"
ponteaggere@reddit
We usually have a calendar month, as we don't stock hardware. And of course these two needed special orders of MacBooks. They don't even have seats left in the office.
1RedOne@reddit
We had a customer do this like clockwork, he’d report his laptop as broken and need it repaired and be impossible to contact
He’d ask for help like clockwork
Eventually his manager was getting on my case asking why I couldn’t get this guy a working pc or software
I finally took a look at our metrics for tickets. He was the top offender, by far. More than the next eight users combined, all of whom were known high support users
So that was one graph, the other was a frequency heat map pointing out the days that he had these patterns of high support calls
I brought these to the department manager, I said “this user is by far the highest user of our IT services, and what’s worse is many are repetitive calls for the same teaching issue. Now take a look at this frequency graph…do these hot spots correlate to any business deadlines?”
I was sure I’d be in trouble an ld went to far but the manager took the paperwork and said “very interesting…let me check”
The guys support problems vanished overnight. My theory is that he was terrible at his job and had bad social skills and was using fake IT issues as a way to escape accountability
awkwardnetadmin@reddit
I haven't worked in anything like help/servicedesk in years, but remember that many noisy users used IT tickets as a stalling tactic to NOT do work. Often their manager would eventually investigate and realize that there wasn't a real issue that IT was addressing just user error. After the manager realized this their behavior would quiet down because their boss realized the work avoidance.
1RedOne@reddit
I knew this guy was bad. We’d see the phones ring and just say his name out loud “Fay”, and then rock paper scissors to see who had to answer it.
But I had no idea how bad until I ran the numbers
He was mean and abusive too, and expected in depth help with CAD software too, which we were not expected to know. It seemed like he didn’t know how to even use the software well
Like every call was something else…my biggest pet peeve is that he wouldn’t organize his files at all, instead he’d find the email a particular file was sent in and reopen the file from there, so he was always working from the outlook temp folder
SilkBC_12345@reddit
Maybe all his support requests stopped because he got canned? :-)
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
nice work!
Alan157@reddit
That's a classic. 1 hour before weekend :"I have this problem the whole week, please help, this is urgent!"
therankin@reddit
I got one the other day. Not even a ticket, they just verbally mentioned it to my tech.
"We don't know what's going on, but for a few weeks every morning the computer won't go on. We have to force it off and then turn it back on."
Uhm, this is something you should have told us if it happened two or three times. Don't just say it matter of factly weeks later.
Alan157@reddit
People are crazy loo
Dar_Robinson@reddit
Just tell them , submit a ticket and it will be addressed as soon as possible
Proper_Bad_1588@reddit
I was walking out of work on Thursday and I pass through the maintenance shop like I always do. They had a support tech in there working on the hvac system, he’d been there all day resting to figure out the issues they were having and I’d checked in a few times to see if he needed anything. So I’m walking through with my coffee cup heading towards the door and he asks, do you have a backup of this server from a week ago? Uh, yes, why? He says something they did last Friday messed things up but he doesn’t know what. So back to my office to restore that server to what he wanted, uhg . Didn’t fix. Pulled up his AD service account and found he had changed the password at 8:48 that Friday morning and broke services starting up.
Automatic-Reserve94@reddit
Nahh, back in my admin days we collectively decided on a read-only friday except when the ceo/cfo had an urgent problem.
Also Power Bi -> DB Connection is a change, which should be bound to certain processes and evaluations made by the according change board/certain team members.
I would just dismiss those inquiries until the next non-friday.
TechnologyMatch@reddit
friday 3pm “urgent” requests are the IT equivalent of a jump scare😂 you think the week is winding down, then suddenly someone needs a power bi connection right now!
it’s always the same few procrastinators who treat your weekend like their backup plan. calling it a war crime feels about right! last‑minute friday tickets should come with a tribunal... or at least free coffee on monday man
trippnz@reddit
It’s so they can stand up on their Monday morning meetings and say “oh that went over to IT last week, I’ll follow up with them” they are not lying they just don’t say it was in the last hour or 2 of the work week. Then IT gets the blame and how “IT always holds us up” to the C level etc.
Glass_Call982@reddit
That's when I send the ticket submission details to their manager and somehow the whole issue just goes away. Strange?!?
Glass_Call982@reddit
I had this happen to me yesterday... I'm an MSP, I had a few techs off because Fridays in the warmer months are slow. About to leave at 4pm and get the dreaded ticket with "urgent" at the subject line. I read it and it starts with $user has not been able to use $printer since Wednesday, we have a large project to run over the weekend blah blah. I get it because they're a print shop. But why the fuck did you not say anything before?
Of course it is never appreciated so I just told them someone would reach out on Monday unless they want to pay weekend rates since they don't have it in their contract. Crickets in return.
Mister-Ferret@reddit
I get a sev 2 ticket pretty much every single Friday at 4:45pm. Inevitably when I ask when the problem started it will be 3 or 4 days ago.
Alan157@reddit
Every time. Lol
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
Literally just got a ticket asking for some change and they sent me a screenshot from Wednesday demonstrating what the problem is
ultranoobian@reddit
They are expecting you not to be able to complete, or postpone.
So when the issue comes up on Monday, they can say, They are waiting on IT.
Warrlock608@reddit
At my last job this would always happen on the last Friday of the month. It was almost always people who had deadlines to get XYZ into Mr. C-Suite and they waited until the absolute last second.
Now there is some missing piece or a bug that is causing minor delay, but because they didn't manage their time it becomes your problem. I started writing down names and if it happened multiple consecutive months I would hold the ticket until Monday and let them deal with the consequences.
InsaneHomer@reddit
"Your request requires authorisation from your line manager /dept director before I can proceed. Have a great weekend "
Academic-Proof3700@reddit
Typical
Lucky_Spare_5480@reddit
Put a meeting at the end of the day and block it off. Make it DND, and enforce it. Have them submit a formal request and that you will get to it on Monday.
Civil_Inspection579@reddit
These are the same people who ignore the ticket all week, then suddenly discover “critical urgency” at 3:07 PM on Friday. Every IT team has at least 2-3 of them. They somehow remember passwords, dashboards, VPN issues, and database access only when everyone’s mentally checked out for the weekend.
FarToe1@reddit
I've noticed and pondered the same too.
I think it's just that people use Friday afternoons for their lowest priority tasks - a way of winding themselves down before the weekend by doing something different that they've put to one side.
bbbbbthatsfivebees@reddit
We get the same group of users across multiple clients calling in about some wild issue every Friday at about 3PM. I'm white-glove with one of the users because she hates our company but doesn't hate me, so I'm usually returning her call at 3:30PM every Friday. It's always some nuts issue that's like "Yeah I deleted every email I ever sent. Please recover them!" or "Copilot refers to me as 'Mrs. Celery' after a Teams meeting, please fix this ASAP".
I'd love it if were feasible to send these requests to my T1s, but I usually can't because the user only ever comes to us with insane stuff that is better dealt with by the sysadmin team...
CaptMelonfish@reddit
There's always a few, last minute friday types because they've been promising someone all week to do it and now they're in a bind. Usually it's managers realising their new hire starts monday and they haven't arranged kit (tough titties). But yeah it happens. I am assured there is a special place in hell for this lot.
properwaffles@reddit
No Power BI allowed on Fridays, sorry.
footballheroeater@reddit
No production changes on Fridays.
kobewiththeflow@reddit
It shouldn’t feel as good as it does to offboard these people when the time comes … but it does.
Had 2 users leave last year who accounted for 25% of my weekly tickets.. org is 5000+ people..
CaptainZhon@reddit
Sounds like a request and that can wait till next week
Nik_Tesla@reddit
My other favorite one is kinda the reverse. It's the middle of the week, middle of the day. User puts in an emergency ticket by email, demands immediate attention. I call them minutes after the email comes in, and somehow in those few minutes, they are now out of the office, sometimes they've started their vacation and won't be back for a week. Why did you put in a ticket and immediately leave?
Who are you people? Why do you do this?
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
yes I know this one as well.
"If we don't get this project done immediately, the company is doomed."
leaves for lunch
Robeleader@reddit
"Oh I didn't think you'd actually get back to me this time"
mindful999@reddit
"Sorry i dont specialize in Power BI so i might not be the help you need, maybe fill up a request with [provider x] or contact Microsoft, otherwise i am free on monday"
Deathdar1577@reddit
Welcome to my out of office reply. See you Monday.
clt_drol@reddit
I have a rule that no changes are made on Fridays.
billyalt@reddit
New IT Policy: Read-Only Fridays. Break/fix and maintenance only.
LAF2death@reddit
I get this a lot, it’s typically the “I’ve been having this issue…” “ how long?.. like two-three weeks. It’s just worth me bringing it up now that it’s Friday and I sensed you were leaving early.” I typically make it look like I’m working on it and add it to my list for Monday. Or I’ll tell them to email it to me so I don’t forget about it.
NotYetReadyToRetire@reddit
I used to get a lot of end of day requests, at 4:50 to 4:55, for things that "I need today" - followed less than 5 minutes later by seeing them walking out to the parking lot and driving away. I convinced my boss to institute a new rule that last-minute requests would be dealt with the next morning unless you were waiting at the office for them. Suddenly I was leaving at 5pm as well.
d03j@reddit
Plenty a place and people that have a no meetings Friday policy, or reserve Friday afternoons to catch up with admin, etc. Not that unusual that's when they try to fix the not super urgent broken access, create a new report, etc...
mediaogre@reddit
Years ago, I got fed up by this behavior. We used to cave to all the time and all it does is set a shit slick slope precedent and make someone’s poor planning our emergency.
I began declaring during morning standup on Friday, “There’s no such thing as a Friday “emergency.”” (I manage a team now, but used to be a sys admin, I swear!) Anyway, I’d empower my team to tell anyone who pressured them to talk to me. I’ve had many fun conversations that almost always end with a user backing down or more often, changing their tune. I maintained objectivity and would occasionally support the user if it was a true emergency.
Shields-up, is maybe my favorite part of being a manager. Being the gatekeeper for late Friday “emergencies” put me in a position to interview the user and identify and earmark some repeat offenders (they didn’t like getting me on Teams a second time). The repeat offenders always sound the same… “Well, I thought IT is supposed to be helpful, I guess not” or “Well, I didn’t know the vendor was onsite until my manager told me and he told me to open a ticket” or the infamous “If you don’t help, production is going to stop.”
Then fucking plan, nipple nut.
It still happens but not nearly as much.
KallamaHarris@reddit
OK, please send the specifications to our supportportal.com and I'll take a look.
DJMagicHandz@reddit
We call it read-only Fridays for a reason...
chesser45@reddit
Ugh I’m bad for that as a IT person usually because I’m in my fafo phase as it gets near eod and I’m looking at some random shit and wondering “who is this use and why aren’t they disabled or “hey why are we burning $500 a month on $random infra in $cloud.
Certain_Prior4909@reddit
That's because they have their meetings on Friday on things that need to get done before they leave for the day.
My other job did that and we worked well past 6pm every Ffing Friday.
snarbleflops@reddit
Always end of day on a Friday I get some random ass request that sounds “urgent” ..”has been a problem since Monday!”
People are annoying but what can you do
Trust_8067@reddit
It's "I've been slacking off all week, and now I'm panicking because I just remembered I owe my boss something that needs to get done before the weekend."
Make them open up a ticket, follow the appropriate SLAs. Sometimes even adults need to be treated like children so they can learn to grow up and act responsible.
CharcoalGreyWolf@reddit
“I’m sorry, we have a strict policy of No-Change Fridays. This is because significant changes going into a weekend could cause problems that could lead to overtime we are not allowed to have or downtime at a time when our staff is unable to respond.
We will be happy to schedule this for you next week; please keep in mind that this type of change can only happen Monday-Thursday.”
ThemB0ners@reddit
I don't really understand the hostility here. It sounds like you're upset that you're being asked to do your job, not because you're busy but just because it's Friday afternoon. Are you expected to be working at this time? If so, what's the problem? If you were busy or it was a complex task, sure I get that.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
No point. Did I say I don't do it.
The point is that the same user has a problem every Friday afternoon late in the day because they're procrastinating. Not because they need actual help that they didn't figure out until that moment but because they're procrastinating
get it?
vogelke@reddit
Exactly. Always keep records of this type of crap and after the third time, forward them to your manager and their manager every time.
ThemB0ners@reddit
So...? Is this putting you into unnecessary overtime? Stopping you from other work?
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
Go check out them boners
ThemB0ners@reddit
Aww someone's asking me to do my job instead of reddit. Boohoo
ryno9o@reddit
Honestly those are some of my favorite users. They spend mon-wed doing the business as usual work then come up with progressive ideas near the end of the week. Then we work with them, figure out all the needs, get the right access and build something that genuinely improves the org.
We've build some of the most useful things from those sorts of users. Full onboarding workflows. Offboarding flows that generate hardware return tickets with the help desk based off of asset management and read outs depending on their access capabilities, capacity planning for proposed projects vs time committed for current projects for our researchers, tools for our contract managers to align contractors to work proposals. Lots of stuff that took days of manhours in the past down to a few button clicks. Some processes, like onboarding, have gone from 2 week processes to having a laptop ready day 1 and a phone ready day 2.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
I can appreciate this with the last-minute. Hey, by the way, we've got a dude showing up on Monday at 3:00 on a Friday. Much of that has led to increased automation on our side because people just don't fucking learn.
However there's something slightly different about this kind of user. The request is rarely even backed by legitimate concern. It's purely attempting to find reason within their procrastination for blame.
vogelke@reddit
Get a policy in place: 3 business days to onboard a new user. Slipped through the cracks? We have a process for this, how did you let that happen?
dl901@reddit
“My dog ate my homework” phenotype
dl901@reddit
I agree with your sentiment but I don’t think this is the same case. The existence of this post implies it was an urgent request, and not a brainstormed bright idea. Most users like you describe would be happy to hear “that’s a great idea, let’s explore it together on Monday”
Deadmeat3344@reddit
Is this your your first IT job?
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
No I've been doing this for decades but today I found my inner fuck this
One-Economics-9306@reddit
Have you had them come up to you at the urinal and feel like that's the appropriate time to make those request? When they do ignore them and repeatedly hit the flush until they get the hint. Or ask them to shake it for you while you write down their request.
vogelke@reddit
Stealing this for my quotes file. Take my upvote.
Kaligraphic@reddit
If you're trying to talk to me at the urinal, you're getting peed on. Approach at your own risk.
MSP_Guy999@reddit
So you don’t get to work from home on Friday?
Paintraine@reddit
"Really sorry mate, currently engaged in priority work. Please raise a time to discuss this with me on Monday. Have a great weekend."
3legdog@reddit
I think it's /because/ Fridays are slow that people start to think about cool things to make, explore, etc. Like, create that cool BI dashboard I've been thinking about. Try and implement that process/tool/workflow that I saw on YouTube.
Why just today, a slow Friday, I vibed up an interactive org chart of our company using AD for the raw data. Noticing there was location data there as well, I kept going and made another page that showed where employees cluster on a world map.
ThatDanGuy@reddit
Read only Friday’s.
Greerio@reddit
You call me on a Friday afternoon, it’s a Monday problem.
420GB@reddit
Why does it matter, it gets added to the back of the queue and that's it
tamrod18@reddit
Sounds like a Monday problem. Remote people love to put in tickets Friday afternoon.
OneTrueMel@reddit
You just need to learn boundaries.
Im an automation team of 1 and everything has an SLA. I also dont take new work after 3pm because im wrapping things up for the end of the day-calendar blocked unless it's a fire
RevLoveJoy@reddit
What's that ticket number?
We don't start new work on Friday.
I'm actually wrapping up several projects today so I can close out my week.
No.
No, I'm already committed for the rest of the week.
No, if you want it done by end of week you need to be getting on my radar before Wednesday.
No, why did you wait until Friday afternoon if you need it this week? Nope, still no.
Hah, you're kidding, right? You aren't? Wow. No.
cheesy123456789@reddit
It’s because they’re procrastinating on a project they don’t want to do. They ask on Friday so that when their boss asks them on Monday, they can blame IT. Tale as old as time.
BigL97@reddit
I had this exact issue today with someone on the West Coast. End of the day for me, but they needed it ASAP and waited until 2pm on a Friday. Needless to say, I told them that it would be handled Monday.
vphan13_nope@reddit
READ ONLY Fridays. Stand your ground on this and you will have weekends free. Ignore it and you will experience self inflicted outages and long weekends
DehydratedButTired@reddit
Tell them you have weekend responsibilities and that you can’t do a rushed deploy. You need to begin it Monday. Track all of the extra requests with a name, task and time/date. These people are abusing your goodwill and while a single request seems reasonable, a list that proves a pattern proves how unreasonable they are.
OpenGrainAxehandle@reddit
They just want to end their day early. They simply offload to you, and come back on Monday to pick back up.
Given the IT workload, you should send back a clarification query at or slightly after 5:00, and block your task until you have heard back.
tzigon@reddit
Sure I will get to it on Monday. I already have enough to do today that I can't fit you in.
Ron-Swanson-Mustache@reddit
Man, I've been at my company long enough that I can confidently tell those people to "walk right the fuck off of a cliff", but in correct corpo speak.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
Yeah once the pattern is clear I find a way to be disruptive
gwatt21@reddit
assholes, that's who.
OMGItsCheezWTF@reddit
I am guilty of this sometimes, mostly because Fridays are my only real time to take stock of things I know I've needed to look at for a while but haven't had a chance because I have project work my team and I have been working on, and project work takes priority over tech debt.
So I'll pick it up at the end of a Friday and be like "ah, my role needs more permissions in this account" or "Oh I need to update some terraform scripts and get our devops team to approve them"
Today was an example, I finally got time to look at improving error detection in our codedeploy canary monitoring. I have a plan for improving deployment safety, but I immediately ran into a brick wall because on the dev environment I can't actually see codedeploy, my role lacks access. So there I am on a Friday afternoon messaging people asking them if they can update a set of role permissions on the dev account a for a task I have had on my radar for a month.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
Yes sir
jibjaba4@reddit
Need something for Monday to show progress lol.
i_likebeefjerky@reddit
They haven’t done shit all week but will be asked about it on Monday during their weekly meetings.
MADSYKO@reddit
Exactly. They didn't do anything and will blame IT on Monday.
EchoPhi@reddit
It's simple. "could this have been done Tuesday? It could? Then it will be done Wednesday".
IT is plagued by "it's not hard" and even worse with LLM.
"I'll just have X do it for me"
Awesome thanks for the 3 new security holes, leaked passwords, and flawed code.
We have it so easy.
PerfSynthetic@reddit
Work nine hours M-Th and half day Fridays.
Solves last minute Joe spam...
Strict 'no change Fridays' to prevent weekend impacts.
Labyricorn@reddit
I always asked "Did you submit a ticket?"
Because I can't schedule the work without a ticket.
If you don't have a ticketing system talk to Management and HR because they make people behave and streamline work making it trackable and repeatable.
itishowitisanditbad@reddit
The... audacity?
Are they not just working on friday and thats the essence of the complaint?
Are they asking for something they shouldn't?
All sounds reasonable to me.
How dare they do work on fridays I guess? If they, with your speculative conclusion, did work hard all week and needed help would it be different?
You just hate they didn't do work sometimes?
Its hard to sum up your complaint into a reasonable statement.
Original-Locksmith58@reddit
I think the idea is that it’s rude to be making these requests on the days most people aren’t working per the employer culture and expecting them to be done the same day. Personally I don’t do same day work orders for items like this and no changes are made on Fridays.
MicrosoftmanX64@reddit
This sub is full of such lazy people. Like dude, you're getting paid. Still 2 hours in the day. Someone wants help, do your job or let someone who wants to actually work take your position
Original-Locksmith58@reddit
Sure, I’m getting paid to do something else lol… I’m not going to drop everything for your last minute Friday change request. Sorry not sorry!
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
This is exactly what happens. They make these requests after they procrastinate all week long and then they ask IT for something complicated. Not that this is a particularly complicated example but just something that doesn't pop up in an instant. They want to try to blame IT for why they didn't finish it next week.
itishowitisanditbad@reddit
Is that what happened?
Where do you see that?
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
Dude, it's fucking Friday. Take a walk
itishowitisanditbad@reddit
"Put in a ticket, i'll see it next week"
Take a walk yourself after doing that arduous task.
nlfn@reddit
do you also walk into a sit-down restaurant 15 minutes before close and order a meal?
itishowitisanditbad@reddit
Where did they request IMMEDIATE help? Or seem to expect it?
Tell them to put in a ticket or whatever the process is.
Big fucking deal?
If other things have happened that OP hasn't said then it might change things but otherwise people are injecting details that didn't get said.
nlfn@reddit
they did say "I need it right away" according to the OP.
absolutely agree that a ticket is the correct process.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
I'm sorry that I didn't make my off-the-cuff example specific enough for your little corner niche idea of what is legitimate. You're an asshole.
MicrosoftmanX64@reddit
Dude how does this even compare? 5 a clock is quitting time. Still a full 2 hours of work
nlfn@reddit
because it takes two hours (or more) to clean up and close a restaurant? how much they can get done before the doors are locked directly effects how late they stay afterwards.
it's just after 3pm for me and i'm finishing up emails that need to go out and getting new VMs deployed that are needed for the start of next week.
if someone has a new project they need help with then put a ticket in and i'll look at it on monday.
MicrosoftmanX64@reddit
Did you even read what they needed help with? It's legit a 5-10 minute job.. Just stop man
duderguy91@reddit
Lol what a dork. You do realize that when working in an organization with IT people you will likely have a ticketing system. Ignoring that ticketing system and then asking for an immediate request in a Friday afternoon is just plain rude. Put in a ticket and it’ll get addressed in the order received or based on criticality.
CodingCircuitEng@reddit
Agree..this venting raised more questions about OPs work ethic than those of the requesters for me. If you want to pack up, just say "I am leaving now, I'll do this first thing Monday?". If it can be done before 5, just do it?
The world isn't going to end if you don't do unpaid overtime, but if you work full-time, then the other people are completely within their rights to ask you to do something on Friday IMO.
dl901@reddit
What’s unreasonable is waiting the entire week until the eleventh hour to make a request that impacts other people. Not a big deal until it’s the same 3-4 users every time.
I wonder why everyone else in the company manages do their jobs in a reasonable timeframe…
deep40000@reddit
I don't see the problem to be honest. I always do nothing all week, then I feel bad, then I try and get work done 2 hours before everyone's weekend to justify my paycheck. I mean, doesn't everyone do this??
shrimp_blowdryer@reddit
It's not.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
You're that guy
JohnOxfordII@reddit
It's called revenge sleep procrastination. The people doing it likely don't have a stable routine or very much control in their lives, so they spend most of the weekend staying up late as a means of asserting control over something.
This causes energy issues throughout the week, they are generally less productive earlier in the week but as the week goes on, due to exhaustion and the expectation of being at work on time, their sleep schedule normalizes by Thursday and Friday and energy levels recover.
Friday afternoon they begin to subconsciously feel like they havent accomplished much and rush to complete a large project that takes longer than an afternoon. The reason people in IT experience interactions with these people so much is because the departments that interact with IT most often (developers) have more young people in them, who are more likely to experience a lack of control in their life from lack of tenure, stature, and assets in comparison to older peers.
The best way to rectify this is to offer these people energy drinks or coffee Thursday morning so that they start these large projects sooner. And if you're in a position to do so, allow them as flexible a schedule as possible, with the optimal goal of "come and go as you please as long as your work is completed on time or ahead of schedule and is high quality"
tesseract4@reddit
This is nonsense.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
Basically they just don't want to do anything at all and want to blame somebody. I'm an easy target.
schroedingerskoala@reddit
People who think having no work-life balance is going to make them look good to their "betters", you know, morons without a life.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
For many, many years I was very concerned about my appearance to my boss. Was I constantly working? Was I doing enough? Was I attentive and on top of it at all moments of the day?
Then I became a manager and I realized I didn't give a damn how hard were people working or how many minutes in a day as long as the work was getting done. If the people in the company were happy and my boss was happy, I was happy and I didn't need anything more from my team.
Ever since then I've taken everything down like twenty notches, and frankly I work very hard to get junior technicians more relaxed and focused on what needs to be done rather than what they think needs to be seen.
Tx_Drewdad@reddit
They promised something by end of day/end of week and just stirred their lazy asses to work on it.
Cast "change control" to fix it
Downinahole94@reddit
Sounds like support specialist work.
tesseract4@reddit
You need to explain Read-Only Fridays to these troglodytes.
rararagidesu@reddit
I'd be happy if thats only random thing that happens to me on Friday. After 10 years of internal IT I've went MSP way.
There are no chill Fridays with pizza and Reddit, somwthing is always going on.
rsysadminthrowaway@reddit
As someone with MSPTSD... why? Why would you do such a thing?
rararagidesu@reddit
Wanted something different, to actually try myself and thought it'd look good on CV.
Trial period went smooth. In hindsight other internal offer which was on table would be a better choice.
At least I don't do on call or overtime.
In half a year saw more actual environments than in previous 9. No time for boredom, only exhaustion in place.
For young unexperienced ones it can be (great) opportunity.
For me in 30s? Mixed bag, probably more downsides than upsides. Grumpy af without energy to do labbing.
I'm fine after all, probably won't stay here long.
Sorry for this wall of text, wanted to get that off my chest.
Common_Reference_507@reddit
"Sure. What's the ticket number for this?"
PrincipleExciting457@reddit
People that actually work after 3pm on a Friday are my most hated people.
Catch me at the start of the day? Sure. Whatever. It’s annoying but there is still plenty of daylight.
Like clockwork I have coworkers reaching out to me about stuff on a Friday at 4 PM. Seriously? Just go fuck yourself at that point. No, I’m not taking your stupid impromptu meeting.
tommysk87@reddit
Lol, same for me. 4PM on friday we get tickets, that get escalated on 7AM on monday, that why it takes so long, they created ticket a week ago! No, you created your fucking ticket a half business hour ago! Point me in exact point in SLA that your service requests need to be done in 30 freaking minutes! Sorry, but I am not gonna let anybody shit on my head.
goronmask@reddit
Thats just an item in monday’s todo list
BisonThunderclap@reddit
I don't know why y'all are surprised. Friday is when I can tackle things that haven't been touched.
Your coworkers do it too with things they need.
Just send your boilerplate that it will take and day and work on it Monday.
Dru2021@reddit
“Changes cannot be committed on a Friday due to possible DNS replication issues and lack of weekend vendor support”
Dru2021@reddit
Not sure how I summoned a bullet point there, possibly due to having been down the pub since 2pm.
Prepped-n-Ready@reddit
lmao I do that too. Cant hate Im part of the problem. If they didnt make it so hard to work...
Why cant he connect the DB himself? That's really what's causing these last minute requests. This is stress avoidant behavior. These 3-4 people need something to diffuse anxiety and make the request immediately. Right now they are avoiding the stress of connecting to DB and when you respond right away, you give them a positive hormonal release. You need to inform their manager or ask approval or something like that, and this problem goes away immediately. Suddenly, its more stressful to wait.
StarsGuyCarbonneau@reddit
It's more benign than you think. Many people get overloaded with meetings they can't control taking up all the time during the week so by the time they hit the weekend, they get to the things they wanted to get to in the first place.
It's a phenomenon management doesn't get punished for at all and hits all the support organizations at once. IT. Accounting. They all deal with everyone "doing their job" at the same time.
DisMuhUserName@reddit
This is very common with one individual where I work, always a major issue at 4pm on Friday.
ChabotJ@reddit
I get these too. It's 100% people procrastinated and now are rushing.
Tatermen@reddit
It's the same everywhere. I work at a small B2B ISP and without fail every Friday at 16.30 someone phones up complaining their broadband has been down for the last 3 days and they need it urgently for some deadline.
bossbutton@reddit
Probably people who have been stuck in back to back meetings all week and finally have time to actually get things done.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
nah I know this guy... they don't want him in any meetings either
dowlingm@reddit
If it's litigation related I get it because they might have thought something was going to settle and it didn't. Otherwise...
So_average@reddit
Bizarrely, my Friday afternoons are solid meetings that I can't miss, mixed in with admin work, training, ensuring documentation is up to date, and finally pissing off early.
rdldr1@reddit
READ ONLY FRIDAY
doubleUsee@reddit
Possibly they're people like me who are struggling to concentrate all week while people are rampaging through the office and yapping at me all day. Come friday, a lot of people do nothing at all, so I finally get some time to focus and get work done. I don't really have the expectation anyone else is working though, so I don't go and ask much of others.
However, because of this routine, I also do not accept new work on fridays unless it's already on fire, I usually tell people I am already filled up with work until late afternoon, so their request will be first on monday.
RevengyAH@reddit
So they want you to do their jobs?
Public_Warthog3098@reddit
One of my coworker has this great skill of ignoring ppl. I have now started doing this lol
Jarrus__Kanan_Jarrus@reddit
They want to look busy by dropping it on you so they can blame you for not getting it done.
Best solution: make it known that Fridays are “Read Only Fridays” no prod changes on Fridays.
adamandevil@reddit
No changes on Fridays
billskionce@reddit
They have a status report due on Friday and have procrastinated.
hosalabad@reddit
Sorry tied up on a vendor call from noon to 5. DND Then clock out.
tekashimandela@reddit
Are you me? I am living this right at this very moment! haha.
I had a ticket that came in to build a new server, no tickets for 8 hours smh
RedditDon3@reddit
They start their work day right before they call you.
42andatowel@reddit
We did annual goal setting, company wide, big stuff, tied to bonuses, then the week after goals are finalized we start getting the flood of requests from people who are going to need project level help/resources from us to complete their goals.....except our project list is full from our own goals.....maybe solicit your resources before you set your goals!
MrJoeMe@reddit
Usually it is people that slack off all week and realize they better get "something" done before the end of the week.
burnte@reddit
I usually get those in a flood monday morning when they realize the stuff they didn't do last week.
moffetts9001@reddit
Because they do fuck all during the rest of the week and then they try to catch up at the end of it.
wuntunearlybko@reddit
I legit block my calendar starting at 3pm Friday named "wrap up activities for the week" so I can get a few last minute things done. My manager thinks it's great and supports me as long as I jump in if something really big is going on. I can't stand those that wait for Friday to start tasks that involve me or IT as a dept
sumerianhubcap@reddit
Ok ok, yes AND, Sloth's Advocate: they may have a crapload of meetings all week, or were just handed this and feel like it's super important and SO EASY for you to take care of.
Not saying do it. I've spent my career trying to see humane reasons people do stupid shit. It's emotionally calming, plus it's a great challenge!
AggravatingPin2753@reddit
We forward those to our IT Committee Chair, he takes care of saying what we can’t: so you waited until x time on Friday when you had all week, or, how long have you known you had to do xyz or give xyz presentation, and so on and so forth. It seems to only take 1 or 2 times for that problem to solve itself. Unless it is a real emergency, the best you will get out of him is, they will do their best, but it probably won’t be done until Monday. We don’t do it be aholes, we do it bc the committee knows we work our a’s off all week and they don’t want us being treated any worse than the user would treat a partner, client, etc. Big law firm, at least 95% of our attys know they are a demanding bunch, but also respect and appreciate the work we do and our off time. Unless we screw up, it’s hard to use the, but IT didn’t have it ready for me excuse at our firm.
I’ve been at places where it’s the opposite, that is completely unsustainable. Their IT turnover proved it.
Spyke_101@reddit
ROFB. Read-Only Friday's Bitches!
roboabomb@reddit
Introducing!!! READ-ONLY FRIDAYS!!!*
Now, and forevermore, changes to production systems on Fridays are limited to break/fix and emergency outage repairs!
Need something on a Read-Only Friday? Is it in Production? Yes? Well, Fuck you^uuu^^uuu^^^uu !!!
But you might ask, "Why Mr. Announcer, why does it have to be like this? I --enjoy-- saddling IT with work on Fridays!?"
And to that we answer; Because IT are (brace yourselves) now considered PEOPLE TOO!
So remember this easy slogan if you need a production change on a Friday or Holiday Weekend: Fuck you^uuu^^uuu^^^uu !!!
^* ^May ^also ^apply ^to ^Holidays, ^Pre-Holidays, ^Vacations, ^Pre-Vacation ^days, ^and ^other ^assorted ^occasions!
Darury@reddit
I will just say, I'm glad to know this happens to everyone and not just me. Usually by 2pm Friday I've mentally checked out and just sort of watching the clock until 3:30 when I'm done. I really don't want people pinging me with their "critical" issues that have been on-going for a week.
whythehellnote@reddit
If they're anything like me by the time I'm done dealing with all the crap it's usually Friday afternoon before I can start my weekly todo list
itakeitupthebutt@reddit
there's no down time in IT, there's just more time for things to come up
NYJETS198@reddit
It’s not just IT. People who don’t do shit all week like to throw stuff onto other people’s plates at the worst possible times.
AnomalyNexus@reddit
That right there is your answer.
On fridays people switch from their routine work to doing elearnings, admin and drumroll...work "side projects" that encounter novel challenges like setting up database connections
etancrazynpoor@reddit
Have you tried not replying or saying, I’m happy to help Monday, here a guide?
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
They're hitting me up on Teams and Mouse Jiggler makes it look like I'm there!!
cluberti@reddit
Make sure you've set meetings on your calendar that show you as busy or DND when you know you don't have time to handle anything but actual emergencies. Also, make sure you use something like OOFSponder so that your OOO gets set every day and over the weekends automatically so you don't forget.
Frothyleet@reddit
You are there! That doesn't mean you're not working on other shit! Or in a position to respond immediately to a Teams message, or whatever.
thisguy883@reddit
Mouse jiggler is a blessing and a curse.
The_Wkwied@reddit
Reply back with something like 'This is the first we are hearing of this request, and this is going to take some time to complete. We won't have it finished by EOD. Considering the urgency of this, why weren't we informed earlier? Please put a ticket in' and CC their boss
collinsl02@reddit
Ask for a change request which needs to be approved at the change board next week.
dude_named_will@reddit
Not even necessarily on a Friday. My office practically shutsdown at 4 PM, yet someone needs something at like 4:05 PM just when I am finishing up reviewing tickets.
DiscardStu@reddit
We had a guy who would plan out events months in advance and then ask for all the technical requirements 48 hours before the event. It would be, "hey, we're doing X,Y, and Z on Thursday and we need all of this software installed and configured before then." And then he'd just give me a list of software. No links, no version information, nothing, just a list of applications. Finally I had to tell him that his lack of planning was not going to be my emergency. Absolutely no consideration for others, whatsoever.
SewCarrieous@reddit
Just don’t respond until Monday. What are they gonna do about to? Fire their entire IT dept of one guy?
NostalgicGuillotine@reddit
You know, you can leave Teams messages on unread.
BokehJunkie@reddit
People LOVE to yeet stupid requests into the ether late on Fridays so they have an excuse to say they were “waiting on IT” and that’s why they couldn’t finish XYZ that they procrastinated on all week.
At a small company with no SLA’s I’d start forwarding the message to their supervisor telling them when the request came in, and asking if it’s an emergency, and then if it is, INSIST on the worker being available with you the entire time you work the request. Tie them up on their Friday afternoon. It’ll stop that shit real quick.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
Yeah pretty much. Sometimes I like to just hammer out a good solution so they can't blame me. I'll send it to them at 9:00 pm on Sunday. "All set!"
BokehJunkie@reddit
I’ve had several co-workers that I’ve had to just start throwing right under the wheels of the bus every time they talk to me. It does help. They can be pissed at me all they want, but their behavior changes.
blofly@reddit
"The lack of preparation on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."
CAPICINC@reddit
Quick question...
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
-we just bought this software and need it running for a client meeting monday. Do we have oracle servers?
RansomStark78@reddit
time to leave work 3pm
2:45 pm, worker comes in laptop is over heating
F me sideways
bjmnet@reddit
"This has been happening for 3 days or so..."
RansomStark78@reddit
3 weeks aparently
bjmnet@reddit
Right! 2.5 weeks ago at the beginning of the business day was the time to bring this to me! I don't know about you but I have loaners for just this scenario, "here sign in and go back to work while I examine what type of kitty is filling your vent with dander."
santathe1@reddit
They’re probably doing that to say “The Power BI dashboard hasn’t been completed yet because the connection needs to be created by the admin. They’ve said Monday, so I’ll work on it after” to their manager.
WizardsOfXanthus@reddit
HA This happens to me all the time, Fridays especially. To me, from 3:00 pm on, people just need to start tying up loose ends for the day and not be reaching out to others with requests. I get so many after 4:00 pm, which is bad enough, but make it a Friday, and then I get pissed.
Adventurous_Scene494@reddit
That's a prod change. No prod changes on Fridays.
anonymousITCoward@reddit
Dude, I get those everyday just before lunch...
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
"Yeah I can handle that but I need to work on your machine. When is a good time?"
-Oh how about 11:30?
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
NeezDuts900@reddit
I just ignore them until Monday unless they're a VIP. I have found that I need to train my users like children and that if I make myself immediately available every time they snap their fingers at me, that's going to be the expectation going forward.
If they are not a VIP and it's not truly urgent yet they keep on hitting me up asking when it's going to be done, I push back my response time by at least a few hours every time they ping me
gumbrilla@reddit
Fight fire with fire. "Raise a ticket"
Lucky__Flamingo@reddit
If someone asks me for something at 4:45pm Friday and I deliver it at 8:45am Monday, I have delivered it in one business hour.
If they want it sooner, they should ask sooner.
Go through this conversation a few times, they'll get the point.
Puzzled-Essay-2555@reddit
Do no change Fridays bud. Make that rule stick with it.
covex_d@reddit
fri is a read-only day. start pushing this idea on everybody. first as a joke but then start to enforce it. people are \~\~programable\~\~ trainable. redirection, conditioning, repetition.
RagnarStonefist@reddit
we had a memo circulated around the office from one of the execs about 'valuing people's time after 5 pm and on the weekends' and about how there is a conscious effort to not make requests outside of normal business hours and times. There's one prime exec who is the root of the problem, and they have roundly ignored the other exec (who, to be clear, is a higher level exec) and are continuing to make demands on other departments for things on the weekends and late at night.
Frothyleet@reddit
EZ PZ.
"Hey CFO, hear you loud and clear on implementing that new accounting system you just heard about on a podcast. Would love to help, but I'll need you to clear it with the CEO first based on the policy memo from last week. Let me know what he says!"
BamaTony64@reddit
My question is, when did you figure out you needed this? They normally refuse to answer and agree to do it on Monday out of embarrassment.
headcrap@reddit
Happens here on others’ WFH days in general.. where they are doing sweet FA until about that time.
“I’m working!”
Boss won’t manage it. Hell, boss left for the weekend. It is 12:30…
TheWDWillis@reddit
They are padding their weeks tasks. If you get it done, they have added those things to their list of stuff done this week. If you don’t, they are blaming you for not getting that done and that blocked this this and this.
Some are just people who make a list to get done and check it on Friday and remember to reach out to us. Those are the ones who are chillest about “I can get that done Monday”
I did institute at my current job a 2pm stop on tickets on Fridays.
If your ticket isn’t in before 2, or a P1, it’s see ya next week. (Cool folks do still sometimes get an exception).
TrumpsEarChunk@reddit
Probably the people that save all their work for the weekend so they can avoid spouses and children.
thomasmitschke@reddit
Tell them no changes on Friday …
BoringOrange678@reddit
Your rant is fully accurate. I’ll allow it.
Deep_Library_6375@reddit (OP)
I am honored by your allowance
JynxedByKnives@reddit
Those emails, chat messages and calls that don’t go through the help desk ticket system get ignored unless it’s from my, IT teammates, manger or higher up boss (director ect).
YukonCornelius1964@reddit
This drives me crazy... I just act stupid when this stuff comes my way.
UCFCO2001@reddit
Production issues always seem to happen after 12pm on a Friday. Even today I've been dealing with one that popped up an hour ago related to GL accounting. Good times
Impressive_Cress_983@reddit
Yout coworkers are talking to each other all day on friday, sometimes about work. Occasionally one will advise the other on an app to use, leading to the Friday tickets.
thisguy883@reddit
Im lucky in the sense that our busiest days are Thursdays.
Everyone wants to fix stuff on a Thursday so they have a chill Friday.
Once in a blue moon, we get that kind of person you are talking about, and its such a pain because most of us are already in weekend mode.
Meekseeeks@reddit
The Friday 4:00PM Classic
whatdoido8383@reddit
I just don't reply until the next week.
HerbOverstanding@reddit
ROF - Read Only Fridays
Hagey29@reddit
I agree with RedHal, that's a change.
No change Fridays, baby.
agitated--crow@reddit
Read-only Fridays
GardenWeasel67@reddit
lol
DaBombMM@reddit
That’s a “sorry I didn’t see your message last week” scenario… the following Monday
here_4_crypto_@reddit
>Sure buddy, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p5DhCisr2I
>Happy Friday, enjoy the weekend!
jploughe@reddit
Ask where is the Work Order for it, then wait until Monday to look at it, lol
Smart_North_3374@reddit
Put a request ticket in and I’ll pick it up on Monday.