The way the military handles computers makes me think sometimes that it’d be more efficient for us to go back to typewriters and carrier pigeons. The idea that I have to call someone in another country so they can call someone at my base to walk next door and fix my computer is mind boggling, especially when the guy who sits across the office from me seems to know more about computers than a lot of the comm folks I’ve met. Now, I didn’t say all comm folks, but it is true for several, and I doubt there’s anyone in the Air Force who could say otherwise.
And the site will probably be blocked on even more government networks for me saying that. Oh well.
The Wiki page continues to be vandalized, and the recurring theme in the spam posts is explicit gay sex references. At first I thought I’d like to just talk to whoever was doing it and try to understand what they were pissed about, but if that’s all they have on their mind I think it’s best they just remain anonymous and ignored. To each their own, right?
-Farva
let me be the FIRST to say that this is the same way that Osan AB and the 5th RS works
Stinking Help desk. Worst idea Ever.
it’s probally a few /b/tards doing it farva. eventually they get bored with something and leave it alone.
re: gay hackers.. provide the IP address and lets all ping the hell out of em!
re: no-help desks.. you can’t spell s*it without IT!!!
IT = Information Taliban. They are waging jihad on information access.
87.177.32.150 is his ip address and i say make his next internet visit heck on earth
The help desk solves 99% of the old people’s problems (many times civilian secretaries, but there is the occasional AF old guy that can’t use computers) …..the rest of the 1% are problems they can’t even fix without loading a new image on to your drive, or doing something else I could do myself without help…..if the AF want’s to cut back, here’s a place.
Consolodating the help desks to a few regional bases was the biggest mistake the AF has made. Like driving the train from the caboose. For most simple things, a remote log-in is ok, but sometimes it’s better to be hands and eyes on.
‘Course, you can apperantly fly a plane from halfway around the world………………
And what’s bad is taking old TDCers and making them help desk
Not to be picky or anything, but they don’t use a caboose on a train anymore. In fact, it is becoming more and more run through a central control system that sends orders to the train via radio or data link. So in a way, a railroad IS run the same way. Which explains a lot.
As a full time Railroader and Part time military I can vouch that our company has the same stupid policy of centralizing the help desk at one place. Having to call them, and in turn them calling the guy next door is less than helpful. Trouble Tickets….the help desk is nothing but one big trouble ticket.
Dude, you should be on the Pentagon network. I think they keep the computers in a state of constant disarray so they can keep their jobs
What are the chances I’d be out in the missile complex watching Jurassic Park and getting fed up with this computer and cursing government computers in general when I check this? Rather epic coincidence.
Gew missile field… *shudder*
wth is that creepy looking toy next to the mug? It looks like an effed up gingerbread man…
Panic Pete squeeze toy.
that’s what they’re called now, but I had one when I was a baby in the 70s, and at that point it was called an “Oobie” or something like that.
Didn’t they have a Mr Bill (from SNL) squeeze toy like that?
Trouble tickets are nothing. It’s filling out the outage reports that suck a**.
Its probably not even a person, in all likelihood its a spam bot.
Farv: Dunno if you read XKCD, but this is the update that’s up when you put up this comic: http://www.xkcd.com/758/
Typewriters and carrier pigeons … I like where you’re going with this. The AF could seriously do with a whole lot less consolidated help desks.
On a related note, true story: I was sitting at my desk in the cubicle I share with a friend, and my cell phone lets me know I have a text message. It was my friend … sitting right behind me … asking me if I planned on going to happy hour that night. I mean, seriously?
some things you just can’t say out loud in an office or the whole danged place will show up
http://www.xkcd.com/627/ The sad thing is sometimes it’s faster/more helpful than the Help Desk.
Win!
What’s even more retarded is when a comm guy (like me) has to put in a trouble ticket to have another comm guy come fix his computer.
I’ve been having a lot of problems with my workstation, so I call the comm focal point and put in a trouble ticket. A day or two later, an airman shows up with ticket report in hand. Thankfully, the airman listened when I said, “IDE cable’s probably unplugged.” Sure enough.
So, she was installing some software I needed, and asked me what my AFSC was. “Same as yours. 3D072, computer operator.” She got that look like, “WTF? Why am I even here?” I just shook my head and shrugged.
Tell me that 3D conversion wasn’t the stupidest thing ever. 3D172 here.
Old 3D177 here. I’m doing special duty in Minot cuz if I’d stayed where I was, I’d be running a desk instead of lo-pros and trenchers. The UDM wasnt a bad gig, but after that I would have been back to doing work orders for contractors. They even talked about putting me in the help desk. Seriously, what business does a knuckle dragging Cable Dawg have in the help desk? It’s sad when I’m willing to run a forklift in my blues just to get outside once in a while =)
Heheh, I took your spot in the UDM office.
Come to the Dark Side, we have cookies. And really friggin awesome comics! Do you guys still post them in the hall? I started that here at Minot, but everyone keeps getting bent and taking them down. “Not authorized” or something like that, I wasnt listening.
Absolutely, got two up now dealing with reflective belts, exercise exercise exercise……
LOL. I was at an annex building, in my Union capacity, the HRM asked me, since I am IT, their typing test PC kept shutting down. I examined the PC, looked OK, got on my knees under the workstation, hmmm power cord not firmly plugged in.
They were WOW you fixed it!
I still give them s*IT about it, and had they called our central help desk… LOL
When I was employed at the military post office at Ramstein I would often be asked to set up the new troops on the computers and connect the printers because no one else could figure out how. Good thing for the office, I could also fix the copier most of the time, and I knew the first step in fixing any electronic item was to get behind it and check all the connections. I was a laborer, no IT training, just used the noggin and was willing to crawl under the desks. Hubby is a 3C so I did have a secret source to call before I resorted to the help desk.
Well you know that sometimes that SrA that comes out might be an old telephone troop who doesnt have much experience with PCs. Its great that they split up our career field, it was only 15 years ago that inside and outside plant merged.
Well, is there anyway you can find him and block him from the site
The consolidated CSS was another dumb idea. They don’t have fewer people to pay. If anything they have to pay more people. First they move verybody out of the CSS. Then they hired civilians or moved others from their job to fill the positions. AFPC is another place that’s jacked up. Don’t even get me started talking about them.
This cartoon describes my agency perfectly.
re: Wiki…with specialized wiki’s like that, isn’t there a way you can block so that only certain people can edit?
There seems to be a common theme between your wiki attacks and a bit of hate mail that Skippy from skippyslist got. http://skippyslist.com/2010/06/15/hate-mail/
that link is NSFW, btw.
Good stuff as always, I especially liked this weeks BDB, though so far I haven’t had that issue here in Germany. Not sure if I’m not on the distro, they don’t send them out, or we just haven’t had anything that requires it… anyway, I digress… here’s another bit of JP humor from Tim at Ctrl-Alt-Del Comics
http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20100322
Let me say that I am currently at a help desk at a deployed location. Everyday I get some really stupid phone calls from some people that know nothing. I get calls from civilians, officers, and enlisted of all ranks. A guy called me one day saying that his computer was not working. Me wanting more information. So I started my troubleshooting. To make a long story short, there was nothing wrong with the guys computer. It was just running slow like all other air force computers.
I’m deployed myself right now, and to my suprise they let a select few in each squadron be CSAs. I guess someone at the help desk decided it’d be easier to have one or two people in each area that can fix 99% of the problems without having to bother comm.
You guys give computer guys crap but I’ve had a call where someone asked why their desktop wouldn’t turn on during a power outage.
I love the fact that because some Pentegon nut infected computers with a flash drive that no one can use them now. My current job requires photos and huge slide presentations and now I can’t do it. I have to use my own camera, down load photos at home, put them on a DVD and then bring them to work. Lets all put our head in a hole (ostrich) and type blind everyone!
YES! My husband has the same problem! One of the “extra” jobs he has to do involves photos for his squadron. (I don’t know all the details, so sorry for being vague!) He can’t plug the camera in and upload the pictures at work. So he takes them all the way home to do it. When he called the tech guys (or left a ticket?) they told him their hands were tied and he’d just have to deal. :-/
About your hacking problem, (just a guess) I wouldn’t be suprised if it were memebers of that so called Kansas church group (and I use church losly). They seem to love saying that about the military and protesting their funnerals.
This comic hits home perfectly for me right now. And it seems for everybody else that works in some sort of helpdesk-like area. I need to give people rights, but I don’t have the rights to do that, so I have to ask somebody with the rights to give me rights to give them so I can give other people rights to stuff they need to do their job. Everybody got that right?
This one is hitting too close to home. I just got a new work computer and I can’t do squat on it before the pop up comes telling me I have to have administrator privileges to continue. At least they gave me a login to use when this happens, but it is a pain.
If you have admin access .. you can turn that off.. or would that just get you in trouble with the powers that is? I was an RAF base brat, but no experience with the joys of being in the military myself.
3D051 here. I’m at Lackland where one of the ESDs (Enterprise Service Desk) is located, and I still have to wait 3 days for a job to be completed that would take me 2 minutes to do if I had the permissions. The funny thing is, I’m a network admin on other AF networks, but they refuse to give me any permissions other than CSA/CST, which aren’t really anything at all…I still have to open a ticket on ALL network/account problems.
Just an FYI – some of the Level 1 techs at the ESD (the people who answer phones) are literally straight out of high school, and MIGHT have 1 certification. Good luck getting any help from them unless you either have plenty of time on your hands, or are somehow lucky enough to talk to a level 2/Event manager…
Many of the netowrk admins in my unit used to work at the ESD on Lackland, which is where this information is coming from. That and personal experience.
You’re good. Back at home station, I don’t even have permissions to create a trouble ticket. But every time I want to make one, I get told by our support squadron that handles all that, that I need to make a ticket. Yes, I need to create a ticket to get premissions to create a ticket. Stay as far away from the 5th MOB as you can.
My Squadron CSAs have the same complaints…….. And the new procedures to make email accounts… WTF. It is taking upwards of 2 weeks to get a fricking email account set up.
Well speaking as a Comm guy I gotta say taking away the CSA’s authority creds was the biggest mistake of all. Most problems I find can be taken care of at CSA’s level (within 10 minutes in fact), but of course we are talking about the same group of people who decided Vista was a better OS than XP.
I usually do my best to help but as my fellow Comm people say “You can’t save’m all Hasselhoff!”
I came in the AF a Wiredawg and will leave as a Wiredawg. I am now a 3D171, they are forcing me to take A+, but al i know how to do is install telephones. But I hate the helpdesk, and can’t wait for my retirement. 1yr 3 mths 17 days till my last duty day, and then you all can have it.
I like my job at the Comm Focal Point. I just don’t like the Consolidated Help Desk idea. Ours is all the way in Georgia while we’re in Colorado and 90% of the time they can’t fix it because they don’t have rights to our drives so they create a tickets for us to go do them. 5% of the time they aren’t knowledgable about some of our special programs that some of our users have. And the other 5% of the time they just don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t know how many times I get tickets that I end up fixing in like two minutes. Sometimes its the user’s fault because they don’t describe the problem the right way and the CHD takes their word that they know what they’re talking about.
I’ve never put a ticket in for my own computer. I just fix it myself.
I don’t get why someone would just randomly put ignorant comments on a wiki page. Sounds like somebody’s just trying to say, “Hey, look at me! I’m an a******!”
Damn Nedry and his magic words… Farva, I thought for sure that I was gonna read a “Hang on to your butts” in the last frame. lol
Nice background though..
This comic hits home for alot of people across the whole of the Govt… Our comm tech support is worse than Dell… BUT I think that this is in place on purpose, I mean think about it. If we are confused about our own system the enemy wont be able to make sense of it at all. LOL But that is no excuse to really aggitate your own personnel. Oh well I guess we will have to suck it up.
On a side not Farva, when is the next Ask Marco blurp coming out?
Probably never. I was sternly warned that quoting AF policies and regs on this site is a very bad idea.
By AF supervision or readers? I thought it was a nice touch using this site to answer honest questions. Like the old Ask Lt Dahl comics, only a little more factual. Well a lot more factual than Lt Dahl, but still informal enough to allow people to ask the questions. Bummer.
Both. It was suggested that I keep this site humor only and not give anyone the opportunity to confuse this as anything official. Marco and I have discussed starting his own site, which would be hilarious and informative, I think…
CYA. Well, I thought it was a good idea and in good taste, but that’s my opinion. And opinions are like, well you know, everyone’s got ‘em. We appreciate the effort though
HA! This is awesome. I worked at the first one they set up in Ramstein, let me tell you we hated it more than the rest of the Air Force
Yeah haggs, but the funny thing is when I heard about the special Remedy category the other ESD had to create because of all the hang-ups they got when customers realized they weren’t talking to Ramstein. Farva is a USAFE customer, but I’m guessing a lot of the ppl here didn’t dealt with us.
I really don’t get what is so difficult or painful about submitting a trouble ticket, it’s just a change from being able to walk down the hall and ask your WGM for help like the old days. I’d be happy to go back to the old way, I wouldn’t have to worry about force shaping.
I actually work in IT. All I can tell you guys is that calling a Help Desk isn’t nearly as sucky as working on one. I quit the last job where I got consolidated into a “global support” desk where three centres in the USA, Europe and here in Australia were supposed to provide 24-hour support all round the world. Just try to fix a problem with a messed up server in Mexico City when the “hands on site” belong to a security-guard with very imperfect English, and I was an Asia specialist with English and Chinese, but no Spanish.
I am actually lucky enough to work on a real helpdesk on an army post at the moment. People can call us and get problems solved, they can walk in and talk to us… it can get inconvenient sometimes when people won’t send in helpdesk tickets, but we actually seem like we care about the customer, or at least I’d like to think so. My guard unit has the helpdesk phone forwarded to a voicemail that says, “Ask your CSA before calling us.” And it is NOT like they are overworked there. Personal pet peeve to see that kind of attitude when I consider our job as computer techs is supposed to be nothing but customer service. ^_^
Not all IT help desks and units are crappy. Actually quite the contrary, most of them are really good. The main issue is when you put an undermanned, contractor controlled “consolidated” help desk in control of most of the others military controlled/manned help desks in the af, just to make it to where your not actually talking to someone who knows what they are doing but rather someone who’s sole purpose for being there is to put in a ticket.
IMHO the idea was a good one, but execution fell horribly short.
OrgName: DRS Technical Services Inc
OrgID: DTS-60
Address: 45975 Nokes Blvd
Address: Suite 145
City: Dulles
StateProv: VA
PostalCode: 20166
Country: US
NetRange: 208.79.12.0 – 208.79.15.255
CIDR: 208.79.12.0/22
NetName: DRS-TECHNICAL-SERVICES-INC
NetHandle: NET-208-79-12-0-1
Parent: NET-208-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
Comment:
RegDate: 2007-06-05
Updated: 2007-06-05
OrgTechHandle: DBU86-ARIN
OrgTechName: Bunting, David
OrgTechPhone: +1-703-444-1080
OrgTechEmail: dbunting@drs-tsi.com
http://www.drs.com/
“The DRS Technologies Charitable Foundation is proud to support “Operation Mend,” a unique partnership between Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas to help treat U.S. military personnel wounded during service in Iraq and Afghanistan”
I did all that for you without a trouble ticket…..