FUCKWITTAGE

Jesus Christ, is the world full of idiots? Work today has included two incidents of what can only be described as a total lack of eptitude. Or something.

Fuckwittage I

There's this system, for the sake of covering my back lets call it NAPPI (Nameless Application Partial to Provoking Ineptitude), that people dial into from all over Europe. They dial into a big X25 router which then hooks them into the mainframe. It's been there forever. And people can even print stuff from NAPPI. It does some clever jiggery-pokery that means that in effect the X25 router gets the mainframe to send the print direct to the user's printer, by dint of there being clever dial-up software to allow this.

So I get an email from a certain part of the world, let's call it Naboo, saying that his users are having problems printing from NAPPI. At first it sounds like they're talking about printing via the new Revamped Access Solution Hub (ie, using NAPPI-RASH) and not accessing NAPPI via X25, so I describe how to fix that problem... but oh no, they're not. But printing isn't working. Anyone who has ever been blighted with having to do any form of helpdesk/support work will know just how helpful an email/phonecall saying 'X doesn't work' is. So, eventually, I managed to coax some symptoms out of the Naboo guy, and started drawing up a short mental list of all the possible causes.

'Has the user upgraded their PC recently?' my next email says. Everything was apparently working fine two days ago, and it's only since yesterday that they been having problems, so it's reasonable to suspect that something like that may have happened, particularly when we know that the old method of printing doesn't work with Windows NT/2000/XP.

'No,' comes the reply, 'but we did move the X25 Router from Theed to Otoh-Gunga yesterday'. Looking beyond the obvious superimposing of Star Wars place names over the real ones, you should be able to spot the abundance of fuckwittage that suddenly became evident at this point. Of course, in order to keep my job, I had to restrain myself from replying with anything along the lines of 'Well, didn't it occur to you in the slightest that this event could have had something to do with the problem?' because my bosses would get upset at such toxic levels of sarcasm. This 'minor' relevation from the Naboo guy caused an enormous amount of amusement in the office, and it was only when the second, bigger bout of fuckwittage occurred that this joined it in ruining my day.

Fuckwittage II

Well, if you're still paying attention, this tale of 'duh' concerns NAPPI-RASH. Expect no apologies for the poor use of convoluted acronyms to inject some vague level of humour into the proceedings - I had a bad day, dammit, have you no respect?

NAPPI-RASH is currently being rolled out to Users in another part of the World... for the sake of continuing to hide behind Star Wars we'll call this this place Kamino (that's the really rainy planet in Attack of the Clones that Obi-Wan 'loses'). Anyway, so Kamino are rolling out NAPPI-RASH. Last week, a problem popped up in Kamino that I'd seen numerous times before, and had never been able satisfactorilly to prove was a network problem.

With a heavy heart, last week I prodded a few people out there in the ether in the hope that one of them might remember that this was something that had happened before. My efforts were rewarded. On Friday an email went out from one of the network guys (who work for our clients, not us) saying that this was a problem that had occurred during the roll outs to Tatooine and Bespin. He went on to explain the circumstances that appeared to have caused this problem (thus giving a few subtle hints at what could be done to solve it).

I'll just take this paragraph for a brief bit of background before I carry on the tale of woe. The networks, as with the network guys, belong to our clients. We have basically created an application, plonked it on a server, and then hooked it up to their network. You will not believe the amount of problems this creates when it comes to support. 9 times out of 10 we are told that any problem must be a problem with the application because all the other network applications are working fine. You don't even have to have a three figure IQ to realise that what they're really doing is trying to Teflon the problem onto us simply because they see a route to make it somebody else's problem.

With that little interjection, what followed may make a little more sense. You'd think that after the miraculous email that went out on Friday, the problem would be well on the way to being solved. Evidently not.

Throughout this week I've heard rumblings around the problem, which I figured were just little aftershocks from last week while things settled down and the information on how to rectify the problem filtered through.

How naive!

Yesterday I received an email from one of the network guys. Now, if the application of acronyms is to be believed, this guy was part of the same organisation that as the now near-Messianic network guy who provided the legendary Friday email. Admittedly, they are based on different sites, but both are definitely on the fourth moon of Yavin.

This new network guy has been known to throw his weight around a bit. He had no knowledge of the Friday email. After all, it was a whole five days ago at that point. Plus, it was from a guy who was merely in support, as opposed to a guy who got to throw his weight around. I spoke to new network guy, and told him about the blessed Friday Email, and forwarded the email on to him. That, I was hoping, would finally be that.

This morning there was an email waiting for me, from a 3rd network guy. 3rd Network Guy actually worked in the same Massassi Temple (enough with the Star Wars already!) as the Network Messiah, but seemed to have no knowledge of the FridayEmail(TM). He also said that there was a chance it could be a problem with the application.

ARRRGHHHH! FUCKWITTAGE!

He received an email from me that was perhaps a little bit on the diatribal side.

Halfway through the morning, something else turns up. It's a meeting request, and it's from New Network Guy (from yesterday). He's setting up an audio meeting for just after lunch. Now this was slight cause for concern, on the basis that I'd told him about the Friday email, and that if he still hadn't been able to solve the problem, it might actually be possible that it was going to be something new.

So, fastwind to the audio. The audio was attended by Wednesday's new network guy, who had also drafted in 4thNetworkGuy(TM) at the last minute for extra advice, and also by one of the Kamino natives who was actually involved in the rollout of NAPPI-RASH.

ARRRGHHHH! FUCKWITTAGE!

Ten minutes into the audio, when I was actually able to get a word in edgeways, I mentioned the FridayEmail(TM). 4thNetworkGuy(TM), who was meant to be one of those real knows his stuff guys, had not seen it. The Kamino native had not even heard about it.

ARRRGHHHH! FUCKWITTAGE!

I then had to spend the next 20 minutes talking politely into a phone when really I was absolutely fuming and in truth just wanted to scream something along the lines of "AARGH! FOR FUCK'S SAKE, DO YOU PEOPLE NEVER TALK TO EACH OTHER? YOU HAVE WASTED MY TIME, YOU HAVE WASTED YOUR OWN TIME, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY YOU HAVE WASTED YOUR PRECIOUS CUSTOMERS' TIME BY NOT ACTUALLY GETTING OFF YOUR STUPID FUCKING ARSES AND SORTING THIS OUT EARLIER WHEN SOMEONE ACTUALLY WENT TO THE TROUBLE OF POINTING OUT WHAT COULD BE DONE! GET A FUCKING CLUE!" and then slamming the phone down.

ARRRGHHHH! FUCKWITTAGE!

ARRRGHHHH! FUCKWITTAGE!

ARRRGHHHH! FUCKWITTAGE!

If you're still reading this, your name is probably Anne. Hi Hun :)

Anyway, so as not to end this entry on a bum note, I got sent a link to one of those personality quizzes, and can now share with you what kind of fruit I am...

Strawberry: 50/100 Pear: 20/100 Banana: 40/100 Tomato: 0/100 Lemon: 5/100

Take the What Fruit Are You? test by Ellen and Aaron!