fixing other peoples mistakes.... bit of a rant

how much time do you think you spend weekly undoing the mistakes of others

it seems ever since my old boss left every rock we turn over we find something that was done half way

the file server I now admin is a complete mess.....please everyone put your users in groups you will thank me later even if your only supporting 20 users and it seems like overkill... if your company doubles it'll make yur job so much easier.

the other day we switched out a router for something a little more powerful and reliable copied the con fig over from the old router.... and had all kinds of issues only to find out there was a server that had RRAS set up on it with static routes and was messing up everything.

just seems that lately no matter how simple a task looks it becomes more complicated due to mis configurations... I spent 7 hours moving gigs of data over the wire and had load of permissions issues because he had removed the admin group on some files 6 levels deep and not others and given him self full control... once I was able to yank the ownership and force down permissions it was easier but there were a few head scratching moments and a bit of cursing at first.

all and all do tings right my fellow techs document what you do cause 6 mnoths or 6 years down the road you may completely forget and it'll bite u in the ass not someone else

it only takes a few extra hours to plan it right and document it but in the end your life is so much easier. I've been worknig on little messed up projects on and off for the last 6 months

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Comments

blargoe

Look at the bright side, working through stuff like this makes you a much better tech.

sprkymrk

blargoe wrote:

Look at the bright side, working through stuff like this makes you a much better tech.

Plus, anything that goes wrong for the next year or so can simply be blamed on your old boss. :P

Smallguy

yeah it is a good learning experience that's for sure

and yeah he gets the blame

jlhct

I totally agree with having documentation in the plan.

At a company I used to work, I was the only one who did documentation. Our boss actually let others who didn't "believe" in it get away with not doing it.

I was always taught a project or change was not complete without documentation, I guess I just don't understand why others can't see the same thing

When I left my last job, I put together a binder of documentation that explained pretty much everything. I've been told they rely on it a lot since i've been gone.

My work there was truly done

JDMurray

blargoe wrote:

Look at the bright side, working through stuff like this makes you a much better tech.

And think of the job security with being the only guy/gal who can work with the screwed-up system!

Kasor

It is depending on how fxxk up the situation. In my previous experience, I spend from a hour to a day to fix the problem.

/usr

how much time do you think you spend weekly undoing the mistakes of others

A lot. However, if others didn't make mistakes, I would spend the better part of the day sitting around. So I suppose it goes both ways.

Kaminsky

Smallguy wrote:

he had removed the admin group on some files 6 levels deep and not others and given him self full control...

That's not a mistake, that was a deliberate BOFH manouver. (B*stard Operator from Hell - Google BOFH arhives for those who don't know them already) Doing that would make him look the only competant techie and the rest look like bafoons.

This is exactly why we have industry standard certifications now and IT is now a fully fledged profession in it's own right.