Start my new job tomorrow(Monday)

lnsomnia

Congrats on the job and I hope this one employee doesn't make your life a living hell. Remember, most places have a grace period where you can leave for know reason and they can get rid of you for no reason. Some are 90 days, some are longer, depends on the company. I would suggest talking with this guy and basically be blunt about it, "why you riding me so hard?". If he still gives you grief, I'd wait until your evaluation period ends before you start to complain to your supervisor.

On another note, be very cautious what you share with us in the forum. If this job required a security clearance, I'm sure they wouldn't like to have an employee sharing any information that could jeopordize the company.

And having said that, good luck and I hope everything works out for the best

KGhaleon

Of course, nothing mentioned in this topic is really "confidential."

cisco_trooper

Good to know. I was going to say you may want to end this discussion if you work for NG. I believe they have Defense contracts. It would suck to get canned because you accidentally said something you weren't supposed to.

cisco_trooper

lnsomnia wrote:

Congrats on the job and I hope this one employee doesn't make your life a living hell. Remember, most places have a grace period where you can leave for know reason and they can get rid of you for no reason. Some are 90 days, some are longer, depends on the company. I would suggest talking with this guy and basically be blunt about it, "why you riding me so hard?". If he still gives you grief, I'd wait until your evaluation period ends before you start to complain to your supervisor.

On another note, be very cautious what you share with us in the forum. If this job required a security clearance, I'm sure they wouldn't like to have an employee sharing any information that could jeopordize the company.

And having said that, good luck and I hope everything works out for the best

Most places have this probationary period written in their handbooks and maybe even their offer letters. Don't let this fool you into thinking you are automatically safe after 90 days. If you read the laws, most states do not employ so called "right to work" type laws, meaning in most states they can terminate you without cause and without warning. This means if the wrong person doesn't like you, your job CAN be at stake. Just keep this in mind before you decide to get into any **** contests with anyone.

KGhaleon

meh

This guy I'm working with is really laying down on me now. I'll be working alone with him starting monday and I'm just going to tough it out and do what I'm suppose to do. As long as I stay out of his way, I shouldn't incur his wrath.

Pash

KGhaleon wrote:

meh

This guy I'm working with is really laying down on me now. I'll be working alone with him starting monday and I'm just going to tough it out and do what I'm suppose to do. As long as I stay out of his way, I shouldn't incur his wrath.

Keep at it KG, sounds like your doing alright!

KGhaleon

Thanks, btw:

I was shadowing a tech last week and he ran into a problem on this one PC where a lady had probably 20+ shortcuts to different network shares. After the move to her new PCs, most of those shortcuts vanished for some reason and I ended up helping him recreate them all.

I think he copied the profile manually, dragging the desktop folder and other settings across. I don't see why it would only copy certain files and exclude all the shortcuts. Anyone know a reason for this?

It took a while to correct, so I want to avoid a situation like this by being better preparing. I could make a snapshot of the desktop area beforehand, but that won't help me too much in recreating the desktop. I also can't just copy the desktop folder to a thumbdrive, since that is against policy.

malcybood

KGhaleon wrote:

Thanks, btw:

I was shadowing a tech last week and he ran into a problem on this one PC where a lady had probably 20+ shortcuts to different network shares. After the move to her new PCs, most of those shortcuts vanished for some reason and I ended up helping him recreate them all.

I think he copied the profile manually, dragging the desktop folder and other settings across. I don't see why it would only copy certain files and exclude all the shortcuts. Anyone know a reason for this?

He probably only copied C:\documents & settings\jbloggs\desktop folder from the old machine to the same location on the new machine

He should have also moved C:\documents & settings\All Users\desktop from the old machine to the same folder on the new machine

As a rule of thumb I always copy desktop, My Documents & Favorites from the user's profile and the desktop folder and \startup\start menu folder from the All Users profile.

If you copy the whole C:\docs & settings\jbloggs folder sometimes it causes issues if there is corruption in some of the other folders.

KGhaleon

Hm, interesting. Though wouldn't that be problematic if you have a dozen profiles on the machine?

Some of these machines had over a dozen profiles, mostly older users. Who knows how many files those users might have on their desktops.

malcybood

malcybood wrote:

He probably only copied C:\documents & settings\jbloggs\desktop folder from the old machine to the same location on the new machine

He should have also moved C:\documents & settings\All Users\desktop from the old machine to the same folder on the new machine

As a rule of thumb I always copy desktop, My Documents & Favorites from the user's profile and the desktop folder and \startup\start menu folder from the All Users profile.

If you copy the whole C:\docs & settings\jbloggs folder sometimes it causes issues if there is corruption in some of the other folders.

KGhaleon wrote:

Hm, interesting. Though wouldn't that be problematic if you have a dozen profiles on the machine?

Some of these machines had over a dozen profiles, mostly older users. Who knows how many files those users might have on their desktops.

Not sure you get what I mean......

The individual user's profile (i.e. C:\docs & sets\jbloggs), desktop, my documents & favorites are files created by the user so only the person logged into the local machine as that profile can see these settings "profile specific".

So if you had 12 profiles on a machine you could just copy the whole C:\documents & settings folder from old machine, which would copy 12 individual user profiles, administrator & All Users profiles to the new machine although this is likely to be a huge amount of data (knowing how users tend to save files locally!!!.....grrrr).

The All Users profile has shortcuts to things that all users on the machine see on the desktop such as My Computer, Recycle Bin, most applications that have been installed as administrator exactly for the reason you have described, to avoid creation of shortcuts to the same thing on 12 different desktops.

comprende?

Another possibility is that the guy copied the domain profile i.e. C:\docs & Sets\jbloggs.domainname and DIDN'T copy the local profile which holds all of the shortcuts that the user has created.

There should be 2 profiles for each user on the machine C:\docs & sets\jbloggs (local profile) and C:\docs & sets\jbloggs.domainname (domain profile)

All I can say is login to the old machine & check the old machine's profiles C:\docs & settings. The shortcuts will not have just vanished and will be there somewhere, but they obviously are not associated directly with the users profile that was copied by your colleague.

Let us know how it pans out

cheers

KGhaleon

Oh, my mistake. I was thinking that the All Users profile would include all files on each profiles desktop.

Those are good suggestions which I'll note.

Although the desktop shortcuts that vanished were created manually by the user, and connected to various network shares. I'm not sure if these would be in the All Users profile.

malcybood

KGhaleon wrote:

Oh, my mistake. I was thinking that the All Users profile would include all files on each profiles desktop.

Those are good suggestions which I'll note.

Although the desktop shortcuts that vanished were created manually by the user, and connected to various network shares. I'm not sure if these would be in the All Users profile.

Yeah they probably will not be in all users if they're network shares the user has created.

They'll probably be in the jbloggs\desktop or jbloggs.domainname\desktop profile......I'm guessing the local jbloggs\desktop

KGhaleon

Yesterday was hell, as I replaced one of the old techs and got handed a bunch of jobs gone bad. I had a lady with 30GBs of critical data, and half of it had disappeared.

Today I've got to get that data back on her new computer...while not overwriting the data that she has started using already for her job. Probably going to need to copy everything manually with her telling me what she needs. ugh

Off I go.

Turgon

You're doing allright. From the sounds of things you have met one person there who is difficult. Brush it all off for now and keep your head down concentrating on the tasks assigned to you. As for unboxing computers just do it. I recall years ago when I was starting out I would spend a day at headoffice and that's all they had me do and I didn't get any help at all.

Your first day, week, month is so important in a new job. Perceptions about new people are made very quickly and often unfairly. Avoid judgements about anyone at this stage. Turn up on time, ideally early if possible, listen very carefully to anything you are asked to do, and just get on with it. Keep your head down and a smile on your face. You should be ok.

If you are being tasked and then someone points out you should have done something, just make a mental note of it and clarify next time upfront. You will make mistakes, perhaps not in your book but just try not to get caught out again! Being new sucks sometimes.

Good Luck!

KGhaleon

Yeah, the difficult guy is extremely difficult. Though I'm thinking he's rough on everyone. I take some of his work off when I can, so I think I've tamed it for now.

This week is flowing smoothly and I've been learning more each day. It seems the project is ahead of schedule, so it may be completed sooner than expected(bad for me). I'm aiming at doing this job so well that they might hire me on full-time. <_<

Some guys have been there for a few months and they work good. They are still contractors, so I've got to try harder if there's any chance available. I plan to schedule my 70-270 pretty soon.

KGhaleon

When transfering lots of data and profile settings, a lot can usually go wrong...but I'm surprised by how efficient the software has been. Usually the only complaints received are from people who screwed up their new machine by yanking a cable out while moving it.

I had one guy who had his mouse buttons swapped, for left handed use. Now he wants to use his right hand and it won't let him change it back. I tried to change it, but it won't let me even under a different profile. I click on "right-handed" and it doesn't tick the box.

meh, anyone seen this before? I'm considering uninstalling the mouse if he calls about it tomorrow.

hetty

Delete it from device manager and reinstall it again. Tell him ambidextrous people arent tollerated in the company, pick one hand or get the hell out!

KGhaleon

I think the deal is sealed, as I haven't had problems and I'm fitting quite well into my current job which is expected to go for several more months. During that time I hope to get some certs and try my hardest to get accepted for a full-time position with the company. I've been pushing myself a lot every week and staying late if I have too. I should get my paychecks tomorrow or friday...
so=

Sie

KGhaleon wrote:

I think the deal is sealed, as I haven't had problems and I'm fitting quite well into my current job which is expected to go for several more months. During that time I hope to get some certs and try my hardest to get accepted for a full-time position with the company. I've been pushing myself a lot every week and staying late if I have too. I should get my paychecks tomorrow or friday...
so=

Well done, sounds like its going well for you and the hard work is paying off!

Hope the paycheck makes it even better

Keep up the good work and im sure you'll be drafted in, in no time!

Turgon

KGhaleon wrote:

I think the deal is sealed, as I haven't had problems and I'm fitting quite well into my current job which is expected to go for several more months. During that time I hope to get some certs and try my hardest to get accepted for a full-time position with the company. I've been pushing myself a lot every week and staying late if I have too. I should get my paychecks tomorrow or friday...
so=

Good luck to you. You have worked very hard there and handled yourself very well in a new job.

KGhaleon

I got a raise last week.

They also gave me some more responsibilities. I am responsible for getting all the machines ready for deployment, then doing the actual refreshes(migrating customer data, installing apps, etc). Pretty tough working on several things at once.

I also had an issue with the modems in all the new laptops being deployed. It seems the BIOS updates were are required to perform are disabling the modems, so I am testing a new software patch HP gave us that should correct the issue somewhat.

Tired.

undomiel

"Somewhat."

What??? How does one "somewhat" correct an issue with a bios update disabling the modem? You either have an enabled modem or you have a disabled modem! What, if it only somewhat corrects the problem then will the modem show up but you will only be able to receive incoming calls and not dial out?

sprkymrk

undomiel wrote:

"Somewhat."

What??? How does one "somewhat" correct an issue with a bios update disabling the modem? You either have an enabled modem or you have a disabled modem! What, if it only somewhat corrects the problem then will the modem show up but you will only be able to receive incoming calls and not dial out?

Chill out. He's tired and working the issue. You his new boss or something?

undomiel

No problems, it was directed at HP not KGhaleon.

sprkymrk

undomiel wrote:

No problems, it was directed at HP not KGhaleon.

Oh, my mistake then. Apologies!
I didn't think it was like you to jump on someone like that.

Sorry I misunderstood you, it was me that did the jumping, eh?

undomiel

It's all good! I only went through 5 boxes of tissues instead of 12.

orissa

KGhaleon wrote:

for Northrop Grumman. Should be interesting.

I'll post my thoughts later. I hope the first day won't be so rough...got to pickup my badge. I'll be fulfilling a Refresh/Desktop Support role. I need to be there by 8AM and the walk to the bus station is an hour away. Then it's an hour trip on the bus. Got to wake up at 4-4:30AM so I can show up early.

Should have an hour to spare in case of emergency. I went by the facility earlier today(sunday) and got lost...it was a big place.

I remeber when I stared my first IT job back in 2002 just unopen Dell boxes for setup.

Lifting heavy Dell Server and and Printer.

KGhaleon

The fix dell provided only seems to work 30% of the time. <_<
That's why I worded it the way I did...it's not that reliable and I'm hunting for a solution to the issue. My entire day was busy as I got stuck with a bunch of nasty users, and also had to troubleshoot issues created by some other techs who were no longer with us.

Users missing data, PSTs not opening, modems not working, weird fan issues in desktop machines, etc. ugh

LBC90805

So these BIOS updates that your friend at work yelled at you about is causing modems in some of the laptops to go FUBAR? That sounds great. One of the reasons why you just don't go updating stuff when everything is working fine from the get go.

Tyrant1919

Yep, never upgrade anything just for the hell of it. If there's a relevant need to then go ahead.