Payback at work

Since this is networking related I decided to share here

I had a supervisor (not mine, not IT) come to me today asking me to "help a brother out". I said "O.K. what do you need"? He told me he needed a long network cable for his group. I said I would check with our desktop techs to see if they still have any of the cables I ordered them a month or so left. He said that was fine and he left.

I called our tech and he said that they were out of 20ft cabled but had plenty of 7 footers. I told him to go ahead and take the supervisor a 7ft cable and if that does not work I'll figure something out. So the tech hands the supervisor this brand new cable still in the plastic bag. He asked "Oh, you guys don't have a big spool of cable to make cables from"? The tech told him we just purchase pre made cables. So he responds with "Oh, well I guess the place I came from must be more advanced than this".

Needless to say this really pissed me off. So after fuming about it I decided to make this as some smart @ss payback.

I showed it to my boss and she loved it. She loved it so much that she showed her boss and now they are going to give him my non-advanced cable and call him out in a meeting with other higher ups about the importance of not being a douche to those who help you.

So now that I have vented, does anyone else have any stories like this?

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Everyone

LOL that's great!

Zartanasaurus

If he does it again, drop some **** on his computer and alert HR.

vinbuck

Love it! Give him two RJ-45 plugs cut off a patch cable and tell him it's wireless

DPG

I don't see what being a douche to your supervisor is going to accomplish.

Also, what is the reasoning behind not making custom cables?

gregorio323

set his port to half-duplex for a day

/ limit his bandwidth!

jmc012

DPG wrote: »

I don't see what being a douche to your supervisor is going to accomplish.

Also, what is the reasoning behind not making custom cables?

I have to agree with this, I always have a roll of Cat 6 and RJ-45 connections, I would of fixed him up in 5 minutes and had a friend instead of an enemy.

petedude

DPG wrote: »

Also, what is the reasoning behind not making custom cables?

Wasted labor dollars? Might cost less to have a box of pre-mades handy.

joehalford01

That's funny! I think you did fine, you're sending the message in a humorous way without making a big deal out things. He'll get the point, unless he really has no sense of humor.

instant000

I don't think the OP had an issue, until the person remarked

"Oh, well I guess the place I came from must be more advanced than this".

I know that's the part that alerted me, though I tend to correct the customer that we're not that same organization, and point out the higher quality you get from pre-made cable, and also that we like to plan out our network installs such that there are network jacks located close to work spaces, and/or provide wireless connectivity to users in all areas of the facility. Also, it represents lost technician time to be sitting there making cables, to be honest, when the technician could be helping you plan your network, instead. (Of course, I still tend to think that hand-made cables might be required at some time for a brief custom job, though I wouldn't recommend hand-making all he cables in your server room. .... a few of them, yes, as required, but definitely not all of them.)

I actually dislike running cables, making cables, or even giving end users cables on the fly that they can use to plug in wherever they want, and then wonder why they're not getting connectivity on a shut-down port.

There are a few things in the story that disturb me:

1. I'm not sure the requestor's problem got fixed.
2. I'm not sure what the company policy is on people running their own cables.
3. I'm not sure it's good customer service to make fun of the customer.

Of course, I'm saying this without having a good idea of what the company culture is.

I just have the mindset that without a customer, I don't have a job.

Panzer919

DPG wrote: »

I don't see what being a douche to your supervisor is going to accomplish.

Also, what is the reasoning behind not making custom cables?

jmc012 wrote: »

I have to agree with this, I always have a roll of Cat 6 and RJ-45 connections, I would of fixed him up in 5 minutes and had a friend instead of an enemy.

We do so many moves/adds that rather than our techs (or myself) making cables all day we buy pre-made cables. I have no issues making someone a cable when it's a special circumstance but he made it seem like he just needed a longer than normal cable. normal being 2-3ft.

Also he is not my supervisor, he works in a different group and he's known for being an @ss. My supervisor would not let me give it to him, she said these matters were at another level which is why she had HER supervisor address him. He wont know who actually made it.

@instant000 - I am the network engineer for a large law firm. The only thing I don't manage is the voice side. As stated before, we do so many adds/moves that we either need pre-made cables, or a full time cable maker. Had the supervisor just said that he needed a longer cable than what was provided, the tech knew to come back and ask me about it. It was when he made his snide remark about us not being as advanced that made me irritated.

If I was in a consultant type job, I would have the same mindset as you. This guy is new and is trying to push and talk down to people in my department which doesn't go over well with any one, especially my boss (who has had to put him in check a couple of times). This was my way to cool down and get a good laugh wondering what his reaction will be.

The tech got him what he needed in a round-a-bout way. He wanted to connect a PC to the network but the PC was across the room so instead of just moving the PC to the desk by the jack he wanted a 40ft cable so he didn't have to move it.

Panzer919

Zartanasaurus wrote: »

If he does it again, drop some **** on his computer and alert HR.

While funny, to me, that's going too far. Besides, with it being a law firm there is a lot of evidence that needs to be presented before you can get someone canned.

Forsaken_GA

DPG wrote: »

I don't see what being a douche to your supervisor is going to accomplish.

Also, what is the reasoning behind not making custom cables?

While I agree being a douche to an authority figure may not be the wisest career move (maybe he has a sense of humor, if so, cool, if not, playing with fire)

As far as not making custom cables... not worth the time. It's alot easier to just order pre cut molded and booted cables and run them than it is to sit around trying to cut and crimp, especially since not everyone is good at it (I'm one of them.... I'm fine running backbone cabling and with a punch down tool, but patch cables? to hell with that)

Shanman

I love the cable myself. That took some skill to make it that short and crimped properly.

Panzer919

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

While I agree being a douche to an authority figure may not be the wisest career move (maybe he has a sense of humor, if so, cool, if not, playing with fire)

My boss wouldn't let me say anything to him. She took this to her boss and that's how it was handled. She didn't want me to get in any trouble but wanted to give it to him. He never knew who made it.

Panzer919

Shanman wrote: »

I love the cable myself. That took some skill to make it that short and crimped properly.

Thank you.

snadam

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

As far as not making custom cables... not worth the time. It's alot easier to just order pre cut molded and booted cables and run them than it is to sit around trying to cut and crimp, especially since not everyone is good at it (I'm one of them.... I'm fine running backbone cabling and with a punch down tool, but patch cables? to hell with that)

Agreed. I have made enough cables to know that more oft than not, it's optimal to purchase pre-made. There is a time and place for custom cables; patch cables are not one of them.

BTW, OP that was hilarious

Bokeh

That was too freakin funny, I love it.

cisco_trooper

LOL. I love it man. That is awesome.

VAHokie56

Good stuff...Both enterprise environments I have worked/work in we order cables...like OP said not enough time and to many adds/moves to have some one sit around and make them. I can understand smaller shops doing it to save cost however, which is kind of the opposite of the D-bags logic but oh well...sometimes I make crossover cables for special circumstances but lord god there are so many cables lying around and if you where really struggling go find the closest data center and lift up a floor panel, my money says you can find a 20ft+ cable not being used

ipSpace

Nice

terryfera

Haha that's perfect! I had a similar user at one of my previous jobs.

At a previous place I was the senior tech and had one of our very demanding PMs giving me a hard time. One of our developers was designing a site for a client and was doing browser testing and since they were a Mac fan (we were a .Net development shop) they decided we needed to buy them a Mac to test the website in Safari. We didn't have the budget for it so I said if we can get by with using Safari on Windows then we should do that. Well... that didn't go over so well and I got an ear-full about not being helpful and so on. So I took one of our laptops, put OSx86 and an Apple sticker on it and put in on their desk.

Needless to say we didn't get a long very well after that lol. The rest of the IT team got a laugh out of it since this user was famous for giving us a hard time about nothing.

Forsaken_GA

Panzer919 wrote: »

My boss wouldn't let me say anything to him. She took this to her boss and that's how it was handled. She didn't want me to get in any trouble but wanted to give it to him. He never knew who made it.

Then I applaud you, and your boss. You handled it well, and it's good to know your boss has your back.

nel

haha, thats funny.

To the other folks, i think it was just general humour and not making enemies as such.

Although we have rolls of cable we can make up ourselves we always buy the standard stuff in as our labour costs v th epurchase of them are cheaper generally. Plus we have higher priority tasks and more interesting work to do then making cables. im not knocking it, its useful to know and has got me out the sh*t many times when in the hour of need. But i just prefer playing with ASRs and what not

benbuiltpc

I can see both sides of the story. Depending on his tone of voice, the "more advanced than you" comment was probably out of line. But, any good IT shop should have some bulk cable laying around, just for those types of exceptional cases. Not having standard materials on hand will make you look bad, no matter how dumb the request is.

Panzer919

benbuiltpc wrote: »

I can see both sides of the story. Depending on his tone of voice, the "more advanced than you" comment was probably out of line. But, any good IT shop should have some bulk cable laying around, just for those types of exceptional cases. Not having standard materials on hand will make you look bad, no matter how dumb the request is.

I think your missing the point, it never got to the point of me making a cable. We have the materials on hand, he just decided to be a douche right off the bat. I don't have the time to go running around for everyone who "needs" a longer cable, that's why we buy cables in bulk. Also, our support staff is not going to make a cable, our phone engineer and myself are the only ones who will.

If you read my post the tech was instructed to let me know if this was not long enough and I would figure something out (AKA make a cable). Instead they fixed the issue before coming to me for a longer cable because they probably thought I might get myself in trouble if I'm making a cable right in front of him. Had he just been professional and polite this would have turned out different.

ChooseLife

LMAO @ the cable - thanks for sharing!
The pic makes for a nice wallpaper too

viper75

Panzer919 wrote: »

We do so many moves/adds that rather than our techs (or myself) making cables all day we buy pre-made cables. I have no issues making someone a cable when it's a special circumstance but he made it seem like he just needed a longer than normal cable. normal being 2-3ft.

Also he is not my supervisor, he works in a different group and he's known for being an @ss. My supervisor would not let me give it to him, she said these matters were at another level which is why she had HER supervisor address him. He wont know who actually made it.

@instant000 - I am the network engineer for a large law firm. The only thing I don't manage is the voice side. As stated before, we do so many adds/moves that we either need pre-made cables, or a full time cable maker. Had the supervisor just said that he needed a longer cable than what was provided, the tech knew to come back and ask me about it. It was when he made his snide remark about us not being as advanced that made me irritated.

If I was in a consultant type job, I would have the same mindset as you. This guy is new and is trying to push and talk down to people in my department which doesn't go over well with any one, especially my boss (who has had to put him in check a couple of times). This was my way to cool down and get a good laugh wondering what his reaction will be.

The tech got him what he needed in a round-a-bout way. He wanted to connect a PC to the network but the PC was across the room so instead of just moving the PC to the desk by the jack he wanted a 40ft cable so he didn't have to move it.

That is GREAT!!!

I would have done the same thing. Except, I might had also put Turbo Lax in his coffee when he wasn't looking. I've done work in Law Firms and those Lawyers could be real @-holes!

Great story, and that cable is awesome!

xirtlook

I'm always calling out the network engineers when making cables.

"if you dont get it on the first try, I'm taking your job".

(im not a network engineer yet)

Mishra

Hilarious.

To all the disagreement posts, the OP probably would need to restock up on 20ft cables anyways so this is killing 2 birds with 1 stone.

If your boss and boss's boss agreed to this, then props to your company because it's very intelligent for management to ensure that everyone is treating everyone respectfully. When you make purposeful snide remarks, and your company corrects that, then this is very good policy IMO.

Forsaken_GA

xirtlook wrote: »

I'm always calling out the network engineers when making cables.

"if you dont get it on the first try, I'm taking your job".

(im not a network engineer yet)

I assure you, I would happily give you any and all aspects of my job that relate to cabling