My Rant.

[Sumgai]

I'm coming here to vent some steam about work, to the kind of people who will understand.

I'm in the Military, and I think it's fair to say that most people are under the assumption that the military has some pretty cutting-edge stuff in terms of technology. I always thought that too, before I joined. Let me tell you what I'm currently typing this on right now. This PC is about 4 years old, give or take. The basic hardware list: P4 2.4 GHz CPU, onboard video, and 256MB of RAM. 256! What the hell?! At any given time, I have at least 4 instances of Excel running, along with IE, Outlook, and a few other work-specific apps. This is what I would consider a 'normal' workload for my day. All of this would be fine and dandy if Windows actually enjoyed booting and running off of that meager amount of memory. To compound my problem, these machines have to be on 24/7, 365 due to the work schedule.

Where it gets frustrating is when it comes to routine tasks and maintenance that we all do daily on our home machines. Things like defragging, running anti-virus/spyware utilities, and simply keeping the damn thing clean to name a few, never get done. Even worse, we're not authorized to do any of it. The equivilant of our IT people (a different and totally seperate career field) have to accomplish these tasks. I have no access to anything that would help this poor computer run better. When you call these guys to come do it they claim to be 'busy'. Either that or the phone doesn't get answered at all. What's bad about that? They're located in the same friggin' building as me. I've gone there personally to no avail. Not that if they were there they'd be able to do me any good anyway. They go to 6 weeks of training after basic training and they're considered competent enough to manage a government network. That's just laughable. I don't know even a fraction of what most people on this forums know, and I can run circles around these people. It's a sad state of affairs.

And so, I decided (albeit against what the local 'policy' might say) to open up the godforsaken clamshell case under my desk and blow it out. I'm not sure if any of you have seen what 4 years of dust looks like in a PC, but I can tell you - It ain't pretty. The heatsink on the CPU (one of the generic Dell vertical jobbies) was FULL of dust. As in packed with it. This thing was better insulated than a Polar Bear. The power supply? Same thing. I was surprised that not one person had done anything with this PC since the day it got plugged into the wall in this office. It's no wonder these computers run like garbage; they are left to rot under desks and only looked at when people do inventory and need a serial number. To be honest, I should have just left it alone and let it fry itself. That's probably what it wants anyway. To be left to its misery.

Needless to say I'm pretty pissed off about it right now. I can't work effectively because other people don't do their job. I know it's the same everywhere, but for crying out loud...we have the resources.

/end rant.

[RA1D]

hahaha, that's funny. my last duty station, we completely disregarded the IT department and made own that took care of all our computers in the building (the two IT guys that took care of the entire base were always MIA).

[Sumgai]

Yeah, ours are in the process of being consolidated to the wing level (base-wide only) so we'll have unit reps as a special duty for those interested now instead of those IT douches. Too bad I'm already in a special duty position and I separate in August or I'd sure as hell sign up. Honestly though, it shouldn't take my workstation literally 3 minutes to save a spreadsheet.

[screwballl]

Welcome to Eglin and nearby fields... where everything has to be done by the book, especially on Hurlbert Field...

[Sumgai]

Originally Posted by screwballl

especially on Hurlburt Field...

Yeah, that's me >_< Friggin' gay.

[screwballl]

I heard it is worse on the Special Operation bases such as Hurlburt Field but others can be a bit more lax depending on the shop sarge and base commanders and such.

[Hitman]

I am in the Army, and I have a brand new Core 2 Duo machine sitting at work that is more powerful then my home computer minus the video card. We are on a 2 year life cycle, so we get updated quite regularly. At my last duty station my work computer was replaced twice in 3 years. So I wouldn't be so quick to say the whole military is behind. I know for a fact that there is an Army wide 5 year life cycle on all computer equipment. So if your stuff is that far behind you might want to bring it to the attention of your S6 or ISO.

[Sumgai]

That's the one thing I envy about the Army Hitman...you guys always have the coolest toys and equipment, and take the hit on living conditions (though, I have been to some amazingly nice Army posts.) You guys have it a lot better in some respects, as far as getting your job done effectively.

[Reloadron]

Computers? You actually have computers? Holy crap!

Spare me moaning about the equipment soldiers & airman. You really have no clue what bad equipment or quarters are unless you are in the Marine Corps. Having done so much with so little for so long (and enjoying the hand me downs of the Army & Air Force) I learned to do everything with nothing. IBM Selectric II was my idea of a high end device. Don't even get me going on quarters.

The equivilant of our IT people (a different and totally seperate career field) have to accomplish these tasks. I have no access to anything that would help this poor computer run better. When you call these guys to come do it they claim to be 'busy'. Either that or the phone doesn't get answered at all. What's bad about that? They're located in the same friggin' building as me. I've gone there personally to no avail. Not that if they were there they'd be able to do me any good anyway.

So here I sit working for a major corporation and damned if things aren't exactly the same. So what's the problem?

OK, seriously, nice rant and we all need a good rant once in a while.

Ron

[Dread]

Dude, retired Army here, still working for the Army.
I'm posting this on a Wang II word processor with 8kb of RAM.
Started typing this a week before you even posted your rant
and just now finishing it up.

Back, just had to feed the power-gerbils to reboot and save to a 10" hard drive that cost the Army over $50,000.00 for a whopping 650 MB of storage.

GTG, the IT guy tells me the 9600 baud dial-up modem is overheating again and needs to go off-line for a few hours to cool off.