I am not one of those cranky sysadmins who denigrate “end users” for being “stupid” or “idiots”, etc. I’ve always believed the best ethic for this profession was to have a deskside manner.
I hold all my patience in, and I sometimes want to loose it.
Especially when this narrative reminds me of the twentysomething dude in an Xifnity commercial where the parents had him come to the house just so he can help them.
My mother is one of those people who wants her sci-fi, all the time on her iPad. I am someone who doesn’t understand consumer grade products or content, (OK I use iPads and iPhones, etc. – just I don’t watch movies, and I only manage my iTunes for music, OK?)
I honestly have no clue how to get those special digital downloads to work, and to be honest to give Big Hollywood my email address to get a login with a DRM type of download and have to haggle with that. My mother needs to be instructed and if there is no instructions, she’s up the creek with no paddle.
So I know only enterprise grade technology. I can attain a three nines reliability. My mother doesn’t understand that half of the servers are for business purposes only. I am a year to two years behind getting a help desk program and a knowledge base system to help her, and several other initiatives.
These systems are not apps, they are servers, providing at least five instances of services. In order for me to attain a three-nine reliability, I need to be in management and not be pulled way when walking down the house hallway to be her “little helper”. I DO NOT LIKE BEING PULLED AWAY OR BE TOLD TO COME OVER, DROP EVERYTHING AND BAIL OUT THE OL WOMAN!
I DO NOT have the time to drop everything and talk to someone at a basic level and handicap EVERY FRECKIN PROCESS of how something works!
Do not tell me to be patient!
As you know my social circle is very narrow, and that due to a number of reasons. I do not have relief support, I can’t have friends come over and help me with a DB project while I could do something else. I have to do this all by myself.
I am this close to just say you’re on your own. Fictional sh– movies is not a use-case for the enterprise grade equipment. Get your own HDD and google how to ingest your own video and put it into iTunes. I never tell someone in their face to “google this” and worse this is my mother.
I don’t understand dumb consumers. Why are they so stupid to not understand a BASIC principal of internetworking and in order to have a healthy and happy network, it requires a well, logical, planned out network? Why do they feel entitled to believe that IT can be their slaves and bend over backwards and do ad-hoc tasks? I have a f—–g door and yet no one respects it. I do not tolerate being flagged down.
I’m done being the sysadmin for my household. I’ll leave the semi secure Netgear Prosafe Firewall as a thank you, because according to FBI, we are supposed to listen them for cybersecurity advice, when if you had some enterprise gear, this was no-news, but it got your mother all sensed up.
I cannot stand parents and their exploitation of their sons with IT without IS backgrounds. I cannot be your hand holder forever!