Work IT woes

M

Magnus

Member
Total first world problem, I know.

My IT guys at work are pretty nice, amicable, busy guys. I don't ever want to become "that user" that complains or becomes a hassle to them while they're trying to deal with big infrastructure problems and projects, but I'm being hindered by my equipment.

Our laptops are pretty mediocre, lousy screens, underpowered (which causes issues when Excel/PS or other RAM-hungry stuff), and we have small 19" monitors (capped at 1600x960) that strain the eyes, and no support for a second monitor (and forbidden from bringing our own second monitor from home).

Excel and Outlook crawl or crash daily, and simple word processing in Word, Outlook or OneNote is sluggish - like, the characters aren't appearing instantly onscreen as I type. There's a 0.5-1s delay as it all sluggishly tries to keep up.

These are HP laptops running Windows 7. 8gb of RAM. Pretty standard corporate office fare.

Is this all worthy of complaint or should I stfu?
 
IT guys dont like you having crappy computers either. But they probably dont get allocated the money to get everyone new ones. Complaining is a good idea, but complaining to your boss is probably a better idea.
 
Speaking as someone in medical IT, your life basically consists of people complaining about things they don't want to allocate the money to fix.
 
Magnus said:
Total first world problem, I know.

My IT guys at work are pretty nice, amicable, busy guys. I don't ever want to become "that user" that complains or becomes a hassle to them while they're trying to deal with big infrastructure problems and projects, but I'm being hindered by my equipment.

Our laptops are pretty mediocre, lousy screens, underpowered (which causes issues when Excel/PS or other RAM-hungry stuff), and we have small 19" monitors (capped at 1600x960) that strain the eyes, and no support for a second monitor (and forbidden from bringing our own second monitor from home).

Excel and Outlook crawl or crash daily, and simple word processing in Word, Outlook or OneNote is sluggish - like, the characters aren't appearing instantly onscreen as I type. There's a 0.5-1s delay as it all sluggishly tries to keep up.

These are HP laptops running Windows 7. 8gb of RAM. Pretty standard corporate office fare.

Is this all worthy of complaint or should I stfu?
Click to expand...

Hell yes complain.

Tell IT the issues and tell them to move it up the chain. Bad hardware and software is ruining the productivity of the business. A fast computer with a good screen is vital for pretty much any company.
 
We still have PCs running XP with 13 inch crt monitors where I work, usually with 4 gigs of ram that run woefully outdated software that takes a half hour to boot up when it crashes several times a day.

Cry. Me. A. River.
 
Depending on the organization, sometimes the budget for PC's are in your department or the IT department. In either case, it's possible they don't have the budget for better equipment. Don't blame IT, it's probably purchasing.

Faddy said:
Hell yes complain.

Tell IT the issues and tell them to move it up the chain. Bad hardware and software is ruining the productivity of the business. A fast computer with a good screen is vital for pretty much any company.
Click to expand...

See my post above. I wish I could get all the fat clients in my company ssd's so their PC's boot faster and they will be more likely to reboot their pc for me when they call me for troubleshooting. But I don't create the budget or make those decisions. Don't take it out on IT.
 
Goldfishking said:
IT guys dont like you having crappy computers either. But they probably dont get allocated the money to get everyone new ones. Complaining is a good idea, but complaining to your boss is probably a better idea.
Click to expand...

Pretty much.

We've people complaining about hardware all day offers are ready to order and waiting for our boss to sign off(Which he never does).
 
This almost has nothing to do with the IT dept and everything to do with budget constraints forced upon them. As someone who works in IT the last thing we want to do is give annoying users even more reasons to call us and be annoying. Which means we'd prefer to give you the very best equipment* to cut down on hardware related calls.

*except for Macs. F' supporting that in a corporate environment.
 
We use Thinkpads with Docks are two 27 inch 1080p monitors, so basically we get glorious 3 display setups. It’s really nice but one of the monitors uses VGA while the other uses DVI so the picture is very slightly fuzzier in the VGA one. I guess I could see if IT has an HDMI to DVI adapter for the Dock but I don’t want to be “that guy” either.

My work also has a free vending machine of commonly requested adapters and accessories, including lightning cables for phone charging. No strings attached except we have to scan our badge to get the item so they know weÂ’re not abusing it (to prevent Johnny Scumbag from taking 6 keyboards and reselling them or something).

Overall IÂ’m pretty happy with our IT setup.
 
Your IT guys almost certainly have no control over the budget for equipment. Let them know it's an issue, but don't expect that they have the power to do anything about it.
 
Yeah talk to management, those must be some really bad laptops.

Also who FORBIDS bringing extra monitors to work? I know one of the guys at work who's planning to bring his monitor to work sometime soon.
 
The moment you get IT involved your computer will magically start working properly while they look. It is known.

The eye strain thing sounds like maybe you should talk to your optometrist though or I dunno, turn up your font size, adjust lighting conditions, etc. Getting a resolution or screen size bump isn't going to do shit for eye strain.
 
Goldfishking said:
IT guys dont like you having crappy computers either. But they probably dont get allocated the money to get everyone new ones. Complaining is a good idea, but complaining to your boss is probably a better idea.
Click to expand...

Yes. This.

I work in IT, don't bitch to me about your low powered laptop failing to run Office 16 apps, complain to your boss and I'll work with them to figure out a solution.
 
Wait, they forbid bringing in your own monitor? lol, why?

We have laptops that are decently powered; but fortunately they're always on 3 year leases; meaning rarely is anyone's machine too terrible. The current batch are SSD/16GB/Core i5/ non-touch 14" Lenovos. They're fine; though battery life on the road is pretty meh, and they're 900p.

That said, everyone gets a dock and just one monitor. Even the execs. That's just the universal rule. (though thankfully they're fine - plenty bright 21" 1080p displays). But lots of folks, including myself, have brought in their own. I have a 24" 1920x1200 Dell Ultrasharp from like 10 years ago that I use and it works great.

My second biggest complaint behind pay at any job would be lousy tech. If you want me to be productive, I require competent tools to do my job. Period. I don't think that's being unreasonable.
 
ITs job as far as hardware goes is to provide tools for end-users to be productive for the sake of the company. If your productivity is being hindered by those tools, someone in your IT department isn't doing their fucking job.

Unless those HP laptops are like a decade old, they should be able to run reasonably well, assuming the guys on your support team know what the fuck they're doing. If those guys believe they're not being given the tools to make sure that happens, it's on them to take it up with their boss.

So, yes, keep complaining and escalate it up the chain.
 
darthbob said:
Yes. This.

I work in IT, don't bitch to me about your low powered laptop failing to run Office 16 apps, complain to your boss and I'll work with them to figure out a solution.
Click to expand...

Sorry but if your department administer the systems you should responsible for what the business should buy. (if you just run the network then whatever)

IT should have a contract with Dell or HP for desktop machines with on site service. Entry level at around $1000 for a good machine and monitor, going up for more intensive jobs.

$1000/4 years is less than $1 per day. Are your employees not worth that?
 
Skel1ingt0n said:
Wait, they forbid bringing in your own monitor? lol, why?

We have laptops that are decently powered; but fortunately they're always on 3 year leases; meaning rarely is anyone's machine too terrible. The current batch are SSD/16GB/Core i5/ non-touch 14" Lenovos. They're fine; though battery life on the road is pretty meh, and they're 900p.

That said, everyone gets a dock and just one monitor. Even the execs. That's just the universal rule. (though thankfully they're fine - plenty bright 21" 1080p displays). But lots of folks, including myself, have brought in their own. I have a 24" 1920x1200 Dell Ultrasharp from like 10 years ago that I use and it works great.

My second biggest complaint behind pay at any job would be lousy tech. If you want me to be productive, I require competent tools to do my job. Period. I don't think that's being unreasonable.
Click to expand...


Our IT folks are great. It's a huge company though, so you don't always know the whole crew. A new one started a few months ago, and she was crazy efficient. You emailed about a problem - nearly instant response, she'd create a job ticket, schedule someone to come directly to your desk that morning, and she had the BEST attitude. If you emailed her in frustration she'd be all "Don't worry about it and have an amazing day!" And just cheer you up constantly. She was SO ebullient that I started trying to put a face to her name, but never actually bumped into her personally.

Most of my team felt the same way. But had never had her show up to their desk.


Turns out "she" was an AI bot. Our IT guys got jokes.
 
They probably know you have trash hardware but don't have any funds to buy new stuff.
I'd definitely complain though cus fuck that shit, can't even run word properly?
 
Faddy said:
Sorry but if your department administer the systems you should responsible for what the business should buy. (if you just run the network then whatever)

IT should have a contract with Dell or HP for desktop machines with on site service. Entry level at around $1000 for a good machine and monitor, going up for more intensive jobs.

$1000/4 years is less than $1 per day. Are your employees not worth that?
Click to expand...

Knowing what needs to be deployed and getting the O.K to do it are two entirely different beasts.
 
Magnus said:
Total first world problem, I know.

My IT guys at work are pretty nice, amicable, busy guys. I don't ever want to become "that user" that complains or becomes a hassle to them while they're trying to deal with big infrastructure problems and projects, but I'm being hindered by my equipment.

Our laptops are pretty mediocre, lousy screens, underpowered (which causes issues when Excel/PS or other RAM-hungry stuff), and we have small 19" monitors (capped at 1600x960) that strain the eyes, and no support for a second monitor (and forbidden from bringing our own second monitor from home).

Excel and Outlook crawl or crash daily, and simple word processing in Word, Outlook or OneNote is sluggish - like, the characters aren't appearing instantly onscreen as I type. There's a 0.5-1s delay as it all sluggishly tries to keep up.

These are HP laptops running Windows 7. 8gb of RAM. Pretty standard corporate office fare.

Is this all worthy of complaint or should I stfu?
Click to expand...

You complaining wont have much of an effect.

What you need to do, is to ask the IT team there to send some kind of questionnaire out to your entire workforce to provide feedback.

Complaining in numbers will have a greater effect. Or if that doesn't work, coordinate with fellow workers to all submit complaints at the same time.

If you can all make yourselves known as a collective, and suggest that productivity is an issue than anyone in management worth their salt will see a case for investment in IT, which is your core problem at hand.
 
Probably need to moan at your boss for it to improve.
My current place is awful, we are using HP kit too surprise surprise.

My last place was good, high spec Dell laptops (except screen res, but two monitors per desk), decent network.
 
Magnus said:
Total first world problem, I know.

My IT guys at work are pretty nice, amicable, busy guys. I don't ever want to become "that user" that complains or becomes a hassle to them while they're trying to deal with big infrastructure problems and projects, but I'm being hindered by my equipment.

Our laptops are pretty mediocre, lousy screens, underpowered (which causes issues when Excel/PS or other RAM-hungry stuff), and we have small 19" monitors (capped at 1600x960) that strain the eyes, and no support for a second monitor (and forbidden from bringing our own second monitor from home).

Excel and Outlook crawl or crash daily, and simple word processing in Word, Outlook or OneNote is sluggish - like, the characters aren't appearing instantly onscreen as I type. There's a 0.5-1s delay as it all sluggishly tries to keep up.

These are HP laptops running Windows 7. 8gb of RAM. Pretty standard corporate office fare.

Is this all worthy of complaint or should I stfu?
Click to expand...

IT guy here.

Does everyone get sluggish performance with normal usage or is it just you? That's key.
Running any weird Excel/Outlook add-ins? Try start--> run "excel /safe" and "outlook /safe" and see if it still happens? Does it just happen with certain Excel files? Could potentially be something in the base image they put on the machines that's screwed up.

If it's just your machine, I'd have them reimage your machine/replace your hard drive if they haven't done it already.

Do you know if your machines have solid state hard drives?

Typically most medium-size & up companies will lease equipment from Dell/HP/Lenovo/etc on a 3 or 4 year refresh cycle. Usually your front-line IT person isn't going to be in charge of that but that depends on the company.

Ultimately if there's no plans to replace your computer equipment anytime soon and everyone is having trouble someone would need to probably do some kind of project (Six Sigma?) showing how better equipment is going to make everyone happier & more productive and save the company money despite the initial cost.

Basically if the computers suck for everyone because they're old the front-line IT people are going to be well-aware of it and will have griped about it to their bosses, so complaining to your boss would be better. Worth bugging the IT guys to see if they can fix what you have now if you haven't already.
 
We have an up-to-date list of standard hardware (and approved exceptions to standards for various justifications).

Any manager with a cost center can buy whatever the hell they want off that list. They just have to pay for it from their own budget.

So hassling IT in that case would be a complete waste of time.
 
You should probably mention it to them, or drop by and show the exact issue. Seems like it is easy to replicate. That way they can tell if it an issue that is known already.

Either they will tell you everyone has those issues but management won't buy new PCs. Or they'll fix it for you.

A laptop shouldn't have issues with standard word processing like that, so a reinstall is probably in order.
 
My boss is always trying to connect to the wrong printer and when they don't print just throws his hands up in the air walking away from our shared laptop.

Almost daily I log in to the computer to find a dozen print jobs sitting open in limbo.
 
Stinkles said:
Our IT folks are great. It's a huge company though, so you don't always know the whole crew. A new one started a few months ago, and she was crazy efficient. You emailed about a problem - nearly instant response, she'd create a job ticket, schedule someone to come directly to your desk that morning, and she had the BEST attitude. If you emailed her in frustration she'd be all "Don't worry about it and have an amazing day!" And just cheer you up constantly. She was SO ebullient that I started trying to put a face to her name, but never actually bumped into her personally.

Most of my team felt the same way. But had never had her show up to their desk.


Turns out "she" was an AI bot. Our IT guys got jokes.
Click to expand...

Did she get super racist after a while?
 
Just how intense are these Excel documents that they're eating through 8gb of RAM?

Has Office gotten more bloated since I stopped using it?
 
Wowfunhappy said:
Just how intense are these Excel documents that they're eating through 8gb of RAM?

Has Office gotten more bloated since I stopped using it?
Click to expand...

Financial modelling done in Excel can be ridiculously CPU and memory intensive.

Hickbilly Deluxe said:
We still have PCs running XP with 13 inch crt monitors where I work, usually with 4 gigs of ram that run woefully outdated software that takes a half hour to boot up when it crashes several times a day.

Cry. Me. A. River.
Click to expand...

This is ransomware waiting to happen.
 
End user to IT - "These computers are so old, we can barely work"

IT to Exec - "Our computers are old and making it hard to work, approval for new hardware?"

Exec to IT - "Not enough in the budget. When they break, get new ones."

Then people start purposely having machines not work.


You should complain, but also complain to your own management, and have them complain to the top so that they'll approve a budget for better hardware. If your company has a good lifecycle replacement program (many/most don't in my experience) they should be replacing them at a set schedule anyways and changing the hardware kit based on the needs of the departments.
 
And you think that your IT team wants you to have crappy equipment? Trust me. They don't. They have been advocating to get your new equipment for a long time and have been shot down each time. Because the number crunchers look at it this way - "the computers work, so why replace them?".
 
I wish I had an understanding customer like you at my current place of work, I am the only IT guy on site supporting around 300+ users and they are easily the most difficult bunch I've ever worked with. They all have 16GB RAM Windows 10 Intel i7 Dell laptops with dual screen function thanks to docking stations I've set up for them all and DirectAccess so they can all work from home. Nice setup, if you ask me, but they all have such weird requests and manage to fuck the laptops up by running like fifty windows at the same time/never shut down their machines to run WIndows updates and wonder why things crash and don't work. You'll find that the guys that you know in IT want things to work better (and can't make any real changes) but it's always those further up the ladder saying they don't have the money to invest in these things for you. Basically the IT guys who hide in the back offices who you never see and don't know exist, are the ones who say 'no'.

Also, just so you know, Excel kills CPU in its tracks normally, depending on the size and how many of them you have open at a time, I'd recommend saving when using Excel, frequently, just to be sure. Seen so many people lose hours of their work.

Hickbilly Deluxe said:
We still have PCs running XP with 13 inch crt monitors where I work, usually with 4 gigs of ram that run woefully outdated software that takes a half hour to boot up when it crashes several times a day.

Cry. Me. A. River.
Click to expand...

That must be an absolute nightmare for the IT guys there to support. I feel for both them and you in that situation. Think it's ridiculous that there are still so many XP machines out there still. It's beyond ancient at this point and no longer supported by Microsoft.
 
Usually IT determines the solution and your manager approves any purchases. So take the laptop to IT and describe the performance issues. It might simply need service (not likely). If they can't fix or improve the performance then ask if an upgrade of hardware (SSD/RAM) or a new laptop would and then present that information to your manager.
 
John_B said:
Usually IT determines the solution and your manager approves any purchases. So take the laptop to IT and describe the performance issues. It might simply need service (not likely). If they can't fix or improve the performance then ask if an upgrade of hardware (SSD/RAM) or a new laptop would and then present that information to your manager.
Click to expand...

This isn't how IT works a lot of the time.
 
Goldfishking said:
IT guys dont like you having crappy computers either. But they probably dont get allocated the money to get everyone new ones. Complaining is a good idea, but complaining to your boss is probably a better idea.
Click to expand...

Working as an in house IT guy. Yes. This is how my gig works. We really don't get to make that call and most companies are pretty similar from my experience. We get a budget set by what other department heads are willing to spend. I don't make the call and I don't really have any leverage to help, unfortunately.
 
Thanks for the input everyone. I'm totally aware that there's more to all of this than just complaining to IT themselves. I don't know where the budget lies in our company,
but you're right, in that it may be within our department. The issues I described wouldn't warrant any kind of repair or address - they'll ask: "can you send e-mails? can you use Word? does shit 'work'?" And it does, just slowly and inefficiently. I doubt they'd throw money at improving things that only I seem to be bothered by.

Skel1ingt0n said:
Wait, they forbid bringing in your own monitor? lol, why?
Click to expand...

The explanation I got was that 'everything can carry malware these days, since everything has firmware" or whatever. So the blanket policy is that absolutely no hardware comes in. I don't know how they'd ever monitor that. I wasn't even given a mouse and a keyboard for the first week, since we need to specially request those for new employees due to a new corporate policy on 'mobile first'. You need to actually justify needing a monitor, dock, keyboard and mouse for every new employee, otherwise you're just issued a laptop. So I brought my own keyboard and mouse in and borrowed an unused monitor until I got all of those things assigned to me, and no one yelled at me about the hardware policy. I had to do my job. So...I guess I'll just buy my own better monitor and bring it in and see what happens...?

thefro said:
IT guy here.

Does everyone get sluggish performance with normal usage or is it just you? That's key.
Click to expand...

People anecdotally say things like, "yeah, my laptop's slow too." But they're super resigned to it. They think it's normal. They don't want to cause any kind of stink, and I'm not sure why.

Running any weird Excel/Outlook add-ins? Try start--> run "excel /safe" and "outlook /safe" and see if it still happens? Does it just happen with certain Excel files? Could potentially be something in the base image they put on the machines that's screwed up.
Click to expand...

I'll try these things out. Thanks!

Do you know if your machines have solid state hard drives?
Click to expand...
Yes, they do, and thank goodness for that, at least. I just can't STAND the slow typing speed, more than anything. I can deal with 2-3 crashes a week, but the typing lags hard and it really screws with my inability to concentrate.
 
My computer is sooo slow.

I hear it all the time. I'm not in charge of budgets.

Laptops with 54k harddrives as a main computer is a bad idea.
 
John_B said:
This is my experience working in IT for big and huge companies. If you have an issues you let IT have a look at it before asking for new hardware (which usually won't fix your issue).
Click to expand...

That's the opposite of my experience. We signed 3 year contracts with vendors for specific hardware. There were no upgrades.

Offering people random upgrades is terrible for asset management.

EDIT: this is at a Fortune 100 company.
 
Goldfishking said:
IT guys dont like you having crappy computers either. But they probably dont get allocated the money to get everyone new ones. Complaining is a good idea, but complaining to your boss is probably a better idea.
Click to expand...
This. IT people often get no say in what we give to you end users. Which is ridiculous.

Depending on how your company is setup your IT budget may come out of your departments budget and you may be able to get something nicer.
 
I guess my broader question is -- should my hardware be having this much trouble running what I thought was pretty basic shit? (Word, Outlook, etc.). The delays on clicking and typing drive me nuts.
 
Stinkles said:
Our IT folks are great. It's a huge company though, so you don't always know the whole crew. A new one started a few months ago, and she was crazy efficient. You emailed about a problem - nearly instant response, she'd create a job ticket, schedule someone to come directly to your desk that morning, and she had the BEST attitude. If you emailed her in frustration she'd be all "Don't worry about it and have an amazing day!" And just cheer you up constantly. She was SO ebullient that I started trying to put a face to her name, but never actually bumped into her personally.

Most of my team felt the same way. But had never had her show up to their desk.


Turns out "she" was an AI bot. Our IT guys got jokes.
Click to expand...

Cortana_H2.png
 
Akronis said:
That's the opposite of my experience. We signed 3 year contracts with vendors for specific hardware. There were no upgrades.

Offering people random upgrades is terrible for asset management.
Click to expand...

It's terrible for many other reasons but not sure how you got "random upgrades" from his post. That's not what he was talking about.

Stinkles said:
Our IT folks are great. It's a huge company though, so you don't always know the whole crew. A new one started a few months ago, and she was crazy efficient. You emailed about a problem - nearly instant response, she'd create a job ticket, schedule someone to come directly to your desk that morning, and she had the BEST attitude. If you emailed her in frustration she'd be all "Don't worry about it and have an amazing day!" And just cheer you up constantly. She was SO ebullient that I started trying to put a face to her name, but never actually bumped into her personally.

Most of my team felt the same way. But had never had her show up to their desk.


Turns out "she" was an AI bot. Our IT guys got jokes.
Click to expand...

I'm finishing a support bot for our corporate headquarters using IBM's Watson conversation and couple of other Watson services. Bots really are great in terms of providing instant information, troubleshooting steps, links to resources and taking actions on tasks when integrated with other systems.

Weird that they just didn't tell you though, lol.
 
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