3 ms·

Bank boss hated IT, loved the beach, was clueless about ports and politeness

23 points by LorenDB 3y ago

drivers99 3y ago
If you look at it from a design perspective (blame the design, not the humans, for errors), it shouldn't be so easy to mix up the two ports.
- sethammons 3y ago
  there is the classic cd drive used as a coffee cup holder type problem. However, a clearly not-fitting port being plugged into? That is not a design problem. Even my little kids could figure out which plugs don't fit into other ports on their game systems. At a certain point, people have to apply some thought.
  - drivers99 3y ago
    An RJ-11 cable fits in an RJ-45 jack. It even clicks in.
    - woleium 3y ago
      it was designed this way, so you can run your rj11 cat3 phone system over your in wall rj45 cat5e cabling
unsupp0rted 3y ago
> "You plugged the modem cable into the laptop's network port." That sounds like an "in your face" hero IT moment, but in reality the bank boss would still be angry. He'd blame IT for not telling him, or for mentioning it too quickly and not emphasizing it. When IT is always mucking things up, there's no version of events where IT isn't the cause of a muck-up.
cratermoon 3y ago
And now we understand why PCs have different colors for different connectors and ports. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_System_Design_Guide#Color-coding_scheme_for_connectors_and_ports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_System_Design_Guide#Color-c...
thadt 3y ago
So 'Hugh' gets to feel smug because he knows the difference between an RJ45 port and an RJ11 port, while leaving his less informed co-worker at a disadvantage, working over the weekend on a deal that helps pay their salaries, while Hugh stays home and plays? Hugh's job is to make sure that dude has email, and instead on Monday he's enjoying making dude look dumb because Huge didn't do his job? If I were Hugh's IT manager, I think we would be having a learning moment about why we're there in the first place.
- baz00 3y ago
  This isn't going to be the first run in with one of these folk. I had one. Belittling them is all that was left. I was working for a very very very large defence contractor and the CEO of the hour would take his IBM ThinkPad and throw it across whatever hotel room he was in at the weekend because he was a giant oaf. Then bring it in on Monday and blame us for "giving him a fucking piece of shit". So we bought him a ToughBook. Which he proceeded to break in just the same way. Our IT director eventually asked him "have you just ever considered stopping treating your kit like shit?"
  - moribvndvs 3y ago
    In the article, Hugh is the IT person, not the Associate Director.
    - baz00 3y ago
      Good point - thanks! Edited comment. Will leave this here to point out my failure.
- moribvndvs 3y ago
  This must be the Associate Director himself, otherwise this is a very weird take, but I guess not surprising given the state of things these days. Sure, plugging things into the wrong port is an honest mistake. We all make mistakes. But he was shown how to do it, failed to consider the risks of relying last minute on something he’s clearly not comfortable with when faced with a critical task, and must have not had the wherewithal to ask about the two ports, try basic troubleshooting himself, practice ahead of time, or call in for help. Instead he tried to turn his failure into someone else’s. Personal accountability is critical even if sometimes it’s hard to swallow. Desperately trying to roll your own shit downhill is-at a minimum-a sign of an extremely low character. At least the Assistant Director in this story had enough decency to just take the L at the end and drop it.
dougmwne 3y ago
I take the opposite lesson from this. These ports look practically the same to someone who’s never used them. It’s terrible user experience. IT failed to properly train the user or provide them with useable equipment. This is not revenge of the nerds, it’s a failure to serve the internal customer.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  This is only going to become worse with further spread of USB-C; not even nerds and professionals can figure out WTF that USB-C port/cable carries.
- gwbas1c 3y ago
  > Hugh and his colleagues configured the PC and did a spot of training to ensure the AD was conversant with the modem he was provided It's not that hard to troubleshoot something like this. The problem is that the Associate Director would only cast blame and not take any responsibility for learning to use his computer correctly. It's also real obvious that a modem port and a network port are different. Maybe not on a casual glance, but if you're trying to plug a phone cable into a modem port, it is. Especially if you're savvy enough to be an Assistant Director. [Edit]: On reflection, I suspect that the Associate Director decided to take the weekend off and blame Hugh; instead of taking a minute or two to do some troubleshooting.
aidenn0 3y ago
For desktop machines I have plugged USB-A devices into the 8P8C modular ethernet jack many times; the width is far too similar.

23 points by LorenDB 3y ago

If you look at it from a design perspective (blame the design, not the humans, for errors), it shouldn't be so easy to mix up the two ports.

sethammons 3y ago
there is the classic cd drive used as a coffee cup holder type problem. However, a clearly not-fitting port being plugged into? That is not a design problem. Even my little kids could figure out which plugs don't fit into other ports on their game systems. At a certain point, people have to apply some thought.
- drivers99 3y ago
  An RJ-11 cable fits in an RJ-45 jack. It even clicks in.
  - woleium 3y ago
    it was designed this way, so you can run your rj11 cat3 phone system over your in wall rj45 cat5e cabling

unsupp0rted 3y ago

> "You plugged the modem cable into the laptop's network port." That sounds like an "in your face" hero IT moment, but in reality the bank boss would still be angry. He'd blame IT for not telling him, or for mentioning it too quickly and not emphasizing it. When IT is always mucking things up, there's no version of events where IT isn't the cause of a muck-up.

cratermoon 3y ago

And now we understand why PCs have different colors for different connectors and ports. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_System_Design_Guide#Color-coding_scheme_for_connectors_and_ports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_System_Design_Guide#Color-c...

thadt 3y ago

So 'Hugh' gets to feel smug because he knows the difference between an RJ45 port and an RJ11 port, while leaving his less informed co-worker at a disadvantage, working over the weekend on a deal that helps pay their salaries, while Hugh stays home and plays? Hugh's job is to make sure that dude has email, and instead on Monday he's enjoying making dude look dumb because Huge didn't do his job? If I were Hugh's IT manager, I think we would be having a learning moment about why we're there in the first place.

baz00 3y ago
This isn't going to be the first run in with one of these folk. I had one. Belittling them is all that was left. I was working for a very very very large defence contractor and the CEO of the hour would take his IBM ThinkPad and throw it across whatever hotel room he was in at the weekend because he was a giant oaf. Then bring it in on Monday and blame us for "giving him a fucking piece of shit". So we bought him a ToughBook. Which he proceeded to break in just the same way. Our IT director eventually asked him "have you just ever considered stopping treating your kit like shit?"
- moribvndvs 3y ago
  In the article, Hugh is the IT person, not the Associate Director.
  - baz00 3y ago
    Good point - thanks! Edited comment. Will leave this here to point out my failure.
moribvndvs 3y ago
This must be the Associate Director himself, otherwise this is a very weird take, but I guess not surprising given the state of things these days. Sure, plugging things into the wrong port is an honest mistake. We all make mistakes. But he was shown how to do it, failed to consider the risks of relying last minute on something he’s clearly not comfortable with when faced with a critical task, and must have not had the wherewithal to ask about the two ports, try basic troubleshooting himself, practice ahead of time, or call in for help. Instead he tried to turn his failure into someone else’s. Personal accountability is critical even if sometimes it’s hard to swallow. Desperately trying to roll your own shit downhill is-at a minimum-a sign of an extremely low character. At least the Assistant Director in this story had enough decency to just take the L at the end and drop it.

dougmwne 3y ago

I take the opposite lesson from this. These ports look practically the same to someone who’s never used them. It’s terrible user experience. IT failed to properly train the user or provide them with useable equipment. This is not revenge of the nerds, it’s a failure to serve the internal customer.

Dalewyn 3y ago
This is only going to become worse with further spread of USB-C; not even nerds and professionals can figure out WTF that USB-C port/cable carries.
gwbas1c 3y ago
> Hugh and his colleagues configured the PC and did a spot of training to ensure the AD was conversant with the modem he was provided It's not that hard to troubleshoot something like this. The problem is that the Associate Director would only cast blame and not take any responsibility for learning to use his computer correctly. It's also real obvious that a modem port and a network port are different. Maybe not on a casual glance, but if you're trying to plug a phone cable into a modem port, it is. Especially if you're savvy enough to be an Assistant Director. [Edit]: On reflection, I suspect that the Associate Director decided to take the weekend off and blame Hugh; instead of taking a minute or two to do some troubleshooting.

aidenn0 3y ago

For desktop machines I have plugged USB-A devices into the 8P8C modular ethernet jack many times; the width is far too similar.