Nice People 12: Nice in Nice

Generali

LydiaJ wrote: »

No idea who our IT department are answerable to, but they're brilliant. If something goes wrong you can either log it on the intranet helpdesk app, or if it's just your laptop you can take it over there and queue behind one or two people to get dealt with. If you log it on the helpdesk you have to say how urgent it is and how many people are affected, but even non-urgent things are usually fixed the same day unless they require a new part or an outside contractor (eg major problem with one of the big printer/photocopiers).

I had a problem a while ago. Some VBA code I had written was working just fine for me but behaving oddly for a friend of mine. It would only run once for him on any particular machine, and after that it would crash every time he tried to run it until he moved to a different computer. If I logged on as me it ran OK on his machine. So I went to IT support and said "Excel is behaving weirdly. There is nothing wrong with my code but it won't run for Angus." The person to whom I spoke said that he would get their Excel specialist and went behind a screen to where the guy's desk was and told him about it. I heard the Excel guy say, with a weary and disbelieving sigh, "It'll be a problem in the code." Then he came round the corner of the screen, and said "Oh, it's Lydia. The code won't be the problem then."

The problem was eventually solved by a different member of the team who discovered an obscure box deep in the Options menu that needed to be ticked or unticked or something.

Our help desk is fine. Not good, not bad, just fine.

It's when we need to make strategic decisions that they become active blockers of our ability to run a business properly. It's not that they make mistakes, they genuinely prevent us from doing things better, often just because they can.

LydiaJ

Generali wrote: »

Our help desk is fine. Not good, not bad, just fine.

It's when we need to make strategic decisions that they become active blockers of our ability to run a business properly. It's not that they make mistakes, they genuinely prevent us from doing things better, often just because they can.

I'm not involved at the strategic level here, but there always seems to be a steady stream of new technology being introduced, so I imagine that IT are cooperating with whoever is making the strategic decisions.

Nikkster

Generali wrote: »

Our help desk is fine. Not good, not bad, just fine.

You can tell when people are on the phone to our help desk. Normally mild-mannered individuals start going red in the face and raising their voices.

Generali

LydiaJ wrote: »

I'm not involved at the strategic level here, but there always seems to be a steady stream of new technology being introduced, so I imagine that IT are cooperating with whoever is making the strategic decisions.

Part of the problem is that senior IT management last did anything operational in the 1980s. They simply don't understand what is available and don't want any change that might derail their gravy train.

Doozergirl

Nikkster wrote: »

What colour was wrong and what are you repainting it with?

The wrong colour was bright plastic baby blue. My leaat favourite colours would be baby blue and baby pink. It was not my intention. I was supposed to be more of a duck egg, but there is no green tone to it at all. I knew it wasn't the colour I wanted but I happened to be in a builder's merchant that didn't do Dulux mixing and I forgot we had a new Homebase in town. I thought it couldn't be that bad, but it really is.

It's now going to be Sea Urchin 2
https://www.dulux.co.uk/colour/sea_urchin_2

Or Inky Pool 3
https://www.dulux.co.uk/colour/inky_pool_3

The boys like Sea Urchin, I prefer Inky Pool but I have been stung by the current blueness and am not feeling that confident. Inky Pool would relate to the house a bit more.

Nikkster

Doozergirl wrote: »

The wrong colour was bright plastic baby blue. It was not my intention. I was supposed to be more of a duck egg, but there is no green tone to it at all. I knew it wasn't the colour I wanted but I happened to be in a builder's merchant that didn't do Dulux mixing and I forgot we had a new Homebase in town. I thought it couldn't be that bad, but it really is.

It's now going to be Sea Urchin 2
https://www.dulux.co.uk/colour/sea_urchin_2

Or Inky Pool 3
https://www.dulux.co.uk/colour/inky_pool_3

The boys like Sea Urchin, I prefer Inky Pool but I have been stung by the current blueness and am not feeling that confident. Inky Pool would relate to the house a bit more.

I like Inky Pool 3. I like Inky Pool 3 too, but Sea Urchin 3 is a bit brighter.

Edit: 15% off at homebase this weekend too.

I've just got back from buying numbers for my front door. Not that I have a new front door sorted, but still

Doozergirl

Nikkster wrote: »

I like Inky Pool 3. I like Inky Pool 3 too, but Sea Urchin 3 is a bit brighter.

Edit: 15% off at homebase this weekend too.

I've just got back from buying numbers for my front door. Not that I have a new front door sorted, but still

You're right about sea urchin 3. I'll have a look outside in a bit. I still need to get dressed!

15% off is a lovely bonus

Re: door numbers, I got a groupon deal. Arrived yesterday, looks great
http://m.groupon.co.uk/deals/national-deal/gg-uk-sign-shop/33235030

Doozergirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

White's so full of win. Brilliant white.... can't go wrong.
I've too many blue in here now and it's east facing, so (since I put my new curtains up) I've realised the room's changed from a comforting/cheery mustard/bottlegreen to the blue ... and it's a bit "cold". So I need some bright cheery blue and a splash of yellow.

It's a blockwork wall (those big grey ugly bricks) so it needs to look bold enough to like it's by design, not just that I cba to render it, which is what a sensible colour would acheive. Otherwise it would be rendered and painted cream.

I hate this house anyway. Everything I've already done looks awful. What happens when you renovate the inside of a house in a matter of weeks and in a dreadful depression. Totally uninspired.

I need plants now. Cheap ones big enough to make some kind of impact.

Doozergirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

White's so full of win. Brilliant white.... can't go wrong.
I've too many blue in here now and it's east facing, so (since I put my new curtains up) I've realised the room's changed from a comforting/cheery mustard/bottlegreen to the blue ... and it's a bit "cold". So I need some bright cheery blue and a splash of yellow.

The dulux mixing things say 'warm' 'fresh' etc on them so if you want a warm blue, then those paper strips might provide a guide for you.

GDB2222

LydiaJ wrote: »

No idea who our IT department are answerable to, but they're brilliant. If something goes wrong you can either log it on the intranet helpdesk app, or if it's just your laptop you can take it over there and queue behind one or two people (usually students) to get dealt with. If you log it on the helpdesk you have to say how urgent it is and how many people are affected, but even non-urgent things are usually fixed the same day unless they require a new part or an outside contractor (eg major problem with one of the big printer/photocopiers).

I had a problem a while ago. Some VBA code I had written was working just fine for me but behaving oddly for a friend of mine. It would only run once for him on any particular machine, and after that it would crash every time he tried to run it until he moved to a different computer. If I logged on as me it ran OK on his machine. So I went to IT support and said "Excel is behaving weirdly. There is nothing wrong with my code but it won't run for Angus." The person to whom I spoke said that he would get their Excel specialist and went behind a screen to where the guy's desk was and told him about it. I heard the Excel guy say, with a weary and disbelieving sigh, "It'll be a problem in the code." Then he came round the corner of the screen, and said "Oh, it's Lydia. The code won't be the problem then."

The problem was eventually solved by a different member of the team who discovered an obscure box deep in the Options menu that needed to be ticked or unticked or something. I've written a line about "If it crashes check this" into the instructions on "How to use Lydia's code".

I'm intrigued now. Mostly, things work or don't work. Work once, then stop is unusual. Which box in options?

I had an interesting 45 minutes on Friday. I updated some values in one spreadsheet, but the main spreadsheet refused to pick them up. Ctrl-alt-F9 made no difference. Really tearing my hair out, until I realised that I had updated a test version of the spreadsheet. The file names were similar, except one of them said "TEST" at the beginning. Sometimes, the stark staring obvious just isn't!