stupidity in customers
Oct. 5th, 2012 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seldearY'all know about FTP, right?
Put in a server and a port, a username and a password, and list a directory and the name of the file you want to 'put' down, yeah?
Well, meet SFTP, FTP's secure cousin.
Which the network security guys insisted we had to use for a transfer from an internal system to another internal system. Okay, fine, whatever. Except that I tried the values they gave me, SFTP didn't work.
Check the server values? No, the network security guys insist the server values are correct!
Check the authorisations? No, the network security guys insist the authorisations are correct!
Check the adapter? No, the network security guys insiste the adapter works!
And still it doesn't work.
We checked the server and file and directory authorisations, we checked the connections, we tried backslashes and forwardslashes and tildas for the directories, and everything under the sun.
And then finally - FINALLY - after eight weeks of wrangling - nearly two months - we manage to persuade them to actually check the adapter instead of insisting it must work because another program is using it. (It's not using it, incidentally. There is ZERO PROOF that SFTP has EVER worked in this network.)
And, hey, guess what? The adapter doesn't actually work.
Two. Freaking. Months.
Funnily enough the network security guys are all "this must be your problem, you have to solve it" right up until the point where it turns out it's not our problem. Then they're all "well, it's not about blaming anyone..."
They're right: it's not about blaming anyone. But it is about having a mind open enough to say that maybe - just maybe - it might be an idea to check your own area and not just dig your heels into the ground and insist it's not your problem.
Put in a server and a port, a username and a password, and list a directory and the name of the file you want to 'put' down, yeah?
Well, meet SFTP, FTP's secure cousin.
Which the network security guys insisted we had to use for a transfer from an internal system to another internal system. Okay, fine, whatever. Except that I tried the values they gave me, SFTP didn't work.
Check the server values? No, the network security guys insist the server values are correct!
Check the authorisations? No, the network security guys insist the authorisations are correct!
Check the adapter? No, the network security guys insiste the adapter works!
And still it doesn't work.
We checked the server and file and directory authorisations, we checked the connections, we tried backslashes and forwardslashes and tildas for the directories, and everything under the sun.
And then finally - FINALLY - after eight weeks of wrangling - nearly two months - we manage to persuade them to actually check the adapter instead of insisting it must work because another program is using it. (It's not using it, incidentally. There is ZERO PROOF that SFTP has EVER worked in this network.)
And, hey, guess what? The adapter doesn't actually work.
Two. Freaking. Months.
Funnily enough the network security guys are all "this must be your problem, you have to solve it" right up until the point where it turns out it's not our problem. Then they're all "well, it's not about blaming anyone..."
They're right: it's not about blaming anyone. But it is about having a mind open enough to say that maybe - just maybe - it might be an idea to check your own area and not just dig your heels into the ground and insist it's not your problem.
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no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 09:32 am (UTC)The weekend is now here. Eat, drink, be merry and think of nothing else for the next two days :)
no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 10:50 am (UTC)'it's not about blaming you, but it's about the fact that we wasted 8 freaking weeks because your people refused to do a thorough troublshooting job......it better not happen again'
That's the biggest thing with tech guys, their blind faith and insistence that everything is working with their refusal to test. Stuff breaks.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 09:59 pm (UTC)And yet these guys immediately assume that the problem is someone else's area! Truthfully, it's alwys the guys, too. Female techies will check their own work before digging their heels in. Male techies almost never do.
'it's not about blaming you, but it's about the fact that we wasted 8 freaking weeks because your people refused to do a thorough troublshooting job......it better not happen again'
Pretty much this exactly.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-07 10:00 pm (UTC)