Spurious crap
Nov. 2nd, 2004 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobriqueYou know it's going to be a bad day, when your arrival to work is greeted by an 'RFP'. A Request for Proposal(or something similar).
Basically, it's document that is the 'start point', for getting quotations from suppliers.
These are thing that I greet with horror. You see, they're typically stunningly boring, power-point-esque affairs. But to gloss over them, means that you'll end up shafted down the line, because you didn't spot the blatantly erroneous assumptions that they were basing the project on.
Or worse, the corporate political bullshit tied into it.
And so I greet this one with dismay, but with the faint optimism that this will be a project that I will enjoy, and won't make my life a living hell. (They do exist, I've had a couple go that way ;p)
Nope. It's a great big steaming pile of shite. The conslutancy group brought in by the particular IT 'Director' (I use the term loosely, because in much the same way as some companies have lots of Vice Presidents, we have a real steaming load of 'Directors') have produced 20 pages of waffle and bollocks, along with one page of frankly spurious numbers.
They are 'helping' us redesign our storage infrastructure, to fit in with their latest buzzword of ILM - Information Lifecycle Management. Which essentially means a load of proprietary kit, and a 'management heavy' system. (Why yes, this _is_ in the 'open' specification to all suppliers, and yes, it is supplier specific. Why do you ask?).
The problem is, they've only gathered the bare minimum of information about our site, and so their specification is just not good. 10% data growth over 3 years is really Just Not going to happen. Our backups alone increase by 10% each year, because of tape retention.
The problem is this: It's backed by a 'Director'. That means there's office politics in play. If he looks like a retard, then this is a Bad Thing, and the mess will be strewn around.
And me, being lowly IT geek, cannot possibly know better than the combined idiocy of conslutants and directors.
And so, in order to avoid having my life made hell for the next year, with this amazingly ill-concieved project, I have to refute it. But because I'm just lowly geek, and Not an Important Person, I will have to present them with the kind of counter case that'll stand up in a court of law.
For all 300 servers within the scope.
By the end of this week.
Arse
Basically, it's document that is the 'start point', for getting quotations from suppliers.
These are thing that I greet with horror. You see, they're typically stunningly boring, power-point-esque affairs. But to gloss over them, means that you'll end up shafted down the line, because you didn't spot the blatantly erroneous assumptions that they were basing the project on.
Or worse, the corporate political bullshit tied into it.
And so I greet this one with dismay, but with the faint optimism that this will be a project that I will enjoy, and won't make my life a living hell. (They do exist, I've had a couple go that way ;p)
Nope. It's a great big steaming pile of shite. The conslutancy group brought in by the particular IT 'Director' (I use the term loosely, because in much the same way as some companies have lots of Vice Presidents, we have a real steaming load of 'Directors') have produced 20 pages of waffle and bollocks, along with one page of frankly spurious numbers.
They are 'helping' us redesign our storage infrastructure, to fit in with their latest buzzword of ILM - Information Lifecycle Management. Which essentially means a load of proprietary kit, and a 'management heavy' system. (Why yes, this _is_ in the 'open' specification to all suppliers, and yes, it is supplier specific. Why do you ask?).
The problem is, they've only gathered the bare minimum of information about our site, and so their specification is just not good. 10% data growth over 3 years is really Just Not going to happen. Our backups alone increase by 10% each year, because of tape retention.
The problem is this: It's backed by a 'Director'. That means there's office politics in play. If he looks like a retard, then this is a Bad Thing, and the mess will be strewn around.
And me, being lowly IT geek, cannot possibly know better than the combined idiocy of conslutants and directors.
And so, in order to avoid having my life made hell for the next year, with this amazingly ill-concieved project, I have to refute it. But because I'm just lowly geek, and Not an Important Person, I will have to present them with the kind of counter case that'll stand up in a court of law.
For all 300 servers within the scope.
By the end of this week.
Arse
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 09:47 am (UTC)Sometimes because it just fell apart.
Sometimes because it was a bag of poo and no one could be bothered to finish it off.
Occasionally, you have a good one, but that doesn't finish either - because everyone starts using it, and so feature reqs, redesigns etc. start piling in as the world wants their Input. (and name in the credits).
no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 04:35 am (UTC)I'd rather be fired for opening my mouth instead of getting fired for not being able to be the two- or three-person management group the new storage media will likely require because the implementation is the IT equivalent of a five-assed monkey.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 09:43 am (UTC)This often has the effect that the laughable design team is made up of non-techie yes-men who then dump shit on us going 'so implement that then bee-atches'.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 09:50 am (UTC)Too often the IT world is left to languish. We're like Dozers from Fraggle Rock; blending into the background until the Fraggles fuck it up for everyone and need Dozer know-how to unfuck themselves.
Sick sick world.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 09:55 am (UTC)Admittedly, quite a lot of those are implemented on a comparison of the pain of implementing, vs the pain of getting whinged at by every management level bod for the next x years.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 09:59 am (UTC)Just imagine it now, endless throngs grovelling their obeisance (and tithes!!) to the Deus In Machina we have wrought for them to worship.
And then we make it *eat* them. Oh yes.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 10:03 am (UTC)If only to stop the 'here's a badly designed piece of wank, and you don't look clever enough to understand this. So here you go, here's the admin passwords, go and implement it'.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 10:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 04:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 09:45 am (UTC)'least, not officially. You get sacked for that.
Of course, the only time they get _really_ upset is if you're doing 'critical' stuff. Like operating a crane, configuring some valuable servers, that kind of thing ;p
no subject
Date: 2004-11-02 02:19 pm (UTC)18 months ago, they started work on the replacement. Last month it was put into testing status. The testers found that not only did it lack most of the features they had requested a year ago, but the whole system fell over if 6 people were logged on at once.
Last week they scrapped it and started entirely from scratch. Testing for this 'new' version ends on Friday :/