How to make me waste huge chunks of time

[thatcrazycajun]

Dear $TEMPCLIENT's Desktop Services Department:

I understand and support the need to keep all the company's software up to date and make major upgrades periodically; I want to have the most current tools possible to do your work, and I get that you need to keep everyone's systems more or less on the same page. I also get that it makes practical sense to shoot out upgrades over the network to everyone at the same time.

But was it really, truly, absolutely necessary to make me wait TWO WHOLE ENTIRE HOURS after getting in and logging on at 8:35 this AM for a major upgrade to be downloaded and installed? I couldn't do anything else with the time, as your onscreen instructions demanded I launch no other applications while the upgrade was in progress. This means I could do absolutely NO work on the projects for which your company is paying my agency. Nor could I make any phone calls to take care of personal business while waiting, as I have been instructed by my supervisor that I have accounting people working around me who need quiet to crunch their numbers, and my cellphone is low on minutes until I can get more...which I must do online, and cannot on your computer while upgrading nor on my own due to lack of network access on your premises.

Surely there must have been some better way to execute this needed upgrade (which turned out, far as I can tell, to be mainly an incremental update to Microsoft Office, your Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installation and Outlook plug-ins) than to make me lose so much work time, right at the very outset of the workday. Couldn't this have been done on shutdown last night, rather than on login this morning? Twiddling my thumbs for hours on end does not a happy temp make.

No love,
TCC

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Oh, jeez. I had that happen once... those stupid pant Java upgrades are t3h Ev1L... and so are sysadmins that hardwire the scheduling for same. Need to be taken out behind the woodshed and beat senseful with a clue-by-heavy.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I've been inconvenienced by upgrades, too. But since I work overnight, and the upgrades are generally pushed at somewhere around 2AM - 4AM, I have no real cause for more than muttered grumbles (as long as we're given advance notice).

One note: while push upgrades are swell, and off-hours upgrades even better, they do require that the machines be on (and, I think, logged in) and on the network at those hours to receive the upgrades; lots of firms have objections to either the energy usage, or the potential security issues associated with leaving machines logged in and unattended.