In a spot of bother at work.

Shikkaka

Shikkaka

Shikkaka

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Just come back from a week and a half away to hear I'm being dragged into a disciplinary meeting. Fantastic.

We are in the process of rolling out Windows 7 throughout the group. The whole roll out has had no organisation behind it. No meeting to say what the plan of action is, just do it. Mistakes are being made but I happen to have made a rather large one.

When backing up the data we have come across the issue of long file names. I'm pretty sure most people know what I'm talking about. Basically I've lost some guys data and he's gone to his director who has obviously contacted mine.

I guess I am completely at fault and don't have a leg to stand on but I am rather bricking it :(.
 
Steameh said:
Just come back from a week and a half away to hear I'm being dragged into a disciplinary meeting. Fantastic.

We are in the process of rolling out Windows 7 throughout the group. The whole roll out has had no organisation behind it. No meeting to say what the plan of action is, just do it. Mistakes are being made but I happen to have made a rather large one.

When backing up the data we have come across the issue of long file names. I'm pretty sure most people know what I'm talking about. Basically I've lost some guys data and he's gone to his director who has obviously contacted mine.

I guess I am completely at fault and don't have a leg to stand on but I am rather bricking it :(.
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What no backups? The guy should take the hit it's his data after all.

Andi.
 
I'd love to turn around and say you're a douche, you named your folders full bladdy sentences, this is unacceptable. But, it does fall down to you really. I would kick off about the lack of plan and fight my corner though like a bad man
 
make sure your armed with keyboards for a random attack of your work colleagues, and hope you make the BBC news.
 
Hang on LFN supports up to 255 characters, how big were these files? Did he loose his torrents / warez applications?
What system did you migrate from Windows 95!?

You should be able to worm your way out and your boss should help cover your ass because it hasn't been managed / planned properly.
 
Steameh said:
Yes your right, he should have a backup and there is a system we use called Document Management but he hasn't used that properly either.
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it isn't IT's responsibity to make sure a user backs up their data. That would be doing their job.

If they try and make you a scape goat or whatever just nail their legal nuts to the floor; should be easy since they don't have a leg to stand on.

its basic knowledge when using a PC as part of your job that you should backup your work; he can't blame IT for his own stupidity. what if his HDD died? would that be IT's fault too? no, it would be his fault for not backing up his own data.

What you think they did with important paper documents back in the day? Duplication! No reason why his office practicies should change just because its a PC rather than a typewriter.
 
RiGoRmOrTiS said:
it isn't IT's responsibity to make sure a user backs up their data. That would be doing their job.
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IT should make sure that no data (or at least important data) is stored locally on the machine through policies and mapped network drives. The network drives should also be backed up.
 
Speak to a union, even if you're not a member they can give you good legal advice and make sure HR don't take you for a ride.

I did this a few years ago, a union rep even came to my disciplinary hearing and HR bricked it knowing that they now had to do things by the book.

I think they will find it very hard to discipline you when they haven't given you proper instructions and organisation is lacking on their part.
 
Showboat said:
Hang on LFN supports up to 255 characters, how big were these files? Did he loose his torrents / warez applications?
What system did you migrate from Windows 95!?

You should be able to worm your way out and your boss should help cover your ass because it hasn't been managed / planned properly.
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MAX_PATH in Windows is 260 characters unless you use the unicode functions which allow up to 32767, so although windows will happily let you creat nested directories and files with huge names, you then try to copy them and it craps out because explorer doesn't use the unicode calls. Same problem with C#.NET the file open call only supports 260 characters so you have to load an external windows dll and call the native unicode call, really annoying.
 
So the backup strategy you have implemented has not been able to recover this guys work? Do you have a process of testing backups and such?

It does sound like you are to blame but at the same time if he hasn't been following a process correctly and putting his work in a network drive, for example, then the blame is not on you. If there is a process for users to follow and he has disregarded that and now lost his work then it's his own fault.

However, I would focus on not "who is to blame" but the more pressing circumstances of "what has gone wrong", "how can you rectify the issue" and "how you can avoid this happening in future". Sort this out and have policy/procedure in place (if not already so) to ensure this doesn't happen again.

I would also emphasize this in your disciplinary.


Edit: -

C:\Documents and Settings\Domain.User\Desktop\My folder with loads and loads and loads of hard work in\This is the folder where I put work that was done in two thousand and seven\Work in here was done for a client named Dave\Daves pictures which he took on holiday in Rome where he met his wife\The day they first met in the famous large stone building and then went on to look at some more famous stuff\IMG_20030938237823723626.jpg

To be honest
 
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Steameh said:
When backing up the data we have come across the issue of long file names. I'm pretty sure most people know what I'm talking about. Basically I've lost some guys data and he's gone to his director who has obviously contacted mine.
Click to expand...

I think this may be the issue. It is in fact something that most people in IT that have been invovled in backups and migrations knows about and so should have planned around. The average user is not really going to know about it after all.
 
Trifid said:
IT should make sure that no data (or at least important data) is stored locally on the machine through policies
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correct; but those policies apply to the customer as well; if he's decided to save work locally and not onto a backed up network drive that’s his problem for not following policy.

If there are no policies in place it's no-one's fault but the actual business itself (i.e. manangers).

either way it isn't his fault...
 
1. You made a mistake, you're bound to from time to time. It's perfectly natural.

2. He didn't back up his data; sounds like he is either trying to cover his end or just not realising his error to me.

3. Don't worry. Most of life is ********. :) :D
 
Check all the policies that are in place regarding where work is saved and whose responsibility it is to back things up.

If there is, for example, a policy saying not to save work on the PC, then you're possibly fine. If, however, there isn't and it is IT's responsibility to back that sort of thing up, then you're in trouble.
 
Speak to your Union rep and ensure they attend the disciplinary meeting with you (you're legally entitled to have a Union rep or a work colleague sit in the meeting with you).
 
RiGoRmOrTiS said:
either way it isn't his fault...
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If there is an accepted procedure for migrating user data and it gives warnings for long paths and he ignored the warning and carried on - it's his fault.

If no user data is on local drives you'd just wipe them but as there is obviously an effort being made to migrate this data the company has accepted it happens and it's too late at this point to say oh it's the users fault for doing something everybody does and the company has accepted and deals with.

It's unlucky they were important files this time, it's usually just their mp3 collection.
 
I'd say it is your responsibility to back up any files on systems that you are altering so severely.

If people took their machines to a repair shop to have the OS upgraded and had it returned to them with a blank OS and all their files gone, they'd be absolutely livid.

The same applies really. If it wasn't your responsibility to back up data then you should have informed the affected parties of what was happening and told them to back up all data accordingly. Frankly speaking, I really don't see any way in which you can dodge blame for it.

We all make mistakes, gawd knows I've buggered up royally in the past. Think of it as a learning experience :)
 
Creating a Network Drive to one of the parent folders can sometimes solve a long path name issue [yes you can connect to a local folder as a network drive].

A client I dealt with earlier this year couldn't access a bunch of very important proposals due to long filename. Not his fault, the clients he was dealing with had very strict requirements on the naming convention of the files, making them very, very long [bloody ridiculous and I bet their IT department loves them for it!]. The Network Drive trick worked a treat.
 
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