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I have time but not to waste on pointless trips to poole.
Workload unreasonable?
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this.... and how about just doing your job?
if you don't like it.... quit, or find an alternative, better solution and implement that.
Manager here.
I agree, most managers are incompetent ******s who couldn't find their arse with both hands. And you shouldn't take it, if someone has a problem I'd rather they stop me and told me where I was going wrong instead of passive aggressively bitch about me on an IT forum.
If someone stops me and calls me a brainless ****** with no common sense, if they follow it up with why they think that, who am I to get offended? It's either a misunderstanding or I was doing something wrong.
Thick skin is in the job description after all, you can't get offended when your employees criticise you.
I agree, most managers are incompetent ******s who couldn't find their arse with both hands. And you shouldn't take it, if someone has a problem I'd rather they stop me and told me where I was going wrong instead of passive aggressively bitch about me on an IT forum.
If someone stops me and calls me a brainless ****** with no common sense, if they follow it up with why they think that, who am I to get offended? It's either a misunderstanding or I was doing something wrong.
Thick skin is in the job description after all, you can't get offended when your employees criticise you.
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I'd keep all the emails sent explaining that there's not really much you can do to make 12 year old hardware fast, get up at half 5 (eugh) and do whatever work needed to be done. Take any extra hours over your standard day in lieu (or OT if your contract allows for that) and when your projects are falling behind or people complain that you weren't in refer them to your manager.
This. I suspect someone is giving your manager a hard time for this problem, and that person wants to see that it's being worked on. He's sending you to show that the issue isn't being ignored.
Instead of explaining why it won't make a difference. A good manager.
He doesn't know that it won't make a difference. OP has explained that he doubts that it will make a difference. However, another support guy has done the same thing on a different PC and it did make a difference.
OP, can you prove the other support guy is wrong?
All I hear is bitching about doing something that falls under your remit. You may not like it but that IS your job.
Count your lucky stars that you have P4 hardware and full XP to work with. I had to support HP thin clients with XPe that stopped being updated OS wise YEARS ago (HP did not provide XPe images for anything other than SP1) and those were based on really old AMD or VIA embedded chips... oh 1GB of non upgradeable memory too. My managers decided that all sorts of weird and wonderful things should happen with these thin clients that thin clients were never designed for (Being on a domain for one) and guess what? I just had to get it done.
Count your lucky stars that you have P4 hardware and full XP to work with. I had to support HP thin clients with XPe that stopped being updated OS wise YEARS ago (HP did not provide XPe images for anything other than SP1) and those were based on really old AMD or VIA embedded chips... oh 1GB of non upgradeable memory too. My managers decided that all sorts of weird and wonderful things should happen with these thin clients that thin clients were never designed for (Being on a domain for one) and guess what? I just had to get it done.
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Exactly, more bad decisions to try and fix bad decisions from the past, which is fine they can get on with it. Just don't include me in your bad decisions and waste my time that i could spend on forums messing about or actually doing all the other work that i have to do.
I'd argue that an employee that doesn't just do whatever they are told and instead freely makes their opinions and ideas on certain areas known is more valuable in this sort of industry, as long as they can make a coherent point and back it up with evidence or intelligently formed projections. This isn't a box-packing job or the army. An IT employee who just waits around to be told what to do by their manager instead of being proactive isn't particularly useful.
If you can make a case for replacing old hardware and tie it back to gains either by reduced spending on people's time to keep it functioning or increased productivity and your management still decide the route to go down is to use their staff to fight fires because it's cheaper in the very short term then you work for a terrible employer.
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Yea he says he wants me to do the work over anyone else because i am technically apt in that regard. Which is messed up beacuse he seems willing to respect my technical ability enough to ask me to do the work but not enough to reconsider his position on the solution. In other words he respect my technical ability but ONLY if it means working within what the bounds of what he thinks is best.
Which is like going to a specific mechanic for his expertise on fixing your car only to disagree with his solution and suggest he does it the way you want to do it.
Which is like going to a specific mechanic for his expertise on fixing your car only to disagree with his solution and suggest he does it the way you want to do it.
Soldato
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it's not really, it's more like going to a specialist garage and the junior mechanic telling the senior one that he doesn't think his suggested fix will work on the clients car...
Not all managers are good managers, that goes without saying. Many will make bad decisions, many will go in the wrong direction or prioritise badly, it goes with the territory. Many have bad people skills, many focus on political alignment over loyalty to the good people, many are simply in the role because everyone else said no and they were standing forward. In the same manner many are very good, have been where you are in a junior role and have a broader perspective and need to make decisions based on a broader view, not just your insular view.
No manager likes the know it all employee, the one who thinks his insular view of the task at hand is always right, who's well balanced due to the chip on both shoulders, who has a better way of doing everything or a reason he'll tell anyone who cares to listen why something failed. It matters little what you think is right, a good manager will listen, weigh up the challenge and on that basis make a decision. Sometimes they will share their reasoning, canvas opinion and then make the decision, sometimes they won't.
You know purely about your little bit for good reason, it's not your job to know more unless someone feels sharing it will help. They may have made a tactical call, a face save for reasons you have zero understanding of. They may want to send you down there because people down there think you're a work shy waster who they want to get rid of because they see little value in your work. Your manager might disagree, not want to tell you but knows if you go down there and do your 'stuff' their impression will change and that will remove pressure from them to fire your ass. A good manager may have chosen not to share that because they feel their action will save the day, so you don't need to know.
There is a reason you do what you do and managers do what they do. My advice to I assume a young guy is stop seeing everything only from you small little view of the world. Sitting in a seat with 5% of the details and telling people with maybe 80% why they are wrong is laughable, but sadly all too common in IT staff who have an inbuilt ability to knowing about bits and bytes means they understand how to be a CEO. Also, seeing someone moan about having to get out of bed at 5:30am once in a blue moon is not something that would adhere that person to my list of future stars, merely a work shy lazy sod who want's to arrive at 9 and leave at 5 even when the company needs his help once in a blue moon.
If you are unhappy find something better or knuckle down and appreciate that even though you think you know it all, you actually don't....far from it if this thread is anything to go by. I also acknowledge your manager could be a tool, but I suspect that isn't quite the full story here and either way, do as you are asked to do if you have been given the opportunity to comment and that comment has been heard and bypassed.
Man of Honour
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Getting up at 530am isn't unreasonable. If the management team think it's worthwhile then give it a go, do your best, and report back as clearly as you can explaining the issues you've uncovered. Being petulant about it won't get you anywhere and you might as well give it your best shot whether you agree with it or not.
That couldn't be further from the op's situation, it's not senior vs junior staff member, it's managerial staff vs technical staff.
I can see what you're trying to say but the school of management based on not giving reasons for anything or explaining the process behind stuff is pretty outdated now. I know I'd feel much happier if I was sent off somewhere and told that it was purely an exercise in showing willing and not to worry about it than insisting that it was the right thing to do and my own opinion on the exercise be damned. If I only know 5% of something and someone else knows 80% then there's nothing more irritating than having the information that can provide a bit more background to the situation being withheld because someone sees it as information that only managers should know.
If you think someone has an insular view on something then not telling them anything else isn't a way of suddenly changing their mind.
Soldato
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really? op just states it's one of his "many bosses" no indication of where their expertise is...
so to rephrase my analogy then:
it's more like going to a specialist garage and the junior mechanic telling the garage owner that he doesn't think his suggested fix will work on the clients car...
i.e. it's not really a decision that he has any influence over as he is not the decision maker in what work needs done
the op had put himself in as the client in his own analogy of a mechanic situation which is completely incorrect and I was pointing that out...
In my experience of keeping underspecced old kit chugging along, XP benefits massively from having 1GB of RAM. If the thin clients are upgradeable, take a bit of extra RAM with you. Test it to see whether it improves performance and see how it goes 
It is impractical to explain or justify every decision, sometimes the managed need to appreciate that and do what they are asked to do. I am not an advocate of mushroom leadership, people need to buy into you and you need to have your teams back as that way they will fight for and more importantly with you. But there are also times when you simply can't share everything and they need to understand and respect that. Good management is good management. I've been in business for 30 years and in that time the fundamentals have remained the same, in the same way as you remember the good teacher.