Let's get technical.

[azurelunatic]

Note: the admin console reference, item "finduser": all instances of the word "criteria" need to be replaced with "criterion"; all instances of "criterias" need to be replaced with "criteria". This operation is order-sensitive.

Today at work there was a thing that had problems. Namely, the computer in one of the monitor rooms began acting bogus, shutting Internet Explorer off without warning, repeatedly. I went back to find Turbo, and explained the problem to him. He diagnosed virus. I was totally not surprised, though I'd guessed security software at work intercepting sites with mondo popups and badware until I got the same thing on the same machine on our intranet's monitoring logs.

I wrote him up the trouble ticket, explaining the symptoms and so forth; he said he'll be on it in the morning. ♥ Turbo. I sent him a private message with my commentary on the thing, intended as supplementary to the trouble ticket.

Commentary on Monitor Room X's PC woes

I mentioned to Snarky Lady that the machine may have contracted a virus from the site she was on (blackdog.net); she suggested the alternative explanation of a virus from some of the web surfing done by the younger supervisor-types who are on MySpace all day and all night. I'd trust Snarky Lady's ability to avoid a virus-ridden site before I'd trust, say, NewPoserGeek or Leftover Leftovers Guy's.

I know that the social networking site in question harbors some variously interesting content. 90% of the field managers could tell you that there are people on this site when they ought to be working, and the further-isolated the monitor room, the better it is for playing around unseen. It would really annoy quite a few chronic slackers if MySpace turned up blocked some day.

Thanks,
AzureL

Comments

[juuro.livejournal.com]

You have a lovely way of slipping an innocent, well-camouflaged suggestion into the flow of the text. ;)

[azurelunatic]

Thank you! I do try. I'm not quite in a position where I could openly offer such a thing as an answer to some of the management problems that have been going on in Field, but this particular geek and I mutually do favors for each other, and if he should notice that this would please me, and implement it, what am I to do about it?

[sithjawa.livejournal.com]

I think a single unit of criteria should be called a criter.

[azurelunatic]

You are also the silly.

[xinef.livejournal.com]

Would it be possible to install something like VNC on each of the machines, then the monitors could actually see what someone was doing on their machine, without having to be physically watching. We've done that with the computers that our sons use.

[azurelunatic]

In this thing, it's an instance of "but who monitors the monitors?" All the machines have Double Vision for the telnet sessions that the phone goons are working from; most of the machines have VNC. The QA monitors are trusted to be doing their job and being on task, even though that may change as it's somewhat of a Known factor that some of them are fooling around in the monitor rooms, monitoring half-assedly, and spending the spare time on MySpace.

I'm out of Field, so it's not my problem. But if I can make a suggestion that will cut away 90% of the non-work-related bull, then I am definitely going to do so. It seems that none of the other supervisor-types are the LJ/journaling/writer type; they're all social butterflies.