Tight customers and bosses who dont listen!!!!

[allstarit]

So here is a story that makes my blood boil on so many levels.

At my full time job we have this break fix client who rings up only when they have issues but often tries to do most of the IT himself. Everything is too expensive to do so this guy always goes the cheapest where ever possible.
(if this was one of my clients for my business i'd fire him as a customer- complete time waster)

Anyway hie has a SBS 2011 server that is constantly low on diskspace and his emails stop working because he wont invest in larger drives. So my boss convinces this guy to move over to Office 365 to free up space.

However here is where it makes my blood boil- This customer is so tight he only wants to pay for exchange online 1 plans and use the existing office he has. This is all fine however for the fact he admitted the office used in his office is pirated. (not installed by my work its installed by the client against our advise....again id make him buy licenses or fire his ass if it were my company)

At this point i told my boss not to proceed with this order as 1) its pirated and 2) tight clients always....always!!! end up complaining about stuff and then expect you to work your ass off for free.

So my boss ignores that fact that its pirated and proceeds with the order.

I put it in writing that ill perform the cut-over migration and sync the mailboxes etc but im not touching pirated copies of office and i highly doubt that Offices 365 will work on this anyway.

Anyway its been syncing for a few days and mail has synced ect. Along with this order of Office 365 the customer has decided to finally replace 2 old computers in his office which i have been telling him for months to do because 1 of them is XP and its a massive security risk.
So my boss tells one of the onsite techs today if you can go out onsite at 2pm and migrate 2 pc's, upgrade a laptop to a SSD drive and migrate Office 365 to 7 users by close of business today.

i speak up at this point during the conversation and say sorry but this is completely unplanned and you will be lucky to get the workstations done let alone change DNS, decommission server and run around to all workstations and add office to his dodgy office copy.
The other issue is its 2pm on a monday why the heck are you doing a migration of all days on a monday. This client will complain for the next 2-3 days that their ADSL is running like crap.

I have done 40-50 Office 365 migrations in my time in IT and i have planned every single one of them and always do them leading into a weekend where you can leave outlook open all weekend to sync and follow up on the monday to fix up any issues. Has always worked well to some degree and reduced the amount of downtime during the week for the client.

So my boss completely ignores my comments as he often does and books it in with the client saying it wont take long maybe 10-15 per workstation and then copy the data ect for the new workstations.


So its now almost 5pm and what have we learnt here:

1) Data still copying for the new computers and installing software ect
2) The DNS is still updating. I have decommissioned Exchange and updated internal DNS which all resolves fine however the PC's are connecting when setting up the Office 365 Account
3) Further investigation from point 2 i can see the Office 2010 pirated copy is a office 2010 Beta version so it doesnt meet the minimum requirements of office 365 and the onsite techs cant setup office as it errors when trying to create account
4) Some of the other computers are on Office 2007 but the Windows updates have been disabled for whatever reason. Office 2007 required SP3 to install Office 365 but then again can be tricky to get working.

So the DNS has been cut over to Office 365 but no one can use the emails in their office.

And this is where i said - Well i did warn you multiple times about multiple issues but you didn't listen to me.

All i can say is working at this place teaches me so much about what not to be doing in IT and it makes me happy to know none of this is occurring at my own businesses.

The client is mostly to blame but my boss is a bigger idiot for agreeing to such a stupid project.
A project like this would have gone dead in the water if it were my business. From the point of him being a time waster and pirated software- i would have said if you want me to fix your issues here is what needs to happen.

 

[GTP]

With all due respect...
Who really needs this cr*p!
You need to packup your tools, walk to the door open it, walk through the door and DON'T LOOK BACK.
Use your skillset for your own business. You may struggle for a little while, but believe me you will not regret it!

 

[ChrisTech]

Sounds like your boss needs firing!

Easier said than done, I know, but he clearly makes stupid decisions and doesn't listen. He's either arrogant or an idiot. Or both.

 

[allstarit]

i think both lol - im working on the exit strategy just gotta get the saving up to the desired level which isn't that far away when i look at it.

I seriously feel like im on a TV series - cross over between IT Crowd and The Office.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Outlook 2010 will work on O365...you just need it to be updated. I think there were 2 files I used to download to manually update Outlook 2010....to save time from trying to catch up on all Microsoft updates.

But yeah..."why"? Outlook 2016 and even 2013 are so superior for running Outlook Anywhere mode. Not to mention having all things nice 'n tidy with licensing.

Yeah some clients just ain't worth the money...for the aggravation they give you.

 

[allstarit]

Outlook 2010 will work on O365...you just need it to be updated. I think there were 2 files I used to download to manually update Outlook 2010....to save time from trying to catch up on all Microsoft updates.

But yeah..."why"? Outlook 2016 and even 2013 are so superior for running Outlook Anywhere mode. Not to mention having all things nice 'n tidy with licensing.

Yeah some clients just ain't worth the money...for the aggravation they give you.

I think it needs to be SP2 for Office 2010 but this was a cracked early Beta version

 

[kwest]

Have the guy buy office365 home. 5 pcs for $99 a year

 

[Your PCMD]

What @Barcelona said above! Don't even think about it, just do it.

 

[cypress]

I seriously can't wait for you to go solo @allstarit you definitely don't need this crap.

 

[GTP]

im working on the exit strategy just gotta get the saving up to the desired level

Dont forget your Mum will always have dinner for you if you're starving while you're setting up your new business! Lol

 

[fencepost]

I feel like I'm in something of the same boat as @allstarit. The discussion earlier today was "If we go and buy cable modems for all of our customers, we can save them all $15/month and we can get the modems for $30 on eBay." Bear in mind, we serve only business clients. This from the same person who was asking previously whether we could just switch to dynamic DNS for some multi-site customers with VPNs so we could "save" them the cost of the static IPs at each location.

My feeling on it is A) If & when a modem craps out, I'd like to be able to point to Comcast and show up with a modem as the rescuing hero, not as the one who put in a crappy modem in the first place and took their office down until someone could get there. B) If that $15/month is that important to the customer, perhaps we should not be the ones serving them. C) We're not proposing to save them that much, presumably there's something in it for us so we're saving them $5-10/month (or $15/month minus what we charge for setting all this up).

gnar nar nar nar nar augh.

 

[allstarit]

I feel like I'm in something of the same boat as @allstarit. The discussion earlier today was "If we go and buy cable modems for all of our customers, we can save them all $15/month and we can get the modems for $30 on eBay." Bear in mind, we serve only business clients. This from the same person who was asking previously whether we could just switch to dynamic DNS for some multi-site customers with VPNs so we could "save" them the cost of the static IPs at each location.

My feeling on it is A) If & when a modem craps out, I'd like to be able to point to Comcast and show up with a modem as the rescuing hero, not as the one who put in a crappy modem in the first place and took their office down until someone could get there. B) If that $15/month is that important to the customer, perhaps we should not be the ones serving them. C) We're not proposing to save them that much, presumably there's something in it for us so we're saving them $5-10/month (or $15/month minus what we charge for setting all this up).

gnar nar nar nar nar augh.

your boss and my boss sound related lol

 

[GTP]

Hey Guys, dont walk....Run!! lol

 

[Krynn72]

I don't recommend quitting without thinking. I did just that about a week ago and panicked a bit after. I did it just in the heat of the moment after getting fed up with something there. Told him this was my 2weeks notice. I didn't think it through enough to properly determine if I had enough saved (I probably did, but just barely).

Thankfully my boss really needs me, and we agreed that I could just work part time there instead while I worked on my own business. Now I'll have enough time to think about it, and really focus on my business until I can more naturally leave. Plus the reduced hours here will mean less unnecessary stress in my life.

 

[Kirby]

Sounds like the last job I quit before going solo, only worse. I started out on straight commission, but was expected to put in a full day whether there was work or not (including Saturdays). When he finally started paying me a salary plus commission (you know, to make my employment legal), he actually used the words "beck and call".

To be fair, he knew what he was doing and, in the beginning at least, he knew when to cut a customer loose. Toward the end, though, I was the one doing most of the work, so he no longer had any interest in cutting crappy customers loose.

Strangely, though, I miss that guy. Working for him was stressful. WAY more than running my own business. And a lot of people found his personality abrasive. And he'd talk on the cell phone while taking a crap. He had his flaws. We all do. But in the beginning, at least, he was fun to work for and a pretty decent guy. That is, until he got grand dreams of being huge and forgot who got him there.

 

[cypress]

Sounds like the last job I quit before going solo, only worse. I started out on straight commission, but was expected to put in a full day whether there was work or not (including Saturdays). When he finally started paying me a salary plus commission (you know, to make my employment legal), he actually used the words "beck and call".

To be fair, he knew what he was doing and, in the beginning at least, he knew when to cut a customer loose. Toward the end, though, I was the one doing most of the work, so he no longer had any interest in cutting crappy customers loose.

Strangely, though, I miss that guy. Working for him was stressful. WAY more than running my own business. And a lot of people found his personality abrasive. And he'd talk on the cell phone while taking a crap. He had his flaws. We all do. But in the beginning, at least, he was fun to work for and a pretty decent guy. That is, until he got grand dreams of being huge and forgot who got him there.

 

[Kirby]

Yeah, that's the part that gets most people.

 

[fencepost]

I had a business client (who moved to another provider not long before they started a cycle of internal turmoil that I'm glad to have missed) that complained to one of the folks I work with that I never answered her calls. Ignoring the fact that I rarely missed answering their calls, my basic response was "If they want 100% always-answers status, they're going to need to be paying a much higher retainer for always-on-call service, pay for a good shower speaker, and they lose the right to complain if I flush while on the phone."

I'll note that the person complaining is the one that I'd tagged not long after her arrival as manager as "The person with the greatest ability to improve morale in the office - by quitting." Pretty sure nobody was heartbroken by her invited departure some 6 months after we were replaced. In the 3-4 years since I'm pretty sure they've had close to 80% turnover.

 

[Kirby]

I lost a customer a little over a year ago that I wasn't sorry to see go. It was the local library, and I had always loved working for them, but then the lady who had been there since I was a kid retired. Her replacement wasn't bad either. Until her resisting arrest charge on top of the DUI charge. HER replacement is a nice lady, but no clue how "business" works. Essentially they would call me with one simple problem, I'd get there, and there was a damned list a mile long nobody told me about. And she wanted me to do literally EVERYTHING for her. No, I can not and WILL NOT order a piece of furniture for you! I don't care if you don't have to time to look up the shelving to put the network equipment on, I have no idea what you want, what you're willing to spend, what a reasonable price is or where to get furniture!

 

[GTP]

he actually used the words "beck and call

It would have been at that point (after he picked himself up off the floor) that he would have learned a valuable lesson!
I am no man's "lacky"!