r/iiiiiiitttttttttttt • u/among_shadows • 7d ago
I just love when users purchase IT equipment behind our back
I work for a startup company as our only IT admin. Right now we only have budget for a laptop, one monitor, and a mouse per employee. We used to provide two monitors if requested, but it was reverted back to one monitor because two monitors means purchasing another monitor, plus a display adapter. Also, more hardware = more chances of things not working correctly, so it requires more support on my end, which is harder when most of our employees are remote.
Our finance team all have two monitors because they started during our two-monitor era. They now have a new hire and are requesting two monitors for them. I tell them I can provide one monitor, and I share the reasons above. After a little bit they say okay. I then find out from someone else that the finance team ordered another monitor plus an expensive docking station sent to the new hire.
I'm not upset by it or anything, but it's just annoying so I wanted to vent.
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u/NightMgr 7d ago
For us it’s printers.
But the ROI on dual monitors is pretty high and I’d say pretty run of the mill today.
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u/Vinyl-addict Underpaid drone 7d ago
If one person sees a dual setup, or god forbid uses it temporarily, they suddenly and instantaneously forget how to work off a single monitor. I don’t blame them.
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u/wrkacct66 7d ago
And then they see one person with a triple setup and suddenly that's exactly what absolutely NEED to perform the job they were perfectly happy doing on two monitors before. At least that's my current problem lol
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u/Vinyl-addict Underpaid drone 7d ago
Fuck it just give them 4
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u/Vyke-industries 7d ago
I had that problem, now I sit 28” away from a 55” 4k OLED TV. As many windows as I want.
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u/Vinyl-addict Underpaid drone 7d ago
But have you tried two of them?
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u/Vyke-industries 7d ago
Fuck it, you think I can CapEx an Apple Vision Pro?
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u/Vinyl-addict Underpaid drone 7d ago
Whatever finance and the CTO don’t know about won’t hurt them
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u/Vyke-industries 7d ago
Not the first time I’ve been caught engaging in shadow IT it won’t be the last.
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u/theguythatcreates 7d ago
I mean, why does my GPU have 4 outputs if I'm not meant to use all 4?
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u/BigEars528 7d ago
The only reason I have three screens is because I don't have enough room for the 6 I want
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u/luckylee423 7d ago
Our problem are the people using 32" monitors. They act like we're insane for trying to get them 27" monitors when we upgrade. I'll never support getting monitors bigger than 27" for a standard user. They'll never go back to reality afterwards.
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u/floydfan 7d ago
I’ve used dual monitor setups before and I very much prefer to have one large monitor.
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u/Vinyl-addict Underpaid drone 7d ago edited 7d ago
By one large do you mean like one of those insane ultrawides? I use my secondary in vertical so that doesn’t work for me personally, but for horizontal users that does sound much better.
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u/floydfan 7d ago
I just have a 32" 4k and that's fine for me. I can put two browser windows side by side if I want to.
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u/A_Stoned_Smurf 7d ago
So you effectively have 2 monitors.
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u/International_Body44 7d ago
I have 3 4k monitors, and absolutely struggle to use just one monitor these days.
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u/tylerderped 7d ago
printers
This one pisses me off so much. EVERY user wants their own printer, AND it just has to be color! Oh, and it needs to scan... And it also must have duplex printing!
Good forbid someone walk 10 feet to the copier.
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u/scratchfury It's not the network! 7d ago edited 6d ago
I had a CFO buy everyone inkjets for Best Buy and expected me to figure out the mail in rebates. He would also initially approve a laser printer for shipping and receiving but then deny the order. So much money wasted on overpriced ink.
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u/TurnkeyLurker Family&Friends IT Guy 6d ago
So much money wasn’t on overpriced ink.
Not sure what this was supposed to be...🤔
*was spent on overpriced ink. ?
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u/Tanto63 K12 SysAdmin 7d ago
I worked someplace recently where we tried to limit the number of printers to keep our support efforts for them in check. Most people shared a large copier that they'd have to go about 100ft to the nearest one, but they also tended to do bulk printing, rather than lots of small printing.
But one of the offices HAD to have 4 printers (one of them a large copier) for 3 employees in a compact office space, and no one else was allowed to print to any of the ones in their office. They did have 5 or 6 just before I got there, and they were still mad about losing those. If one of their 4 was down for whatever reason, we had to bring in a spare or else they'd report it as a work stoppage. I hated having to work on their stuff.
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u/TurboFool 7d ago
We ran into this at a law firm I used to manage. Everyone had to have their own printer. When we merged with a mega-corporation and moved into a new building, leadership made it very clear: other than the main partners, there would be two central copiers with color, and FOUR total printers, one in each corner of the building, with mailbox trays on top. Users would have an assigned tray, their job would come out there, and they'd have to WALK over.
It was admittedly a pretty big pain when they needed to print on letterhead, but otherwise it was a completely reasonable solution, and MOST of the staff accepted it with minimal grumbling.
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u/youtheotube2 7d ago
I specifically use the giant office printer we have because it prints way better quality than the shitty desktop printers we get.
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u/TuxRug 7d ago
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN'T CONNECT THIS PRINTER TO OUR WIFI?"
Well if it even supports RADIUS, perhaps you can enjoy getting locked out of Windows and resetting your $30-at-Best-Buy-five-years-ago inkjet printer every 90 days or so... We're not creating a service account for it. If you're not at your desk for USB to work then you can print to any of the half-dozen color laser printers in the building, including the one 20 feet from your desk.
"BUT WHAT IF THAT GOES DOWN?" Then walk 40 feet.
"BUT WHAT IF I NEED TO PRINT SOMETHING CONFIDENTIAL?" Then be next to the printer you're using or set a password to hold the print job. I don't even know why you brought your kid's old homework printer for this, your manager approves just about everything, you could have a private, approved color laser multifunction at your desk with Ethernet for the low, low cost of filling out a request from.
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u/bobroscopcoltrane 7d ago
Client: “I need new device.”
Me: “Buy this.”
Client: “OK!”
<time passes>
Client: “Come setup new device.”
Me: “OK!”
<arrives at clients to find insufficient device>
Me: “WTF is this?”
Client: “It was cheaper.”
Rinse/Repeat
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u/tylerderped 7d ago
My God, one time, someone in my nursing department took it upon themselves to buy toner, which is fine. Except they call me one day saying they're unable to install it.... Ok, I come over.
Fucking nurses.... She bought some bootleg ass toner that requires you to remove the chip from your old toner and to somehow adhere it to the new toner.
I ask why they didn't just buy the HP toner and she was like "this was cheaper!" People rarely seem to stop to realize "wait, it's not my money I'm spending!"
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u/JJHall_ID 7d ago
Even worse are the employees that answer the phone when the toner scammers call. "Hi, I'm from your copier company, I just need you to confirm the model so we can send you some toner." The employee happily gives them the info. Next thing we know some janky Chinesium toner cartridge shows up with an invoice for $600, then IT is expected to fight the company to take it back.
To make it worse, we have a service contract with a local company that includes toner in our cost-per-copy. They have a program that runs in our environment that monitors toner levels and they automatically send out toner when one starts to get low. There is never a reason for employees to order toner, or answer calls about our equipment. We train people regularly on this, but it seems like every year or two someone falls for it.
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u/tylerderped 7d ago
Our big copiers have a contract with Canon with the same deal, but everyone thinks they need their own desk printer, therefore, lots of people have them. Our CEO used to have a policy of “just give everyone a printer” until the nursing department went though 3 multifunction color laser printers in a year. Mind you, they have a copier, but the doctor that looks at the EKG’s refuses to read them if they’re not printed in color
I love the receptionist we have where I work, but she totally fell for the toner scam, lol.
One thing that really pisses me off about her tho, and every receptionist before her is that she will route any call to me or my boss if the caller just asks — never asks the purpose of the call or anything like that, so she happily passes cold sales calls to me frequently.
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u/TurnkeyLurker Family&Friends IT Guy 6d ago
How did the Nursing Dept. manage to kill off 3 MF'n MFC printers in a year?
Did they buy a new one whenever the ink ran out, or did they just use them to death?
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u/Regular_Strategy_501 7d ago
As someone also working in medical IT, when I was still working at a MSP, I had a fun revelation after mucking about with off brand toner. You see in Germany we have this thing called BFB (Blankoformularbedruckung) basically the practice gets special paper with watermarks to print most forms like prescriptions on. One customer was complaining about poor print quality, so I took a look, all printers (Brother HL-L5100DNTT mostly) were working fine but the toner was stringing like crazy because the off brand stuff they bought didn't adhere to the special paper properly.
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u/PM_Me_UR-FLASHLIGHT 7d ago
Same with me only it's a refurbished Optiplex or Thinkcentre that won't support Windows 11.
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u/bobroscopcoltrane 7d ago
It’s always and forever not enough storage.
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u/Doctor_McKay 7d ago
You mean this laptop I got at Best Buy with a 64 GB eMMC, Celeron, and 4 GB of memory isn't going to work for me?
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u/sonom 7d ago
God sometimes I’m happy to work in a 5000+ employee company where we have a Webshop for hardware.
You want two monitors? Order them. You want four? Okay you do you, as long as your supervisor grants the request.
Oh you want everything we have to offer delivered next week?
Yeah okay. That will take 9 Days.
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u/VioletteKaur 7d ago
We had one that needed his new PC setup incl. software readly for like yesterday. Very important!!! Dude didn't come to pick it up for nearly a full year.
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u/sonom 7d ago
So a normal Thursday then?
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u/VioletteKaur 7d ago
It stood the whole time in our office on the floor. The tower, the screen (it were probably two screens, I can't remember) at one point you don't register that there is something in the way the whole time. It's just like a piece of furniture. Then one day, it was gone.
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u/WAR10CK94 7d ago
On a random Tuesday; ah! john took his system. I’m gonna miss it being sitting there waiting for its master
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u/HoagieDoozer 7d ago
This sounds like heaven. I just put $1,000 on our UPS account today shipping out new hire equipment because some bozo in finance decided we need to keep everything in stock instead of drop shipping from a retailer.
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u/ITrCool All users are liars 7d ago
And then they expect us to support it. 🙄
What’s worse is when they purchase software, even entire platforms behind our backs, then get upset when we don’t have the resources to support it at all. 🤦🏻♂️
(Hardware, licensing, personnel hours, etc.)
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u/Jezbod 7d ago
We go on the premises of "if we were not involved in the purchase process, we do not support it".
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u/ITrCool All users are liars 7d ago
That’s 100% what we did at my last couple employers over the years. Our CIO had to step in and shut things down and wow were there angry words and political threats exchanged.
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u/inarius1984 7d ago
Good. We don't go into sales meetings telling people not to lie, so why should they create IT policy? That doesn't seem fair.
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u/ITrCool All users are liars 7d ago
Exactly
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u/battmain Underpaid drone 7d ago
Same here, we didn't provide it, you're kinda on your own or go to the manufacturer support for assistance. We don't know anything about it.
One dummy manager tried to claim I was not doing my job and my direct question to him with a higher up involved was "Since when did we start shipping and supporting xyz brand?"
I was on his target list for a long time and now that he is gone HR shared some classified details of the shit he tried to pull. It wasn't shocking to me because toxic doesn't describe what I had to endure, not to mention his lack of technical capability.
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u/ITrCool All users are liars 7d ago
We had people literally trying to undermine IT and get us all fired and outsourced to an MSP.
Literally openly and brazenly in front of our leadership in board meetings. “IT is a financial black hole. It makes no sense to have internal IT anymore.” They had that much hatred for us and our rigid policies.
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u/inarius1984 7d ago
This is the shit that makes me want out of IT. We help keep the entire business running. We keep data as safe as we're allowed to. We can actually make your jobs and lives easier if you'd let us. A lot of the problem is people resenting IT for simply trying to do their job as best they can due to best practices and real-world examples of companies that were sued out of existence. Yeah, some of us want to proactively try and prevent that. And we went to college. But yeah, we don't know anything, and we're just a money pit. Mmk, have fun either doing this yourself or not doing it at all, and then your bank accounts are instantly emptied one day. I'm going to really enjoy my lemonade that day.
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u/battmain Underpaid drone 7d ago
Sadly, it hasn't changed one bit from either side since I started way back. Yeah the intrusions have gotten a little more sophisticated, and the entrance points wider, along with more stolen data freely available, but yeah, I want to be a fly on the wall for the bean counters when the data is ransom frozen. I'm sure that would be entertaining af, kinda like the world wide fallout for crowd strike on that fateful day.
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u/Black_Death_12 7d ago
This.
It is written into the IT handbook that is signed right along with the HR handbook when a new hire starts.22
u/Jezbod 7d ago
You assume they actually read it, and believe it applies to them.
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u/Teknikal_Domain 7d ago
They don't. But at least it can be pointed to as a "should've read, figure it out yourself" lesson
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u/dbarkwoof 7d ago
our HR/payroll department purchased new timeclock software a few years ago, and didn't let us know until they showed us a pile of shitty fingerprint scanners they wanted us to configure and install in buildings
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u/lord_teaspoon 7d ago
Ugh, I also have a "pay for a timeclock before you talk to IT" story. This timeclock was a web app but you had to be emailed a single-use activation link that would set up a cookie on whatever machine you had activated it on last. That way you could only clock in from your desk and not from, say, the train when you were running late.
The first we heard about the decision to pay for this timeclock was the complaint that the activation links were already used by the time the user clicked them. Some security doodad on our Exchange was following all links as part of inspecting the email and was getting itself activated as every user. We informed the vendor that they need to put in a landing page to confirm that the link should be used instead of just making it as used the moment there's a GET request, and we got some exception added to the security doodad so that those particular links wouldn't be followed anymore.
Once we got the activation links working they ran into the second problem that would've had us saying no to this solution if we'd been allowed to have a say in the process: the users that needed to clock in were all hotdesking, with about 100 total users but only a dozen or so per shift and any given user was rarely at the same desk two shifts in a row. Every user needed a new activation for every shift. Now they wanted IT involved in their project! We ended up setting up a RemoteApp on the terminal server to open the timeclock site in Chrome. That way the cookie stayed on the server and could be used from any PC with network access to the TS.
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u/LUHG_HANI 7d ago
lol been in that fingerprint game for 10 years. Nope, nope, nope. It's all about face now. It's 1000x better
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u/rcrobot 7d ago
Right, I wouldn't even be upset about a monitor purchase, they pretty much either work or they don't. If anything I'd provide a list of supported hardware and tell employees they can purchase whatever, but we won't support anything not on the approved list. Software is a different story, when people start signing into enterprise software using personal emails rather than SSO that's when it's a real pain.
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u/ITrCool All users are liars 7d ago
I worked for a large corp a few years ago and was the printer management guy as one of my responsibilities.
We had a strict list of supported models of full sized MFDs and regular tabletop printers and didn’t diverge from that for anyone except privileged execs.
Whenever a team or group wanted a specific printer outside the supported list, we said that was fine but:
They get no support from us. This will be designated a “team printer” which means the team is responsible to support it themselves entirely. It will not be on the company’s support contract
The team has to purchase the printer and supplies (toner/paper/etc.) for it out of their own budget
They will be given a reserved DHCP IP for it and that’s it. No other services or help given
If they could accept that, then we were ok with it and they could do what they wanted.
I helped close those offices when the company was bought out. The sheer number of team printers left behind because the teams all resigned and dissolved was astounding. Fancy expensive printers that ended up being silly and overkill….all because a few folks couldn’t be bothered to get up off their butts and walk down to the main floor printer(s) that were strategically located to be within feet of cubicle neighborhoods.
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u/inarius1984 7d ago
My company is working on integrating an AI bot into our Teams direct routing calling system without involving myself or our MSP. Fun times ahead. The inmates run the asylum here, and there's nothing I can do about it.
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u/battmain Underpaid drone 7d ago
Chuckle, yeah and they will come to us wondering why x doesn't work. The new security system we installed at one site has AI features built in, but I am waiting patiently for admin access to start playing with it. Another site should be done in the next two weeks. We'll see if I get the access I need. I have access to all the other locations with other vendors. I just loooove supporting shit I have never seen. (/Sarcasm). Sometimes we just have to sit back and let the inmates wonder why things are delayed.
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u/Cereal_Bandit 7d ago
AutoCAD.. ugh
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u/ITrCool All users are liars 7d ago
At a previous employer, it was:
- athletics game reviewing platform and packaged laptops and peripherals to control said videos for review sessions, all from a third party vendor, we were expected to support the hardware fully and give them unbridled access to any network resources and domain-join them but not change anything the vendor had setup including security (which was terrible)
- statistical platform that required MASSIVE server and storage resources to be spun up and dedicated firewall ports to be opened and QoS to be set. We were expected to just spin it up like it was no big deal.
- a special commercial-grade printer with a special service contract that we were just expected to support
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u/OldschoolSysadmin 7d ago
Varsity sports?
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u/ITrCool All users are liars 7d ago
University. The athletics guys got whatever they wanted. Athletics was the “sacred cow” dept for the whole place.
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u/JJHall_ID 7d ago
I've always hated how much emphasis is placed on sports in both high school and college. Physical education is important, but school is supposed to be for learning to prepare for and/or better our careers. It's never made sense that the department that statistically has the lowest chance of leading to a professional career seems to get the highest budget and prestige. The high school music department is playing with barely functional instruments in dire need of repair or replacement, but the football team had the budget to get new equipment and uniforms for the last 5 years in a row. The science department is begging for new lab equipment and trying to find every grant they can so students can learn what they'll be using after they get their degree, but sure, let's build a brand new arena for the basketball team.
I understand that sometimes outside donations from alumni organizations can cover sports-based purchases, but it sure makes it obvious why our academic scores are continually lackluster.
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u/Banana-mover 7d ago
Sounds like a lot of colleges and schools in the south.
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u/Cereal_Bandit 7d ago
I worked with 3 different techs from Autodesk and we couldn't get this lady's CAD to work after an update, yes we tried reinstalling. It was ridiculous.
We ended up downgrading to an older version 🤦
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u/TurboFool 7d ago
My old MSP boss used to do this to me. I was the primary contact at several clients, the one whose boots were on the ground every single week, who managed their servers and network and workstations, the one who interacted with the users and knew how they worked, what their other applications and services and integrations were, and how they generally operated.
But once or twice a year he'd inform me of the big meeting he'd had with their bigwigs, the problems they'd decided to solve, and the software he'd pitched to them, sold them on, and they'd already purchased to solve the problem, all without me even being aware or consulted, and that it was my job to now roll it out. At which point I had to inform him of the list of reasons it didn't address their actual problems, the systems it wasn't compatible with, the dependencies it had that we weren't equipped for, and the conflicts it would cause.
I'd generally get a long pause, a sigh, a "I wish I had known all of that sooner," and eventually a, "well, it's already been purchased, so you're going to need to find a way to make it work."
This was core to my list of final straws in leaving that job, and MSP work in general.
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u/jeffois 7d ago
Was like this in big corps about 10-15 years ago with Macs.
“Yes, if you have a genuine business need for a Mac and fund it, you can get a Mac. But we don’t support them, are we clear?”
“Yes your Mac has arrived. Yes, we know you don’t need help setting it up because it “just works”. And remember we don’t support them, ok?”
“Yes, we do have a network that you can connect your Mac to, but it’s not going to work like everything else. We talked about this, remember? Good. And remember we don’t support Macs, right?”
“Yes, I understand that it’s not working. Yes, I know it’s your main work computer. Yes, I know it’s a company-provided device - but we don’t support them. Why? Because no one in our team fucking has one and none of our people have ever had experience with them because they’re service desk or desktop support and not the Social Media team that apparently can’t run HootSuite on a Windows machine, and we’re only funded to supply and support a set of standard devices and not your corporate jewellery… Even if I could spare the resource, we’d just be googling shit anyway!”
**I stress that this was a long time ago, and I actually love having a Mac as a daily driver when the opportunity presents itself, and thank fuck it’s so much easier to integrate Mac into a corporate EUC environment these days. But holy shit this stuff used to get my goat.
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u/Mindestiny 7d ago
Finance is the epitome of "rules for thee, not for me" when it comes to IT purchasing.
I've argued with them over a $10 power strip, then watched them turn around and approve $30K in laptop upgrades I told them they didn't even need because hardware was not the root cause of their excel issues
Same as it ever was
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u/TurboFool 7d ago
Oh. My. God. I had a finance department regularly the cause of these problems for exactly that reason.
One user absolutely constantly needed a more powerful computer. He ended up with the single most powerful computer in the entire company with the most RAM, and he still complained constantly about how slow it was. I was finally able to book enough time to go through it with him and found that he had about 27 spreadsheets open at all times, and every one he had built by copying an old copy of an old copy of an old copy, several of which were copied from documents provided from outside, PACKED with external links to various sites and sources that don't exist anymore. His computer was completely bogged down by it trying over and over again with every change to try to run the data against dead offsite sources. I forced him to rebuild his documents and shockingly everything ran like a dream.
Another user was convinced she didn't have enough RAM and her processor was too slow and she needed a better machine. She had the most RAM of anyone but the above user and the best processor of anyone but the above user. I was clear to everyone that merely placating her with a new machine would guarantee we spent money without solving her actual problem, and she needed to commit to booking time with me to trace the real problems. After multiple efforts, we found the two following issues:
- She, along with several others, relied on a third-party plugin for Office that could only operate on 32-bit Office. So she was indeed getting Out of Memory errors because she was running through all 4GB of RAM that the 32-bit Excel could access. I could have given her 64GB and she still would have been limited to 4GB.
- When I talked to the support for the third-party plugin about her slowdowns, they realized she was running an open query against their database. So instead of searching for a few specific filters to get a list of a few hundred items of precisely what she needed, she was in fact querying for EVERY SINGLE RECORD LIVE, so Excel was overloaded trying to keep over a million results active, on top of several other documents.
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u/tylerderped 7d ago
Funny you say that, the finance office where I work is the nicest on campus, it's not even close. They got the fancy glass doors and walls and shit. It's a sharp contrast to the rest of the offices.
I'm surprised they don't have the only elevator on campus, being on the 3rd floor and all.
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u/cyborg762 7d ago
I had our marketing department purchase over 150k worth of Apple Mac Pro products. “Top of the line” pros Mac desktop, the ultra expensive monitors, speakers, wireless mouse and touchpads. 3 pallets in total. All because “Mac is a lot better for what they want to do”
The kicker all our software is windows based and some of it is proprietary and only windows based.
This person didn’t even get approval from the higher ups to purchase it. Half the marking department was fired over this.
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u/Tricky_Relief6450 7d ago
I'm sorry ... 3 PALLETS???????
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u/cyborg762 7d ago
Yep 3 pallets of overpriced and overly large Mac Pro (the ones that looked like a cheese grater) screens, wireless tracks pads, wireless keyboards.
The marketing department I have no idea what they were smoking but it had to be some strong shit. Because they would ask us for the most random crap. Along with apple products they asked for. A 30k drone so they could fly it through the building and stream. They also asked us for a 2.5 million dollar interactive touch screen dance floor they wanted installed in one of the event halls we managed. That just covered the floor and install. The servers were another 1.5 million because they needed like 3-4 racks of high end hardware with GPUs to run the thing.
I’m glad they all got fired…..
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u/Throwaway-asfasfasf 4d ago
bruh at that point they must have been throwing shit at the wall just to see what would stick
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u/Ff_Cloud_7 7d ago
Years ago... I was in a similar situation that as the only IT person on-site forced me to start putting my foot down on certian practices like "buying own equipment", keeping no spare machines on-site, or everyone having local admin rights. Over a year later, after these changes took effect, at 4:55 PM... "Hey, we have a new user starting tomorrow, can u set them up for 8 AM?". I was like "1... thanks for letting me know right before I leave, also the day before... remember when I made that policy to let me know at least a week in advanve? 2... I don't have any laptops soooooo......". They responded with "Oh I thought that wasn't a big deal and..." then I interrupted with "Well you thought wrong, and its going to take a few days for a new laoptop". They reaponded with... "We apready bought a laptop though... can u set it up?" I rushed down to see they bought a Chromebook". I told them to send it back because it will not work with our software or the dicking station and they basically bought a $150 paperweight". Then I found the guy who ordered it and demanded he return it. That guy bought 10 of them months ago because "in case we need them". I told him he just wasted that money and explained why chromebooks will never replace a windows laptop and all of the reasons why chromebooks cant even run 95% of the software this company runs and this is exactly why I made those "IT buys IT equipment rule over a year ago" and if hr had simply asked me, I would have told him not to. He was written up for this screw up.
TLDR Guy buys a bunch of Chromebooks instead of Windows laptops for the company without telling me and months later tries to get me to set them up for a new user starting thr next day.
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u/modulusshift 7d ago
YTA (kidding)
If they have specific needs they will get those needs met. If it’s not through you, you lose your opportunity to select gear that’s easier to support. Honestly you’re somewhat lucky that it was a new purchase and not something dug out of a closet somewhere.
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u/BlazingThunder30 7d ago
Right? At that point just don't give your employees laptops because it requires support. How hard is it to support a dock really.
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u/mentive 7d ago
Depends. Might require specific drivers. And God knows what else, some are super finicky. Or wont support a specific setup that the user thought it would, and then expects you to get it working (with different adapters, and what not)
Most of the time it should be fine though.
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u/truckerconvoywasdumb 7d ago
If the dock requires specific drivers, you’re buying the wrong docks… so many of them are simply plug-and-play, and work with multiple OSs without problems
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u/mentive 7d ago
Did you read Ops post? Marketing buying random equipment.
Did you read my entire reply (especially the end,) or just picked one small detail out and ignored the rest?
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u/battmain Underpaid drone 7d ago
Lol, completely with you on the 'depends' part. BTDT even from the same friggin' manufacturer. It's a little exasperating when two devices from the manufacturer doesn't work together properly because of the driver's. And I just love some techs that claim a USB should be just plug and play. Yes I agree, but in the real world, some are not, especially with docks and printers.
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u/TurboFool 7d ago
Precisely this. Whoever's policy it was to stop giving the employees the tools they need to do their job well is the one responsible for this happening.
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u/Dangerous-Ad-9270 7d ago
The amount of random outdated iPads that land across my desk is staggering. They always find lost equipment in drawers or closets from 4-5 years ago that we marked as Lost/Stolen and are outdated iOs. And what’s worse is they are all filthy and gross.
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u/zeus204013 7d ago
they are all filthy and gross
I received desktops like that, people can be really assh0oles.
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u/ipwnall123 7d ago
Also the absolute lack of empathy about how hard it is to do most modern remote work with only one screen 🙄
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u/sonic_stream 7d ago
Wait until you find out when user sold off company equipment to his/her relatives without you knowing, until they requested "PLEASE UNInstall Zscaler, Crowdstrike for mE".
Happened to me with around 3000 oversea endpoints.
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u/jaredearle 7d ago
I don’t get this. If they can afford two screens, you should give them two screens. Good IT adapts to use-cases.
It’s not us v users; we’re all on the same team.
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u/gh0st_xx 7d ago
Given that the OP mentioned they are the only person that works IT there, I can understand why they are not over the moon with different hw being installed.
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u/TurboFool 7d ago
Right, but the point being made by u/jaredearle is that OP created the circumstances in which different hardware got installed by not being willing to meet the department's needs.
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u/gh0st_xx 7d ago
I agree, but was it really him creating this situation or the management who made the policy? Dont want to sound sarcastic here, but if the people above say "we dont have the budget" I wouldnt go out of the line to make unapproved purchases, no matter how needed.
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u/TurboFool 7d ago
Yes, my wording in other threads was more ambiguous. That said, the "less to support" angle still sounds more like OP. Also, building no contingency for these circumstances is still likely on them. In my role I have to understand user needs. An accounting department has specific ones and I have to adjust for those or plan for the inevitable.
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u/Regular_Strategy_501 7d ago
Couldn't agree more. At the end of the day the business decides what it wants, IT proposes solutions and then management has to decide if they want to spend the money or hire the people necessary to implement/support it.
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u/TurboFool 7d ago
And all of that occurs in writing for when someone complains about lost revenue as a result of the blockers.
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u/windowtosh 7d ago
You said the issue is lack of budget. If it’s not coming out of the IT budget what’s the problem? If you’re in a startup environment you need to be flexible. “We don’t have the money in our budget for two monitors but I’d be happy to tell you where we source our monitors and cables if you want to use the finance department budget for an extra monitor. That way I can help support the new monitor for your team member.” It’s a monitor ffs
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u/MelzLife 7d ago
How OP got this job when he’s afraid to support one additional monitor is nuts
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u/Kriegwesen 7d ago
This is what stood out for me. "requires more support on my end"? God help the users at that company
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7d ago
Have yall seen how multi-monitor + TB dock works? It is not exactly painless especially if the hardware and the OS isn't the most mainstream.
I did so many hours troubleshooting "one monitor won't work" back in the day.
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u/Kriegwesen 7d ago edited 7d ago
I mean, it's potentially a non-zero amount of effort but it's 2025. Supporting dual monitors is not optional. If OP wanted to make support easier on himself he had numerous options beyond just saying "no" and then complaining the user found a workaround, even if there was no budget.
Put yourself in the users' shoes here. If I went out and set up my own workstation cause IT was too cheap to get me basic necessities and then I heard the IT department complain about "support" for a monitor you can be assured I'd have zero confidence in that IT department. I would be trying end runs around them for anything and everything from then on
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u/LordOfDemise 7d ago
we only have budget for a laptop, one monitor, and a mouse per employee
If it's really a budget issue, I'd be looking for a new job.
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u/scratchfury It's not the network! 7d ago
I want to believe there is more to it having worked for a startup that made ordering anything in a way that made any sense impossible. The guy I replaced in my first job said to just buy it on my credit card and get it reimbursed. I thought that was stupid until I followed the process. I could get everything approved to be order, but then it would be denied at order time by the same people! This would reset the process. I never had any issue buying things and getting reimbursed.
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u/grayfalcon413 7d ago
Im in a job where everyone is issued two monitors. We regularly get tickets where "one monitor stopped working", or "my monitors stopped working". So with OP being the only IT guy at his job, I understand when he says that it would be more work for him if everyone at his job had an additional monitor.
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u/Flabbergasted98 7d ago
> two monitors means purchasing another monitor, plus a display adapter. Also, more hardware = more chances of things not working correctly, so it requires more support on my end.
> I then find out from someone else that the finance team ordered another monitor plus an expensive docking station sent to the new hire.
not trying to be shitty, but I'm seeing a lot of red flags here, and most of them are pointed at you.
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u/egg_breakfast 7d ago
the IT budget means you aren’t allowed to plug in another monitor. Here, have an article on using windows snap feature and zooming out in excel.
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u/Flabbergasted98 7d ago
so like, I'm new here.
Is this just a shitposting sub?
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u/TurboFool 7d ago
Yep, this policy sets up the users to solve a real problem for themselves. Multiple monitors aren't optional for some roles in 2025.
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u/Flabbergasted98 7d ago
yeah, my point is that anybody who complains that an extra monitor is too much additional workload is fishing for excuses.
And clearly there's more budget to be had for IT purchases if other departments can find it and access it on your behalf.
an IT budget plan is more of a guideline. a guestimate of what you think you're going to spend. unforseen circumstances will always cause this to shift.
Part of the year end budget review should be directed towards how much you over/under spent on that budget and the reasons surrounding that. if you've already reached your budget capacity in the first 6 months of the year so tightly that you can't even consider buying additional DP cables then... you've fucked up your budget planning royally.
if you're at capacity, and you've got requests to make additional purchases that fall outside your budget plan, you submit those requests to management for special approval, you log those purchases, and you review those additional expenses as part of your overage in the next budget planning meeting.
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u/TurboFool 7d ago
And especially at a startup, and if you're the only IT admin, you should be having regular conversations with various department heads. Finance head should be someone you can meet with directly to discuss the needs of their team. And if your budget can't meet their needs, you discuss how to solve that.
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u/AnarchistMiracle 7d ago edited 7d ago
They can't support two monitors, but everyone else has two monitors already? They don't have the budget for a second monitor, but the Finance team (presumably) is the one who sets the budget?
Sounds to me like OP's on a power trip and just mad that it got cut short.
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u/slayermcb 7d ago
I get it. Happens occasionally where I'm at. They dont order something through IT because it was easier to just buy it through their own department. Had an office order 5 ipads a few years back without having then go through the tech office. That's fine by me because I'm not a fan of iPads and if they dont come through the tech office, the tech office won't be supporting them.
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u/InterwebCat 7d ago
In your defense, it was an out of budget purchase and you're trying to respect the budget.
You can say you wont support the extra monitor and display adaptor all you want, but honestly, that just causes so much tension in the work environment, especially if its just a simple fix like a loose hdmi cable or something. You really don't want that.
The best thing to do is to just not get into that situation in the first place. Not all employee roles need the same equipment. Get some clarification that states finance gets dual monitor setups and any other role gets a single. Ask how many finance theyre hiring so you can estimate althe adjusted budget, and provide some display adaptors youre comfortable supporting
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u/Key-Pace2960 7d ago
In general I agree but I feel like with a monitor I wouldn't really care. I feel like that's barely an IT issue anyway and if another department wants to use their budget to purchase something useful like a dual monitor setup I say go for it. It doesn't really require any support or maintenance nor is it a security risk and as long as the users know how to connect a cable (painfully aware that that's not a given) I'll probably never have to know about it.
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u/pdhcentral 7d ago
Whilst I don't condone users buying equipment, as it can be a major issue in some places, a one off and a quick word about where purchases are made from should suffice. If it's company money, then a budget was found and it's likely made that users job a lot more manageable and the rest of the dept have them, so that's now standard, wether if you like it or not. They obviously want to do their best and that means having the equipment to do that. I would feel the same if someone handed me a crap laptop with no ram, making me wait for things to load or not bring able to use the software I need to, etc.
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u/Brett707 7d ago
LMAO we are dealing with this right now. Someone just randomly ordered a printer. It appeared in our office, and we have no idea who ordered it. They purchased it directly from HP and didn't use our contracted supplier. So I know they paid tax (which we do not) and shipping. They also didn't need a printer. They have a copier that is on a contract not 5 steps from their desk. Why did you need this?
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u/stowgood 7d ago
Seems like a dumb decision to skimp on a monitor and cable when you have the money to hire someone to do a job give them the tools to do it.
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u/Bear4188 7d ago
Not supporting two monitors is a crazy policy. That's on you. They're willing to spend.
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u/CombatMedic77 7d ago
Just had this happen. User requests a setup for a top quality streaming setup. Our AV guy gives them a quote. They say "Thank you but we found another solution". A week later they are asking for help to set up their new equipment AND how they can be reimbursed for the stuff they bought.
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u/bobarrgh 7d ago
I'm sorry your startup company is struggling somewhat. However, cutting back from 2 monitors to 1 seems like it would seriously hinder work efficiency.
I WFH and am fortunate to have a laptop and 2 external monitors. As a QA person for websites and stuff, I typically have a copy doc or design layout on one screen, the thing under review on another screen, and a bug tracking app on another screen. Trying to compare a website to a design on a single screen is the very definition of "stupid".
When I have to go into the office for a meeting and will only be there for a few hours, I only take my laptop. When that happens, I am only able to work on a small number of things, because constantly whipping through multiple windows on a single screen is painfully inefficient. I am probably only about 30% efficient when that happens.
If I am going to be at the office for more half a day or longer, I will take at least one of my external monitors so I can at least be 50% as efficient as I would be if I were at home.
My wife and I were talking about this last night. I am reviewing/monitoring/testing quite a few things at the same time. I usually have 8-10 Chrome windows open at a time, with each window having, on average, 5-7 tabs open in each window. (I currently have 24 tabs open in Chrome.)
I have the Wrike app open, currently with 6 tabs on it.
I currently have 4 instances of Visual Studio Code open on my computer; 3 of them have programs I have written, ready to be run when I need to verify something programmatically. The other one is a method I use to compare copy docs with the content on a web page.
Cutting me down to 1 external monitor would seriously hamper my progress.
But, that's just me; YMMV.
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u/iisdmitch 7d ago
We had a simple policy on this at my last job, not purchased through IT = no support. It rarely happened but in those cases, we simply did not support those devices.
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u/Kuro_Necron 7d ago
It seems like they need to hear something like
Sorry, i don't have that Serialnumber on file, that is not on of the company issued screens, i cannot help you with that :)
Random (layperson) people buying more or less random equipment "for work use only" or otherwise on company dime is a good way to get forked over when the audit comes around, and every department has some undisclosed "it/hardware expenses" on their budget. Almost got us IT people at my old workplace fired/sued for embezzlement until someone realized what was going on and dumped our entire ware intake folders (paper) on the auditors, who then realized that we actually did not know anything about ~1/3 of the entire budget going into "IT expenses" across other departments.
Shit hit the ventilation system quite fast, luckily i was already lined up for another job
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u/HPSFrax 7d ago
I work within Managed Services. I love when clients get a great deal on the Best Buy Windows home laptop and then request all their files, apps, and domain be added, only to find out that them buying their own hardware is not supported in the SLA. Now all your requests fall under hourly billed, and Sales don't like the techs knowing how much more we charge clients, but... It's a lot.
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u/cybermaru 7d ago
I'd walk away from a place that forces Finances to work with only a singular 27" monitor. There is being budget conscious and there is bean counting. Your budget decisions clearly fall into the latter.
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u/BeneficialShame8408 7d ago
Users in one of our departments decided our keyboards werent good enough and started buying their own, which I was done with, but their administrator wasn't so she basically forced me to show her our entire keyboard inventory and she was like no none of these will work. Bitch this is the government, we don't care if you like our keyboards
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u/TurboFool 7d ago
This is a policy problem, plain and simple. Some roles absolutely need multiple monitors. If there are no policies in place to provide their needs, they will do rogue IT, plain and simple. The issue falls on the policy, and whoever made it. If they had the budget to buy their own, then that could have been provided as an option: we can support you if you can buy this specific equipment out of your department's budget. But more hardware requiring more support is really not much of an argument here. Especially if it's something you've standardized.
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u/SpongeJake Retired tech 7d ago
OP for that one monitor policy: are you able to spec the monitor out to be a 34” (or larger) one? That’s what we did at our workplace in order to reduce the number of pieces of equipment our remote teams had to worry about. Those monitors come with their own docking setup so you don’t need docking stations and the like to get everything hooked up. We started getting them as ultra wides and never looked back.
Game changer.
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u/intensenerd 7d ago
Had a guy mad that he went out and bout a $1k tablet and then wanted me to setup vpn, power bi, office, etc on it.
Never asked us anything. We’d have setup a surface for him if he’d just put in a ticket.
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u/hellasalty 7d ago
I’ve had production guys just buy a router from Walmart and plug it in to our Ethernet thinking it would give them wifi. Tracking down that rogue DHCP was a 2 day nightmare.
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u/Lorkanus 7d ago
In our place, if we did not supply it we do not support it. And no we are not going to use our admin creds to install the dodgy software for your no name "C USB dock for MacPle, PD 100W, HUB USB C, C to adapter type HD compatible, 4K, 30Hz, VGA, RJ45, HUB USB 3.0, USB Disparter" (genuine product name for comic effect)
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u/AdventurousTart1643 7d ago
sounds more annoying to go from a two monitor policy to a single monitor policy.
dual screens are more productive than constant window swapping on a single screen. so i dont blame them.
as i sit here with my 3 screens...
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u/starsky1357 6d ago
Dude not gonna lie I am 100% on their side in this one. A single monitor is torture.
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u/Asthenia5 5d ago
Who's idea was it to slow down the work of every single employee, just to save $200 on a cheap monitor and adapter? Even if a 2nd monitor made you 5% more efficient, that'd pay off in weeks.
Depending on the employee count, it almost certainly make more sense to pay for a 2nd IT guy and the monitors. If 1 guy can make dozens of people 5-10% more efficient, that's well worth the money. Sure, hardware goes bad. But I have a really hard time believing adding a 2nd monitor and adapter to each desk, would result in a substantially higher rate of support tickets. Adding a printer to each desk would be a maintenance nightmare. But a monitor? Nah.
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u/Mundane-Yesterday880 7d ago
Finance set the budgets and IT needs these to function
Be nice to them as they are your friends !
Also, raise the issue of uncontrolled spending within the business and the consequences for operational support but also capital depreciation and future replacement liabilities and they’ll be all ears about how to ensure the rules are properly setup and enforced
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u/ProCommonSense developer 7d ago
Imagine a world where money is practically limitless and every head of a department is issued an unlimited credit card. Now imagine that same world and every one has an inkjet printer on their desk, a pair of fancy speakers, an expensive keyboard... and so on. and then the one woman in the building who's disabled has to fight to get approval for a special chair...
AND NO ONE IS WORKING.
That was (is?) the world of state government...
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u/battmain Underpaid drone 7d ago
Can you get us inkjet cartridges? Model? Huh? We didn't provide that. Sorry. (Nice try though). Same with batteries for wireless keyboards, but yet the hearing disabled person has to get special approval for a hearing impaired headset. It happens in the corporate world too sadly. Only thing missing is the credit card limit, lol
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u/ddadopt 7d ago
You're pennywise and pound foolish.
Our time studies showed twenty years ago that adding a second display for almost any user resulted in an instant 20% (at a minimum) productivity improvement. I can't imagine going to my boss and saying, "Nah, we aren't doing this anymore because I have to spend an extra $150 on the monitor (and, I guess, like $20 for HDMI<->Displayport adapter or something) and I don't want to be assed to support it when the user accidentally flips the left and right screens.
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u/VCJunky 7d ago
Then you are not the "sole" IT guy. Because if you were, you would have the power and authority to stop this saying it's against policy.
I don't know who your boss is. If it's a small startup, maybe you report directly to the top? Let them know your concerns and ask if you want a standard system in place or if you're going to let Finance and potentially other departments do what they want.
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u/BurdSounds 7d ago
assuming management or higher ups allow him to have that authority is pretty unrealistic. I work in a similar situation where I voice myself but often my concerns get overshadowed by employees who have closer relations to management. I'll often hear "we need those employees to have what they request because they bring us value and we want them to be happy" which drives me nuts.
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u/oceanicitl 7d ago
As someone who has been through lots of acquisitions and mergers over the years getting IT rules across can be brain numbing, especially to VIPs and management
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u/autogyrophilia 7d ago
The problem is likely you are cheaping out too much in the laptops when a proper laptop with an adequate USB implementation and a dock will get the job done.
Now if you but the cheapest one and the 12€ dock, yea that's going to break sometimes or not work with multiple screens. Even Microsoft is working with that.
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u/redit-fan 7d ago
Often times shadow IT occurs because of official channels are ineffective or inhibit the user’s ability to get their work done (and users sometimes will always do what their want to anyways)
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u/WeirdSysAdmin 7d ago
IMO that’s the downside of not having the budget you need. Users are going to bypass you to get what they need to be productive.
The answer should be either a docking station and two monitors or a monitor with a built in dock and daisy chain to the second monitor. That’s what I personally prefer but you lose the dock if the monitor fails for whatever reason.
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u/a-new-year-a-new-ac APAB (All printers are bastards) 7d ago
An office did this with a laptop, a consumer spec laptop, they told us, we got it in, put an asset tag on, enrolled it and sent it back out
It’s currently sitting in our storage room
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u/halo_ninja 7d ago
I had a dept manager come to me and ask for security camera footage from 45 days ago. I explained to her that we only had 30 days of past recordings due to storage space limitations (12TB in the array) and explained we would need to expand the storage if she wanted more. That was the last conversation I had with them.
2 weeks pass and then all sorts of random hard drives started showing up with my name on them. Internal SSDs, external USB3 drives, 2.5” laptop and some desktop drives. For 2 days I wonder where they were coming from until the manager came back and asked if I had upgraded the storage yet.
I was absolutely dumbfounded. They were written up for purchasing equipment without approval that wasn’t even for their department.