More Of The Dirtiest Jobs In IT

[HardOCP News]

InfoWorld has posted more of the dirtiest / nastiest jobs in IT. Most of these are pretty funny but I know for a fact you guys got to have better stories than these. Tell us your IT horror story.

Wanted: Individuals seeking close interaction with grease, dust, and high voltage while wearing full body gear in an oven-like environment. Must enjoy sweating. Personal counseling skills a plus. You want hot, sweaty, grimy IT work? Talk to the guys in the hazmat suits who have to service the IT infrastructure in your data center's hot aisle.

 

[Magnus]

Dirty jobs not found. The only ones that qualified were 'coolant jockey' and 'network sherpa' and those only sometimes. What was very clear is that there are plenty of sleazy jobs in IT. Go figure. Any company who tolerates or emulates the call center model of management is bound to be sleazier than a Tijuana hooker.

 

[Dew]

Whew, 100+ degrees in coveralls. Man, that is hot. The US Military IT folks in Iraq have nothing on that.

 

[Deluded]

I, for a short period of time, had to play data counseling/grief counseling to my customer. Her PSU shorted, and in the process it took out her three HDDs. According to her, the stuff on her HDD was mission critical and she would "die" if it got out that the data was lost.

It wasn't pretty. I managed to solve this by finding specialists who swapped the platter on the HDD and managed to recover a good portion of the data.

Man, I feel sorry for that woman who has to deal with that kind of stuff 24/7.

 

[Sherk]

Whew, 100+ degrees in coveralls. Man, that is hot. The US Military IT folks in Iraq have nothing on that.

Heh, seconded. Been there done that, we saw it hit 125 a few times, and drank a LOT of water.

 

[maademperor]

they shoulda mentioned help desk level 2 tech at a hospital. or the one I worked at anyway, where I had to go into filthy patient's rooms to fix bedside computers and patient phones on the evening/weekend...gowning up to go into TB rooms and other areas with airborne virus infected patients or a crackheads room with sores leaking all over the place didnt feel too healthy....I remember throwing away a sweater I was wearing one night when I got off because I felt SUPER itchy for no apparent reason (drove home in a t-shirt I had in the car)....later I found out one of the rooms I had been had a guy who had fleas....they discovered the fleas in his urine sample in the lab

 

[jwalk6]

"Dealing with high-profile, highly paid, arrogant contractors who felt they could do network upgrades whenever they felt like it was challenging," says Hoffman. "They were so fixated on what they were doing they never thought about the peripheral effects of their actions.

Intersting point of view. Shows you how tunnel vision affects vendors. I've been on the other side where the vendor thought their software was more important than anything else on the network even demanding a firewall be removed for them. Not just a port, the whole firewall! They also wanted the entire organization's subnet to be reconfigured just for them. The worst part is when the person making the demands has no clue about system admin or networks.

 

[PMildren]

Heh, seconded. Been there done that, we saw it hit 125 a few times, and drank a LOT of water.

Wow, really. Guess the 1 1/2 months of living in a hangar in New Orleans, riding out hurricane Rita and taking cold showers the entire time arent as bad as I remember. Or the winters spent in Korea or Germany, camping out in sub zero temps. Or the years spent in Iraq, where temps hit near or over 130F most of the summer. The months spend in the field with either little to no heat or AC, depending on the time of the year. Having to wear 35-60 pounds of body armor, radios, rucksacks, antenna bags, rifles and ammo. And the years spent away from family and friends, yeah you guys are right. We Army IT guys have nothing on you civilians.

 

[SKYY]

Wow, really. Guess the 1 1/2 months of living in a hangar in New Orleans, riding out hurricane Rita and taking cold showers the entire time arent as bad as I remember. Or the winters spent in Korea or Germany, camping out in sub zero temps. Or the years spent in Iraq, where temps hit near or over 130F most of the summer. The months spend in the field with either little to no heat or AC, depending on the time of the year. Having to wear 35-60 pounds of body armor, radios, rucksacks, antenna bags, rifles and ammo. And the years spent away from family and friends, yeah you guys are right. We Army IT guys have nothing on you civilians.

Sarcasm detector fail? Wow.

 

[jwalk6]

Wow, really. Guess the 1 1/2 months of living in a hangar in New Orleans, riding out hurricane Rita and taking cold showers the entire time arent as bad as I remember. Or the winters spent in Korea or Germany, camping out in sub zero temps. Or the years spent in Iraq, where temps hit near or over 130F most of the summer. The months spend in the field with either little to no heat or AC, depending on the time of the year. Having to wear 35-60 pounds of body armor, radios, rucksacks, antenna bags, rifles and ammo. And the years spent away from family and friends, yeah you guys are right. We Army IT guys have nothing on you civilians.

Thank you for your service.

That said, While we all appreciate the demands put upon members of the service but playing it as a trump card against anyone else's misery is getting a bit tired.

The fact is it's a volunteer army and maybe the recruiter didn't adequately relate how much it was going to suck being in it but ultimately you signed up for it. I know the commercials made it look like it was an easy ticket to paying for college but it is the military. Appreciate that you made it through and had the mettle that many didn't have.

 

[Dew]

Wow, really. Guess the 1 1/2 months of living in a hangar in New Orleans, riding out hurricane Rita and taking cold showers the entire time arent as bad as I remember. Or the winters spent in Korea or Germany, camping out in sub zero temps. Or the years spent in Iraq, where temps hit near or over 130F most of the summer. The months spend in the field with either little to no heat or AC, depending on the time of the year. Having to wear 35-60 pounds of body armor, radios, rucksacks, antenna bags, rifles and ammo. And the years spent away from family and friends, yeah you guys are right. We Army IT guys have nothing on you civilians.

Yeah, kinda what I was saying without rubbing it in and coming off as a snob. Just a FYI, active duty here(25S).

 

[swatbat]

I like the first one they did. Mentions Dirty Job No 7 as Legacy systems archaeologist. They then mention the as/400. I'm in the middle of pulling data off one. Client is running an as/400 in system 36 mode to run their old system 36 programs. So far I've pulled almost 50 megs of data off it and that has taken a few days........

With a lot of the files we are writting programs that end up splitting the data files on the system into 2 to 4 files that we can then translate to asci. If they have packed data in them we either need to unpack it on the midframe first or export in dif format which means we have to define the fields.

Fun setup of these old systems. The programmers cheated so one field of data might have what today we would use 5 or 6 fields for. This system uses a binary double zero then a hex code to first say next piece of data then where on the screen to display the other part.

 

[Shockey]

Network sherpa had to be the funniest one. The guy with a satellite dish pointed at a hill. LOL

 

[farscapesg1]

they shoulda mentioned help desk level 2 tech at a hospital. or the one I worked at anyway, where I had to go into filthy patient's rooms to fix bedside computers and patient phones on the evening/weekend...gowning up to go into TB rooms and other areas with airborne virus infected patients or a crackheads room with sores leaking all over the place didnt feel too healthy....I remember throwing away a sweater I was wearing one night when I got off because I felt SUPER itchy for no apparent reason (drove home in a t-shirt I had in the car)....later I found out one of the rooms I had been had a guy who had fleas....they discovered the fleas in his urine sample in the lab

Good to hear from a fellow Healthcare IT person Nothing like changing keyboards from ERs that got sprayed with blood. Or cleaning laptops that got urine dumped (or even fecal matter) dumped on them. Been there/done that with the isolation rooms.. and hoping you don't catch anything. Not to mention the "non-dirty" jobs of replacing computers in rooms with patients crying and screaming for pain meds (ICU/CCU).

 

[srangara]

Good to hear from a fellow Healthcare IT person Nothing like changing keyboards from ERs that got sprayed with blood. Or cleaning laptops that got urine dumped (or even fecal matter) dumped on them. Been there/done that with the isolation rooms.. and hoping you don't catch anything. Not to mention the "non-dirty" jobs of replacing computers in rooms with patients crying and screaming for pain meds (ICU/CCU).

Wow, the worst I ever had to deal with in a research institute were the frequent dialysis fluid floods on my floor.

 

[piscian18]

We have a headend in evansville I believe that actually had a dirt floor at one point. No clue how they passed the FCC checks.

 

[SixtyWattMan]

Wow, really. Guess the 1 1/2 months of living in a hangar in New Orleans, riding out hurricane Rita and taking cold showers the entire time arent as bad as I remember. Or the winters spent in Korea or Germany, camping out in sub zero temps. Or the years spent in Iraq, where temps hit near or over 130F most of the summer. The months spend in the field with either little to no heat or AC, depending on the time of the year. Having to wear 35-60 pounds of body armor, radios, rucksacks, antenna bags, rifles and ammo. And the years spent away from family and friends, yeah you guys are right. We Army IT guys have nothing on you civilians.

Man up, I've been through worse.

 

[Quak3R]

I'm a navigation electronics technician on a 688 sub (ssn 690) I've never been on a virginia class sub yet; But I hear the new IT's on those things basically own every piece of equipment; I'm sure there is some sort of greasy nasty job they have to do.

 

[DracoDan]

Yeah, kinda what I was saying without rubbing it in and coming off as a snob. Just a FYI, active duty here(25S).

Came to say the same thing you originally said. I've done both Iraq and Qatar (which was nicer, but even hotter than Iraq). Thankfully Air Force tours were only 4-5 months, and I never had to suffer through the entire summer (Sep-Feb '04/'05 in Iraq, and Jan-Jun 07 in Qatar).

PMildren really needs to check his sarcasm detectors batteries; after he cleans the egg off his face.

/Retired (medically) SSgt/3C051
//Glad to have served, but DAMN it's nice to be a contractor

 

[maademperor]

Good to hear from a fellow Healthcare IT person Nothing like changing keyboards from ERs that got sprayed with blood. Or cleaning laptops that got urine dumped (or even fecal matter) dumped on them. Been there/done that with the isolation rooms.. and hoping you don't catch anything. Not to mention the "non-dirty" jobs of replacing computers in rooms with patients crying and screaming for pain meds (ICU/CCU).

AHHHH, the fecal matter, I forgot the fecal matter!!!! I'll be stuck with that memory and smell for the rest of the day at least

 

[TechLarry]

Guys, you haven't done a "Dirtiest IT" job until you've done it on a Navy Warship... You never know where that wire is gonna lead you.

 

[TechLarry]

I'm not sure about my old Sub-Buddies, but I can tell you from the view of a Destroyer or Cruiser, there are many, many nasty ass places to end up when chasing out a cable harness

I'm a navigation electronics technician on a 688 sub (ssn 690) I've never been on a virginia class sub yet; But I hear the new IT's on those things basically own every piece of equipment; I'm sure there is some sort of greasy nasty job they have to do.

 

[FlatBlackCoffee]

While working one of my first IT jobs, I had to crawl under the desk of a new female employee. She seemed nice enough. She was older than my mom, kind of rough, and had a reputation for enjoying the company of a lot of different men. I didn't judge. She was nice to me and I was the office equivalent of a peasant.

I let her know that I have to crawl under her desk to connect a cable. She pushes her chair back and says something about her mother telling her to keep her legs together so that boys wouldn't look up her dress. I catch a weird vibe but easily ignore the comment while focused on my task. I remember she was wearing a grey skirt.

I'm on the ground, laying on my side, reaching with one arm behind cubicle structure when, in my peripheral vision, I see her knees part. It wasn't like she forgot I was there! She was just talking to me and was doing nothing except looking at me laying on the ground struggling to connect this wire.

I had to fight the 'car accident reflex' but I did not look...for fear I would be turned to stone.

Dirty, dirty, dirty!

 

[RiPpLeeFFecT]

The last place I worked was a real winner.

Family run business selling cheap junk to people with expensive memberships with the company so they could turn around and sell the cheap junk for a profit. 95% of the members never made a dime. Luckly I was in the IT department and only worked directly with the members for the first year I was there as a phone support rep. Got a job in the IT department and then had to support the sales reps ripping off the customers.

My main job was daily ops using an old VAX system, Desktop Support for the +250 call center reps, and being the phone admin for said call center. The turnover was extremely high and every week I might have 20-40 new users hired that needed NT/Exchange accounts, computers and phones set up that very morning, only to have 75% of them never come back after lunch.

I frequently was called to fix the owner's (and their immediate family members) home computers. Only good thing about that was getting out of the office in the middle of the day and maybe heading straight home after fixing things.
Had to setup some grandmother's computer for netzero dialup except that I didn't have the install files with me on floppy. The old computer had a 14.4k modem and no CD drive so I couldn't install the copy I had. Had to setup an earthlink dialup connection using my personal account and download the netzero client. Took 2 hours at 14.4 speed.

Most interesting fix was a virus/spyware sweep for the daughter of one of the owners. She was engaged to someone back in NY and was getting ready to leave her penthouse apartment in Santa Monica. Clothes were strewn all over the place and tons of unmentionables everywhere, a total pig sty She needed her computer cleaned and packed up ready to go. While the scans were going on somehow it ended up that I she needed help packing up other things. Not sure how it happened, but my job was packing her underwear too. If this was someone else I might be flattered, but that's the most awkward thing I could ever see an IT guy having to do. Yeah, let's help the engaged daughter of the owner of the company pack up her underwear.

A couple people were major smokers and couldn't understand why their computers were rebooting frequently. Without any protection I had to clean out all the tar buildup. The company was upset and threatened to fire me when I ended up getting an upper respiratory infection a couple days later from breathing all that junk and I had to take a couple of sick days off to recoup. What's the point of sick days if you're not allowed to use them for being sick?

They laid me off with just under 2 weeks left for my five year with the company. They didn't have to pay a larger severance that way. I ended up being a casualty of a failed two year project to bring them out of the VAX stone age into a .Net environment. It took 40 developers near two years to redesign in house their whole infrustructure and the front and backend website. Like idiots they pressed for a week that would have minimal downtime for our 250k members, but chose to push through it the week AFTER we moved the company to another county/city. We did not have all the T1s installed due to a delay from the phone company. Never try to move a whole company AND do a nationwide rollout of a new system.

They had done testing with only 20 concurrent connections on 6 T1s and called the test complete success. They pushed the rollout the next week on a frame relay connection at the new site instead of waiting for the T1s to be installed and were surprised when 250,000 members were able to crash it the first 5 minutes.

The company was pretty much shut down while the network and devs tried to figure out what went wrong. "How could it fail? We did testing beforehand." Simple concepts like bandwidth seems to be foreign to them.

They let me go with the Devs (even though I had no part in their failure) and ended up replacing me with two people to cover the work I had been doing. They actually had the nerve to call me afterwords with questions on how to run the phone system.

 

[Raiden911]

While working one of my first IT jobs, I had to crawl under the desk of a new female employee. She seemed nice enough. She was older than my mom, kind of rough, and had a reputation for enjoying the company of a lot of different men. I didn't judge. She was nice to me and I was the office equivalent of a peasant.

I let her know that I have to crawl under her desk to connect a cable. She pushes her chair back and says something about her mother telling her to keep her legs together so that boys wouldn't look up her dress. I catch a weird vibe but easily ignore the comment while focused on my task. I remember she was wearing a grey skirt.

I'm on the ground, laying on my side, reaching with one arm behind cubicle structure when, in my peripheral vision, I see her knees part. It wasn't like she forgot I was there! She was just talking to me and was doing nothing except looking at me laying on the ground struggling to connect this wire.

I had to fight the 'car accident reflex' but I did not look...for fear I would be turned to stone.

Dirty, dirty, dirty!

LAWL! quite dirty indeed.

Pics or it didn't happen.

 

[Corporal79]

They actually had the nerve to call me afterwords with questions on how to run the phone system.

haha "sure I can help you, just a second" *hangup*

 

[BallerX]

I like the first one they did. Mentions Dirty Job No 7 as Legacy systems archaeologist. They then mention the as/400. I'm in the middle of pulling data off one. Client is running an as/400 in system 36 mode to run their old system 36 programs. So far I've pulled almost 50 megs of data off it and that has taken a few days........

With a lot of the files we are writting programs that end up splitting the data files on the system into 2 to 4 files that we can then translate to asci. If they have packed data in them we either need to unpack it on the midframe first or export in dif format which means we have to define the fields.

Fun setup of these old systems. The programmers cheated so one field of data might have what today we would use 5 or 6 fields for. This system uses a binary double zero then a hex code to first say next piece of data then where on the screen to display the other part.

That is the very reason I work for my self. I can say no when I want to. I recently had to pull a similar trick on a much smaller scale for a pawn shop that was using some software that they payed a guy to write in the 80's. Thankfully, it wasn't quite that bad. Mostly plain text. Until I got to the firearms records. 8 or 9 different things in the same field with basically no way to decipher the pattern other than near visual inspection. It was a good thing that this shop owner had every single document in hard copy organized like a OCD librarian.

 

[ol1bit]

Swapping FIDS (flight Display Monitors) up in the ceiling is a sucky job. Airports are dirty dirty dirty, and the 80 lbs monitor 12 feet up isn't easy either.

I also ran cables to Ramp Signs up in the ceiling of the airport to the outside walls. Not pretty.

 

[AFTFNJ]

One of the worst & least respected jobs in IT....Datacenter Cabling...even if you do L3 stuff...your still a cabler....

 

[swatbat]

That is the very reason I work for my self. I can say no when I want to. I recently had to pull a similar trick on a much smaller scale for a pawn shop that was using some software that they payed a guy to write in the 80's. Thankfully, it wasn't quite that bad. Mostly plain text. Until I got to the firearms records. 8 or 9 different things in the same field with basically no way to decipher the pattern other than near visual inspection. It was a good thing that this shop owner had every single document in hard copy organized like a OCD librarian.

It is interesting to say the least. I figure if anything it should look good on my resume.

Anyway I have the luck of being able to call one of the programmers that wrote the code. I can only get him like one day a week but it makes it a lot easier.

Mind you the big issues is that this machine is that it doesn't do ascii like modern computers. It uses EBCDIC which was IBM used for their mainframes(dates back to the 60's). Modern ibm mainframes still use it if I'm not mistaken(with the execption of the linux installs on them) but can translate from other standards like ascii.

Pretty much since most of the data files have at least some packed data in them we had to define fields so the system can unpack them. We do this with some s36 programs that also split the files into multiple files to make the translation easier and if we are going to drop them as ascii then use some fixed record lenghts so the data is easier to pull. We have like 40 files to pull but many of them end up being splint into 2 to 6 files and some of them we think are going to be split into up to 16 files by the time it is done. After the machine runs through its work there I use a windows pc hooked up via a twinnet card to the system and run a conversion software that can convert the files to straigt ascii, dif(thick of like an excel worksheet), tab, etc. We are using either ascii or dif depending on what data is in them. I then use the same software to run a transfer command that sends the data over to oc via the terminal emulator. Runs at like 2k a second meaning it takes a long time. Mind you most of the files are only a meg or 2 with some being up to 20ish. I think we have a few that are going to be over 50megs. Good news is the twinnet card supports like 7 sessions at a time and I can run multiple transfers.

Setting up a spare dell server right now so I can throw it onsite for the programmer working on the new software. This way we have something to run the builds on where the customer can play with it as it goes along. When they get closer to the cutover we will quote them a new machine and move it to that.

As far as your comment about firearms that is the business they are in. I can't tell you how happy I was when I got it to pull all of the ffl licenses and experation dates on file the other day.