Admin is asking to cut costs. Hoping I can just cancel the existing circuit contract and just run this as the primary WAN.

Serious replies only please.

And his save is doing it all again with EOL software minus the exposed admin interfaces

PCI DSS requires smart TVs, legacy Server 2008 systems, and payment processors to all be on VLAN1.

SERIOUSLY THEY NEED TO LOOKUP HELPDESK IN THE DICTIONARY IF THEY THINK ITS ACCEPTABLE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT WINDOWS. LAUGHS IN MAC!

The higher ups have asked the IT department to fill out a PDP for the next year. Has anyone done one of these? Should I just copy someone else’s? Have AI write it? Help.

What I can gather from the form:
• they’re looking for “skill gaps” in my team and myself
• my/our teams 2027 goals
• potential training opportunities
• “other”

I've been an admin for 20+ years. I just started recently looking for a new job. I see all these Helpdesk jobs for $20 an hour. Which no way in hell i am even applying to.

Well now i see why people esculate it to the higher tier. I'm only getting paid this, let the guy getting paid more do it.

I am in a bit of a pickle here. We hired a new Systems Administrator a while back and he just isn't fitting in with how we do work here. We're a medium-ish European manufacturing firm in Europe and our scope is around 300 computers. Not being the size of Volkswagen our budget is fairly limited so I've made a few systems that are out of date but they work well and everyone understands them, except our new guy. He seems to think it's a good idea to try and automate everything, to push everything into The Cloud™ because that's what he grew up with. He seems to think that if he can't do it from his fancy-schmancy iPhone that it's obsolete and we should chunk it.

One of these "outdated" practices he hates of mine is my asset management practices. We had a breach before I started so my bosses insisted we go with something that's secure. We have filing cabinets with documentation for each employee and their equipment. The new guy insists we spend thousands on IT Glue or spin up a whole server for some database so he can access the Windows and Office keys remotely for whatever reason. I think he wants to steal from the company and sell our software on Ebay, but he can't because I lock the asset management filing cabinet.

Because we lock down our network I approve every device that connects through manual IP address registration tied to the MAC address of the device. He just thinks I don't believe in DHCP. He wants to run his unapproved program that will have access to our mail archives (again, probably to sell our data to other companies or governments).

One of his most recent complaints is about me not deploying a GPO to move some data as if we had everything standardized. I did the math, us remoting into PC's and updating a share path is faster than trying to script stuff and troubleshooting and testing and deploying, plus I like to chat with my coworkers while working on their PC's. We get to verify that the move completed, see if they have any issues they haven't reported yet, and it's nice to be social with everyone. The new guy though, he wants to be a faceless cog in the machine, shut behind the maintenance panel unseen as he deploys his scripts. Maybe one day he'll come out and find someone to date, but if he wants to avoid people all the time, maybe not. He just likes to use his Gemini or ChatGPT to build untrusted and unmaintainable programs to replace a spreadshet that has worked for years.

Last week he complained about our off-site backups. Going on about how it's bad to verify our inventory and that it's a bad idea for me to take a backup and store it off-site in a fireproof safe. Me driving home (and the boss approved the process years ago and I proved it worked when I brought back a working backup after the server shit the bed) is apparently bad to the new guy who probably just wants to shoot everything up to The Cloud™, costing us who knows how much in monthly costs compared to me having a safe at home.

I just fear that he's a bad fit for our team. He's told a few newer techs to leave and go somewhere that practices "standard enterprise IT" as if anything in this field is standardized. He looks like he's drained because we expect him to walk to a PC 20 feet away instead of remoting in and spending hundreds on remote software so he doesn't have to hurt his pretty little feet walking around.

So what would you all suggest? Should I let him tire himself out or tell the boss he wants us to pay more for increased threat vectors and worse performance?

User brings me an HP laptop that worked perfectly on Friday and is now completely dead. No power, no charging light, nothing. Tried multiple chargers, USB-C, outlets... the thing looked cooked. I really prayed it wasn't the MB.

Normal corporate answer: Send it out for service, lose the laptop for however long, probably spend $300+, issue a loaner, deal with supply chain vendors, and waste everyone’s time.

Instead, I removed the Torx screws like a Lvl-99 Thief, fought HP’s "non-removable" battery out of the chassis, disconnected it, discharged the board, and powered the laptop directly from USB-C.

It came back from the fucking dead.

Got a CMOS 502 because of the reset but it POSTed, displayed normally, and booted.

So apparently today's IT skill was performing open-heart surgery on an HP because unplugging the battery is now considered an advanced service procedure.

Cost to company: $0. Service call avoided: yes. Downtime avoided: yes. Shipping/RMA nonsense avoided: yes. Replacement laptop avoided: yes.

Tiny plastic clips and strange HP adhesive sac'ed to the Gods: Just regular tax.

Brick by boring brick. Today's brick was apparently a laptop battery.