# IT Manager & Excel



## Bruno_x (Sep 22, 2004)

Our IT *Manager*, you know the one with the company-car and nice salary, asked me today : "Is there a formula in XL to concatenate cells A1, B1 and C1 and place the result in D1 ?"      

I told him about & . . .
(I gonna look for that "Excel for dummies" book on the loft)


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## RichardS (Sep 22, 2004)

Bruno said:
			
		

> "...concatenate cells A1, B1 and C1 and place the result in D1 ?"
> 
> In D1, =CONCATENATE(A1,B1,C1)
> 
> ...


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## Bruno_x (Sep 22, 2004)

RichardS said:
			
		

> In D1, =CONCATENATE(A1,B1,C1)
> 
> which is basically his own words. Do IT managers assume everything is more complicated than it has to be?


Hi Richard,
The equivalent of CONCATENATE() in our dutch version of XL = TEKST.SAMENVOEGEN() wich means : merge text . . .

And yes, there is a contradiction between IT managers and simple solutions


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## adaytay (Sep 22, 2004)

Of course, you could just use '&' instead of typing out "Concatenate" every time.  But then I'm lazy.

D1 = A1 & B1 & C1

Not wishing to defend IT Managers, but rather more try and understand where he was coming from, although IT Managers have worked through the ranks, the number of people (in comparison) that have used VBA or Excel cell formulas - especially "Concatenate") is actually quite small.

Some IT Managers learn their skills through a variety of roles.  Some are system support (helpdesk).  But unless you use Excel at a more advanced level than just punching numbers in, why would you know of the Concatenate formula?

Just my tuppence, please don't flame me...

Ad


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## starl (Sep 22, 2004)

well, they aren't all so dense - we've (that's MrExcel) received several clients that had their IT depts point to us. So, there's hope yet.


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## WillR (Sep 22, 2004)

Someone from IT just came to install a "corporate screensaver" on my PC.

I am now missing all of my Internet Favourites. *ALL* of them.... can you imaging just how big a list that was!!!!    

(I do have the majority at home, but I probably add ten to twenty new "resources" each day.... and probably the last time I backed this up was a month ago...  )

Bugger!!


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## mark007 (Sep 22, 2004)

Hmm, I'd do a search for them on your C:, you never know. Also check the recycle bin.

Has your profile name changed or something? Would seem an odd thing to delete. Doesn't surprise me though. My experience with IT departments are they are full of cretins, but there you go!


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## WillR (Sep 22, 2004)

Mark.... they all gone (just like that Mondeo    )

F##K knows what they did.....

(Still I have most at home... just bloody annoying!)


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## Smitty (Sep 22, 2004)

Our IT department converted us all to a new corporate network on Thursday.  We were told to back everything up (300 something users) to the network prior to the conversion as all C: drive documents would be FUBAR'd and replaced with the network copy.  (Why do users have to do this?)  Unfortunately, I have 40Gb of data and the server is 80Gb.     (I've been asked previously to get all of my stuff off the server because I took up too much space - I have a personal tape drive for backups, so I didn't think it would be too bad).

Thursday I try to log on and my PC takes 4 1/2 hours to START!

Of course the IT guys in our Corporate office didn't get the memo about my PC, so ALL of my information was gone!  Finally one of the PC techs who knows me, says, "Oh we made an extra backup for him, just restore it.)  What about that tape backup you ask?  The upgrade fried the driver for the tape and IT couldn't find the disk.

So Thursday is pretty much down the tubes, then I spend Friday re-installing Office and my other programs, which conveniently got entirely wiped out with the "upgrade".  Then I find out that the Corporate backup wasn't an entire FUBAR; I somehow now have two sets of almost identical files, except that in one directory a file might be OK, in the other it may be FUBAR'd, so I had to go through ALL of my recent files swapping and replacing to get things squared up.  Then my PC starts crashing, can't figure out why...Hmmm...My 80Gb HD now has 8 Mb of free space.  That could be it...(Unfortunately, dependinjg on how you look at it, my boss has had IT make me an Admin on my own PC, so I got to do all the work...)

Delete 40 Mb, major defrag and by 4:00 P.M. Friday I'm ready to go, with 2 days of work to catch up on, and I get the message from our IT dept that "by the way, your new laptop is in, but we've been too busy to get it to you.  Can we bring it up Monday or Tuesday?"

%&*%$# (Insert the seven words you can't say on TV here...  )

I vote mine as the most incompetent IT department around.  (Mind you, they've gotten better since an Intern fried my hard drive with two years worth of work on it the same weekend he fried the server - The Dept thought it was a great deal, he was an Intern therefore "Free").  OK Sparky.

Smitty


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## Zack Barresse (Sep 23, 2004)

pennysaver said:
			
		

> ... The Dept thought it was a great deal, he was an Intern therefore "Free").  OK Sparky.
> 
> Smitty



Now that takes the cake!    

Um, does it count if I am my own IT department?  LOL!


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## Bruno_x (Sep 23, 2004)

Smitty, you are the winner  
IT dept. and backups : big question mark

I did the followong with our IT guys : about a year ago my HD crashed with a lot of important XL files on it.  IT replaced the HD and installed a fresh windows system. I asked "And my XL files ?" Answer : "Oops, the last backup of your XL files is ... somewhere at our dept."
They've  searched 2 days... without any result. The 'Big Boss' heard about it and had a serious    conversation with IT.
After 3 days I've set the files back from my own backup


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## Cbrine (Sep 23, 2004)

My problem is that the only time I approach the IT department is when the problem is big enough that I can figure out a resolution to it.  When that happen's the IT guys tend to run in the other direction when they see me coming.  Out of the major problems that have occurred on my PC, they have only been able to help me out a couple of times.  They haven't as yet been able to pooch my PC as bad as Smitty's though, and they haven't managed to short out any servers.  So, I guess they aren't to bad.


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## starl (Sep 23, 2004)

Here's one for you:
At my husbands company, the head of IT... doesn't know anything about computers. Seriously - she got the job because



she's the founders daughter. 

The servers - last I checked, they had 4 - crash several times a day. Why - probably the load - all software is run off the servers, except Pro-E. But Autocad, all office software - run from the server.
Email - all email messages are read/scanned by an outside agency. Which causes quite a delay when emailing.

Now, the last company I worked for - the head office IT, were morons. I ran circles around them ... fixed a lot of their probs.. they didn't like me much. Local IT - smart guy - I helped train him and he wasn't afraid to let me help (we just kept it hushed - tho my direct boss knew.. so did the rest of the plant - but they also knew the help was needed). At least our servers were fairly stable.. a crash every months, maybe... that doesn't include the mail server
ok, enough.. I'm starting to get irritated..


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## Smitty (Sep 23, 2004)

> ok, enough.. I'm starting to get irritated..


This one will get you going then...The Head of our Unit's IT Department speaks and e-mails like this: "We're having a hard time locating all of the *softwares* for your new laptop." Or even better: "we have detected an unauthorized *softwares* on your pc/msn messenger/please delete the unauthorized *softwares* immediately." [sic]

"Softwares"?  What the hell is a softwares?  

And my new laptop still ain't ready!   

And to top it off, on Friday, our busiest day (weekly deadline) and the day that's most stressful on PC's, servers, our AS400, and all systems in general, our entire IS Dept is off!  They're on flex-time (corporate speak for 4 10's = 3-day weekends and we don't have to be "quite" so salary-competitve)...The problem is that we write $1+ million a week in our unit and a computer failure can mean the loss of tens of thousands of dollars; just to stay "salary-competitive" for 4 people.      (Not to mention that our customers' ads don't run, costing them money, which is even more important!)

I feel sorry for anyone who has to deal with unfortunate IT situations; our lives depend on this stuff so much nowadays that it's hard to be without.  I remember when we actually used to see customers face-to-face...  

Here's to hoping that your stuff is backed up, and that when your IT guy shows up he doesn't have duct tape with him...(Intern - Couldn't get the PC case to close...)

Smitty

For tales from the "Darkside's" perspective, see Sharktank

**** funny!    (And entirely believable!)


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## starl (Sep 23, 2004)

I am SO GLAD I"m my own IT dept...


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## Smitty (Sep 23, 2004)

> I am SO GLAD I"m my own IT dept...


Cheers to that!    

I'm so glad that I'm an admin on my own machine!

Smitty


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## RichardS (Sep 23, 2004)

I'm not an Admin on my machine, which is a hassle at times. Some of the programs I run have to run locally, and access the Registry, so if there is an update available, I have to go get the IT boys to log on and load it.

That said, we are pretty lucky here. Our guys (and girls) work late nights and week-ends when doing upgrades etc to minimise disruption. Server crashes, well they just don't happen. Mind you, we're a public hospital, so we can't afford down time, and we have made significant investments in redundancy.

Big project in about three weeks for our team is VoIP telephony, about 350 handsets to be installed. I hope my confidence in them is rewarded.   

Richard


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## Smitty (Sep 24, 2004)

> Big project in about three weeks for our team is VoIP telephony, about 350 handsets to be installed. I hope my confidence in them is rewarded.


I hope it goes well!  That's our next big project.  Problem this time is that the VP of Finance decided on the system, so you know what that means...  The old addage about the military: "mind you that you're using something built by the lowest bidder..."  :wink: 

How on earth do companies survive?  (At least we're not as bad as California's utterly stupid bureaucracy ...)

Smitty


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## WillR (Sep 24, 2004)

It seems that there is a common thread here....

Lots of incredible stories of incompetance from IT people

And a trend of the User being the one to finally restore order from their own backups or superior knowledge

Just where do these people come from


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## Legacy 21301 (Sep 24, 2004)

WillR said:
			
		

> It seems that there is a common thread here....
> 
> Lots of incredible stories of incompetance from IT people
> 
> ...




"Just where do these people come from"?

Beats me. I hadn't realised that there were any smart users available.


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## Felix Atagong (Sep 24, 2004)

Now who is the cretin?   
For years I have been putting a daily back-up tape in our local server in Belgium that is 'managed' from the UK and only when the tapemachine broke down I looked at the log files... to find out that no back-up tapes had been made for over 6 months.
So I called Compaq with our Softpac (or whatever it is called) license number, to hear that the contract had not been renewed... 24 days before.
I called the IT guy in the UK and asked why the annual contract had not been renewed... Well, he replied, Compaq didn't tell me it was coming to an end, did they?
Anyway Compaq replaced the tape (very expensive) and I asked the UK to make sure that the tape would do the back-ups again on a daily basis (theoretically I may not touch that machine). That was now over a month ago...   
So what did I do? I downloaded the freeware EZBack-It-Up and make a back-up from the server on my PC, hoping that both machines will never crash (or burn) at the same time... and that the IT guy will not spot it in the UK (he won't, unless he reads this forum as well).


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## dscheste (Sep 24, 2004)

Just the most recent pearls:

 - Lost entire mailbox of the CEO (some +800 company)
 - 3 days for re-imaging only 1 PC, I mean re-imaging, 3 days of constant install and erase.

I believe it is more of an diagnose or physical condition, the more you have internal drive to limit other people's abilities and potentials, the more it'ish you become. Said, but this has been my experience.


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## Legacy 21301 (Sep 24, 2004)

Has it occurred to anyone that most organisations probably try to employ IT personnel who have a similar level of intelligence as the average user, so that communication is easier?

Of course, this makes it very difficult for all of the "smarter-than-the-average" users posting to this thread.


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## Cbrine (Sep 24, 2004)

Ponsey,
  Are you an IT person, or are you ponselizing?


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## Legacy 21301 (Sep 24, 2004)

Cburine,

I'm not "an IT person" - would probably not be able to satisfy the necessary standards of competence - merely a passer-by making some observations.

The posts in this thread present an enlightening record of the incompetence of "IT persons" generally.

Some might say that since the criticisms have been made by one side only, they might contain some bias in favour of the writers, but I would never suggest such a thing.


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## Glaswegian (Sep 24, 2004)

We have an IT department........that has nothing whatsoever to do with any of our office PCs.  THAT bit is outsourced.  So, if you have a fault with a PC, you call the Helpdesk, who very kindly give you a reference number.  Then you wait for up to 8 hours for the external company to send someone to fix it.  

I recently arranged for a memory upgrade for some PCs in another town (a long story why I was involved but never mind) and the fee, per PC was £40.  That is £40 to open the case and insert a memory chip.  I offerred to do it for a quarter of that, in cash, but no-one took me up.  

I do, however, admire the way the external company setup PCs.  Most in our area are a good few years old, but they arrive pre-configured with the C drive partitioned at 2Gb and the rest as the D drive.  So once you've had installed, Office, Notes and all the other bits and pieces you need, there's no room left!  Virtually all our Depts files are on a server (it's supposed to be backed up in 2 other locations...mmmmm).

Ah, the joys of work..........


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## Legacy 21301 (Sep 24, 2004)

Glaswegian said:
			
		

> We have an IT department........that has nothing whatsoever to do with any of our office PCs.  THAT bit is outsourced.  So, if you have a fault with a PC, you call the Helpdesk, who very kindly give you a reference number.  Then you wait for up to 8 hours for the external company to send someone to fix it.



So it's a sort of Special Help IT department.


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## Glaswegian (Sep 24, 2004)

You might say that Ponsy, I could not possibly comment.


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## Legacy 21301 (Sep 24, 2004)

Your reply conveys that you know I've already written it and you can safely assume that I've also already said it.

(House of Cards, etc. - good series, wasn't it?)


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## Smitty (Sep 24, 2004)

> Some might say that since the criticisms have been made by one side only, they might contain some bias in favour of the writers, but I would never suggest such a thing.


Which is why I posted the link to "Sharky's" columns regarding IT department woes with users.

Smitty


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## Cbrine (Sep 24, 2004)

Well to be fair, we only remember the screw up's.  When everything running smoothly we never really remeber that.  We have an IT support group that consists  of only 4 people.  One of which I would trust to know more then me, one of which knows a good amount and for the most part I would trust him.  The other two, I wouldn't let near my system, with somebody else's brain.    It seems most of the competant IT guy's have moved on to bigger and better things, like project management and programming.  Which I guess makes sense, even if it doesn't help me!!!


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## starl (Sep 24, 2004)

> we only remember the screw up's. When everything running smoothly we never really remeber that



but if the IT dept is competent and sets things up properly, shouldn't we expect things to run smoothly, with only the occ. bump in the road? I guess I wasn't too fair about my last company's IT. The servers ran somewhat well (except the mail..). We had a local IT guy to reboot the PC server and usually maintained the Unix CAD server ourselves.. but when it came to software problems - outlook, word anything other than servers.. I guess my problem with them was the high and mighty attitude - since I wasn't in IT, I didn't know what I was talking about.. except one guy - I considered him REAL IT - helpful, non-condescending. Too bad he wasn't a people person and preferred the background... The IT dept would be flawless if he were in charge..
now my husband's company - the don't do ANYTHING right!


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## mark007 (Sep 28, 2004)

Yeah, that's the issue that annoyed me. The fact they like to think themselves almighty. If you show them you know what you're talking about they get all cagey and annoyed!

Our IT department was located centrally and all problems dealt with using NetSupport to logon to PC's remotely or over the phone.

The biggest issues I had with them were:

1. "We'll call you back in an hour" meaning we won't call you back and may or may not fix it.
2. Being told to do the obvious that you'd already tried 5 times depsite telling them this.
3. The internet/email going down on an almost daily basis.
4. Watching them take control of my PC and try several things before hitting on the solution I told them 10 minutes ago.

The central company pulled out of our branch a few months ago and since then I've been the IT department. The internet works everyday, no one has trouble with email and the server hasn't crashed once. I wouldn't consider myself a network expert by any means but I don't see why it's so hard for things to work on a regular basis!


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## XL-Dennis (Sep 28, 2004)

> The central company pulled out of our branch a few months ago and since then I've been the IT department.



Hi Mark   

Have You made any poll among Your local collegeus about it   

In general I have the impression that what co-workers consider to be a problem is not a problem for the IT-department and vice versa. 

Desktop-support is not what an IT-department co-workers dream of to work with because:
a) it involves end-users.
b) issues that they many times have no clue how to solve.

Finally, working togheter with many central IT-department during the years I have the impression of that the lack of basic understanding why different department exist within organizations create many problems on all levels.


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## Zack Barresse (Sep 28, 2004)

XL-Dennis said:
			
		

> ... the lack of basic understanding why different department exist within organizations create many problems on all levels.



You can only agree with that.    Henry Mintzberg (as you and I have talked before Dennis) has some excellent books on Organization - must reads.


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