Irritants.

Well, it's been a minute, hasn't it?  And it's not like I was off doing wild, fun and exotic things.

No, things here have been ticking along as usual...until the other day.

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Disclaimer...I rarely rant talk about work here for reasons...but mainly because if you don't work with the same lunacy that I do, I'm sure it is boring for you.  

Oh sure, I've been MIA for a while now so why not come right out of the gate with a rant or two?  Obviously, if I had more pleasant things to chat about, I'd start with that...but I don't so...

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Out of the clear blue, on Monday - I (along with a whole host of other people) received an email from IT informing me/us that we were set to be "migrated" to our overlord's, The Mothership's HQ's computer system.  This was annoying in and of itself - particularly since we were "just" upgraded two years ago.  And the fact that our overlord, The Mothership HQ is increasingly requesting that we do the most ridiculous things, for the most ridiculous reasons, in a VERY ridiculously short amount of time.

This is not limited to IT issues - oh no!  This is rippling out across the company and we are seeing it pop up in the most random ways.

For instance, just the other day, we were informed that we now need to add an extra step or three whenever we need to request a check for a vendor.  It's inefficient and a waste of everyone's time...but here we are.  Our overlord, The Mothership HQ has demanded it; so it shall be done.  *sigh*

At any rate, back to the migration...Tuesday afternoon, I received the new laptop - I mean, I knew they said I would be migrated "soon" - but this seemed to rushing it a bit.  So I began to frantically copy every single thing I could think of in the most likely event that things would be lost during the migration.  I'm not a complete fool.

Of course, that meant that rather than actually doing work, I was busy copying things.  *sigh*

Wednesday morning, I received instructions that my migration would take place that night - and included a ream of instructions that were attached.  

My workspace today around 3:00 pm...
when I said a ream of instructions, I wasn't kidding.

The first of which suggested that I print, send to my personal email, OR take pictures (yes, IT actually instructed us to take our cell phones and take pictures of all these instructions) as our old computer would self-destruct be unavailable after 6:00 am this morning.

Luckily, I have a fair grasp on the technology so I *thought* I could escape this pointless exercise fairly unscathed...but...well...refer to the picture above.

I have been able to salvage all of my documents/cheat sheets, etc.  Connecting to printers, other than the one residing in my home?  A little bit more challenging.  I'm hoping that when I sneak into the office tomorrow afternoon - barring any issues with getting online once there - that I can rectify the problem on my own.

Why am I stubbornly hoping to fix the issue on my own?  Simple.  Our overlord, The Mothership HQ has deemed our IT help desk to be inferior to their own help desk...which means that any help I request that is more specific in nature (i.e., not a general question such as, "how do I make my document "sideways" - landscape might be the word they were looking for) is met with stupefied silence before being told that they need to "look into it."  

Our help desk, generally, was pretty good at hearing your problem and having the right person fix it.  Which, in turn, meant that the next time I had a problem with that particular application, I knew who to turn to for help.  Which has now been declared taboo - as evidenced when I called one of those persons (who also agreed that this particular task was being RUSHED through without forethought of the actual ramifications) this morning and was told that she couldn't help - that I HAD to go through the "new" help desk.  Eventually, the folks at the new help desk were able to help me fix the issue - but when I need I help, i generally need it now and I need boots on the ground here; that knows EXACTLY what I am talking about since they have been dealing with the exact same application since it was initially installed a million years ago.

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A side note - when this whole "thing" (deal, transaction, whatever) went down - those of us left over from the old company were told that the company was acquired for knowledge of the business.  Pardon me while I laugh hysterically....

As if.  If that were true, we wouldn't be having this entire conversation - nor would I have the other thoughts swirling in my brain as I type that ALSO refutes that entire premise.  But, none of that is relevant to today's issue.

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On the plus side, for the most part, I have figured out how to put most things to rights.  And I can amuse myself with the fact that the "new" help desk will, very soon, be INUNDATED with certain people (those who can't figure out how to actually turn ON the computer; much less how to archive anything) receive these instructions.  *insert evil laugh here*