London's Winter Wonderland URGENTLY seeks Windows 10 desk support The annual Christmas kitsch fest that is Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland in London is desperately seeking two desktop bods to provide IT support for Windows 10. The job ad, which was posted today, reads: "We are URGENTLY seeking candidates for 2 X Desktop Support Engineers for a short term contract opportunity based at Hyde Park …
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So, shirley by now, it must be absolutely perfect
...and don't call me Shirley.
Someone had to say it...
It's perfect timing for service delivery managers at outsourcing companies - isn't Christmas one of the regular "resource action" periods?
It may not pay as well, but at least you get to improve your self respect by possibly helping people and wearing an elf costume.
Its not their fault. Last year it was all working just fine on windows 7. They shut everything down after christmas and all was well. This year they booted up server 2012r2 and it came back up. Lots of updates but all fine.
Windows 7 booted up to an odd strange looking OS. "Bob, I thought you clicked NO to that upgrade?"
"Thats right! I closed the upgrade screen"
"Fucking hell Bob what have you done! Youve killed Santas PC"
They forgot to put them in the original job ads, didn't they?
One being urgently required is explainable e.g. an accident, but two of them are suddenly needed urgently? Maybe it really is due to a coincidentality of unfortunatisms but to paraphrase, 'losing one is unfortunate, losing two looks like carelessness' or possibly I just seriously offended a lot of people...
Of course, they'd have to fly me across the Atlantic and put me up (in a good hotel) and fly me back. And pay my going rate: $50/hour for the first 8 hours a day, four hour minimum, $100/hour for the next 8 hours a day or part thereof, four hour minimum. They want... 12 hours. That's $800/day. And that would be after taxes, thank you kindly, I know how HM Gov is. Bloody pirates.
Now where's that old UK passport?
oh, wait... they don't want to pay that much? Guess that I won't be going, now will I?
If it was three MS Senior Management, you could probably fund Shelter's Winter Budget for the homeless for several years. Trouble is, doubt they could or would do it.
Three from MS Marketing might a good start, they could hardly do a worse job, staying at MS instead, for those days.
You seem to think that this is pure windows issue. Any idiot that puts tech in place with no support deserves what they get. You are assuming that windows is crashing or doing some thing stupid rather than end users not knowing how to due some thing. the fact that they waited this long speaks volumes. You also assume that there is a Linux alternative. With out knowing the software you can't assume there is. You also assume that that Linux would make this perfect. The fact that they waited this late to ask for help with known dead line speaks volumes. Having a hard deadline you do not wait two weeks before to start looking for help.
How are there so many stupid managers out there that keep basing new projects on Windows even though there is metric tons of evidence that it is a completely unreliable POS?
1. Managers tend to believe the glossy brochures thrust at them by the various concerns that push Windows and often have no idea what the alternatives are.
2. Windows isn't necessarily unreliable, though it is very unforgiving if you try to set things up without the requisite amount of planning. Mind you, I could say the same about most systems - "It just works" is a marketing slogan and nothing more.
3. In this particular case, if they are looking for support this close to Christmas then they must have been spectacularly unlucky or, more likely, ridiculously stupid. Any project that gets this close to its target day in this condition would smack of poor planning and I pity anyone that has to deal with it.
Not enough time* for me to update my CV - even if I knew anything at all about Windows 10, which I don't** - and get it across to them before Christmas.
* To explain, a CV done properly takes IMHO quite a bit longer to tailor for a job than say registering with the register - something I started to do last December, then put to one side while I dealt with something more urgent and finally got around to completing it earlier this week.
** Might be an advantage - I see quite a few jobs advertised where "experience would be useful but is not essential" - could these be two?
The "Urgent requirement" Implies that someone didn't know that Christmas falls on the same day every year and they have 364 days to plan for the next one.
As they say : A failure to plan is a plan to fail
Add in the fantastic day rate and extended hours and short term nature of things - Looks like we know which way this one is going.
Basically they are f'd if they want any decent independent staff immediately, because they probably aren't offering enough notice/pay for experienced sysadmin contractors, especially for people who have the energy to do long shifts.
I suggest that they'd do better finding/paying an IT services business to provide more staff for three shifts rather than two, possibly remotely, and forget the crazy idea of double shifts for tech. work! A IT services business may also be able to provide extra or higher grade staff, when needed to fix larger or more difficult issues faster.
Saw this classic comment on the AskWoody site the other day:
"So many users expending so much energy trying to make Windows 10, secure, private and stable… The answer is obvious, but for the few that logic has eluded let me spell it out for you…
W.I.N.D.O.W.S. S.E.V.E.N."
Sums up the entire Windows 10 fiasco perfectly, in my opinion.
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@AC
> Last place i worked ran 10 with no problems. Place before that ran 10 with no problems. Current place i work runs 10 with no problems.
> So is 10 fucked or are you all just shit with new tech?
Three jobs in just over a year ... hm ... assuming, of course, the first employer did the upgrade on day 1, very unlikely ... so, what is the story ? You are AC, so you can name the companies you worked for, right ? Why do I sense a BS moment ? Next, you're gonna tell me it's your corporate policy to jump shit every couple of months ...
If I'd only known my miserable childhood logistics of Christmas was all the result of shitty MS Windows, I'd have been much accepting of the wrong present, without the tears.
Don't know how MS continue to do it, but we all seem conditioned to accept this crap OS from an early age. There are genuinely better OS's out there now, we all need to move on.
Using Linux Mint yesterday, I closed Firefox, forgetting I was even working in Linux, somewhat surprised not to see the Windows Desktop, thinking I was still in Windows, it happens sometimes.
All you folks talking about 800 a day rates are dreaming - you can pick up Windows support chimps really cheaply so you don't have to pay more than £150 for one. You don't even need to pay VAT as they don't earn enough to be VAT registered. No matter how good you think you are there is a paper MCSE who will undercut you.
Not quite. It's not you who doesn't have to pay VAT because they don't earn enough.
My company is VAT registered and annual income is no where near the VAT threshold. I just have a lot of customers who ask about VAT payments and I've won contracts because we are VAT registered.
IMHO, once you setup your LTD company, get VAT registered.
Winter wonderland has been running for a while now... so why the sudden need for two hands-on possibly junior level (ad seems to imply this) staff. Sounds like the place is a total mess IT wise and they've been royally dumped on. Mind you, I'd suspect that this kind of place has a scary turnover of staff.
Sounds familiar? --> Christmas Blunderland
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