Princess Fix IT

Sounds like a bunch of hothead programmer DUDES to me.

--
White Guy
Coolhead Programmer Dude

But I hope you realize you are only telling one side of the story. The fact is we were under deadline pressure, and notifying IT of the impending graphics card rush slipped through the cracks. This is a fast moving business and sometimes shit is just going to happen. I can give you more details as to why this sprang out of nowhere, offline, if you care or want to know.

All I know is I didn't have any trouble installing my card myself (and I asked for the key to my case. Nicely even.)

Personally, I find the locked case thing rather insulting. I can be trusted with the source code and assets to our game, and trusted to write software for that game, but I can't be trusted with the innards of my PC? I call bullshit. If that's the new Policy, well the new Policy is stupid, because it lumps people like me with all the fucktards out there. I'm not a number; I'm not an anonymous user, I'm me. Oh, the humanity!

In addition, you left out some of the important recent backstory. Specifically that we recently had two new hires who were without PCs when they started, and two new shiny PCs for artists that sat in our producer's office for god knows how long before the person in IT got off his ass and did anything about it. These were planned well in advance. So we weren't in a forgiving mood.

Here's something I learned back when I was developing PC games: If the game crashes, the player blames you. It doesn't matter if some driver writer in Singapore peeked when he should have poked, and his buggy-ass sound card driver causes your game to crash. All they know is they tried to run your game, and it crashed, and now they hate you and your children.

The moral of the story is: people only see what is immediate to them, and assign blame accordingly, fair or not.

It's just something you have to learn to shrug off.

Obviously I've learned to shrug it off, the users got their support and that's all that matters to me.

As far as you opening your own case...why? When game teams work a million and one hours, why would you want to bother dealing with something that isn't even your job? Why waste your time? Don't you have better things to do?

Let's face the facts....regardless of what I have said here, what is done for your team or what isn't done, you will find a reason to be self rightous and hurtful.

Find another outlet. This one's closed.

Self-righteous? My lord. Pot, meet kettle.

As far as why I want to open my own case, look at it from my point of view. I make my living making computers do what I want them to do. It's my canvas. I build my own machine at home, and I'm perfectly capable of installing new hardware or software.

The fact is, sending the install request through IT didn't even cross my mind. I wanted the card in Right Now This Second, I knew how to do it, so I did it. I really don't care if it was my job to do or not -- it was an obstacle to me performing my job and I removed it. No Process, Policy, Tickets, or other Red Tape.

What I don't get is why you think this is a slight on your abilities? I know you could have done it, probably faster than me. But the fact is, the powers that be in your department care more about Process and Policy than actually getting stuff done, and going through all that stuff is a crapshoot -- if my ticket gets assigned to the Princess, I'm golden. But if it gets assigned to some of the other folk in your department, all of the sudden it is a crapshoot as to when it will happen and if the job will be done right. This is based on personal experience; not on perception.

That's the hard truth. I'm sorry if it hurts you, but at the end of the day, I have shit I am accountable for, and "I'm waiting on IT" rarely flies with the people I am accountable to.

Update: The PC's are still sitting in my office and the concept artists are using loaners.

I don't think that any of us felt that you couldn't install the cards or had any intention of offending or insulting you. We just have a new engine that was dropped in our laps that required that particular video card to run. So, we got the video cards that day, dropped them in the machines and that was that. That was the planning, and it was actually all we could have done as we did not know ahead of time what cards would be needed (we suspected, but if we were wrong that would have been very expensive). We were not dumbasses, we were effecient.

You have to understand that lately many of our IT requests have taken very long periods of time to be handled or simply not handled at all(e.g. the PC's that are still in my office), so when we are trying to get something done quickly, like get everyone working, it is only natural that we are going to try and just handle it ourselves. If you needed a tire changed, had the spare and the tools, would you call a tow truck if you knew it could be two or more hours before they showed up, if ever? No, you'd just take care of the problem yourself.

"So, we got the video cards that day, dropped them in the machines and that was that."

Not the case...

If that were that, we wouldn't be having this discussion, correct? We wouldn't be short on power supplies. We wouldn't have had broken cards or slower systems.

Maybe if your team spent as much time working with us rather than constantly slamming us to the whole of the team and enforcing zero faith in IT, maybe things would have wound up better.

Just remember...the people who needed the help the most, were told IT was useless. That's not fair to them, you or your project.

"If that were that, we wouldn't be having this discussion, correct? We wouldn't be short on power supplies. We wouldn't have had broken cards or slower systems."

How about systems that had cards installed by IT (and not touched by anyone else), and were still done improperly? We got at least one of those too.

So maybe the fact is, these graphics cards have some odd power requirements and even seasoned IT professionals get the install wrong. So cut us some fucking slack, because the IT martyr routine is wearing very thin.

Ain't life grand?

You have problem in dev-management (since when do engines appear out of thin air? How about a heads-up at least for the team leads and producers?), an even bigger problem with "Policy Pete" in IT - and so you guys start scratching *each others* eyes out?

How about taking the heat to the people who deserve it?

Groby, we're knew the engine was coming ahead of time. It just took a while to get our hands on it. As Alex pointed out, we weren't 100% sure what cards would work with it. So we couldn't buy the cards ahead of time until we had tested one or two with the engine.

This whole thing is getting blown out of proportion, really.

Wow. This has gotten real ugly, real fast. I think the Princess -- after her own admittedly bombastic fashion -- is just asking for some consideration. Give IT the opportunity, at least, to do its job. If they don't get it done, then they should of course be reamed. Use your influence as product developers to make clear how crucial it is to expand the IT department's budget for true round-the-clock service and, perhaps, more qualified people. In the end, though, can't you all just get along?

The point in the end is to make kick-ass products and bring home a profit for this company for the first time since, what, Clinton was impeached? True teamwork means letting your teammates do their jobs and holding them responsible if they don't. Here, IT wasn't even given a chance. At the very least, there ought to be a renewed commitment to ensuring more cooperation in the future.

If IT was composed solely of Princesses it would be a no-brainer to put the task in their hands. However, that's not the situation. There are people in the group I'm personally not comfortable letting touch my development PC because I believe they are either insufficiently trained or just flat-out incompetent to work on it. Thus, when an IT task that I can do myself comes up, I'd rather do it myself. I think other technically-adept developers feel the same way. It's really a matter of the intersection of relative levels of skill.

IMHO the ugly part of this could have been avoided with better communication and consideration. Make the other side your partner and treat them that way. Let's see how this could have worked.

Team to IT (preferably a producer): "We have an emergency that came up. We need to get XYZ video cards immediately. They need to be installed immediately. This has request has high visability and upper managmenet has told us to do this now. Can you help?"

IT to Team mgmt: "We will see what we can do. Give us 10 minutes to check the availabilty of the card."

IT to Team mgmt: "The card is out of stock at our vendors." This is hot enough that we agree. Go out and buy them yourselves. Also, we don't have enough resources to install all 10 (or what ever number) by this evening."

Team to IT: "That's ok, the team members will inistall the cards."

IT to Team Mgmt: "Ok. I'll send someone out to unlock the cases of the names you gave me. Let us know if you run into problems."

This builds a partnership. Each side is treating the other side with respect.