Our customers make my brain hurt sometimes (long-ranty)

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I work in IT for a manufacturing company. We have an FTP site set up for our customers to upload artwork. We place temporary bans on IP addresses that have multiple incorrect login attempts to thwart brute force hack attempts.[/BG]

Now, if I were to give any of you and FTP site address, user name and password, I'm pretty sure you could figure it out and the majority of you don't claim to be computer professionals.
Of the few that weren't able to figure it out, I'm sure you would read instructions I send that specifically show how to download, install and use FTP client software to connect to our site.

Well, we have a few customers that can't do it. I've tested, retested, retested and retested their logins from inside and outside our firewall. I've seen other traffic connecting to the site and these customers still claim that our site is broken.

Inevitably, I see IP bans after they make their claims even though they swear they are following the instructions. The most recent one claims to be a software developer.

A self-proclaimed software developer can't read a 7 page document (lots of pictures) on how to connect to an FTP server. A self-proclaimed software developer doesn't already know how to connect to an FTP server!

I also want to mention the new customer that demanded we have an SFTP server. I set it up and created a login for them. Guess what...they can't connect and it is our fault. I went back and forth with them for a week. I gave them the specific syntax for their client software and they still couldn't connect.

After the week of back-n-forth, they finally decide to ask their IT department about possible firewall issues on their side. This was 2 weeks ago and they still haven't connected.

Did I mention that they were in a HUGE rush to get this going? They went to our Director of sales, our Director of production and our Director of client services to put pressure on us to get the server set up. But I haven't heard anything from them since they went to their IT about their firewall. I guess it was only an emergency when they weren't responsible for anything.

Sorry for the long post...I just needed to blow off some steam.

damn, I wish I understood at least every 5th word ...

How about providing a web interface that does much the same thing, or accepting artwork via email? Each has its issues, but are massive improvements over dealing with this crap.

Web's probably the way to go, very few outbound firewalls would stop it, most people can figure it out, and you don't run into attachment type/size issues that are created by some admins.

This is one reason I am very thankful I don't have customers.

And that's why I'm leaving the IT field. After 24 years in one form or another I want off this ride.

Some of your clients probably have FTP blocked at their firewall. That's not an excuse for the ones that can't follow instructions.

Yes developers are some of the worst offenders. Try dealing with the application support experts who don't have the first clue how the application works. They are fun too.

Our web developer is too covered up providing these same customers with order and inventory tracking that they never use. Our CSRs use the web page to export excel files and email those to the customer.

And, of course, we have to provide custom reporting for the customers too because sales is too chicken-E36 M3 to tell them "no, this is what our form looks like."

Email would be a viable option except the service we use has obscenely low storage capacity and very low limits on attachment size. The suggestion to move to Gmail or something similar was poo-pooed as too expensive. And, if Gmail is too expensive, Exchange is out of the question.

Wbjones, think of it like this: What if you worked at a gas station and had to show the tanker drivers how to fill the tanks and, when they couldn't get the tank caps open, it was your fault that they don't know how gravity or a screw cap work...but they claim to have been delivering gas for 20 years.

Brother, I feel your pain.

We have a company directive to change FTP to SFTP by the end of the year but have been denied the funding to complete the change over. Think of a global company with well over 60K employees.

I think it's something in the TPS report. You'll have to come in Saturday to straighten it out....

rmarkc wrote: The suggestion to move to Gmail or something similar was poo-pooed as too expensive.

Then the argument was presented the wrong way! You should have said: I can spend 100% of my time standing up, fixing, and protecting a sendmail server that would do everything we'd ever need... OR we could let Google do it all for a fraction of that cost! :)

I feel your pain and it makes me afraid I may never be able to work in my field again: I have a job with zero customers and bosses who accept rational arguments and appreciate when improvements happen, even if it costs them a bit of money. I also have zero bureaucracy to get in the way of installing some software or fixing the damn firewall. I'm not sure this exists anywhere else.

peter wrote: Then the argument was presented the wrong way! You should have said: I can spend 100% of my time standing up, fixing, and protecting a sendmail server that would do everything we'd ever need... OR we could let Google do it all for a fraction of that cost! :)

I didn't present it, our CIO did. He also suggested moving to Google apps to save money on Office licensing and have greater availability but our Excel-loving management shut that down too.

I'm surprised that management agreed to get new servers. Ours are over 3 years old, not under a maintenance agreement and pretty much held together with spit and Kleenex.

Our main file server and DC gave up the ghost not too long ago. I had to install a very robust (but not server quality) desktop machine as it's replacement. I was sick as a dog when it went out and I had to come in (on a Saturday, thank you Gearheadotaku) to do it.

I think I've dug too big a hole by pulling out last minute MacGyvers and now they expect it all the time.

I'm sure you've seen it. I know I have to return to it every once in a while myself after being in IT for 16 years now:

http://bofh.ntk.net/BOFH/

Software Developers truly are some of the worst people I've worked with IT. Most are treated like royalty and need to have someone wipe their posteriors "because they are too busy fixing so and so's bad code" DBA's, however, are some the best. Something about how you approach a problem and solve it.

This quote from Tesla about Edison is somehow appropriate:

“If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor.”

Case in point, working on developing an automated delivery method for an update to a developer tool. Small audience of computer savvy users (well, developers actually), many of whom I know from experience dislike anyone doing anything to their computers without their knowledge. So, we begin testing and my contact keeps coming back asking to have the confirmation dialog boxes removed, etc. After much trial and error, the software doesn't want to install quasi-silently (or in a Basic fashion as it isn't a standard MSI or Installshield install) So I make it run completely silently and run in the background. More grumbling about no notice that "something" is happening and impacting "production" (aka Googling for someone else's code to steal)

Finally, I state that the software as delivered from the vendor does not support the install they are looking for. Either they will have dialog boxes or they won't. If they want it in between, then perhaps they could rewrite the software?

Suddenly the "problems" are not mentioned and the software installs silently and everyone is happy. Especially since I can drop working on this deployment of junk software to 30 shiny-happy-people and instead focus on patching the 10,000 machines across the world we have in the environment for this month, before I get to do it again next month, etc.

I feel your pain.

I'm taking a vacation soon, which is good, because I've wanted to quit my job about 4-5 times in the past week.