User keeps killing HDD's in T4x laptops

[skygodtj]

Wow man!! Now THAT'S job security!! Those things are so big and clunky, the VP's gotta hire someone just to carry it around for him!!

[christopher_wolf]

Listen guys, in the corporate world you don't go pissing off VPs anywhere.

Of course that happens, it is called being a BOFH and is a part of the way things naturally happen. They are going to get annoyed anyway, at an issue they themselves cause or simply blame you, so why not? Sure, the IT people are there to fix stuff like this, but the user has to *at least* put in some effort. If other Thinkpads that the IT dept. gave out aren't suffering the same fate, it is the user's fault and it should be made clear that it is an issue and the simplest way to solve it is having the user change their use and attitude towards their Thinkpad (with or without a UART, that is up to the user! )

I suggest a more ruggedized pc since he's a killer. MIL spec his a** and be done with it. Consider the "Rough Rider III"

Mmmm, nothing like increasing cost with "special units" handed out to Special nee...users; this is also going to make support, more, of a nightmare to deal with and the same install image has to be installed on it as well. Besides, how do you know that Rough Rider isn't going to have some other failure that is going to end up crippling it?

Bit of an extreme measure here to solve a simple problem that has to do with the behaviour of the user peripheral.

In regards to the old skool HDDs, well, let's just say they posed a serious hazard to feet if dropped. The casing on the ones I have seen looked like it could stop a .22 with barely a dent.

[JaneL]

Listen guys, in the corporate world you don't go pissing off VPs anywhere.

I agree. While Simon's* stories of BOFH plotting and revenge are great fun to read, actually following them can be a CLM.



* http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/ The original stories have apparently been taken down from Simon's own site and replaced with a tribute to his late father.

[mdarnton]

Listen guys, in the corporate world you don't go pissing off VPs anywhere.

Well, I never much cared for children, and don't have any, so I guess I wouldn't fit well in the corporate world. Most of the people I deal with are rational.

[crashnburn]

This is what you want to do..without pissing of the VP (usually they are not that unreasonable)

Tell him that you contacted IBM support because of all the grievance caused to the VP and him having to swap every few days. So to relieve the VP of these troubles he got level 3 IBM support that asked the following steps be taken.

In these STEPS;.. u can basically go ahead and ask the VP Qs.. and ask him to outline exactly what hes doing with the laptop THROUGH A GIVEN DAY. Does he dump it in the truck and go OFFROADING while the laptop bag keeps bumping up and down.

You can do this without pissing of the VP an at the same time resolving this recurring problem.

I BET. Its more of a time hassle for the VP than for you. The value of his time in $$$ and his busy sched.. I am sure hed be more than happy to NOT HAVE TO COME GET REPLACEMENTS FROM YOU ALL THE TIME. He probably cant get any work done.

Solve it and he will be happy with you.

[christopher_wolf]

They haven't quite been taken down; See

http://bofh.ntk.net/[censored].html

Simply replace the 1 at the end with a consecutive series of digits.

At some point, it will get out of hand if you let the users actually whine and/or complain away; *believe* me as I have seen it happen, and those stories aren't too far from what I have seen happen. I do, however, remember the time that an Admin I was working with flipped the breakers to a bank of machines as they were *undergoing BIOS flashes* (this was being done be the technicians) to make a point that UPSes were needed for systems that had to do what those machines were doing (24/7 servers/computing beds). Needless to say, the procurement people got it through (and didn't argue for hours on end about the cost as they did before) and decided to finally purchase said equipment after, what they assumed to be, a random power blackout during the update process. Ironically, this saved the machines later on when a storm torched off the lines and could have very well damaged the, then new, systems.

Crashnburn has a good suggestion when it comes to sitting the person done and having a nice, little chat with them about it and finding out just exactly what they are doing to it. It has to be made clear that there is some excess action that is proving detrimental to the HDDs in the Thinkpad. First and foremost that has to be laid out, then comes the solution.