Many of Yimon's support tickets related to her desktop and laptop lead to successfully addressing symptoms, and not addressing underlying structural issues implied to exist. Thus, now deemed worth having one place to capture those tickets, at least on-going, for future reference. This situation is expected to only get worse if this pattern continues, alas.
Summary
Without permission to properly update Yimon's primary laptop or desktop computers, it will be increasingly difficult to continue their proper support. And an attempt now to get things standardized will require some level of risk of failure such that we would expect Yimon to explicitly assume that risk before we'd pursue that course of action.
Background information
Tickets and events to be listed in reverse-chronological order (most recent ones first):
| Ticket | Date opened | Related info |
|---|---|---|
INC000002217531 Aye - Laptop for updates (and MS Word, EndNote upgrades?) | 4/12/2018 | 5/7/2018, Oliver notes in the ticket: Yimon again did not follow up with us as she stated were her intentions. It's getting increasingly risky to update anything on her systems as she only wishes to (1) engage when there is a problem (and that is almost always in deadline-crisis mode), and (2) only willing to invest to fix symptoms and not in getting the system into a known, good state, even at a later time. The Issue now is that getting to (2) now, with the mounting delayed maintenance and versioning issues, would require a re-install in my opinion. AND it would still be risky because of versioning issues (driven by saving money on licensing?). Uncertainty layered on uncertainty: Hard drive space limits, active use of syncing tools (including non-Cornell Dropbox), inter-related software not all of which is current (does the use of older versions of some software represent a consequence of a licensing-cost avoidance strategy?). |
INC000002186566 Aye - Disk full message | 3/3/2018 | As of 5/5/7/2018 no related follow-up from Yimon after this "wait" message after I offered to collect information (and maybe solve) her reported issues: Hi Oliver, thanks for the follow up- no worry I am happy to wait till Michael returns next week or later on Best wishes yimon > On Mar 7, 2018, at 1:22 PM, ChemIT <chemit@cornell.edu> wrote: > > Yimon, > > I understand you are not in right now. Michael returns on Monday, from vacation. Sorry for my delay in responding. > > I can work on the "Disk full" message. Is this for your iMac or laptop? If you are around to sign in, that would be best- when might you be around again? > > Thank you, -Oliver. |
INC000002151814 Aye - Yimon laptop issues 1/20/18 | 1/20/2018 | As of 5/7/2018, latest ticket entry is: 1/24/2018, Yimon writes: Hi Michael, thanks - I do think my main issues are space-related. I will let you know when I am next in lab |
Is it worth going back and pulling out the history of tickets in which Yimon reports a problem following this patter, or just collect them from this point forward? These problem reports are usually characterized by a crisis-before-a-deadline, followed often by our heroic, quick solutions. With the increased caveat that she got lucky that time, but don't expect such luck next time. Usually each crisis also involves a discussion about what is actually needed to prevent a future problem, but no follow-through permitted by Yimon. The 4/12/2018 ticket created above is representative of this pattern we're observing. |