* * * * *
Welcome to the machine
Ah, the Corporate Overlords' Managed Laptop [1] … how would I ever waste time
without you?
Last week I received an email saying the Corporate Overlords' Managed Laptop
is “out of compliance” (read: I waited longer than twenty minutes to update
the laptop). I followed the instructions in the email but they failed to
appease the Corporate Overlords as it was still “out of compliance.” A
meeting was scheduled to let the “Desktop Compliance Analyst” log into the
laptop and make it “into compliance.” That failed due to the Corporate
Overlords' VPN (Virtual Private Network) being flaky, so the meeting was
rescheduled for today.
This time, the DCA (Desktop Compliance Analyst) had me download a 2G
(gigabyte) patch file. As I was waiting for it to download, the XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Protection program updated itself and was asking me to restart the computer
to finish its installation. I asked the DCA about this, and was told to just
let the computer run and finish the downloading.
Twenty minutes later (and I wish I was making this up) The XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Protection program interrupted the popup asking me to restart the cmpouter to
inform me that it had updated itself again and to restart the computer to let
it finish.
Seriously.
While this was going on, I asked the DCA about the Heisenberg Notification
Center [2]. The DCA said it was easy to reconfigure and went ahead to do it,
since I don't have access to do said configuration.
“Oh,” said the DCA, “you're running a version of Windows 10 that's older than
twenty minutes. No wonder I couldn't find the option I was looking for.”
“You guys set it up,” I said.
“No, I belong to the Desktop Compliance Unit. I'm not responsible for
configuring machines.”
“No, ‘you guys’ being The Corporate Overlords.”
That got a slight chuckle out of the DCA.
I then asked the DCA about another issue. “I keep getting this popup—‘Program
FunUtility has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working.
Please close the program’ and it has a button on it labeled ‘Close the
program.’ I do that, but it keeps coming back up.”
“Can you send me a screen shot?”
“Can you not take over my laptop and see it for yourself?”
“Oh, it's probably nothing. Just keep dismissing the dialog box until it
stops appearing.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
How does anyone use Windows?
[1]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2019/08/22.1
[2]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2020/01/07.1
Email author at
[email protected]
