u/0fsysadminwork

Yeah, that's all I got.

If it is a local install with a SQL DB, you could probably roll your own integration. Or if its hosted, if they have an API to integrate with.

but a church is a unique place in that sense I guess...

I can see that, but, then again, everyone thinks their business/program/whatever is a special snowflake.

Don't get me wrong, it should be transparent to the churchgoers. All requests should go into the ticketing system, there are many ways to accomplish this, from voicemails, emails, web forms, and manual entry.

As everyone says, the contracting company employs you.

They also added that I am not to discuss the warning I am being given or any issues I have with it with the client.

So, "hey /u/kungfubunnyrabbit why don't you work from home like we discussed?"

"I have been instructed not to discuss this"

Hint: Get PDQ deploy/Inventory

Sadly, after me, my parents were like "Eh, raising kids is hard." and were more lenient with my brother and sister than they ever were with me

I was born like 25 years after my oldest brother, I was pretty much raised free range.

Ah OK. Makes more sense.

Firstly using what you got. I would make some email groups and put them in the handout. A miniature directory.

Please use the following email accounts to reach our various departments.

For recordings: Recordings [email protected]

To be added to the Prayer Chain: [email protected]

To meet with a pastor; [email protected]

Etc.

This seems like the perfect use case for a ticketing system, it will allow you to track issues for progress/completion, will allow multiple people to work on an issue, can be assigned to the correct department/person, additionally it can be integrated into calendars etc. You could have one or two people monitor it and assign issues to the correct people so they only see what they need to see.

https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/service-desk

Have an email address setup like [email protected], or multiple, [email protected] etc. and have them auto assign to the correct staff. Could even share the interface for submitting requests with the congregation.

This will have many benefits for the organization outside of cleaning up his inbox as well.

Just automate it too and take a nap. PDQ deploy packs from this sub has a temp file cleanup script that works great.

Yeah, but he seems very stupid. Don't know if he would figure out how to do that.

In case you are reading this Mr. Manager, stop being a fucking moron.

Yup, get to reading OP :)

Remove him from the email groups he doesn't need to be a part of?

Create rules to filter out these emails from the inbox?

he receives a ton of email that really ought to end up in another department

This seems pretty easy to fix, if he is getting the emails directly, tell the staff to stop sending him shit he doesnt need. If he gets it as part of a group email, remove him from that group.

It appears it is the former.

If his assistant doesn't intercept these improperly-addressed messages

Deal with the people sending them to the wrong address, if this is a customer base reaching out to him, create a secondary email box and make it his primary, have his assistant monitor his old primary and forward on needed emails.

So if his email is [email protected] create a [email protected], as an example. Have the [email protected] attached to his assistants account.

Story time?

Why not log off instead of lock?

Ill have to see how ours works, I am pretty sure we don't allow them to lock the machine, they have to log off.

But even if so, since its their department, they and their supervisors will make sure people know not to lock their machines, makes it their problem.

Ew, our house was infested with them a few summers in a row, let me tell you, they taste HORRIBLE

I think it just says waiting for X user to respond, then logs them out. I can check though

Edit: Under Computer Configuration/policies/administrative templates/System/logon Hide entry points for Fast User Switching

I can't find any other settings.

If you can't find a boxed application to do this, have you considered using powershell?

We have found not only this issue, but multiple printing issues come up repeatedly on the machines that have a high number of users. We would have sometimes 5+ user accounts logged in because people failed to log off. Our answer was to disable user switching via GPO. If they lock their account, the other user can decide to log them out or reboot.

This has prevented a huge number of tickets and wasted man hours we used to have to provide. Now the users not logging off are the pain in the ass to the other users, and I think it was pretty quickly they learned they might lose their work if they don't save and log off.

Have not had a single complaint make it to IT about it after the first couple of weeks and it's been a couple years now.

Is that you Paul?

Not sure that it is your decision? I guess it depends on your dynamic with the company but, I would just put in for your time off, if they have before taken advantage of you and made you work on your time off maybe give them a heads up.

"By the way, I will not be reachable, for any support." If the demand it, make terms that benefit you, or simply say no if it's not worth it.

If they ask for suggestions, yes an MSP would be a good idea, but so would a second person. If a company has one sys admin, they can either tolerate a long period of no support or, well theres really no other option. A bus factor of 1 is a bus factor of 1.

Can you not just call the company and get support? Why waste your man hours investigating something you know nothing about when I assume they have a team of people dedicated to support their product?

Patient demonstrates symptoms of Cranial Rectumitus.

Love it!

I'd think you would want all the billable hours to be logged.

My point is do not get involved with stupid stuff like this unless absolutely necessary.

That is the entire reason why this makes the most sense. It shuts that shit down. No more time sunk into this stupid petty issue.

we just have a written policy that IT can remove your background if it is offensive or somehow unprofessional.

Geez, whats the process on that? Any IT person gets to make that judgement call? Managers? HR?

I'd hate to see those tickets in our queue.

Subject: Sally has a picture of Obama as her background and it seems like he is staring at me seductively, please remove it

Description of the problem: Thanks!

This seems to have been an HR call, it seems simple and elegant and the correct course of action.

The amount of time dealing with meetings, discussions, reprimands because Kevin from Marketing decided to put up a controversal background that HR now hows to decide if it violates the company policy, or if they need to adjust the policy to include pictures that could possibly be offensive to someone, or the damage control to a potential new client because Debbie the recently hired receptionist set a picture of Christian Gray obviously taken from the movie 50 Shades of Gray as her background, can all easily be avoided by a simple neutral standard background that affects no one negatively in any measurable quantity.

You are making such a huge issue out of something that is EASILY solved.

Reduces time dealing with employee's complaining about other users desktops.

Reduces wasteful and unproductive reprimands, meetings, discussions.

Don't have to reprimand an otherwise well performing individual because they make a dumb descision

Is uniform, reduces drama.

Literally doesn't affect users job performance. If it does, it is a very big red flag.

You can't stop me from wearing a confederate flag into the workplace. You can't stop me from drinking on the job. You can't stop me from jerking off, very slowly, under my desk while dreaming of you.

Nope, can't do that with a GPO, but guess what you can solve, in one go, company wide? Desktop backgrounds!

I totally get where some technology solutions are unnecessarily used to fix a management/business problem but this is not one of them.

I mean, if you wanna die on this sword that's your call, but it is childish.