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@#$% IT department!!!

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Inky_Wretch, May 3, 2008.

  1. Flash

    Flash Guest

    Reboot. :D
     
  2. Chi City 81

    Chi City 81 Guest

    Did you unplug the servers for 10 seconds? I hear that's often the problem. [/non-blue font believer]
     
  3. wickedwritah

    wickedwritah Guest

    The best is when you call the on-call guy/girl.

    "Can it wait until Monday?"

    Um, no.
     
  4. SportsDude

    SportsDude Active Member

    Could be worse. We used to have an IT guy until he died/retired. Now when there is a problem the executive editor (with no computer background) is stuck figuring the server problems out on his own.

    Gotta love this industry.
     
  5. jfs1000

    jfs1000 Member

    So what's happened? Has a paper never gotten out?

    I remember one place I worked at that had a system crash the night of the Gore-Bush election. Paper didn't come out until 5 a.m. By that time, the lucky bastards who did the front were the only ones that had an accurate headline.

    LOL.
     
  6. hockeybeat

    hockeybeat Guest

    At one of my previous stops, the system had crashed during first edition. I called a tech and told him what was going on. His response, "Is this a deadline issue?"

    It was like working with chimps.
     
  7. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    Saturday's edition got out. Somehow.

    I wonder if a paper has ever had a catastrophic computer failure that scrapped the next day's edition?
     
  8. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Not a computer failure, per se, but I believe New Orleans and some of the Gulf papers didn't have print editions after Katrina.

    I'd be interested in a list of all newspapers in the last 50 years that could NOT publish the next day, for whatever reason. Every newsroom jokes about The Big One re: system meltdowns, but I've never been at a paper that didn't come out, even if it was a crappy, high school paper-esque edition (like LANG had this week.)
     
  9. SoCalDude

    SoCalDude Active Member

    A few favorites:
    -- PC crash on a Saturday, called IT. They called the guy "on call." He called me and asked if he could fix it Monday. I said no, I needed it. He said he was at a barbeque and it would take him awhile to get there. I say, why the hell are you at a barbeque when you're on call?
    -- PC crash on a Friday night, called IT. Told them I could get by on another machine but I needed mine fixed by the next day. They said, you mean you work on weekends?
    -- And the classic, reprised from a former thread: Our guy covering the World Series in St. Louis, filing on deadline, can't get connected to the computer. Call IT. They said, tell the writer to go to an Internet cafe.
     
  10. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    I want to say maybe.
    Seems like I remember something on Poynter, that they weren't able to get it out for AM, but they ended up running it as a PM.
    Seems like some storms have wreaked havoc on papers all over the country. Ice storms, tornadoes, flooding. All have caused papers not to get out.
     
  11. jfs1000

    jfs1000 Member

    So only disaster prevents us from getting our job done. Look at how good we are at our jobs. We have incompetent management and technology people, but somehow, we ALWAYS get the darn thing out.

    Are we undervalued or what?
     
  12. Appgrad05

    Appgrad05 Active Member

    We've had three IT guys since I've been here. First one was awesome, came around every couple of days to ask if there were any problems or if you needed anything on your computer. He got promoted within the company.

    Second guy was pretty good, obviously trained by the first guy. He came around, less often, and was available. He actually started helping us out on Friday nights by doing some video for the website. He got a better job, with a better company.

    Third guy is awful. He comes in at 10, is gone by 3:30 and when he is in the building is almost impossible to find. One of our reporters has been working on a temporary computer for so long I think the IT guy forgot about the one supposedly "being repaired."

    The first two guys were so good, they were gone quickly. Much like an awful reporter, this guy will be here forever.
     
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