Things that require zero talent

[JR 137]

Just sayin’

 

[isshinryuronin]

Number 11:

Posting on martial arts forums

At least for some.

 

[Deleted member 39746]

Adding number 12: Swinging a stick.

(didnt see 11 was taken, i shall not forget that)

 

[skribs]

Adding number 12: Swinging a stick.

(didnt see 11 was taken, i shall not forget that)

If you mean just waving it around, you're correct. If you mean to deliver strikes accurately and with power, you are woefully mistaken.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Currently, speaking as an IT support person who have been both deemed essential and told to stay at home, I'm thinking IT support takes zero talent since all I have today is one meeting...of all things to keep going...the thing I feel is most useless....meetings....hmmm...another one...attending meetings takes zero talent too

 

[skribs]

Currently, speaking as an IT support person who have been both deemed essential and told to stay at home, I'm thinking IT support takes zero talent since all I have today is one meeting...of all things to keep going...the thing I feel is most useless....meetings....hmmm...another one...attending meetings takes zero talent too

The better you are at IT, the less work you have to do.

I remember one story from a previous job. I was on night shift. Day shift got tasked with deleting stale objects in Active Directory. A thousand or so. They came up with a plan. 4 of them on day shift, 2 people on swing shift, and 2 people on night shift, we should be able to get through it in a month. Day shift and swing shift got through around 50 or so of the accounts.

They came in the next morning and asked how much fun we had, and how far we got. "Oh, we're done," I said. "Only took me a couple of hours to finish the list."

They were dumbfounded. Apparently none of the 6 people on day or swing shift realized you could use Ctrl+Click to select many accounts to do the action at once. Instead of it being 1000 accounts, it became a couple dozen OUs we had to go through, and that was easy for me to do in just a few hours. Instead of 8 people taking a month.

In more general terms, the better you are, the less issues there are, the more automation there is, and the faster you can troubleshoot. So it makes it seem like a lot less work, but it's because you're good enough to keep things running smoothly.

 

[Xue Sheng]

The better you are at IT, the less work you have to do.

I remember one story from a previous job. I was on night shift. Day shift got tasked with deleting stale objects in Active Directory. A thousand or so. They came up with a plan. 4 of them on day shift, 2 people on swing shift, and 2 people on night shift, we should be able to get through it in a month. Day shift and swing shift got through around 50 or so of the accounts.

They came in the next morning and asked how much fun we had, and how far we got. "Oh, we're done," I said. "Only took me a couple of hours to finish the list."

They were dumbfounded. Apparently none of the 6 people on day or swing shift realized you could use Ctrl+Click to select many accounts to do the action at once. Instead of it being 1000 accounts, it became a couple dozen OUs we had to go through, and that was easy for me to do in just a few hours. Instead of 8 people taking a month.

In more general terms, the better you are, the less issues there are, the more automation there is, and the faster you can troubleshoot. So it makes it seem like a lot less work, but it's because you're good enough to keep things running smoothly.

Had a user come to me once because it was taking hours to copy hundreds of files from one folder to the other......showed the magic of the shift key and copy........what was hours, became minutes...

but meetings...really.....can't stand them...and that is what we have.....sheesh

 

[Buka]

Zero talent required....movie critics.

 

[dvcochran]

It takes zero talent to run any machine out of fuel. My niece's boyfriend ran a tractor out of fuel today. The gauge was right in front of him. Geesh. It is an old John Deere tractor that will be a son of a beech to get started again.

 

[skribs]

Zero talent required....movie critics.

To clarify:
This thread is about things which you can do with or without talent.
Movie critics are required to have no more than 0 talent.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

The better you are at IT, the less work you have to do.

I remember one story from a previous job. I was on night shift. Day shift got tasked with deleting stale objects in Active Directory. A thousand or so. They came up with a plan. 4 of them on day shift, 2 people on swing shift, and 2 people on night shift, we should be able to get through it in a month. Day shift and swing shift got through around 50 or so of the accounts.

They came in the next morning and asked how much fun we had, and how far we got. "Oh, we're done," I said. "Only took me a couple of hours to finish the list."

They were dumbfounded. Apparently none of the 6 people on day or swing shift realized you could use Ctrl+Click to select many accounts to do the action at once. Instead of it being 1000 accounts, it became a couple dozen OUs we had to go through, and that was easy for me to do in just a few hours. Instead of 8 people taking a month.

In more general terms, the better you are, the less issues there are, the more automation there is, and the faster you can troubleshoot. So it makes it seem like a lot less work, but it's because you're good enough to keep things running smoothly.

I get the feeling some of them may have known that and enjoyed the idea of spending a month doing repetitive deletions without much thought.

 

[skribs]

I get the feeling some of them may have known that and enjoyed the idea of spending a month doing repetitive deletions without much thought.

No. This was a group that had no problem just hanging out if there wasn't much going on. (They did work hard when there was stuff to do, though).

 

[Xue Sheng]

Things that require zero talent....just happens I'm doing one right now.....eating grapes

 

[skribs]

Things that require zero talent....just happens I'm doing one right now.....eating grapes

I'm going to have to beg to differ on that one. I accidentally inhaled part of a grape once and I was sick for two weeks.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I'm going to have to beg to differ on that one. I accidentally inhaled part of a grape once and I was sick for two weeks.

Not sure I would have admitted that on a web forum

 

[JR 137]

I'm going to have to beg to differ on that one. I accidentally inhaled part of a grape once and I was sick for two weeks.

That doesn’t require talent, that’s just common sense

Then again, why is it called common sense if it’s really not common?

 

[Buka]

To clarify:
This thread is about things which you can do with or without talent.
Movie critics are required to have no more than 0 talent.

That's not the way I read what the thread means. Only mentions zero talent. Doesn't say anything about having talent at all. Maybe I'm reading it wrong.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

That's not the way I read what the thread means. Only mentions zero talent. Doesn't say anything about having talent at all. Maybe I'm reading it wrong.

I think skribs means that movie critics have negative talent. Like they're not just not talented, but actively anti-talented.

 

[oftheherd1]

The better you are at IT, the less work you have to do.

I remember one story from a previous job. I was on night shift. Day shift got tasked with deleting stale objects in Active Directory. A thousand or so. They came up with a plan. 4 of them on day shift, 2 people on swing shift, and 2 people on night shift, we should be able to get through it in a month. Day shift and swing shift got through around 50 or so of the accounts.

They came in the next morning and asked how much fun we had, and how far we got. "Oh, we're done," I said. "Only took me a couple of hours to finish the list."

They were dumbfounded. Apparently none of the 6 people on day or swing shift realized you could use Ctrl+Click to select many accounts to do the action at once. Instead of it being 1000 accounts, it became a couple dozen OUs we had to go through, and that was easy for me to do in just a few hours. Instead of 8 people taking a month.

In more general terms, the better you are, the less issues there are, the more automation there is, and the faster you can troubleshoot. So it makes it seem like a lot less work, but it's because you're good enough to keep things running smoothly.

You are correct. I have run across similar things. But one must be careful. A place I worked purchased an upgrade to a program that had been used for years. The upgrade worked under Windows, whereas the other had worked under DOS. We insisted the integrator install the on a computer they provided.

They sent the program and an installer. He could not get past the first few prompts where the installation program would lock up. One afternoon and the next morning; boot up, follow prompts you would expect under Windows; freeze. To make a long story short, and more techs frustrated, and a lot of phone calls, it turns out there was a particular prompt that anyone familiar with Windows would have said yes to, that really wanted a no. Then it worked fine.

Problems not over. We needed to make a global change to add a couple of fields to the database, some with data some not. No real problem with Access. Except something unexpected in the program made a change to all fields rather than only those that met certain criteria. Never did figure that one out. Why didn't we do a test first? Easy, sometimes management knows more about time requirements than anyone else.

I was low on the totem pole and primarily involved with security. I know you guys who work in the field all the time no doubt have some really interesting things you have had happen, or heard about.

Number 13? I don't even know what to call that.

 

[skribs]

You are correct. I have run across similar things. But one must be careful. A place I worked purchased an upgrade to a program that had been used for years. The upgrade worked under Windows, whereas the other had worked under DOS. We insisted the integrator install the on a computer they provided.

They sent the program and an installer. He could not get past the first few prompts where the installation program would lock up. One afternoon and the next morning; boot up, follow prompts you would expect under Windows; freeze. To make a long story short, and more techs frustrated, and a lot of phone calls, it turns out there was a particular prompt that anyone familiar with Windows would have said yes to, that really wanted a no. Then it worked fine.

Problems not over. We needed to make a global change to add a couple of fields to the database, some with data some not. No real problem with Access. Except something unexpected in the program made a change to all fields rather than only those that met certain criteria. Never did figure that one out. Why didn't we do a test first? Easy, sometimes management knows more about time requirements than anyone else.

I was low on the totem pole and primarily involved with security. I know you guys who work in the field all the time no doubt have some really interesting things you have had happen, or heard about.

Number 13? I don't even know what to call that.

Don't even get me started on bad prompt messages. There's a system I manage where users create their own accounts. There's one error that says something along the lines of "unable to contact Snareworks web service." This is the error users would get if they already had an account when they tried to create one.

I still have no idea how the two are connected.