Office Drama

[Sforza]

I'm really annoyed now, and I could use some advice from people who are familiar with IT stuff. Please take the time to read this story and get annoyed as well.

A few of you might remember that a few months ago, I asked what the best way to install wi-fi in a building is. You guys gave decent answers, thanks. In the end, the project was left to the EDP (Electronic Data Processing) guy, because he just sits on his butt all day and maintains the programs he supposedly created but probably stole from some other EDP guy. I'm the marketing manager for the company.

Anyway, for this building wi-fi project, the EDP was supposed to canvas and look for companies who can supply the equipment and set-up the wi-fi network. It was an easy project, as each floor in the building already had an existing router, and each room had a LAN port. I was given the assignment to just make sure that the company he chose was competent, which was what I did by bringing my laptop and testing the wireless connection on the test floors. It worked, and I told the EDP guy it worked, so good.

Now, for the problem.

When we got the bill, the equipment cost went like this:

3 units 8-port network switch, 1750 ea.
48 units for an AP bridge and repeater in one, 5,200 ea.
41 units 4dBi antennas, 5,500 ea.

All the equipment was manufactured by a company called ZyXel, which I've never heard of before. The total price was around half a million, which was shocking for a building with 15 floors. That would be about 3 APs per floor, with only one antenna each.

Because I was so surprised at the cost and the nature of how he intended to enact the project, I did my own canvassing.

The cost for similar products from PC Express or sellers on tipidpc.com went like this:

3 units 8-port network switch, 710 ea.
15 units Linksys access points, 2000 pesos ea.
15 units 9dBi antennas, 1,400 ea.*
30 units Linksys repeaters, 3000 ea.

* Yes, antennas with twice the signal strength actually costs less than half of what the fucktard quoted.

What the mess is all about

Naturally, I raised the issue of pricing (when it wasn't even my job to do the canvassing) with the bosses. What the EDP guy said in his defense surprised me. He said that he had already received the overpriced items from the company he supposedly canvased for, and that they were demanding payment already because the items were in the building.

To put it in perspective, this is what he wanted: EVERY FLOOR = 3 ACCESS POINTS, 3 5k peso antennas
cost = 30k PER FLOOR

He also wanted a wireless gateway which costs 46K

This is what I wanted = 1 AP, 1 Antenna, 2 extenders
cost = 9.4k PER FLOOR

I found the same gateway he wanted on ebay for 16K.

And now he's blaming ME for authorizing HIM to buy the equipment from that company which he canvassed for. It wasn't my job, nor my responsibility to canvas for companies. Even PC Express and Columbia sold products for only half the price of what he was getting. We have a PC Express branch down the street from our office. What kind of fucktard IT guy doesn't know about these shops, or even about tipidpc.com?! Or even EBAY.

[Sforza]

Conclusion:

After all the shit that happened, the people who run the company gave me two days to find alternative suppliers and people who can install the software to back-up the existing infrastructure. The network will be unsecured, so it's not that much of a challenge.

Why two days? Because after that, all hell will break loose on the EDP guy and his bloated contract.

I can probably find suppliers for the equipment, but I need HELP with the software side as the EDP guy might get fired over this. The bosses aren't happy with me either because they said I should have watched the dumbass more closely though again, it wasn't in my job description to do so. My mistake was that I assumed he would actually do HIS job without trying to cheat the company with fake canvassing.

So yeah, can anyone (or do you know anyone that can) help with the software side? You'll get compensated well for it.

[Grim]

Network software? I'll have to ask around, last I heard my former profs. in school are quite busy with their own sideline jobs/projects.

Two days is a pretty short time though. Usually farming out jobs to bidders might be a good course of action, but then again that's more of a weeks kind of timeline.

[NiX]

I'm sorry, I don't have the competence or experience to be of any real help here.

All I can say is that your EDP really does suck and deserves to get fired. -_-

[AppleHead]

What a touching story.

Just a word of advice. It seems that this guy is very slippery. If you want to nail him down, take every measure to ensure that he does not escape, and if possible try not to let him distract you because I believe that he will sense that something is brewing in the office and plan ahead to pin the blame back on you with more lies.

Be calm when dealing with him, because if you lose your temper in an office environment it'll only look bad on you. Expect a lawsuit if the company which he chose does not get their money, and expect him to place liability on the company. It would also be best to prepare for software sabotage as soon as he is informed of this whole mess.

Yes, your boss is right that you should have watched him more carefully. If you did your research a few weeks ago, it wouldn't have escalated into what it is now. Unless you did it on purpose to get him fired? Office politics is fun.

[maitreya]

I'm sorry, I wanna help but I'm clueless in this thing. I'll ask around though.

Did that EDP guy even give an estimate on the cost of the equipment before they were installed to be tested? If he did, was the estimate far from the actual price? He would have to explain for the discrepancy if so. If he didn't give an estimate, then that wasn't even canvassing.



EDIT: Looks like I found someone. My sister's bf has contacts, or his company does installments (one of those). I'll get the details.

[Sforza]

Update:

The company Tim gave was cheaper and quite efficient, so we're considering getting them after more negotiations and bargaining xD

The EDP guy offered to resign yesterday out of "hiya", because we rejected his stupid offer of profit sharing for internet usage of guests since I really want internet use to be free of charge.

The equipment is still there, gathering dust. We're consulting with our lawyers on whether we can be sued if we try to return the equipment to the company which the EDP guy found. Most likely we'll have to buy the equipment from the EDP guy's suggested company to avoid a lawsuit.

The problem now is that we need an enterprise resource management (ERM) person or someone that knows database management to replace him ASAP because even if we do get the equipment that he wanted, we obviously still plan to get rid of him because of all the shit he caused.

[Grim]

Update:

The company Tim gave was cheaper and quite efficient, so we're considering getting them after more negotiations and bargaining xD

Wow, so RR works in real life too.

The problem now is that we need an enterprise resource management (ERM) person or someone that knows database management to replace him ASAP because even if we do get the equipment that he wanted, we obviously still plan to get rid of him because of all the shit he caused.

This sounds like a job for HR. People who know SAP or other ERM systems as well as database administrators should be pretty easy to find because it's all the rage right now to acquire as a skill. They can and most probably will command a high price though, but just how much depends on your specific needs.

[Sforza]

Part 2! Now the other computer guy is giving me problems. Why are computer techs so inept?!

Remember the EDP in the story bought overpriced equipment which was rejected? The company pulled out their demo products so we were left without a router to connect to the switches in each floor. So I went out and bought my own router using my own money:

http://edimax.eu/en/produce_detail.php?p...&pl2_id=18
http://www.edimax.com/en/support_detail....2_id=10#02

The system of the building is fixed in such a way that each floor has a switch, and they're all connected to the router in the computer room downstairs. This week the internet connection stopped working all of a sudden, which had to be remedied by performing manual resets of the Redhat server.

We asked computer guy 2 (let's call him Cow) to fix it. What did he do? He didn't do anything and blamed the new router which we didn't get from Cow's company which was trying to sell us overpriced routers too. To make things worse, guests have been complaining for weeks and no one told me about it. For some reason people like telling me problems when they're huge already. This computer shite isn't even part of my real job.

The thing is, people were still able to connect to the sever and were still assigned IP addresses. I have no idea why the hell the Internet connection (PLDT kadiri) stopped working, but do you really think its the router's fault, or is it Cow's redhat configuration?

By the way, this same dumbass forgot to secure admin computers in the network before and gave guests unrestricted access to the shared confidential files of the company.

EDP = Computer guy 1
Cow = Computer guy 2

[Grim]

I have no idea why the hell the Internet connection (PLDT kadiri) stopped working, but do you really think its the router's fault, or is it Cow's redhat configuration?

Since you said you had to do manual resets of the server to fix the internet, I'm thinking it's the configuration. PLDT for all its slow customer service usually runs problem-free when it's all set up.

[Shintetsu]

^Seconded.

I think your company needs to be fix'd. I mean, there's some obvious problem people to be delt with after this. Not you, of course.

I'll post stuff if I can help later.

[Sforza]

The problems, in Cow's own words:

As you requested regarding the status of the internet connection in my pooper (name edited for privacy) it has been almost three weeks since the replacement of router was done and the initial result for the first week was not stable, as reported by Sir Lancelot (name edited for privacy) and also by confirming it when I found out that the router was hung and not properly functioned.

On the second weeks, same problem again, and as part of monitoring, we need to determined exactly the cause of the problem.

By the third week, same problem reported to me again and by the time it was my day to duty in pooperland (name edited), I've conducted a checking and repairing the internet connection for more than 7 rooms in Hotel and to resolve the problem, I need to re-initialize the web configuration of the EDIMAX router.

My recommendation for this matter is to replace the router with quality product to avoid internet problem, although the existing router installed was working but not for long term use.

Thank you very much....

I don't think I understood half of what he was trying to say. Anyway, suggestions please? I'd really appreciate it, and I'd like input if what he's describing is even possible.

[Serene]

The problems, in Cow's own words:

As you requested regarding the status of the internet connection in my pooper (name edited for privacy) it has been almost three weeks since the replacement of router was done and the initial result for the first week was not stable, as reported by Sir Lancelot (name edited for privacy) and also by confirming it when I found out that the router was hung and not properly functioned.

On the second weeks, same problem again, and as part of monitoring, we need to determined exactly the cause of the problem.

By the third week, same problem reported to me again and by the time it was my day to duty in pooperland (name edited), I've conducted a checking and repairing the internet connection for more than 7 rooms in Hotel and to resolve the problem, I need to re-initialize the web configuration of the EDIMAX router.

My recommendation for this matter is to replace the router with quality product to avoid internet problem, although the existing router installed was working but not for long term use.

Thank you very much....

I don't think I understood half of what he was trying to say. Anyway, suggestions please? I'd really appreciate it, and I'd like input if what he's describing is even possible.

What does he mean the the router isn't intended for long term use? Ang bobo naman nun.

But I didn't understand what he was trying to say either.
I may if he isn't speaking TLR.

He might as well do a reconfiguration. It may be just the configurations EDP did before.

[Grim]

If I understood correctly, the first and second weeks were, in his words, merely successful in pinning the problem down to the current router.

Third week it seems like he reconfigured the router, and presumably internet worked.

He recommends that you try a different router to see if it's a hardware issue. I think what he means by "not for long term use" is that the current router works, but not for very long periods of time - it reverts back to no internet.

At least, that's what I think he said.

Have you tried Linksys routers? I know I'm talking about buying hardware (again; or not, depends if you have them), but they usually have good feedback. Take note though that I'm speaking from a purely home or office-based environment, I'm not too sure if they're heavy duty enough to hold up for a hotel.

[Shintetsu]

I know an Internet Cafe that uses a Linksys router. Works well.

And I'm sure that hotel people won't give that much stress for the router to work with.

I believe that what he meant on the first sentence was that the "router was hung", meaning that it's laggy. HANG.

Have you tried testing the connection without using that "crappy" router? It may be the connection that's causing the lag (I think). I suggest that you yourself test everything, if needed. And is he insisting that the products that the other guy bought from ZyXel be installed instead?


I smell something fishy.