Most painful IT related task you've ever done

Because it wasn't possible to automate the task in any way. Publishing companies are just the most retarded shits.

>user my computer is slow
>check it out, there’s fucking spyware running all the time
>open browser
>every time you navigate somewhere it passes through a third party first, literal tracker and probably keylogger
>uninstall all that shit
>a few weeks pass
>user my computer is slow
>open it up, same goddamn spyware
>”did you really want this?”
>”no, get it off”
>uninstall all that shit
>a few weeks pass
>user, my computer is slow
>same. spyware. again.
>why do you keep installing this
>oh I want a shortcut to my email when I open a new tab
>I can make one without this additional software
>no I like it like this
>...
>user my computer is slow
>I just ignore it now and accept her decline into the botnet

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>XML
>regex
HE COMES

>accepting the crippling feeling that I'll never actually be a great developer

>painful IT related task
dealing with H1Bs

The most painful thing for me is getting modern pajeetware to work properly.

How's that painful? Your job is semi-automated.
Painful is talking to boomers on the phone about problems and having to do emergency maintenance.

Since I freelance IT work, I have to deal more with shitty customers, and the ones that won't pay.

>Be me
>Get a call from a customer who wants a new gaming machine.
>Set up appointment for the next day (9 pm at the time, going to bed)
>Run down all he wants to do with it
>suggest a build
>He likes it
>agrees to terms
>Allow payments, no possession till it's paid.
>Payment contract is notarized
>Parts come in, put it together
>He refuses to pay
>Keeps it going, won't pay a dime.
>Calls the cops on me, saying I scammed him.
>Show him contract
>They fine him for wasting their time
>Never pays
>have to sell computer piece by piece to recoop costs.

I hate freelancing and gig employment. I want a steady 40+ hour a week job.

You'll get blamed when she ends up with a ransomware or hacked credit card data.

>normalizing an old as fuck database with a hundred tables and over a million records
I didn't even finish, I just quit

Currently need to document the rights management of our ERP software.
There is no distinction between user groups and users. User groups are just users with more users attached.
There's thousands of entries.
All rights are just cryptic backend names of frontend dialogues.
I barely use the fucking thing myself and don't know which of the dialogues are relevant for the purpose of this documentation.

We will likely redo the entire thing from scratch. Which means doing a live replacement in such a way that no one will suddenly not have a vital dialogue that's necessary for them to do their job.

>dealing with H1Bs
Thank God I don't work in the US.
I had ONE DUDE under me who was Indian. Jesus fuck I hated him.

He barely fucking spoke the language, I ended up talking to him in English because he spoke it better than the local language.

Always saying "yes" "yes I understand" "no problem" "I'll do it" even though he DIDN'T UNDERSTOOD A WORD OF WHAT I HAD SAID.
And of fucking course, the team from the following shift then complained to me that the job wasn't done or FUBAR.
I won't even talk about when he had to pick up the phone.

Jesus fuck I hate Indians.
If you read this, even though I know you don't, because you're too busy talking to women on Facebook even though you're married, fuck you Mohammed.

this is why on EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY PARENT'S COMPUTERS they refuse to let me do this but I do it anyway. I activate the admin account (probably not best to leave it enabled, but whatever) and remove their admin rights so they can't install shit. At worst they install browser addons/extensions which can get pretty malicious but are at least mostly contained.
But at least I keep out the SpeedBooster2018++ Ransomware Edition and the like out.

>I hate freelancing and gig employment
You're a freelance PC builder?
Jeez, you must only have 15 years old as customers.

Also, it depends on the field of work. I've worked in corporate IT for years, ended up quitting and now I'm freelance in another domain altogether, and it's chill as fuck.

I dread the day I'll have to work on anything other than NTFS Permissions.
God I love NTFS.

>we have a problem about this particular branch of SAP Finance and Accounting
>you're from IT, right? Fix it. I'll won't be reachable for a few days, I'll need it done by then

O͇̜̰̱̹̭n͕͖̕ļ̱̫͈̯̪̥͓̬y̵̯ ̡̞͘͢t̘̬h̦̱̻͉e̩̯̮̪͍̳̳͖ ̡̱̳d̳̰͈̩͎̮͠e͎̦̝͠a̧̞̰͔͚d̤͞ͅ ̼͙̕ç̢̮͈̯̠̕ͅa̖̠̟̼n̨̡̰ ̳͈͕k̥̮͎͇̰͖̳͔͈n̶͍̩͈̜̗͖͖̹͓͡o̢̠̘̹͚̕w͔͎̩̜ ̸̵̤̖̙̱͘ͅp̛̪̮̼̥̼̪̦͍͢ẹ̸̺͚͘a̦̩̬̙̹̣c̷̜̱͈̱͚̭̩̦͢e̙̱̕ ̧̭̤͍f̡̺̳̼̼͇̠ͅṛ̡̣̬̩̯́ơ̶̧̠m̴̩̳͈̟̘̀ ̬͖́͠t̝̦͓̘̬͡͞h͉͈͉̹̯̘í̧̤̭̠̱̖͇̰͇͙s̸̠̙̩͉̰̙͎ ͔͙e̷͍̙v̶̰̩̠͍͜ḭ̴̢̘͙l͍̹̗̖̼̹̻͉.̸́̕

PC building is part of what I do. I also set up networking, deal with viruses, etc.

Not necessarily painful as in difficult, but just from the fact it even happened-- had to clean all the pajeetware from aunt's laptop after a tech support scammer scammed her out of $500 with one of those "YOU HAVE THE ZEUS VIRUS PLASE CALL 1-800-FUCKMESIDEWAYS IMMEDIATELY" popups... Also moved the literally 500 pictures on her desktop to a folder.

Nope
I don't believe this shit. You're probably retarded like half of people on Jow Forums

T. Man who wrote himself a program in motherfucking pascal to deal with thousands of xml's

Dealing with printers.

>Dealing with printers.

>Hi user, I can't connect to the Ricoh, can you fix it?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Show him how to make a noose using that mouse

T̢̡he̸̕ ͘͢͜C̴͝hom̀s̨k͞ý́͘ ͟S̸̸e͘a̷l̶s ̧h̀͘a̴͞v̷̢̢e̸͘ ̡̀͟b̛̕e̵̸e̛ń̸̷ ͘Bŗò̶k̢e͡n
̸
͘͞N̕O͘ŃE ̸̷WI͢Ļ̸Ĺ̴̀ ̵̡B͜E̴͜ ̀͞Ś͡͝P̡Á̛͝Ŗ̛E̕͡͞D͜

A fuckin storage server fell out of the rack onto me sitting on the floor below it.
Cunt weighed fuckin 200lbs
Probably the most painful thing in IT.

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>You're probably retarded like half of people on Jow Forums
Actchiually I'm one of the 0.1% competent ones that worked in a typesetting service company and automated XML based tasks on a daily base. AMA.
>T. Man who wrote himself a program in motherfucking pascal to deal with thousands of xml's
Nice LARPing, faggot. 2/10 would reply and then entity bomb

>calls self one of 0.1% competent people
>can't automate a task that involves XML
Dunning-Kruger

Nice butthurt, kid. You know you can't parse gramatically broken markup.

I honestly don't understand how people get infected with malware in this day and age. An adblocker will deal with like 95% of potential infection's.

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>projecting butthurt on others
>just because they point out your story doesn't ad dup

>An adblocker
If everyone had an adblocker, you'd notice internet changing to accommodate that.

Nearly sliced my thumb off trying to remove a metal border thingy surrounding a slot cover on my case so I could add a brand spankin' new wifi card when I was a kid. Bled all over my computer and cried...

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my story does add up
you're just some underarchiver with a lack of reading comprehension and know-it-all less than 25yrs asswhipe syndrome like
>half of people on Jow Forums

>top of NAVY seals class
>can't automate XML parsing, something a moderately skilled pajeet could do
>adds up

Working with pajeets

Fucking this.
>HP colourjet
>half of the PCs don’t connect
>will work just fine for a week, and then get issues
>print out an email
>printer prints it out spread over 62 pages placing only a few letters on each page
>try to print out an important file that needs to be signed
>printer prints out the same file 132 times.

Fuck. Printers.

Look bucko, (You) can't automate inserting that 43th missing '

>wrong spelled element

Having to deal with other people's Java code.

>Having to deal with other people's code.

even as someone who just has an inkjet in his house, fuck printers.

and fuck hp.

did you dieded?

>43th

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>I honestly don't understand how people get infected with malware in this day and age. An adblocker will deal with like 95% of potential infection's.
Thank God not everyone has an Adblocker, we -smart adblocker users- are basically leeching on the back of those watching retarded ads for us.

I don't know how the Internet would look if there was NO ads.

Physically painful? Datacenter work is full of blood sacrifices and those FUCKING RACK NUTS. On the plus side, it can be very peaceful. Unboxing, assembling, and racking 65 identical servers in a night was exhausting but satisfying.

Spiritually painful? Indians.
All of this:
plus
>the smell
>their unsettling androgynous voices
>thick accents and a tendency to mumble
>taking 50x longer than necessary to explain things and still not providing all relevant data
>pathological fear of accepting blame
>a combination of nepotism and the above traits fill up their companies with other Indians

>managing Atlassian stack
>managing anything Symantec
>managing anything the runs on java

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I can, it's just you who can't, pajeet.
Trying to manually do anything in >100mb file is something a non-pajeet wouldn't try.

what were the results?

Sure, nice AI LARPing.

Anything related to windows update errors. Ive given up trying to troubleshoot them and the boot issues are usually fatal. So I just cut the crap and go to a straight reinstall.

>bawww people don't believe my bullshit story

>I don't know how the Internet would look if there was NO ads.
Remember the time before the internet became mainstream?

Says the guy that somehow wants to automate unique problems.

Hp is just evil. Brother products seem to be the best of a bad situation

>I don't know how the Internet would look if there was NO ads.
Like this blog.fefe.de/
And it would be great.

>badly generated 350mb file
>full of unique problems

>manually working in XML files the size of several hundred mb
>Actchiually I'm one of the 0.1% competent ones that worked in a typesetting service company and automated XML based tasks on a daily base.
KEK
>AMA
describe the task that overhelmed you, mr hackerman.

The worst thing is that this problem won't go away soon. The older generation is too old and stubborn to adapt to new computing technologies, and the newest is used to walled gardens with low failure rates, minimal functionality, and almost no possibility for troubleshooting. The only generation of people who had to acquire a baseline of computer knowledge is from inbetween both generations.

No, that's the point, it's one(!) randomly broken thing, eg. at the 43th position, if you lacked reading comprehension again. Not necessarily even a defected markup, maybe it was just half a chapter missing.

Phone call from customer at 1am. Doesn't know to hit the power button to boot laptop

>43th
The correct response to malformed XML is deleting it and telling the sender to fix their garbage output.

>wooow what horrible nightmare! I had to work with hundred mb xml file without any tools at all!
>*teleports goalposts* I-I mean it was just one error and it totally wasn't invisible to parser, h-hehe

Dude, that's nothing.
> I work with PMs who have no idea how that computer stuff works
> They fuck up getting credentials from a customer to their network
> I hop on a plane to set up their servers locally while snatching everything I could off their network
> PM still complains it's hard to get anything from them
> I break up into their network using said snatched stuff
> fools had SSH port opened for everybody
> Continue to do my job of setting it up remotely
Or another one:
> Another customer blocked ICMP on their front-end proxy
> We were getting random HTTP 206 since forever
> I told PM to work on it, he gave a vague response, like "I'll try"
> Year after that, he needs to set up a service which will interact with other servers
> Turns out he haven't been in contact with customer's IT department for a year, since they don't want to bother

That's why I'm dead inside. I just want to do cool stuff with server clusters, and they waste my time on irrelevant stuff, not doing their jobs. I miss good PMs who gave up due to constant stress.

Trying to fix my hobo uncle's computer.
Dude's a heavy smoker and the computer got fried because his cat peed in it. Just opening it to get the hard drive out made me feel nauseous. Also he has no money so I had to pay for replacement parts out of my own pocket.

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I did, but here we go again:
We got books - imagine your average "IT" book, magazines or loose leaf binders - in XML in order to do a couple of automated checks (we wrote some scripts that did things like checking if semantic text elements were in suspicious order or number, some DTD and schemata checks and finally an automated preview raw typeset) and sometimes previous to that retards working for our customers manually broke the files in all kinds of bizarre and random way.
Look, the problem is that you are NEETs and would instantly lose your customers if you did that or downright fucking retards like
who misread the text and somehow came to the conclusion that I edited some 300mb soap message in notepad.

Stallman, is that you?

>XML parser cannot read XML cause it's broken
>It's plaintext now. There's no hope

I'm not a NEET, I just respect my own time. If you're not in a position to charge them barrels of extra money to deal with their malformed garbage, tell them to re send with proper formatting.

>I DON'T WANT TO DO MY WORK
Fuck off.

see

Life is finite and XML errors are not.

>If you're not in a position to charge them barrels of extra money to deal with their malformed garbage, tell them to re send with proper formatting.
Yeah, too bad you can't do that in this market position. Also, it's not like they would know what to do.

>client-server behemoth needs upgrading
>organization instituting "change management"
>have to go to meeting where I'm told I have to document how to map a drive

The lure of watching the organization fall apart was stronger than wanting to tell them all to fuck off.

>The lure of watching the organization fall apart was stronger than wanting to tell them all to fuck off.
not bad, user

Dude, you just proposed that he's supposed to tell his company to just fucking redo years worth of xml files.
Don't shift the goalposts.

Boss wanted me to expose our CNC mill to the internet so that our other facilities could send jobs to it.
Took me a while to convince him that a machine without any form of authentication being accessible from the internet would be a bad idea.
I suggested to use a VPN but no matter how much I've tried to explain to him, he just stared at me as if I had three heads.

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>How does XML serialization work
>How does writing strongly-typed models work
The absolute state of technology employees these days. Manually editing XML should almost never happen, especially in cases where its obvious you are dealing with business data (several hundred mb) and not simply a small metadata or project file.

>have to repair a mega-fucked partition table with all of my university final work on it 2 weeks before submission deadline
>because I didn't unmount it in Debian
Was full panic mode but somehow managed to salvage it

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do it anyway and post the IP
when your CNC starts turning everything into penises, he will probably understand.

>I suggested to use a VPN but no matter how much I've tried to explain to him, he just stared at me as if I had three heads.
You are swimming through the sea.
Anyone can see where you are swimming to, what you look like, etc.
A VPN is a steel tunnel through the sea. Build a tunnel towards a destination and it's legally part of wherever you came from. Also, no one can see inside.

>Manually editing XML should almost never happen,
We use ipv4, the IT department knows hundreds of IPs by heart because we use fixed IPs and no hostnames for everything.
There's only one admin account. There is no encryption. Documentation is done by putting Excel and text files into a folder.
There is no ticket system, only telephones.

I'm not that guy, but you can't rely on best practices when you are working at a small to medium-sized company where all that IT does is figure out how to keep the fire from burning everything.

advertisers and browser devs are basically in an arms race with each other

>deserializing data out of syntactically broken, possible untrusted XML that was never serialized to begin with
see and in particular the bottom part

Force the people who fuck up to feel the pain or they won't stop fucking up.

>Force the people who fuck up to feel the pain or they won't stop paying for your companies services
ftfy

There's situation where you can apply pain through inaction.
This is not one of them.

If you are working with XML files that are not machine-generated and validated in 2018, you need to replace the system that utilizes these files, or clean up your architecture to get some control around them. There is no excuse for things blowing up because some asshat forgot to manually key-in a closing element tag. That is what we have HTML for.

Porting legacy php system and its database which didn't use ids in the table rows but relied on textfields and other retarded things.

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>If you are working with XML files that are not machine-generated
It wasn't up to our company in which state we got the files. There wasn't enough short term money in getting the publishers to have a sane workflow.

You'd better be billing them by the hour for manual fixing their garbage markup.