So this morning there were some pretty big problems with one of my work systems. Both problems were due to other systems not acting correctly. Neither case was my fault. However, because my system isn’t designed to check for every possible problem before accepting data from a remote system, the bad data overwrote the good data and now were sitting here with an outage waiting for other people to fix whatever.
There is a manager, let’s call her Bitch, in another state that likes to send emails exaggerating problems and issues simply because she has nothing better to do. In the middle of my attempts to investigate this morning’s outage, I received 3 emails from her (all CCed to my manager and a million other people). Here are some (edited) snippets from one of them. My replies are inline.
[Another employee] and I im’d each other this morning, that you and [Another system maintainer] receive lots of emails which takes you away from fixing problems….well that’s because there is no process of notification within our organization when there is a problem with [his system] or [your system, mispelled].
How else should a problem be reported? If not via email, then via phone? We could implement an online problem reporting and tracking system. But that would only add one more thing to our already overloaded plates.
We all just start individually emailing to whoever. [Our department] gets emails from [another department], or a [different department] Supv trying to run the report[s from your system]. [Our department] admin team emails [some other team that doesn't exist, I don't think], they email you. And so forth….
The procedure for who to email is clearly outlined in the system. When I receive a report of a problem, I investigate it. When that problem’s cause has been determined, I update the [system's] site to inform users of a known issue.
And we talked about the banners placed on each system, they are usually too late, way after the problems are identified or even fixed.
I cannot possibly place a banner on the system before a problem as been identified. I try to get one there as soon as possible after I’ve been made aware of a problem. An automated system would provide a banner a bit quicker. However, not by much.
So, [manager], is there any plans to get a process in place for notification for these systems? Or we just continue as is? It just seems like we waste time and there could be a better method to communicate issues. We are just so short staffed, managing our time is one of our most precious resources.
If you have a suggestion on a method for enhancing the communication in regard to [our system] and its users, I’d be happy to hear it.
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[Jim]
Listen, Bitch. Aside from waiting for me to figure it out on my own, telling me about a problem is the only way to tell me about a problem. There is no other way to tell someone about a problem aside from telling them about the problem. Regardless of what notification system we build, and regardless of how many people we establish to monitor that system, we cannot notify users of a problem until we know that there is a problem. Period.