Why are people so dumb?!!!!!!!!!

[Stuxnet]

Originally posted by: timswim78

Originally posted by: lilcam
So this lady brings a laptop into my office yesterday as I was leaving. She needed Photoshop installed on it. Upon turning it on, I immediately saw how slow it was. She told me it was working fine and asked what I did to it! 😕 So, I rebooted it again thinking it was something minor but it still was slow. Anyways, to make the long story short, I had to take it home and now I'm formatting the hard drive. Well, she has documents she left on there and now I have to tell her the files will be lost.

We have a policy where you need to save your files on the file server and NOT on your personal desktop/laptop. Oh well, she'll be b!tching! What is wrong with ppl? They complain when you tell them how to do things right, and they dont wanna listen as it is.

GRRRRRRR, I need to leave IT

Yea, I wonder why people are so dumb.

There was this "IT" guy who found that a computer was slow. So, he decided to reformat the drive without backing up any of the files on it first.

Apparently you didn't read the policy, either.

I was Network Admin/Small Systems Admin about 6 years ago, and our policy was even easier: ALL FILES SHOULD BE SAVED TO MY DOCUMENTS. That's the one and only directory we back up for you when we work on your machine. Each user had a network folder to store their documents on, but if they insisted on local copies, they were to use My Documents.

I can't tell you how many people "learned the hard way" time and time again (many never learned, actually).

The funny thing is I HATE my career, but I actually enjoyed it back then before I starting taking everything for granted. That said, it was still the most frustrating job I've ever had. You were surrounded by enemies. The user on one side, the computer on the other. There was no retreat.

 

[randomlinh]

sometimes, reformatting is the fastest way if a user is demanding, and you don't have the resources to give them another laptop while you diagnoise. in those cases... I make an image of the drive, make sure I can mount it so I can pull data off it... then slap on a fresh image. But this was more for desktop systems we did.

but yes, our policy is to use the network drives... but ppl continue to just save to the local computer. And when the HD crashes... they yell at us because we can't get the data back. Nothing that has been lost has been worth sending off for data recovery though.

 

[Stuxnet]

Originally posted by: timswim78

Originally posted by: daweeze02

Originally posted by: timswim78

Originally posted by: lilcam
So this lady brings a laptop into my office yesterday as I was leaving. She needed Photoshop installed on it. Upon turning it on, I immediately saw how slow it was. She told me it was working fine and asked what I did to it! 😕 So, I rebooted it again thinking it was something minor but it still was slow. Anyways, to make the long story short, I had to take it home and now I'm formatting the hard drive. Well, she has documents she left on there and now I have to tell her the files will be lost.

We have a policy where you need to save your files on the file server and NOT on your personal desktop/laptop. Oh well, she'll be b!tching! What is wrong with ppl? They complain when you tell them how to do things right, and they dont wanna listen as it is.

GRRRRRRR, I need to leave IT

Yea, I wonder why people are so dumb.

There was this "IT" guy who found that a computer was slow. So, he decided to reformat the drive without backing up any of the files on it first.

If she would have followed policy her files woudnt have been lost that is what he is saying.

Just because a policy is there, does not mean that it is a good policy, and it does not mean that people will follow it.

For example, its not always feasible to work on files over the network. I have to save files on my local drive and back them up to the network each night, even though we have a policy to save everything on the network.

Dumb or not, it's still policy. You can't fault the OP for following policy just because you don't personally agree with it.

"I know I ran the stop sign officer, but who puts one out in the middle of a stretch of road with no intersection???"

"I agree. Here's your ticket."

 

[Britboy]

OP has a pretty bad attitude IMHO. I'm sure you know full well that people save documents to their PC but you formatted it anyway. She has every right to be pissed.

Sure her PC may be slow and it probably is her fault but most people are clueless, you should know that, it's why you have a job.

 

[GrammatonJP]

For compliance reason, we're require to keep each PC's last operating state.. so we just Ghost them and archive on DVD and DLT. I got cases of DVD... makes life easier when someone say, I left a file on my PC in 2002... can you find it..

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: skace

Originally posted by: Czar
learn to use offline folders 🙂

how laptops should be used

Offline folder data is stored on the local drive until synchronized, so it really doesn't matter if someone comes along and reformats the machine. That's the point, even with all the policies in the world in place, you cannot account for every scenario. That is why blind reformats is a terrible practice which may not get you fired, but will have you justifying your actions every step of the way instead of having satisfied customers.

I agree, he should ofcorse have checked the files first. But the user should expect that sometimes harddisks fail so their files are never 100% secure unless stored on the network, and then they even there are not 100% secure.

But here is a story from a friend of mine who used to work supporting a 2500 computer network. They had the same policy, store everything on the network, nothing is backed up on the computers. Still people with desktops stored files on their local machine and still people bitched about it and thought they did no wrong.

It even reached the tops of the "company", who knew nothing about computers so the order was to backup all computers. Ofcorse that required a new san, alot of manpower and they had to store the backups for a few years for some dumb reason.

Not exactly related to this though 😛

 

[GasX]

So, IT supplies crappy computers with a crappy install and the user gets punished by having her files erased and someone in IT complains about the user...

Sounds like where I work...

 

[Turkish]

Originally posted by: timswim78

Originally posted by: daweeze02

Originally posted by: timswim78

Originally posted by: lilcam
So this lady brings a laptop into my office yesterday as I was leaving. She needed Photoshop installed on it. Upon turning it on, I immediately saw how slow it was. She told me it was working fine and asked what I did to it! 😕 So, I rebooted it again thinking it was something minor but it still was slow. Anyways, to make the long story short, I had to take it home and now I'm formatting the hard drive. Well, she has documents she left on there and now I have to tell her the files will be lost.

We have a policy where you need to save your files on the file server and NOT on your personal desktop/laptop. Oh well, she'll be b!tching! What is wrong with ppl? They complain when you tell them how to do things right, and they dont wanna listen as it is.

GRRRRRRR, I need to leave IT

Yea, I wonder why people are so dumb.

There was this "IT" guy who found that a computer was slow. So, he decided to reformat the drive without backing up any of the files on it first.

If she would have followed policy her files woudnt have been lost that is what he is saying.

Just because a policy is there, does not mean that it is a good policy, and it does not mean that people will follow it.

For example, its not always feasible to work on files over the network. I have to save files on my local drive and back them up to the network each night, even though we have a policy to save everything on the network.

Depends on his job description. If it says "backup user's data", yeah why not? But if I was working in IT, I certainly wouldn't care of whose files are lost when they are stupid enough to not back it up themselves. That may not be a good way of handling things, but I guess that's why I am not in IT.

 

[Spineshank]

Our policy here is pretty similair. Every user has a home folder that My Documents is mapped to. If the user saves files to another folder and something happens they are sol.

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: timswim78

Originally posted by: daweeze02

Originally posted by: timswim78

Originally posted by: lilcam
So this lady brings a laptop into my office yesterday as I was leaving. She needed Photoshop installed on it. Upon turning it on, I immediately saw how slow it was. She told me it was working fine and asked what I did to it! 😕 So, I rebooted it again thinking it was something minor but it still was slow. Anyways, to make the long story short, I had to take it home and now I'm formatting the hard drive. Well, she has documents she left on there and now I have to tell her the files will be lost.

We have a policy where you need to save your files on the file server and NOT on your personal desktop/laptop. Oh well, she'll be b!tching! What is wrong with ppl? They complain when you tell them how to do things right, and they dont wanna listen as it is.

GRRRRRRR, I need to leave IT

Yea, I wonder why people are so dumb.

There was this "IT" guy who found that a computer was slow. So, he decided to reformat the drive without backing up any of the files on it first.

If she would have followed policy her files woudnt have been lost that is what he is saying.

Just because a policy is there, does not mean that it is a good policy, and it does not mean that people will follow it.

For example, its not always feasible to work on files over the network. I have to save files on my local drive and back them up to the network each night, even though we have a policy to save everything on the network.

In this case, it is a good policy. But in my experience, I've always attempted to backup anything that looks important. But I will not coddle stupid people because I have a job to do and don't have time to waste.

 

[Stuxnet]

Originally posted by: gigapet
what will you put on the trouble ticket "Didn't feel like troubleshooting problem so I erradicated all her data instead and re-imaged. Case Closed"

There's also the more plausible:

"Troubleshooteted. Couldn't resolve in reasonable amount of time due to massive amounts of unapproved software/spyware installed. Reformatted. Good thing policy states to save all data to network."

You see, 99% of the time when I ran into the OP's situation it was always the same assholes getting themselves into trouble. Visiting malicious websites, installing unapproved software (that had jack to do with their jobs) and even hardware, dicking around in the registry, magnets attached to the side of the case, you know - everything the user SHOULD'T be doing to the computer.

Honestly, I could give a rat's ass if they lose their data; especially when policy (dumb or not) backs me up. It's a fine line, but your data is your responsibility until you put it on my server.

 

[gigapet]

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: gigapet
what will you put on the trouble ticket "Didn't feel like troubleshooting problem so I erradicated all her data instead and re-imaged. Case Closed"

There's also the more plausible:

"Troubleshooteted. Couldn't resolve in reasonable amount of time due to massive amounts of unapproved software/spyware installed. Reformatted. Good thing policy states to save all data to network."

You see, 99% of the time when I ran into the OP's situation it was always the same assholes getting themselves into trouble. Visiting malicious websites, installing unapproved software (that had jack to do with their jobs) and even hardware, dicking around in the registry, magnets attached to the side of the case, you know - everything the user SHOULD'T be doing to the computer.

Honestly, I could give a rat's ass if they lose their data; especially when policy (dumb or not) backs me up. It's a fine line, but your data is your responsibility until you put it on my server.

It is not the users fault IT failed to protect their machine from spyware, unapproved software etc. Like I said it sounds like IT is a sloppy operation where he works.

 

[Stuxnet]

Originally posted by: dabuddha
In this case, it is a good policy. But in my experience, I've always attempted to backup anything that looks important. But I will not coddle stupid people because I have a job to do and don't have time to waste.

That's pretty much how I handled it too. I would normally give the computer a once-over before reformatting, but not because I was required to. It was one of those "I'm not crunched for time so I'll do what I can". But in the end, policy is policy. When push comes to shove, who does the policy back up?

I do agree that the policy isn't very user-friendly, but that's not really what we're talking about. For all we know IT has no budget and can't afford an adequate support staff, hardware to store previous user images, or the software to do it. Maybe their budget is the driving force behind the policy. We don't know.

All we know is the user ignored it.

 

[Turkish]

Originally posted by: gigapet

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: gigapet
what will you put on the trouble ticket "Didn't feel like troubleshooting problem so I erradicated all her data instead and re-imaged. Case Closed"

There's also the more plausible:

"Troubleshooteted. Couldn't resolve in reasonable amount of time due to massive amounts of unapproved software/spyware installed. Reformatted. Good thing policy states to save all data to network."

You see, 99% of the time when I ran into the OP's situation it was always the same assholes getting themselves into trouble. Visiting malicious websites, installing unapproved software (that had jack to do with their jobs) and even hardware, dicking around in the registry, magnets attached to the side of the case, you know - everything the user SHOULD'T be doing to the computer.

Honestly, I could give a rat's ass if they lose their data; especially when policy (dumb or not) backs me up. It's a fine line, but your data is your responsibility until you put it on my server.

It is not the users fault IT failed to protect their machine from spyware, unapproved software etc. Like I said it sounds like IT is a sloppy operation where he works.

Not every business has the resources to take appropriate / necessary actions to manage their entire network infrastructure. That's when they need policies, which are, most of the time, cheaper and easier to explain to idiots.

 

[40Hands]

Originally posted by: Mwilding
So, IT supplies crappy computers with a crappy install and the user gets punished by having her files erased and someone in IT complains about the user...

Sounds like where I work...

😕 Wtf? Assume much?

 

[Stuxnet]

Originally posted by: gigapet

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: gigapet
what will you put on the trouble ticket "Didn't feel like troubleshooting problem so I erradicated all her data instead and re-imaged. Case Closed"

There's also the more plausible:

"Troubleshooteted. Couldn't resolve in reasonable amount of time due to massive amounts of unapproved software/spyware installed. Reformatted. Good thing policy states to save all data to network."

You see, 99% of the time when I ran into the OP's situation it was always the same assholes getting themselves into trouble. Visiting malicious websites, installing unapproved software (that had jack to do with their jobs) and even hardware, dicking around in the registry, magnets attached to the side of the case, you know - everything the user SHOULD'T be doing to the computer.

Honestly, I could give a rat's ass if they lose their data; especially when policy (dumb or not) backs me up. It's a fine line, but your data is your responsibility until you put it on my server.

It is not the users fault IT failed to protect their machine from spyware, unapproved software etc. Like I said it sounds like IT is a sloppy operation where he works.

And if IT does everything at its disposal to protect the users from themselves, then IT is a bunch of assholes because they've locked people down so tight they can't do their jobs. I've been in both situations. In the first scenario, we locked everyone down and had virtually ZERO support issues related to software/hardware. However, people were frustrated as hell because as their responsibilities flexed, they found themselves to be too restricted. Finding a happy medium is impossible when the users' jobs are so dynamic.

On the other hand, when you give users the space they need to do their jobs without constantly asking for access modifications, there's an inherent risk.

So I guess the question is, as a user, for what reason do you want to be pissed off at IT? Take your pick.

While the policy at the OP's company definitely isn't the best, the only thing that ultimately hurt the user was his or her failure to adhere to it.

 

[gigapet]

Originally posted by: Turkish

Originally posted by: gigapet

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: gigapet
what will you put on the trouble ticket "Didn't feel like troubleshooting problem so I erradicated all her data instead and re-imaged. Case Closed"

There's also the more plausible:

"Troubleshooteted. Couldn't resolve in reasonable amount of time due to massive amounts of unapproved software/spyware installed. Reformatted. Good thing policy states to save all data to network."

You see, 99% of the time when I ran into the OP's situation it was always the same assholes getting themselves into trouble. Visiting malicious websites, installing unapproved software (that had jack to do with their jobs) and even hardware, dicking around in the registry, magnets attached to the side of the case, you know - everything the user SHOULD'T be doing to the computer.

Honestly, I could give a rat's ass if they lose their data; especially when policy (dumb or not) backs me up. It's a fine line, but your data is your responsibility until you put it on my server.

It is not the users fault IT failed to protect their machine from spyware, unapproved software etc. Like I said it sounds like IT is a sloppy operation where he works.

Not every business has the resources to take appropriate / necessary actions to manage their entire network infrastructure. That's when they need policies, which are, most of the time, cheaper and easier to explain to idiots.

Its not expensive to Lock down win2k and winxp machines to stop users from installing or changing registry settings without admin privaleges --- in fact it just takes one person with knowledge of the OS. It is also extremely inexpensive to block malicious websites on the network most firewalls have this feature builtin.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: loup garou

Originally posted by: theknight571
I had a user once who called and complained that her keyboard wasn't working.

I took another one down to her and asked her about it... she swore up and down that she didn't do anything.

So I replaced it, and the new one worked, no problem.

When I picked up the old one, I tucked it under my arm to carry it back upstairs and water came pouring out.... she just gave me a funny look and went back to working.

I was pissed (and wet) but what do you do? I made sure her manager was charged for a new keybord....but really that's about all I could do....

I'm still trying to figure out how to get out of IT (or at least out of support) without taking a pay cut. 🙂

Hehe...I had a user complain that she couldn't log in, I reset her password, tested login in OWA, I could get in, she couldn't. Went to her office and she had a rubber band around the right side of her keyboard that was slightly holding down the enter key.

i had a user complain she couldn't log in. i took them thru it step by step. nope, no luck, then i asked them to check the server, voila, it was turned off. her response, "oh i have to turn that on first?"

that office really needs a training session but the employer there won't pay for it.

 

[gigapet]

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: gigapet

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: gigapet
what will you put on the trouble ticket "Didn't feel like troubleshooting problem so I erradicated all her data instead and re-imaged. Case Closed"

There's also the more plausible:

"Troubleshooteted. Couldn't resolve in reasonable amount of time due to massive amounts of unapproved software/spyware installed. Reformatted. Good thing policy states to save all data to network."

You see, 99% of the time when I ran into the OP's situation it was always the same assholes getting themselves into trouble. Visiting malicious websites, installing unapproved software (that had jack to do with their jobs) and even hardware, dicking around in the registry, magnets attached to the side of the case, you know - everything the user SHOULD'T be doing to the computer.

Honestly, I could give a rat's ass if they lose their data; especially when policy (dumb or not) backs me up. It's a fine line, but your data is your responsibility until you put it on my server.

It is not the users fault IT failed to protect their machine from spyware, unapproved software etc. Like I said it sounds like IT is a sloppy operation where he works.

And if IT does everything at its disposal to protect the users from themselves, then IT is a bunch of assholes because they've locked people down so tight they can't do their jobs. I've been in both situations. In the first scenario, we locked everyone down and had virtually ZERO support issues related to software/hardware. However, people were frustrated as hell because as their responsibilities flexed, they found themselves to be too restricted. Finding a happy medium is impossible when the users' jobs are so dynamic.

On the other hand, when you give users the space they need to do their jobs without constantly asking for access modifications, there's an inherent risk.

So I guess the question is, as a user, for what reason do you want to be pissed off at IT? Take your pick.

While the policy at the OP's company definitely isn't the best, the only thing that ultimately hurt the user was his or her failure to adhere to it.

business folks dont need to have admin on their machines and their are very very few exceptions to this rule. EDIT: a business user has no business even being allowed to access malicious websites or install software....there is no need for it. That should be out of their control. Backing up documents should be the only thing they concern themselves with.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: timswim78

Originally posted by: lilcam
So this lady brings a laptop into my office yesterday as I was leaving. She needed Photoshop installed on it. Upon turning it on, I immediately saw how slow it was. She told me it was working fine and asked what I did to it! 😕 So, I rebooted it again thinking it was something minor but it still was slow. Anyways, to make the long story short, I had to take it home and now I'm formatting the hard drive. Well, she has documents she left on there and now I have to tell her the files will be lost.

We have a policy where you need to save your files on the file server and NOT on your personal desktop/laptop. Oh well, she'll be b!tching! What is wrong with ppl? They complain when you tell them how to do things right, and they dont wanna listen as it is.

GRRRRRRR, I need to leave IT

Yea, I wonder why people are so dumb.

There was this "IT" guy who found that a computer was slow. So, he decided to reformat the drive without backing up any of the files on it first.

hehe

I don't let the IT morons at work touch my machine...well theres one good one.. a UNIX admin but the rest are dumb dumb.


We are probably going to can them all and outsource IT.

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: gigapet

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: gigapet
what will you put on the trouble ticket "Didn't feel like troubleshooting problem so I erradicated all her data instead and re-imaged. Case Closed"

There's also the more plausible:

"Troubleshooteted. Couldn't resolve in reasonable amount of time due to massive amounts of unapproved software/spyware installed. Reformatted. Good thing policy states to save all data to network."

You see, 99% of the time when I ran into the OP's situation it was always the same assholes getting themselves into trouble. Visiting malicious websites, installing unapproved software (that had jack to do with their jobs) and even hardware, dicking around in the registry, magnets attached to the side of the case, you know - everything the user SHOULD'T be doing to the computer.

Honestly, I could give a rat's ass if they lose their data; especially when policy (dumb or not) backs me up. It's a fine line, but your data is your responsibility until you put it on my server.

It is not the users fault IT failed to protect their machine from spyware, unapproved software etc. Like I said it sounds like IT is a sloppy operation where he works.

No, we can never protect users from their own stupidity.

It all comes down to cost, should we lock down so users cant install software yes, maybe, but then alot of time would go into installing software for users when it comes up.

Should we remove administrator privilidges from users on their local machine, sure I'd love to but then it would break alot of software.

Can we protect users from spyware? no, we are not all powerful beings.

The computer is a tool so the worker can get the job done, if he doesnt treat is tool like he should then ofcorse it breaks.

 

[Turkish]

Originally posted by: gigapet

Originally posted by: Turkish

Originally posted by: gigapet

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: gigapet
what will you put on the trouble ticket "Didn't feel like troubleshooting problem so I erradicated all her data instead and re-imaged. Case Closed"

There's also the more plausible:

"Troubleshooteted. Couldn't resolve in reasonable amount of time due to massive amounts of unapproved software/spyware installed. Reformatted. Good thing policy states to save all data to network."

You see, 99% of the time when I ran into the OP's situation it was always the same assholes getting themselves into trouble. Visiting malicious websites, installing unapproved software (that had jack to do with their jobs) and even hardware, dicking around in the registry, magnets attached to the side of the case, you know - everything the user SHOULD'T be doing to the computer.

Honestly, I could give a rat's ass if they lose their data; especially when policy (dumb or not) backs me up. It's a fine line, but your data is your responsibility until you put it on my server.

It is not the users fault IT failed to protect their machine from spyware, unapproved software etc. Like I said it sounds like IT is a sloppy operation where he works.

Not every business has the resources to take appropriate / necessary actions to manage their entire network infrastructure. That's when they need policies, which are, most of the time, cheaper and easier to explain to idiots.

Its not expensive to Lock down win2k and winxp machines to stop users from installing or changing registry settings without admin privaleges --- in fact it just takes one person with knowledge of the OS. It is also extremely inexpensive to block malicious websites on the network most firewalls have this feature builtin.

Yeah but with your solution, now we have users complaining that they cannot install anything on their machines, even work related. The truth is, its impossible to get rid of all these little problems individually. I still think strict policies are the best way to go at it combined with network supported restrictions, but there's a thin line, and it affects users' productivity greatly if it is crossed.

 

[Stuxnet]

Originally posted by: gigapet

Originally posted by: Turkish

Originally posted by: gigapet

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: gigapet
what will you put on the trouble ticket "Didn't feel like troubleshooting problem so I erradicated all her data instead and re-imaged. Case Closed"

There's also the more plausible:

"Troubleshooteted. Couldn't resolve in reasonable amount of time due to massive amounts of unapproved software/spyware installed. Reformatted. Good thing policy states to save all data to network."

You see, 99% of the time when I ran into the OP's situation it was always the same assholes getting themselves into trouble. Visiting malicious websites, installing unapproved software (that had jack to do with their jobs) and even hardware, dicking around in the registry, magnets attached to the side of the case, you know - everything the user SHOULD'T be doing to the computer.

Honestly, I could give a rat's ass if they lose their data; especially when policy (dumb or not) backs me up. It's a fine line, but your data is your responsibility until you put it on my server.

It is not the users fault IT failed to protect their machine from spyware, unapproved software etc. Like I said it sounds like IT is a sloppy operation where he works.

Not every business has the resources to take appropriate / necessary actions to manage their entire network infrastructure. That's when they need policies, which are, most of the time, cheaper and easier to explain to idiots.

Its not expensive to Lock down win2k and winxp machines to stop users from installing or changing registry settings without admin privaleges --- in fact it just takes one person with knowledge of the OS. It is also extremely inexpensive to block malicious websites on the network most firewalls have this feature builtin.

That's not remotely enough to totally protect users from themselves. You can do that and still have people bork their systems.

The fact of the matter is the company had a policy. The user ignored it and it resulted in the loss of their data. In fact, if that data was mission critical and the loss caused severe consequences, the user should be reprimanded (assuming they formally acknowledged the policy when they were hired... usually by signing it, as is very typical).

I'm not saying it shouldn't spark debate for a better policy, but that's tomorrow. We're talking about today. Heck, maybe it will prove to the executives that all those times IT requested a higher budget they weren't just blowing smoke out of their asses.

 

[BriGy86]

i don't mind helping people if they treat me with respect and actually listen to what i tell them in order to avoid future problems

I hate the A-holes that flip out for no reason at all, don't listen to ANY of the solutions i have and/or no solution is good enough for them.

 

[gigapet]

Originally posted by: Turkish

Originally posted by: gigapet

Originally posted by: Turkish

Originally posted by: gigapet

Originally posted by: jbourne77

Originally posted by: gigapet
what will you put on the trouble ticket "Didn't feel like troubleshooting problem so I erradicated all her data instead and re-imaged. Case Closed"

There's also the more plausible:

"Troubleshooteted. Couldn't resolve in reasonable amount of time due to massive amounts of unapproved software/spyware installed. Reformatted. Good thing policy states to save all data to network."

You see, 99% of the time when I ran into the OP's situation it was always the same assholes getting themselves into trouble. Visiting malicious websites, installing unapproved software (that had jack to do with their jobs) and even hardware, dicking around in the registry, magnets attached to the side of the case, you know - everything the user SHOULD'T be doing to the computer.

Honestly, I could give a rat's ass if they lose their data; especially when policy (dumb or not) backs me up. It's a fine line, but your data is your responsibility until you put it on my server.

It is not the users fault IT failed to protect their machine from spyware, unapproved software etc. Like I said it sounds like IT is a sloppy operation where he works.

Not every business has the resources to take appropriate / necessary actions to manage their entire network infrastructure. That's when they need policies, which are, most of the time, cheaper and easier to explain to idiots.

Its not expensive to Lock down win2k and winxp machines to stop users from installing or changing registry settings without admin privaleges --- in fact it just takes one person with knowledge of the OS. It is also extremely inexpensive to block malicious websites on the network most firewalls have this feature builtin.

Yeah but with your solution, now we have users complaining that they cannot install anything on their machines, even work related. The truth is, its impossible to get rid of all these little problems individually. I still think strict policies are the best way to go at it combined with network supported restrictions, but there's a thin line, and it affects users' productivity greatly if it is crossed.

why would they complain??? You should have a good service request process in place anyways. they need software they open a ticket and an expert who has already tested the software on the standard operating environment comes and installs and configures it. Case closed.