A bad, really stressful day

[mmcnealy]

OK, the systems here officially suck. The IT people are even worse. A simple report takes 13 minutes to run because its run locally and not on the DB server where it should be. Oh, and appearently its ALL our fault because we want everything on one report instead of 7.

"Oh, but if we had a Data Warehouse it would solve all our problems" said the IT lady

Yah, right. And this silver bullet's going to kill the ware-beast in one shot.

Insert flashback to last boil the ocean IT project in different company, that took two years of planning before it was cancelled.

I need to come up with some finatically great solution to this Gordian knot before I go insane.

Comments

[gailsedotes.livejournal.com]

question:
Microsoft or Unix?
Oracle/SQL or DB2?
and what exactly do you want it to do?

[mmcnealy.livejournal.com]

Microsoft

The system is in Oracle, designed by a Data Archetect who never had to write a query in his life, therefore to get the most basic info you have to join at least 8 tables together.

The report is in Crystal Reports, and the query is in the report instead of it pulling the results from a stored procedure. I am going to have a long talk with the IT lady on Monday about how to optimize this so that it works better, because this amount of time is unacceptable.
She has it written so that it gets the entire 2yr span dataset back into the report and then she filters it to just show the three days worth of data that you want.

What I want to do is eliminate the hostility from the IT department, get them to work with us and not against us in fixing the problems and making life better for the people who make the money.

The problem is that they are so hostile and unmovable that most people who have been there for very long just give up and work around them instead of pushing them to do better.

It IS easier to give up, but I know that they could do better and am trying to push them into it.

The problem is more political than tecnology I'm afraid.

[gailsedotes.livejournal.com]

i am on the other side of that wall and the best way to deal with us is to be very non threatening!

your main problem is that (from what I have just gleaned from your reply) you are better than they are and you even speaking to them could put them off...

so! the best way to get them to to what you want is to do it yourself - make less work for them. Try to get access to the master tables to build the quieries yourself (and yourself can mean a geek friend at home or online writing the queries for you).

but don't make them back down or show how stupid they are - they will fight til the death! I onced worked with a girl who refused to admit she was clueless and she took down the entire company with her - 40 people lost their jobs.

Be helpful til they give you what you want to get rid of you!

[mmcnealy.livejournal.com]

My LJ is just where I vent my frustrations and vitrol. The actual contact with the people is pleasent and nice, I have learned the hard way how to butter them up to get them to co-operate and get things done.
I never tell them how badly the query is written, or that the design is stupid, rather I always suggest ways to maybe improve the results for the customers.
Its really hard to argue against improving service to the customers.

I have been on both sides of the wall, been IT and bailed because it was all about paperwork, process and not getting anything done.

I bailed out of the burning plain that was the dept. and went into the business side, where I got the tools and learned the knowledge to write my own queries and reports. Got laid off from that job because it moved 3000 miles away to the East Coast.

Now if I can just get the new IT dept to give me the tools to get the job done..... He he he. >:)

They don't want to give us the tools so we can do it ourselves, because that would make them redundent and they would have nothing to do. But they also don't want to do what needs to be done.

I have another geek partner in my group who is on a quest with me to manipulate things in the right direction. Its just been one of those head banging against the wall weeks.

[gailsedotes.livejournal.com]

try beer and chocolate - the times where i have gone to the sql boys with food in hand has always opened a door = and let them know it is a bribe - they get promised so much and no one ever delivers - so come with payment up front and they will at least listen - for as long as the beer lasts!