More Follyville

I've just been "VDI'ed". VDI stands for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. What it means is that my computer is no longer a computer. It still looks the same as it did last week, but it no longer behaves the same. My computer "desktop" still looks the same but it is now "virtual" ..... there is no computer behind it ...... all the programs, applications, documents and everything else are stored on the Follyville servers. The point of all this is so that when we move to our new "virtual desks" (which aren't actually going to be there because the silly burghers of Follyville seem to think that most of their staff can work without a desk) in our new office (which is actually there!),we will be able to plug our dongle into any of the few terminals which will be available and see what we would have seen had we had a computer of our own. (If you don't understand all this, please don't phone in because I don't either).

Back in the "real world", without a real desk in the real office, if we want to do any proper work we will have to go home and do it. Here comes the clever part ...... if we plug our dongle into our home computer it will show us what we could have seen in the office, had we had anywhere to sit and see it. Sounds great ..... I can work from home, with hours to suit, not wear a tie, make myself a cup of coffee whenever I want without having to remember to bring in milk, sugar etc.......

But here's the stupid part. Once you've plugged your dongle in to any computer, whether at home or in the office, it disables all other peripherals. This means that you cannot use a USB memory stick to transfer documents between home and the office to work on, you can't download photographs from a digital camera (a fairly important part of my job), and you can't use a printer at home.
So you can log on to the Folleyville server and find out what jobs are waiting for you, but you can't just print out the details and go out and do them. No, that would make your life far too easy and efficient! As compensation for the relaxed coffee culture whilst working at home, you will either have to spend a while doing mental gymnastics trying to remember the name, address and other details of every visit you have to make, or else or save the details into a "secure print queue" and go all the way in to the office to get a print-out before you go anywhere else.
This, we are told is the Government's idea, nothing to do with Follyville B.C. The burghers have signed up to the Government's "I.T. Security Code of Practice". What absolute nonsense is this?? A couple of Civil Servants leave a laptop on a train with some important data on and the Government's kneejerk reaction is to stop all Civil Servants and Local Government officials throughout the country from doing their job efficiently. Simultaneous to all this, they complain that the public services are costing too much money and that huge cuts have to be made.

Listen up Government ........ and listen well!! The only reason the public services are costing too much money is that you are continuously making it more and more difficult, time-consuming and expensive for public sector workers to do their job. Just tell your departments, quangos and local authorities what you want them to do ........... and then let them do it without any further interference, obstruction of hindrance. All these bodies are old enough, wise enough and experienced enough to do the job efficiently and effectively on their own without any further help (sic) from you!

The prophet has spoken!

Follyville continued (again)

Monday - receive e-mail that all desks have to be completely cleared by close of play Thursday because they are being removed on Friday to be taken to the new office .......... but we are not moving for another four weeks ........ which means that hire desks will have to be brought in to keep us going in the meantime. I think maybe the Follyville burghers should have consulted a logistics expert before undertaking this little bit of stupidity ...... or at least consulted me for a bit of common sense.

In practice I am not going to be in for the rest of the week so I have to clear my desk (and everything under it!) with about 6 hours notice. Luckily a supply of large crates are delivered at lunch time and I manage to get all my paraphernalia into two of them ...... just! And then I read another e-mail that states we should use one crate each and, if at all possible, share a crate with a colleague! No one knows where all this stuff is going to go to at the other end ... there simply is no room for storage.

So on Monday I return to my hire desk ........ naturally much smaller than the one they have just stolen from me. I was planning on living out of crates until the final move but, no ........ we have to pay for the crates by the day so they all have to be emptied back onto and under the desk. The crating up exercise will have to happen all over again in four weeks time. A little foresight and forward planning could have avoided all this disruption and expense. Goodness only knows what will happen on D-Day if the burghers carry on like this. The phrases "meltdown" and "the end of civilisation as we know it" come to mind. Watch this space as the story continues.