Discussion on:

List the consulting tasks you find stupid and boring

'Go around to every pc and (insert any task here)

... go around to every source file and (insert stupid legal modification that can't be automated here).

I get called in alot to fix printer problems. The problem being that the users can't find the print button in the new version of office.

One of the things that fall into my lap is having to teach people very basic computer skills, most of the time trying to explain to people that the software had to change, and no I cant give you back the old software its gone now.

... that 90% of users don't want anything to change, because it's working for them and they find learning new things problematic. It's the vocal 10% who drive all new features.

Sounds a lot like politics, a minority of the people whine the loudest causing hell for the rest of the majority when stupid laws are passed when no one was paying much attention.
PS. I want my old office back too

I provide IT support to mainly small businesses - three or four man outfits, and I am right this minute sitting here with 30 different invoice templates adding the new company logo to each one.

But still, if they want to pay me IT support rates, rather than paying someone else secretarial rates, who am I to complain!

i offer IT support to SMEs and during those support tasks you think are in and out in less then 30, users task you to configure internet settings on their smartphones and other devices not so smart. In the spirit of customer care you waste your all afternoon troubleshooting and some of the phones are those cheap china phone. Oh me!

It's almost always well out of my purview, I'm 'here' to keep networking, clients and servers, firewalls and other security measures working. But there's a 45 degree upward slope in the number of times someone asks me to do something for them on their mobile device.

Primarily this sucks because I don't have any such devices myself and don't know right where to go to accomplish something. I come off as all thumbs. Secondly, I have exactly one user that needs their wireless portable device to access the home office, the rest of them are personal use devices. I often spend up to an hour figuring something out for a customer that I can't really charge them for.

Bad all around. The only solution I can see is that I get a couple devices and get familiar with them, which I'd rather not so. (I spend enough time on my current work load)

I'd just about be compelled to get a blackberry, iphone and some android device, which would be a lot of $$$ I'm not in the best position to spend.

As for blowing out dust, basic network maintenance and related, I love that stuff, it feels a natural niche for me, it took me a lot of years to migrate into the position I'm in and I love my work.

For reasons behind the stated purpose of smart phones and the like, I'm not too excited about what mobile is becoming. Seems to me the people gathering information about the user behind the curtains are getting far more out of the devices than any user.

For one thing, having a mobile device probably increases your risk of dying in an automobile accident. My biggest beef on the road is people yakking away absent minded behind the wheel. I've seen a lot of near misses that the perpetrator was completely oblivious of.

The other 'big use' for these devices seems to be games. The first ten ipads I saw didn't even have any productivity software installed beyond a default calendar, which no one was using. Of course comment to them all was "angry birds," followed by a chess game you can play remotely at any time, the players need not be logged in at the same time. Big whup. Sounds like beta testing of time and location tracking software to me.

Unfortunately mobile is where a lot of people are going, like it or not, useful or not I imagine I'm going to end up doing a lot of that kind of support in the future.

If you can't charge your time for it then you need to find a way to politely refuse them. I am all for maintaining good customer relations, but unless you have time to kill then there is no reason to burn time supporting personal devices which aren't part of your duties. Plus if anything goes wrong with those devices you will most likely find yourself in the crosshairs of blame.

Being asked to create requirements after completing the project.

In terms of actual tasks, licensing is the stupidest, most boring thing I've ever had to deal with, no exceptions, hands down, period. When I have to interrupt the actually technical process of doing my job -- stuff like ensuring compatibility, design, implementation, deployment, et cetera -- to determine how to avoid getting sued for using software, it ruins the rest of my day. License server maintenance, licensing compatibility resolution, and scheduling license renewal (complete with reading the new licenses every time renewal is necessary) are all distractions from the actual job of providing the best technical solution to the problems it's my job to address.

Outside of actual tasks, there's one thing that trumps licensing in its ability to distract me from doing the best job I can, and utterly ruin my day: office politics.

If I had, I would have definitely included licensing issues in my article. What a waste of time -- but we can't ignore it.

Maybe you haven't had to deal with licensing issues much, recently. That would be my guess as to why you didn't think of it.

I have to chime in here and say it was the whole licensing mess that made me work hard to get as much unencumbered software into the mix as possible, starting around a dozen years ago now. Even then I could see the issue going nowhere but for the worse.

Nevertheless it's still a major chore and PITA. The economy being what it has been for years around here, more than half the time I'm the one bringing the matter up... if'n you read between the lines.

Half the licensing issues I encounter are related to copyleft licenses. That's half the reason I prefer copyfree licenses.

Because people tend to assume that copyleft software is free for use in any capacity, not realizing its poisonous effects on commercial software.

You two are coders, I don't do that, but I can sure see your point. That would be a bigger nightmare than anything I have to deal with.

I'm anal when it comes to adherence to licensing and EULAs, I'd probably have a nervous breakdown trying to deal with more than one vested interest in a given app. Simplify and clean is my motto. Tangled webs need not apply.

I've said it before: I'd never make it as a coder.

I think TechRepublic's latest vanishing comments problem is tied to simply eating all comments that contain a link using anchor tags. Another response of mine, in which I linked to http://copyfree.org with the words "Copyfree Initiative", was eaten just now.

I'll just keep this short and sweet, rather than trying to reconstruct what I said before.

Hey, pgit, maybe you should check out the Copyfree Initiative site. The URI is above.

Funny, this just showed up in my inbox:

http://www.devx.com/opensource/Article/47440?trk=DXRSS_LATEST

be interested to know what those of you who have to deal with this think of those recommendations.

Thanks for the link to copyfree. I have to admit I hadn't read up on that one before... : \

Far too many installs fall short of cables and few that were made "cut to fit" DIDN"T. Whats so hard about walking the distance and adding ten feet for every floor entered. Simple observations could point out trouble areas and extra lengths must be added to work around obstructions. Estimates must allow for 30% over and unforseen problems. Nothing like trying to track down some added cables on the end to finish an upgrade before their deadline.. The only cut to fit I use are the ones I do. I seldom have any left over, maybe a couple patch cords or so but the limits aren't blown away. A single pace is just three feet, is this too much to figure out. I've seen allowances at first glance were okay, but three hundred feet was estimated/quoted and a bit more than 1,000 feet was required. Nobody taught that clown to look for wall penetrations and ask about any restrictions of spaces. Ended up with three hundred feet where cabling had to be in grounded conduit, the rest was fine pulled with other cabling in the ceiling. Ever hear of "over run" insurance.

Writing tedious dBASE programs and travelling around with an ancient 20lbs compaq portable PC as a management consultant in 1992.

It matters not if you???re a programmer of support person. Getting the documentation done is what really gets to me ???

Your comments are interesting but very close to the machine (hardware or software). What kills ME is gathering the bills, receipts and support documentation to give my accountant. (I used to do my own accounting but gave THAT up about 10 years back).
And then sending my quarterly government payments.
(edit...) just noticed this is not strictly speaking a "consulting" task but part of being a self employed consultant... Does it still fit here?