I just had this interaction with our IT department:
Me: “I can’t get to my email. Web, iPhone, client, nothing.”
IT: “Well there’s no maintenance going on right now.”
IT: “Oh yeah, there’s maintenance on those servers going on right now.”
Me: “When will it be done?”
IT: “Midnight tomorrow night.”
Me: “…! A day of no email?”
IT: “Maybe. Maybe they’re doing some maintenance in chunks. I don’t know.”
Me: “I really need some notification of email being down anytime for any amount of time. We all use that to communicate.”
IT: “Well, we sent out the notifications to those who subscribed.”
Me: “Does everyone subscribe to infrastructure notifications? And how would I retrieve it if the maintenance makes it unavailable?”
IT: “I’m not sure.”
I know some will defend IT. To them I say: IT owns their branding. And this is how I will remember them for the immediate future.
