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apexalpha | on: Bored of eating your own dogfood? Try smelling your own farts
I work at a (government and extreme bureaucratic) organisation that builds apps used by field engineers.

I found out SSO was broken. They had to login to every app using the same account. Twice per day because the token live was 4 hours "for security".

I found out it was because they published these apps as PWAs, making them more isolated than normal apps.

I asked the product manager and he says the issue is "with Apple and Google", not his department. When asked why he chose PWAs for the apps he said this was easier to deploy, saves them developer accounts and such.

Since I can't force him to change I found a workaround: SSO works in PWAs if you use Edge on a recent Android version on a Samsung tablet. Lucky me we had bought Samsung tablets (this was not a requirement when purchasing I looked it up, just luck).

I asked the Intune manager about this and they said the field engineers should just set Edge as default in stead of Chrome.

When trying this on a company tablet it said: "Edge disabled by X group policy". That guys' department set the policy...

After they removed this I asked why it wasn't the default browser and he said this wasn't possible. I challenged him on this by Googling the Intune manual to set the default browser.

Later they said they had raised a support ticket with Microsoft for this.

On the internal Wiki I found a document describing the problem. It was dated 11 months before I joined.

arbirk | parent | next
I once worked in a government agency where 4 employees used a app that on ran on IE6. So the rest of the 2000 strong organization had to use chrome by remote desktop into a server.

Decision tree: Does any department still use IE6? Yes -> lets setup a Remote Desktop cluster so the rest can use Chrome

antisthenes | parent | next
The short of it is: no one gives a shit about anything but their own paycheck and getting off of work at 5pm.

It's the human condition (and also in part the companies' own fault since they stopped investing in employees)

The people who give a shit and are passionate eventually join the other 99.9%, because it's absolutely exhausting pulling the cart with 10 freeloaders on it who don't care.

I envy the people who can give a shit for longer than 2-3 years at any given job. I suppose being your own boss is one of the few ways to stay passionate and care about something for a long enough period of time.

apexalpha | root | parent | next
I do!

I border collied these people into a room and the issue is now fixed.

The system still sucks but 2000 field engineers got 10 min of their days back.

A few weeks later the Scrum Master of the PWA team gave an inspiring talk about it at a conference.

Personally you couldn't torture out of me that my app was so bad for so long, but yeah.

antisthenes | root | parent | next
Interesting...I happen to have a border collie and their ability to get things done their way simply by looking at humans is...uncanny.

I will have to think of things like this where can save 5-10 min on something program-wide.

hluska | root | parent
You border collied them? I’ve noticed a real turn towards aggressive disrespect in this community. It’s really gross and it doesn’t make you look smart. They’re humans have some respect and don’t be so toxic. You don’t have to dehumanize your coworkers. This is basic.
dxdm | root | parent | next
I see a fun metaphor for doing the tedious work of arranging a meeting, getting people to join, and getting a solution. Reading it put this way made my day a little brighter. I needed that, too.

Btw, border collies are awesome dogs, and sheep are also awesome. I find no automatic disrespect in using them as stand-ins for our human foibles; intent matters.

GP, please don't be discouraged.

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losvedir | root | parent | next
Not much a fan of metaphor? I personally appreciated the way they described about getting (corralling? shepherding? herding? Lots of common animal husbandry expressions in English) all the relevant humans together.
primitivesuave | root | parent | next
English is full of animal-based metaphors, and that's a pretty innocuous statement. "I herded everyone into a room" does not automatically imply that one perceives those people as animals.
testaccount28 | root | parent | next
in this analogy, it is OP who is the dog.
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nocman | root | parent | next
There's absolutely nothing wrong with the word picture that was used. I'd advise against assuming the worst possible interpretation of someone else's words (especially online). Most of us probably do that at least sometimes (present company included), but it would be much better to give people the benefit of the doubt. In this case, I think it is fair to assume that the original poster was just saying that he wouldn't let them try to get away and not actually deal with the problem -- much as a border collie prevents other animals from straying from the group, keeping them where they need to be.

There is no need to assume that they meant that the others in the meeting were less important or less intelligent, or whatever. They were, perhaps, just less interested in dealing with the problem.

apexalpha | root | parent | next
'corralled' better for you?

And yeah I did that. It wasn't even my app. Or my team. Or my field engineers.

I was just fucking ashamed of our entire IT department and thus took it upon me to fix this.

It was the first time the PM had ever spoken to a field engineer, I think.

ornornor | root | parent
I guess we’ve worked at different places.
bix6 | root | parent | next
> I suppose being your own boss is one of the few ways to stay passionate and care about something for a long enough period of time.

I run a business and the passion is still hard to maintain. On Friday one of my customers cussed me out for 20 mins because I took a few hours to respond. That was a tough way to start the weekend.

CalChris | root | parent | next
It’s a problem of motivation. Now, if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime. So where's the motivation? And here's another thing, Bob. I have eight different bosses right now!
deaux | root | parent | next
Believe it or not, there exist places where 50% or more give a shit.

I'm sure at Apple under Jobs, the % would've been very high. It will have dropped significantly by now.

You're absolutely right on a country-scale though.

anal_reactor | root | parent
It gets worse. In my company the least competent people care the most.
interludead | parent | next
This is like a perfect case study in how problems don't get solved, they just get… routed
caminante | parent
Liars gonna lie.

> I challenged him on this by Googling the Intune manual to set the default browser.

I've found that LLMs really democratize debate when issues like this arise!

Can't guarantee you'll win, but when someone bets you're not willing to RTFM to call their bluff-- Oh boy!

phyzome | root | parent | next
It's funny that you're replying with a recommendation to use LLMs when the parent comment is about how a search engine worked just fine.
darepublic | root | parent
If I google a question like that these days I'm likely to get an LLM response as the first result. The line is definitely blurred
caminante | root | parent
The irony isn't lost on me, either.

Googling does result with a Gemini/AI response at the top.

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jnovek | root | parent | next
I’m so tired of the “nothing ever happens” crowd. Y’all are absolutely exhausting and add nothing positive to the conversation. Assuming everyone on the internet is lying makes as little sense as assuming nobody on the internet is lying.

Edit: I guess I misunderstood the parent (look in the replies). I hate the phenomenon I’m describing so I’ll leave the comment but I don’t want to besmirch caminante’s good name!

caminante | root | parent
Are you replying to the intended comment?

The parent said they were getting stonewalled by a colleague over a T/F. Maybe you're assuming I called the parent a liar...?

dpark | root | parent
Yeah. I think your comment is being misunderstood.
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hluska | root | parent
This is an odd level of aggression. Life is too short.
caminante | root | parent | next
What do you propose instead?

edit: Nevermind. You shared your thoughts in a later comment above, dismissing the HN forum as vindictive.

Quarrelsome | root | parent | next
life is too short to spend it drowning in misinformation. Calling someone out on a technical failure is 100% legit. How is it "aggressive" if they're clearly wrong?
riversflow | root | parent
Life is too short for liars.