If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Joffe Numeroff

I told him the whole sad story of having to remove COE and that we needed to reinstall the remote access VPN so we could do our work. Manager Bob (not his real name, either) got on the phone. He was ready to hang up, but I begged to talk to his manager. 'I can't help you if you don't have COE,' John said. I explained that I didn't have COE anymore. 'I just need to install the VPN software,' I told him. I explained to John (not his real name) what my problem is. I called the help desk number again and faked a problem with another application so I could talk to a person. Unfortunately, this help desk now refers all calls about remote access to an online support center - which is behind the company firewall where I can't get to anymore. I had no choice but to call my client's technical support group. We could download it, but couldn't get the installation to run. Another download, installation and setup. NET Framework 2.0, and this PC had version 1.1. With ActivIdentity ready to go, we tried to install the VPN software. That little detail took another hour or two. When we went to install the VPN software, we discovered that the ActivIdentity software needed to be downloaded, installed and configured.

We still had a contract with the client and still needed to work behind the firewall. Once we had a pristine rebuilt machine, we went to install the client company's remote access software again. And this doesn't even include setting our own personal preferences for how we like things to work. Reloading everything from the original disks - which are more than two years old - meant numerous hours of installing the updates, patches and service packs that have come out in the past two years. We basically gutted the machine and took it back to its original state, reloading Windows XP Pro and all the applications. Whatever the reason, we had to remove the COE from our PC.Īs you well know, removing the image from a machine is no easy feat. I suppose this decision has to do with security concerns or perhaps the cost of software licenses. The PC functioned well and we did our work without a problem.īut then the company issued a decree that the COE could no longer be installed on PCs that it did not own. The COE also includes the Microsoft Office suite of software applications.

Because of IT security requirements, the company took one of our PCs and loaded its common operating environment (COE) that includes desktop agents, security software and a VPN for remote access. My company has a corporate client that hired us to provide services that require behind-the- firewall access to company resources, such as applications and data.

If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Joffe Numeroff