BananaTrifleViolin

It is WILD that someone from another team asks for help and replies with “lol” to dismiss your response. You need to correct that behaviour or they will treat you like shit going forward.

Being assertive IS important in your career. Your colleagues are the unprofessional ones here. I would not tolerate someone sending me “lol” in a professional context and would quickly correct that behaviour.

A factual reply is all thats needed “you asked for a solution, this is the solution. Please do not be dismissive or rude. If you want an alternative please look for yourself, just expect the cost to be significantly higher. Otherwise I’m happy to discuss any concerns which are easily addressed such as branding”.

There is a huge difference between being rude and beibg assertive. They’re clearly being rude. You need to be assertive in response.

Look, you suggested software that does the job. The issue is not the software, its that your colleagues are being dismissive and disrespectful.

Instead of looking for other alternatives, you need to be more assertive in your job and career. Tell them you offered an option that does the job and if they have better options its on them to offer them. And also tell them you dont appreciate “lol” as a response to a work suggestion.

Scrambling to find an alternative because your work colleagues are too immature or arrogant to get past an animal character really doea not reflect well on you. Instead you can tell them the company can pay a small amount to have their own branding, or they can go with a more expensive option like cloudflare, just because they can’t be bothered to engage with the cheaper option.

But whatever you do, do not accept this dismissive treatment by your colleagues. You’re just setting the standard that they can just laugh at you and insult you. That is the unprofessional behaviour by them, not some projects mascot. Do not tolerate that BS.

You’ve been perfectly williing to argumentative with people here. Apply that attitude to your colleagues who are the real issue.

Yeah I only use windows at work now, ditched it at home. The start menu takes over a minute to open, and then when it does it ignores clicks for another minute.

Then whenever I want to run outlook I have to search because the start menu doesnt let me set favourites. And I have to wait when I type in Outlook because the first search brings the crappy built in version of outlook (which I have clicked on more than once to be immensely frustrated to see it open) and then wait until “Outlook (classic)” appears and click that.

I discovered some of my less technically able colleagues gave up on Outlook because they assumed it wasn’t installed and use the web interface instead. And that is just one of numerous daily frustrations I get with Windows.

Honestly, Windows is now a big steaming pile of crap. All my home devices are on Linux, and I only use Windows at work because I have no choice.

Just to say, its minimal effort to set up. Its the kind of annoyance ypu get scratching an itch - a momentary effort for long term relief.