What I said "As soon as we finish these laptops we're distributing them to the people they go to."
What he heard: "Stack them by Melcar's desk and let him finish my fucking job!"
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What I said "As soon as we finish these laptops we're distributing them to the people they go to."
What he heard: "Stack them by Melcar's desk and let him finish my fucking job!"
Intern to me: So I got the drive replacement done but I can't log in as the user to copy his profile data over.
Oh, and one more thing, I was using the trackpad on his laptop and accidentally dragged the network share full of the company's accounting data into another folder and I don't have permissions to drag it back out.
Me to intern: *thankful that this is over IM so my expression can't be witnessed* np. Hang on.
Me to a domain admin: *paste*
Domain admin to me: Uhhh, that's not good. At least he told you. Hang on. There. Should be back now.
Me to a domain admin: Yeah, not really sure how he had permissions to do that as a temporary intern.
Domain admin to me: Looking into that now. Might be time to change some of these inheritances.
honestly this is why I shut off tap to click on laptops, It is one of the most pointless and irritating functions and should be off by default. I have dragged things around by accident a few times, but then I learned to shut off tap to click and problem solved.
While that may be a new annoyance Windows has always had the 'drag and lose' functionality.
well one flaw I see with the issue mentioned is why was that person able to copy data to a folder that they did not have access to. sounds like some borked permissions.
Holy crap that's golden. Sharing it with the world!Quote:
Originally Posted by Merkus
Coworker: I'm trying to submit my expense report according to the instructions, and every time I do, I get "Do not send emails, this is an unattended mailbox." What's wrong?
Me: Seems like you've got two problems.
Coworker: Huh?
Other Tech: Outlook on this computer is doing something weird! Maybe it's a bad switch port?
Me: Now why in the hell would you think that? Here is OSI model, see here's switch port layer 2. Layer 1 is physical - that's your ethernet cabling.
Other tech: Yeah, yeah yeah, I understand the OSI model -
Me: I don't think you do if you're asking me if a TLS connection error from this client, to this server, on this service - could be a problem with the switch port configuration.
Same coworker as last post.
He's on the phone with his pharmacy attempting an automated refill of his prescription.
He's actually conversing with it.
"No, I don't have the prescription number, I just want to give you my phone number to look it up"
"I know it's not a valid prescription number"
"Look I just want to talk to a person"
"Transfer me to a representative"
"Come on, I want a person"
Unfortunately I can't report much more because I ended up getting a call of my own, but dayum.
I sometimes do that to observe who in my immediate presence is snooping.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
CoWorker: I'm trying to listen a telephone call recording, I can hear the call but the volume is so low I can't make out any of the words. Can you help?
Me: Ok, I'll pop-up to your office and take look.
...
Me (after walking into office): So what is it like when you put those earbuds, that are plugged into the headphone socket on your laptop, in your ears?
CoWorker: ah...
"Why couldn't I connect to the VPN".
I dunno - your accounts enabled, there's licenses available, this seems fine - that seems fine. What was the error?
"I dunno".
Me neither.
"but why couldn't I connect".
I dunno.
I've conditioned most of my users to screenshot stuff and/or send example customer data. Getting a swift answer instead of a "I'll take a look when I have the time" tends to promote that behavior :)
Tried -- some do really good - others... it's like they don't even care. Of course, half my other staff is completely 100% incompetent.Quote:
I've conditioned most of my users to screenshot stuff
"Why can't connect to \\hostname from this vendor provided server and I'm out of ideas and completely clueless about this networking stuff"?
- Did you try connecting to \\10.10.1.45\? or \\hostname.fqdn\?
"No."
- Then why are you talking to me?
What helped us get more screenshots was making sure everyone knows how to use the snipping tool in Windows, even dumbasses can capture exactly what we need to see with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
This is not a bad idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bonlainy
I work in a company where getting everyone to a meeting on the same day at the same time and place outside of my department is a multiple-month endeavor. Even then, there are always stragglers, people who don't show, and individuals who despite being there and being called on individually completely miss what was said or just decide to continue to do things their own way, insisting it is a better way.
I can only imagine how long they would take just to show how to use Print Screen on every single individual's unique keyboard.
thankfully on a standard computer print screen is generally in the same place. Your real challenge is getting them to figure out MS Paint. Opening that and Ctrl+V is another week of training.
Have mercy if they are the rare Mac user which has no print screen function and instead has some other button sequence because think different.
Well that is where Win7's snipping tool comes in handy.Attachment 4161Quote:
thankfully on a standard computer print screen is generally in the same place. Your real challenge is getting them to figure out MS Paint. Opening that and Ctrl+V is another week of training.
i've got my users all using Greenshot for this.
Now that we have trained most everyone on how to use the MS Snipping Tool they are very happy, and use it almost too much. :p
It must be nice to not have users who are just looking for any excuse as to why they can't do things.
So new servers this week.
Old servers offline every day tuesday to friday from noon to 6pm.
Communicated via mail to everyone. Twice.
Leave it to my users to still sit on the servers with files open after noon.
Also they log back on and open another bunch of files when we plug in the cable for 5 minutes to do something.
Cunts, the lot of them.
I wish somebody just once could explain why when complaining about problems receiving emails (Server side spam filtering - that we just need to whitelist), people can NEVER send the email address in the problem. I get names, I get what city their from, I get occupation, I get that their best buddies from high school, I learn that their kids went to daycare together 15 fucking years ago... All I need IS THE GODDAMNED FUCKING EMAIL ADDRESS. fuck.
Do you actually get to say that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
Victory story, here, for a change.
So APPARENTLY....
We found this out once it went live.
APPARENTLY.... someone decided that *ALL* of the VOIP phone servers needed to be in one place.
We're still uncertain as to who was responsible for this or how it happened. Our telephony team has no clue that this is even a thing, but localized High-availability and fail-over is now managed by some other team that won't step up and admit it.
They flip the entire phone system over for about half of the company (that was their test group, no alpha, no beta, just a push) and then send out an e-mail saying "our people don't have local admin rights, and they need it to interface with the new phone system we just rolled out".
...without telling anyone...including the people it was rolled out to.
So a department manager, two days after this is rolled out, sends a message to my boss.
"What will it take to get me local admin rights to all of the PC's in my department so I can install this?"
The response?
"An act of God".
I love my boss :)
I was reprimanded at my annual review once a few years back...Quote:
Do you actually get to say that?
My boss said to me "somebody issued a complaint to HR that you made them feel stupid. They would not tell me who, they would not go into detail about the incident - only that you made somebody sometime feel stupid... So ummm, try not to do whatever it is that you don't know that you did."
Where I work (a large national insurance company owned by an international insurance company), we do not own any of our infrastructure. All of our technical equipment is owned, maintained and leased from CSC in Mumbai India. So when we have any issues at all, from password resets, access issues, to equipment failures we have to call their help desk.
So the other day, I was getting ready to push some code to our QA servers and I was getting a mismatch clock error between my laptop and the QA server when I was trying to remote in which would not allow me to log into the server. So, I called help desk.
We go through the usual speel of my providing my credential information and explaining the issue. I told her the error message exactly (which basically said to contact the server administrator). So, she asks me who owns the server. WTF? I told her ... uhh YOU do. (Doh!) She then asks me what the IP address is to the QA Server. Well, we remote in by server name not by IP address and frankly, it irks me that the CSC guy at our facility cannot handle these things and I have to deal with this by phone and suffer through a language barrier and trying to understand what they are saying with their heavy dialect. So, I say... umm I have no clue what the IP address is (true, but I could have gotten it). She remotes in, consults her supervisor and says ... they do not know how to fix this.
After I got off the call, I restarted my laptop and tried again and it worked. I really need to remember to do that in the future for any issue before I subject myself to the frustration of dealing with our helpless desk.
and I just made our webmaster cry...
She was asking if the Subnet mask could impact DNS resolution...
I am a bad bad person who is going to hell...
and again people apparently think what we do is just magic:
Here's the scenario -- My boss comes to me and asks me a question...
The question is "What kind of security is there on the Property Tax lookup off the website"
??? What are you talking about.
"if you go to the website, under this department click here, you can get your property tax statement by typing in your parcel #. And I was just wondering what kind of security there was on it, username or anothing like that"
Well this the first I've heard of it... so let's take a look... - sure, goto webpage punch in tax parcel number get statement - turn to boss & say, -- Ok, the security is this won't work from outside the network --
"What do you mean?'
I mean, the good people of the internet cannot use our internal 10.5.120.120 ip address to access that -- it needs to be set with either it's NAT address or better yet the FQDN.
"Well how has this been working?"
It doesn't work. Not only that, but it also uses a port I'm actively denying inbound through the firewall. So short answer: it doesn't work, & hasn't ever worked.
Sometimes you just gotta bend over and speak their language.Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
Horse shit, in my opinion.
______ Reminds me of:
"Lights on this building are coming on when they're not supposed to."
I checked them. They seem to be operating fine.
"It's daytime, and some are on."
It is very dark and overcast. There are several lights controlled by photo sensors that come on when it gets dark.
"Why do some of the lights on this building come on at the same time every night, and some come on once the sun goes down?"
well. Some are on a timer, and others are on a photo sensor.
"Where are the photo sensors?"
They are on the north side of the building.
"Well, which side of the building is that?"
That's the side of the building the sun does not shine on.
"But which side of the building has the photo sensors?"
......
....
...
Are you asking me which LIGHTS are controlled by photo sensors?
"YES. WHAT DID YOU THINK I WAS ASKING YOU?"
____
To me, it is the same people who do not understand language operators that will never understand general instruction and information conveyance.
Mr Compass says it's THATAWAY!Quote:
They are on the north side of the building.
"Well, which side of the building is that?"
That's the side of the building the sun does not shine on.
Weak. Should be using a Pipboy 3000 for best directions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
I will take "Words from officers that scare the shit out of grunts for $100, Alex"Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
Quote:
Weak. Should be using a Pipboy 3000 for best directions.
pffft - old school 50's tech. Pip-boy is weak sauce compared to my Iphone. Pipboy doesn't even have a browser or camera!
Oh, you know it has a camera. How else did it get those pictures of you in the shower?Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
I don't remember pictures in the shower....Quote:
How else did it get those pictures of you in the shower?
I frequently pressed my hotkey for sense heading in order for it to be without failure to sense direction.
In a pinch, I sometimes drop a knife on the ground so that it will automatically point north.
It was shared with all the other Pipboys in the neighborhood.Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
Background: site-to-site VPN is down, this affects our access to our mail server
Clueless idiot on the phone: "With our email problems, is this affecting the fax machine? I just wanted to make sure it was working."
...
"Air conditioner is making a rattling noise. I reported it to Maintenance."
See that water dripped? Air conditioner is frozen. Report that to maintenance, then get a bucket.
Customer: We are looking for a package, vendor says you signed for it.
Me: Ok, well what's the tracking number?
*gives me tracking number*
*Go look it up on our system, don't find it listed at all*
*Go check UPS.com, shows the package hasn't been delivered yet*
Me: Well as soon as the package arrives we will get it delivered to you
Customer: What do you mean? The vendor says you signed for it!
Me: Well it's out on the truck for delivery, so unless the vendor can see the future we will deliver it to you as soon as we get it
Customer: .....
"Need a change to website - this information is wrong, I emailed Webmaster about it."
Yes, webmaster has been off all week, so what page here, ok, and it says this, and you want it to say what? Ok, tell you what - send me an email with exactly what you want it to say, and I'll take care of it.
"but I already emailed Webmaster"
Yes, and Webmaster is off today - so now you need to email it to me.
Who knew IT work could be considered Dentistry?
Customer: Yeah, we are looking for a package
Me: Ok, when was sent?
Customer: A month ago
Me:....*calming breaths*...Ok, what's the tracking number?
*gives me tracking number*
*I look it up, discover it's been signed for*
Me: Well our system is showing it was already received and signed for
Customer: That can't be right, we don't have it!
Me: Well, the system shows it was signed for by <Name> on <One month ago>, I can send you a pdf of it
Customer: .....
Package tracking is a wonderful thing. A great way to shut people who who claim they did not get something. Either they are a liar or its sitting in their mail room and the dude who signed for it notified them they had a package and they never picked it up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninetoes
We have handhelds they have to sign to receive a package - thats how we know it was received and (in this case) sitting on someone's desk for the past month.Quote:
Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker
Incidentally we don't take packages to that person to sign anymore - if there is no one else available to sign we bring it back to the mailroom.
as frozen air conditioners start to thaw they drip... as they thaw more the drip patterns change.
Hey tech, clear an area here so the water won't damage anything...
Hey Tech - That powerstrip right there with the water dripping in it is a fire waiting to happen. Fire in the server room would not be a good day.
"Well I checked it earlier and it wasn't dripping there."
Well now it is.
"But I checked it earlier and it was fine".
and now the conditions have changed and it's not fine.
What part of Water+Electricity=Bad do you not understand!
I mean the guy is a tech and they cannot make that connection... Also time to call the service guy an AC should not be freezing up, Usually indicates either an air flow problem over the evap or possibly even freon pressure issues can also cause icing. Its almost June so its not outside temp being too low.
All acs have an evap coil that drips condensation into a condensate pan. Either the condensate drain is clogged, or the ac is not balanced.
One time, we had a waste water pipe burst above the backdoor to the mailroom. Ankle high water in the entire mailroom, including the outlets and strips where we have our machinery. One of the feds over our contract is walking through with our boss, and with a straight face tells him "Well we can't shut the mailroom down!"Quote:
Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker
Needless to say she was ignored.
Probably Freon problem - this unit is over 15 years old & scheduled for complete replacement.Quote:
Also time to call the service guy an AC should not be freezing up, Usually indicates either an air flow problem over the evap or possibly even freon pressure issues can also cause icing. Its almost June so its not outside temp being too low.
My old server room had a free-standing unit (venting into a duct through the ceiling) which had so small of a leak it took three guys four days to find it in the disassembled unit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
There are a whole mess of presumptions going on in here about air conditioning.
First and foremost, being that a dripping evaporator means a frozen one. It doesnt. There also was a presumption that low freon and/or a freon leak means cold evap lines. SOMETIMES that is the case, but it is not an always.
In general, all of these are SYMPTOMS, and not and indicator of what the underlying problem is, or COULD be. Most of these are often overlooked cleaning of evap coils, filters, condensate pans, and condensate drain lines.
An air conditioner with water dripping off of it is not a faulty sealed system. That is like saying a computer with no internet access is a website that is down.
hmm, parcel tracking.
I've twice had an experience where I've contacted a parcel tracking company to be told that I've signed for a parcel. Um, no I haven't got the parcel, that's why I'm calling.
"Well, maybe your neighbours signed for it" - No, I've been and checked.
"I'll email you over the pdf of the signing" - thanks, that's not my signature, nor is it the name of anybody on my street.
As it turned out they've delivered to some random dude who has the same house number and street name as I do - in a town 20miles away. Bear in mind that here in the UK every street has it's own unique postal code (i guess like your zipcodes) - so I don't know how this mistake is possible unless the retailer gives the delivery company the wrong address.
So, sometimes, maybe just in the UK, the delivery company is shit :)
Call #1, yesterday
Customer: We're having problems with one dataset
Me: You need to send it in to me
Customer: The attorney told me which one it is, but it's not listed in my program
Me: That's because two years ago you guys decided to separate your installs - one's on the network for everybody, and the other's on the attorney's computer for sensitive returns
Customer: So does that mean I need to be at the attorney's computer?
Me: Yes
Call #2, yesterday late
Customer: Hi, we spoke earlier. I need to send in the problematic file
Me: Hi, yes, I remember you. Are you in front of the attorney's computer?
Customer: No, why, do I need to be?
Me: Yes, because that file is only on his computer
Customer: I'll have to call you back
Call #3, this morning as soon as the queue opened
Customer: Hi, we spoke yesterday. I need to send in this problematic file
Me: Hi, yes, were you able to get the file off the attorney's computer?
Customer: No, why, do I need to be at his computer?
Me: ... Yes, because the file is only on his computer
Customer: Let me check to see if he's in... No, he's not. So his computer won't be on. Does his computer need to be on for me to get the file off his computer?
Me: Yes, that would be ideal...
This is why everywhere I have ever worked I have had to STRUGGLE to get Wake-On-LAN enabled. Nobody wants to do it. (It's just a BIOS Setting most of the time, and on some IBM's and Dells you can do it from within windows thanks to WMI!)Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron;1835709
[b
Yet, whenever it's done, everyone is AMAZED at how great it is, especially in conjunction with proper auditing.
Someone calls from home and, despite having a laptop decided not to take it with them?
No problem, wake-on-lan, throw them in the group that has rights to RDP to their own machine in active directory and have them VPN in from home. Don't even need to send someone to get a master key to get into their office.
Ok so we have this word document form, and I open it, make a change, save it - but other guy doesn't see the change.
Do they have the file open already
No.
Well then you're looking at different copies of it
What do you mean?
well, when we search this network drive we get k:\commons\form.doc, and k:\commons\name\form.doc & k:\commons\forms\form.doc & k:\commons\othername\form.doc; Each of you is opening a different copy of the form
How would that happen?
each one of you created your own copy duh
Me to other staff who've worked here for years:
Yes you can change passwords for people on the electronic time-sheet system. When you login under your username you can click that button there that says "Administration"...
I know this is a very complex concept.
Other Tech: :Printer up in this office wasn't working, people had the wrong address on the driver.
Yes, I had to change the IP address on it Monday - Sent you an email about it.
I didn't get it...
Well, I sent it.
Well I didn't pay attention to it then.
You don't say.
We get this all the time from the first line team that also sit in our office:Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
Tech - Application x isn't working for this user, can you help?
Us - have you checked the emails?
Tech - I don't have time for that
Us - but you have the time to wander over to us and whinge about it?
/facepalm
I am responsible for auditing who has access to our Data Center on a monthly basis and once a year I have to send out a Policy Review that they need to respond to.
I send out this e-mail 4 times over a 2 month period. "Please read attached documents and respond to me that you have read and understand them. If you do not respond by May 1st your Data Center access will be removed and you will have to go through the full request process to get it reactivated.".
May 2nd rolls around:
Network Tech: Hey, I can't get into the Data Center, my card doesn't work.
Me: Did you respond to the Yearly Policy Review?
Network Tech: What policy review?
Me: Here are the forms you need to have your manager fill out and send to his boss to get approval for you to get your access to the Data Center.
<after some debate, the technician leaves>
Phone Call from Network Tech's Manager: Hey! My guy says you won't let him in the Data Center, what's wrong with you?
Me: ...........
HAHAHAHA.
I've had to take to "Yellow" subject lines on stuff like that in order to get people to read them.
Subject: "YOUR DATA CENTER ACCESS HAS BEEN REVOKED"
Body: Please fill out these forms to re-establish access. This e-mail sent from May 2nd 2015 using my time machine.
I sent an email to the Tech who said he couldn't be bothered to read my email asking him to install a software package on the computer he's already working on - cc'ed the IT director. As I was leaving say to the boss "Sent tech an email just to see if he'd read it".
Boss just chuckles and says : "Ah I wondered why you cc'ed me on that; so did he?"
Don't know yet -- Let you know when he turns the computer over to the user.
So I get this ticket last week.
"Users cannot print from (application) to printer. HIGH PRIORITY! URGENT"
Odd, usually not urgent from billing until end of month. Whatever.
I recognize the name of the application, it's one we CAN'T manage or support. We don't even have user logins, let alone admin logins, but I figure, at the very least, I can verify the printer is fine.
It's a shitty little undercutter black and white laserjet. Major brand, but at least a decade old. I should mention this is at a remote location where we only have occasional staff and I'm not one of them.
The problem "just started".
For the fuck of it, I look for documentation. It was the sheerest fucking optimism, really, and was re-inforced. No documentation, nobody knows anything about it, it just "works"...except for once every few years.
This is going to be a loooong haul.
Me: Do you have another printer that's hooked up to this (TERMINAL-BASED FROM 1980-SOMETHING) application?
Them: Well, yes, but it's across the building and we have thousands of these to print.
Me: Could you possibly start printing them there right now while I work on this for you, just in case it takes a while to fix this one?
Them: *frustrated sigh* I guess I have to...hold on...Let me make sure THAT one still works TOO.
(You didn't think to check as soon as your super urgent prints wouldn't come out? Way to care about the time-sensitive work you have to do)
So I start looking into this by first determining if there's an escalation chain for this application, it'll at least tell me what I'm looking at.
There is.
It's the UNIX team. (Except I find out later that it's not, because they know nothing about it. Go-Go-Gadget Workflows in the ticketing system)
Great. Okay, before I escalate anything, I'm making absolutely certain that everything works on my end.
Printer is reachable on print server. Test pages come out from all windows print jobs. Just for good form I send a straight PJL job, a .txt file through the web interface of the printer, and a ps job.
Them: Yeah, I see your prints, it's just when we try to print from the application, nothing comes out.
Me: Okay, let me see what else I can do, I'm just eliminating all of the possibilities under my control, first.
In the meantime, "They" have screamed uphill enough (DESPITE BEING ABLE TO WORK) that someone went "Oh, THAT APPLICATION! Let me put you in touch with the person who knows how to handle this"
Okay:
Expert: What are you doing with {MyApplication}?!?!?!
Me: Nothing, I don't have access to do anything. This one department is having printing trouble, I'm ruling out the windows side.
Expert: Pfft, don't be stupid, just have the UNIX team reset the thing that holds the prints.
Me: Will they know what I mean?
Expert: Yes, we have to do it all the time. Bye.
So I escalate the ticket with what notes I have. I figure at this point it's probably a CUPS Spooler issue, but I have no way to know or tell. Ticket is still high/urgent.
The rest of the week passes.
Monday passes.
I ask for an update to the ticket(s) BECAUSE THERE'S NOW A DUPLICATE.
Them: We're working with UNIX to figure it out.
Me: Okay, let me know what you discover.
*90 seconds passes*
*The ticket has been assigned to your queue by {UNIX PERSON}*
The details read "This is clearly a windows printer issue, because I can print a test page from UNIX".
Cue 20 minutes of me following up with various people.
Them: Oh, yeah, in the meantime we stopped being able to print from windows too.
Me: ohhh-kaaay...
Someone has messed with the windows printer, no idea how, and changed the IP and the Port details from the working IP of the JetDirect to a NON-PINGABLE IP, and changed the queue from RAW:9100 to LPR somethingsomething with SNMP byte count enabled.
WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK?!?!?!
I change it back to the right IP and queue settings and LO AND MOTHERFUCKING BEHOLD, Windows printing works again.
I contact the UNIX guy after *ahem* "obtaining" an enumeration of his SOCKS mappings and said "you activated this printer and pointed it at this IP, it should be this *other* IP, the one in the ticket.
UNIX guy goes and fixes it. "okay, done" and I silently wonder how he actually got a test print or what he as printing to, no worries, he only knows his little silo and this is not something that comes up often. Let's face it, he's on a team of few, supporting legacy applications for hundreds upon hundreds of users. He has bigger fish to fry and I don't believe in raking fellow techs over the coals unless they do so to me first.
Me: Hi! If you could, try to print from {Application} again, please.
Them: We're only getting the first line...and it's in the wrong font.
Me: Okay, it's better than zero prints at all, so it's progress, but it doesn't really help you, let me see what I can do.
STILL.
NOT.
DONE.
It turns out that the application in question, the windows print server, and the UNIX CUPS instance have to be 100% in sync and NOBODY KNOWS WHAT ANYTHING SHOULD BE.
So, several hours of work later and getting berated by people (especially EXPERT who spent most of the time berating me about how noone should be able to touch {ThisApplication} but EXPERT and how confused EXPERT was that I could have solved the problem (THANKS FOR HELPING IF YOU *KNEW* THAT!!!), it was finally taken care of.
I don't know how to break it to you, kiddo, but nobody WANTS to touch your fucking application.
Now I get the duty of documenting how to do all of this shit, because nobody else seems to give a shit.
I hate ticket ping-pong.
Me: "Hey I think this might be something in your wheelhouse, could you take a loo..."
Everyone:
Attachment 4220
Me: Sent email back at the beginning of December that our print server was going offline at the end of Dec 2014 to be replaced by some sort of web app that processes print jobs and that any users who have problems with installing a simple app that allows them to search for printers geographically to contact me. I think I helped a half dozen out of the 29 in my group.
CW1 in January: I can't print
Me: Resends email to CW1 - got her set up
CW2 in February: I can't print
Me: Resent email to CW2
CW2: OH yeah I got this but I didn't bother reading it
CW3 in March: I can't print
Me: Resent email to CW3, and also to the rest of my group with reminder. Got CW3 set up.
All of April and May went by with no issues, because Tax Season and cleanup.
CW4 on Monday last week: I can't print
Me: Resent email
CW4: How do I do this?
Me: Go to her desk and go through the steps. Find out the interface between the driver install app and the actual web server is down so I tell her to call the help desk. She's not back in the office until Monday, so she emails her PDF to a coworker who prints it for her successfully.
CW5(one of my two primary problem users) on Wednesday: I can't print
Me: I tell him that there's a problem with the printing process and he should print to PDF and send it to a coworker who has successfully printed and call the Help Desk to indicate he can't set up his printer.
CW5 on Friday: I still can't print
Me: Send it to your coworker again
CW5: No one's in the office to print for me
Me: Call the Help Desk
HDT: None of your printers are set up
Me: Walks around to his desk and said "Look at his email from December 6th. Oh look instructions. He chose not to follow them or contact me in the last 6 months about them."
HDT who I just then found out is good friends with CW5: Dude really? You should know better than that
Me: Finally, someone else witnesses what I've been going through for the last ten years
CW5's manager, in the background: Nodding and giggling to herself (thanks for being helpful)
HDT: Workaround fixes CW5 and I ask him to also fix CW6, who had just come back from maternity leave, which covered the entire period since that email had been sent
Today
CW7 (my other big problem user): I can't print, I'm selecting (old print-server-printer)
....
Maybe it's time for another reminder email
Maybe it's time to print that email out for all to see... Print it to the underbelly of a wet fish - duct-taped to a 2x4.... :evil:Quote:
Maybe it's time for another reminder email
and then launch that 2x4 from an air cannon through the employee that is a constant problem? naturally the fish should be a sword fish with the email printed on poster sized paper. and stuck on the sword part of the fish before launching.Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
What the fuck manner of wizardry is this?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
What's the environment like? Do users have workstations or thin clients? Mostly windows or mostly "other"(linux, unix, mac, os/2, etc)?
Where does the webapp live if not on some sort of print server? Is it cloud-based? Did they have to give all printers public IP's and tunnel traffic or is there a mid-server on prem that...jesus, I can't even wrap my head around this.
Please pass on as many gory details as you feel comfortable with, it'll likely make me feel better about the shit technologies I sometimes have to support.
Sadly, due to my office move in October 2014, I'm no longer privy to nearly as much of the nuts and bolts as I used to be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Merrick ap'Milandra
All users have Windows 7 Pro workstations. Some have Mac, but those are primarily developers for other areas that I'm not involved with.
So far as I understand it:
The "host app" gets installed on the user's PC. It's a tiny executable with a bunch of DLLs and no configuration files.
Host App queries a database of available printers (company wide!) and allows you to pick a geographically local device
When you select the printer, you can install drivers for that printer, which results in the "usual" printer object in Devices&Printers.
I actually just looked it up, cuz I've been curious too but my office habitually uses such fly-by-night solutions I never expected them to "go commercial"... hah
http://www.cirrato.com/how-it-works/
So apparently there IS one server that takes care of it all.
I'm 100% certain it's not a local-to-my-office server.
Which also could explain why it seems to shit the bed when more than 2 people try to send a job to a single printer simultaneously.
that is an absolutely horrible system if it has the look at he whole company and then find a close printer. Would it not make more logical sense for each building to have a small print management server. I mean what if the internet goes down? does everybody in the building lose track of the local printers?
As part of the "welcome package" when we moved into our new office, we all received a 4-inch USB mini-fan.
The A/C was... lacking... last week so a few people who had taken theirs home brought them back in this week.
One woman brings it to me and says "it won't spin".
I plug it into USB, flick the power switch on the back, and whaddya know, it turned on.
I would think so too - even a low-RAM virtual server! would do the job.Quote:
Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker
But no.
Instead, it seems the local install of the driver defaults to the server-based spooling.
If the server's unavailable (which would be bad, given we have VoiP phones) it delays print by 2 minutes before using its local settings.
WHAT? Innernets Go DOWN? That's unimpossible!Quote:
Would it not make more logical sense for each building to have a small print management server. I mean what if the internet goes down? does everybody in the building lose track of the local printers?
Can I guess you also use complete cloud document storage? Maybe even all your apps in the cloud?
Nope, they're steering away from that for now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
Wow. I'd be printing config pages for the devices closest to me, then adding them directly with tcp ports going to raw:9100.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
I'd still have to make sure I had the right drivers, but that's a totally messed up system.
Me: Hi, I'm having problems with my physically local server. I can ping it, but any application that attempts to access it (such as RDP or any of our database apps) get time out errors. Additionally, mapped drives aren't connecting. I have rebooted and have the same issue. 29 other people are having the same issue.
Helpless Desk: Where is the server located?
Me: Local to me, in the same office
Helpless Desk: So the server is in the same location as you?
Me: Yes it's in the same office.
Helpless Desk: Do you know if the server is near you or if it's elsewhere?
Me: ... It's in the same office as me, and 30 people are having problems accessing it
Helpless Desk: So it's in the same office as you then?
Me: Yes
Helpless Desk: Why don't you see if anyone else is having the same problem as you?
Me: 29 other people are having the same problems
Helpless Desk: And that's your local server, yes?
Quote:
Me: Hi, I'm having problems with my physically local server. I can ping it, but any application that attempts to access it (such as RDP or any of our database apps) get time out errors. Additionally, mapped drives aren't connecting. I have rebooted and have the same issue. 29 other people are having the same issue.
Helpless Desk: Where is the server located?
Me: Local to me, in the same office
Helpless Desk: So the server is in the same location as you?
Me: Yes it's in the same office.
Helpless Desk: Do you know if the server is near you or if it's elsewhere?
Me: ... It's in the same office as me, and 30 people are having problems accessing it
Helpless Desk: So it's in the same office as you then?
Me: Yes
Helpless Desk: Why don't you see if anyone else is having the same problem as you?
Me: 29 other people are having the same problems
Helpless Desk: And that's your local server, yes?
Yes, exactly and that's when I shot him your Honor...
I got an email today from someone who works six hours per week that she needs pdfcreator or something similar so she can send word 2007 documents via email and they don't look all messed up on the other end.
Plot twist: word 2007 can save pdf documents out of the box.
plot twist twist... maybe its time to update from a version of word that is not closing in on being a decade old.
Why, it does all we need and a thousand other things.
It even saves to pdf.
...that we don't need.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronaan
Sounds like Sharepoint, or as I call it "A solution in search of a problem".
We are just updating our client users from office XP to 2010 - and some are reverting back to the old as it is more familiar/not as locked down.Quote:
Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker
What does MS support now? They must have XP EOL by now for office.
Me: Sees a bunch of emails (~half dozen) in a shared mailbox addressed to one of my coworkers, so I drop them in her folder and let her know the emails arrived.
Coworker: Thanks
Me: Soon, I see a bunch of emails from the coworker in the mailbox and discovers they're badly re-addressed Reply All messages, so I drop them in the coworker's folder again and let her know she needs to resend those messages to her customer
Coworker: Why?
Me: Because you're using Reply to All, but not actually sending the email to the customer
Coworker: Yes I am
Me: Another email comes in from the customer saying "Please acknowledge original email with phone call." I forward the email directly to my coworker.
Coworker: Why did you forward this to me? I already replied to it
Me: No you didn't. You replied to the shared mailbox and not the customer.
Coworker: Forwards me the "sent" message. The "From" field is her. The "To" field is the shared mailbox.
Me: I send back a screenshot of the email, highlighting the previous fact
Coworker: See? I sent it back to her
Me: No, you just keep replying to yourself. Stop removing the customer's email address from the Reply All email. Or copy the email to your Personal Folders and reply to it from there. Or just call her and tell her you got the first email.
Coworker: Why?
http://blogs.technet.com/b/office_su...office-xp.aspxQuote:
Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker
July 12 2011
Even Office 2003 is EOL.
https://support.office.com/en-nz/art...1-b9c4fe5b6b90
Same date as XP OS - April 8th 2014
Reply all. It's like a predator drone or the atom bomb. It has its uses and right times to be used but its not needed for every engagement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
We recently had an incident where one of the techs accidently sent an email to the global distribution list (4500+ users) instead of a support team. Queue multiple users hitting the reply all to tell everyone that it's not them. Several more emails from more experienced users (?) replying to all telling them to stop using reply all (oh the irony) and we think its all sorted. This was on the Friday.Quote:
Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker
Monday morning and we get the normal global email that the client sends out which also contains advice to ignore the email sent out.
The Friday, it seems a few folks return from leave and the first email they read is the one the servicedesk sent out. And off we go again. The individual email (thanks to all the headers and signature blocks) hits 3MB. Times 4500. Sent repeatedly.
Oddly enough, the original sender got a lot of stick for bringing the entire email system to a grinding halt.
So this one time about 7 or 8 years ago, a company that was still using HP Openmail had a test group in Belgium that was working on some project. This project had it's own mailing list. We'll call it --project-belgium-projectname-test.Quote:
Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker
Somehow, the OM-UID got screwed up in /var/opt/openmail/ and sending mail to --project-belgium-projectname-test instead sent it to --all-all.
So 160,000 some e-mails go out. Ooops. The test group immediately stops using the address and they put in a request with IT to get this fixed.
Somehow, sadly, they forgot about the "recall" feature that works on any unopened mail.
Before IT can get to it?
Cue this from thousands upon thousands of users, filling up everyone's mailstore.
ReplyAll: Unsubscribe
ReplyAll: Take me off this list
ReplyAll: Why am I getting these e-mails?
ReplyAll: Please stop hitting reply all, you're making it worse.
ReplyAll: I didn't sign up for this, take me off the list
IT Sends: Please do not hit "Reply All". We are working to fix this issue as soon as possible.
ReplyAll: Guys, IT says stop hitting "Reply All".
ReplyAll: So why did you hit "Reply All" when they already told us?
ReplyAll: I just wanted to make sure people saw it.
ReplyAll: Well DON'T DO THAT.
ReplyAll: There's no need to be mean
ReplyAll: Guys, send those e-mail to each other personally, please. IT said stop hitting reply all.
ReplyAll: UNSUBSCRIBE!!
ReplyAll: How do I block these? I can't get any work done, I'm getting hundreds of e-mails every minute
ReplyAll: Yeah, me too! CIRCLE BACK!~
ReplyAll: GUYS, IT SAYS STOP HITTING REPLY ALL
ReplyAll: What's a mailbox size warning?
Over the course of several hours, e-mail got slower and slower.
Brought the whole company down for almost a week as the manually worked on the mailstores for several hundred servers around the globe.
We've had several variations of those mails. That's why we stopped all variations of "send e-mail to everyone" for normal users.
Only a very few select people can now send mail to the whole company.
My company has started using BCC for large-group addressing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dawlin
Somebody called with a problem with the email server - don't know who it was, don't know what their error was, I just assumed it was a locked account until somebody else called complaining of a similar problem 3 hours later...
---
Fuck I hate my coworkers.
Three HOURS?!?!?!
The phones light up around here if there's the slightest hiccup in mail for so much as two simultaneous users for three MINUTES and then everyone's dialing into conference bridges to figure out what's going wrong.
Thankfully, our Exchange farm is massive, distributed, and sitting at a nice 5 9's.
Just a glitch in the Webmail.
but yeah, I'm surprised it took that long to get a 2nd report too.
Going on day 7 of this problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by MelcarYes, exactly and that's when I shot him your Honor...Quote:
Originally Posted by Mileron
Tuesday it took until after 1130 to get local ITS to grant me access to the server room to force-hard-boot the server.
The problem reoccurred at 1830. As best as I can tell from the server logs, the backup is trying to write its startup log, hitting a corrupt sector on the HDD, and croaking. Except it keeps trying to write the log, which ends up causing the server to run out of memory and hard lock, preventing access.
Wednesday it took until after 1400 to get ITS to grant me access to the server room for another forceboot.
Thursday they never showed up and we had to go a full day without access to the server. The Help Desk refused to escalate it to server support tier.
Friday came and still down. I got access to the server room finally at 1230 but the server wouldn't boot - "non-system disk."
I finally got the Help Desk to recognize it's a problem so they escalated it to Server Support (SST).
Server Support used iLO to boot the server but didn't see fit to read my analysis of the situation, the roles of the server (file/doc, database, development central, app server, IIS), or even how the problem really was presenting.
Thus when we came in on Monday the server was inaccessible again.
Emails to SST finally got us in by 1000 but again my emails stating that "at 1830 when the server backup begins the server will hardlock again" were ignored because again today Tuesday it was hardlocked.
SST got it up and running by 825.
Email from SST: "What kind of functions does this server perform?"
^^^Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
...Yeah, server room trip number two and I would have been un-racking that bad boy and placing it somewhere that could be reached without their intervention.
I would have figured out SOMETHING to keep it out of EVERYONE'S hands, but unless the server support team is giving you cell phone numbers for instant on-call iLO restarts, your office is effectively down.
And that is when you wish you could just credit card the door and do the job. If it takes them that long to grant access there is a problem.
Actual user email: Also Eremius, it keeps coming up that my anti virus business addition needs updated…..restart computer now. Thanks DeepThinkingUser
Well, what would you guess that message means? It IS rather cryptic...
Other Tech: Working on users shared calendar and I'm getting really confused and frustrated -
I get some of users calendar - but not all ; I think I need to reinstall the shared calendar component..
Me: I don't think so. -- If you open calendar view set it to show all items see here? says 50 items, hop out to server console pull up user, Server says 50 items synced. What does that tell you?
OT: I dunno. but she created an item today that's not syncing.
Me: Well it tells me she's creating it in the wrong calendar; Specifically one she's not syncing.
OT: Oh, I never thought of that.
Wow.Quote:
Originally Posted by Melcar
95% of the exchange issues I hear about or have to support are related to cached exchange mode being turned on.
This one, on the other hand, is 100% sheer idiocy.